I haven't seen one of these in a while!

2008.12.01 Where's George? dollar bill
I intentionally blurred out the serial number and series on the scan so that no one could use this image to create false trackings of the bill on the site. It has happened!

Yesterday, while buying a pack of cigarettes at the Rite Aid Pharmacy in downtown Bellingham, I received this bill in change.

It's a "Where's George?" bill! I haven't seen one of these in a while. I logged into my WheresGeorge.com account and entered it. Turns out, it got stamped in Lynnwood, Washington, back in August -- just like me, it had migrated from Lynnwoood to Bellingham!

Here's the tracking report for the bill:
http://www.wheresgeorge.com/report.php?key=4b449fdba80eda78b0e09e007cbe9b20ae1608da01e24d5b"

Back around the turn of the Millennium, I used to play this game obsessively. I'd mark all of my money with a stamp, enter the serial numbers into WheresGeorge.com, and then turn the money loose into the wild. Very, very OCD. (I used to have money back then, when I was working as a corporate manager for Morris Communications, during those heady Dot.Com gold rush days.)

I actually had some bills turn up in some wild places, like Puerto Rico, Belize, and Iraq. I had a bill used in a police drug purchase. I even had two bills that I got in change from a gay sex club in Augusta, Georgia (yes, I indicated this on the tracking report -- and atldaddybear knows where I'm talking about!) that hit 4 times apiece!
(1, 2) Talk about gay visibility in the South.

After a couple of years, though, I got kind of burned out on Where's George? It was cool and all to see where my money went after I spent it, but it was a lot of work (and, as I said, very, very OCD), and so I stopped completely by the time I started school at WWU. Other priorities, you know.

But on those rare occasions when I come across a WG bill in the wild... I log back on to the site and track it!

EULA Update -- *Why* coming REEEAL soon...

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Changes in Bold.

I claim my image, Fair Use!

I claim my image, Fair Use!
Photo by Kathryn Bachen
From The Western Front, November 17, 2008
Used without permission: Fair Use.

The image you see to the right is an image of me taken from The Western Front, at the Prop 8 Gay Marriage protest in Bellingham this past month. (It is possible that Flickr will take it down as DMCA flagged, so I may need another server to host the image, preferably outside of the U.S.)

By posting it here, I have intentionally, with forethought and contempt of copyright law, taken a stand for bloggers everywhere.
( Click for copyleft drama )