WALGREENS was founded in Chicago in 1901, and it began as a grocery store, then expanded to sell ice cream and milkshakes. Today, most Walgreens stores have a pharmacy, beauty counter, and photo department. Walgreens at Southshore Mall is especially attractive to me, because I need to visit this mall every couple of weeks to get 50-page documents printed for my daytime job. In the past year, I had the urge to get scans of most of the color slides that my dad took when I was a kid, and of most of my color negatives and black and white negatives. As a result, I now have about 600 more jpeg files than I did 12 months ago.
COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS. Walgreens has a miraculous machine that accepts jpeg files and tiff files, and manufactures color prints. I always order color prints that are 8 inches X 10 inches. Typically, I spend $100 each time I visit Walgreens and order a batch of color prints. Customers need to plug in their flash drive, and then select the size of each print and number of copies of each print. Although a little tricky, I was able to train myself on using the machine. Today, I ordered forty color prints, with some of the photos dating when I was five years old and playing with blocks, some when I was 10 years old and making model boats, some when I was 16 years old and making oil paintings and playing in a rock'n'roll band, some of the photos showing me performing on stage at a bluegrass festival, some of the photos from my honeymoon on the Big Island, and some of the photos (these being from last year) of me exploring Anza Borrego Desert State Park. Over the past several years, I was wondering if color prints were obsolete and if they were replaced by viewing the pictures on the computer screen. Today's encounter with my latest back of prints from Walgreens answered the question. The answer is this: Prints are not obsolete, because the details you can get in a print from Walgreens, the vibrant colors, and the look-and-feel of holding a photograph on sturdy glossy paper, are simply NOT AVAILABLE with viewing on a computer screen.
ATTACHED PHOTOS, PRINTED AT WALGREENS. The attached photos show me at the age of 5, 14, 32, 40, and in the present era.
The present era photograph shows me taking pictures of a vulture in Anza Borrego Desert State Park. It is not a real vulture. It is made of cloth. I bought the vulture at Mission Trails Regional Park in Sandy-Eggo.
OTHER PURCHASES. Walgreens is also my standby place for buying men's shampoo, bar soap (Dial or Irish Spring), $20 eyeglasses, Tobler chocolate, red licorice, and instant ice (this comes in a bag, and you crush the bag, and the contents become cold and stays cold for 20 minutes). read more