Please don't tell anyone how nerdy this post is

I love old stuff. Make that just stuff. I like stuff.

I love the way a musty basement smells, especially when it has a room full of stuff that people have tossed aside over the last 50 years "to go through later." I get excited about yard sales. My ears perk up when I hear about people cleaning out their attics. I also feel slighted because no one I know actually has an attic full of stuff.

And, because of this, I go antique shopping. A lot. Or, at least a lot for someone in her 20s.

Where else (besides flea markets, I suppose) can you find one big mega-store of old, dirty, smelly, "sold as is" items? That's right. Nowhere.

Antique shops are better than any regular store, because you can find stuff you didn't even know you needed until you see it. Old cameras that don't work. Dishes so ugly they're cool. Funky furniture. It's like shopping at an Urban Outfitters, with more choices, more worn-and-torn items, and fewer models whose hipbones jut out above their bikini bottoms.

Ergo, antique shopping can be great for the pocketbook and the self-esteem. Not to mention it's just fun, and antique shops are something that I seek out everywhere we move. Michigan was horrible, but I'll give it this: it's got some sweet shops in Hillsdale.

And now, Oshkosh, we've started on yours. Appleton and Fond du Lac are next.

Not that everything is cheap. It's not. But, I suppose you should always have something to pine over, or search for in other antique shops. We usually shop for cameras and glasses -- I got a sweet Apollo 11 glass for $1 (which, according to my stepdad, is how much you bought them for in the '60s with any tank of gas at your local gas station); we have about 15 old cameras, and I'm currently seeking this fairly common glass rooster thing, in a particular shade of green. I'm not kidding.

But there are two things I cannot pass up: postcards (because I collect them), and photos (because a lot of times, there are funny messages written on the back). Why, in any other time, I would pay 25 to 50 cents for old postcards or photos, I'm not sure. But it's awesome when you're antique shopping.

And this weekend, we found gold: a postcard from our alma mater, the University of Toledo, circa 1930 to 1945 (it's a Tichnor Bros. card, and the ones that I found that look similar to it are from the '30s to '45) -- yeah, in Oshkosh. We also found a candid photo from the early 1900s -- a man playing a guitar and a woman and two girls watching him. It's totally unlike the posed shots. Sweet.

We are nerds.