I remembered hearing not too long ago about RadioShack filing for bankruptcy, at around the time I was living in Lincoln. Early in that time, I'd gone on a couple of visits to a RadioShack in a mall to get an adapter and plug for a little portable CD player. Later on, when scrottie and I tried to go back for something else, the store had vanished without a trace.

So I was a little surprised to spot one on Shattuck close to the coffeeshop we visited last Friday, but I guess that General Wireless bought the business and has been working on restructuring things. Even if the end result is a watered-down version of what RadioShack used to be, I have hopes that they'll continue to provide some level of the resources that are hard or annoying to find elsewhere. I, for one, bought a microSD card there for work because the two main semi-convenient alternatives for such purchases are companies I despise (Staples, Amazon).

I also discovered something funny. There's an art supply store not too far from that RadioShack, on Shattuck. I've been in it a handful of times over the years, but this time, as I wandered around, there was something oddly familiar about it. It turns out to be an Artist and Craftsman Supply store, which is an employee-owned company with a location in the University District in Seattle. No wonder it felt so familiar.

That section of Shattuck also has one of the best locally-owned fabric stores still in existence, Stonemountain & Daughter Fabrics, as I've previously highlighted. They carry all of the high-quality fabrics one needs to make things, as opposed to chain fabric stores that sell depressing disposable chintz. When I move away I'll miss Stonemountain.