Me turning 30

Today is my birthday and I am 30. I've been celebrating since Friday. Not that I'm particularly excited or unexcited about turning 30. But it's always fun to have an excuse to celebrate.

Since Cornell made it to the ECAC finals, I was on my way up to Albany, NY for the annual tournament. The annual tournament gets suckier and suckier every year. They used to have a whole festival outside with vendors and stuff. No more. Well, anyways, we'll start with the plane. I was knitting and napping and when the plane landed, my ball of yarn fell off my lap and rolled 2 seats up the aisle. Oops.


The shoe in the lower right hand corner is my foot, and look to see where the ball of yarn is. So yeah, oops.

Moving on. I had a plan to start drinking by 3pm that day. I also had a plan for drinking. It's March Madness time. For most people, it's basketball. For me, it's hockey. But for this guy, it's the Fermented Four. I don't drink beer and I don't drink much wine. However, I do like my cocktails and liquor so I thought I'd start with the cocktails bracket. And so I give you...on Friday:

Apple Martini vs the Long Island Iced Tea. This was a tough match. The apple martini is so tasty but the Long Island Iced Tea is such an efficient drink. In the end, I think I'd have to give it to the Long Island Iced Tea for its efficiency. I can drink 2 or 3 of those. As tasty as the Apple Martini is, it's very sweet and I get queasy from the sweetness after a couple of drinks.

Melon Margarita vs the Irish Car Bomb. The Melon Margarita was tasty but like the Apple Martini, I can only drink so much of it before the sweetness over takes everything else. And I love the Irish Car Bomb. The Irish Car Bomb wins.

And yes, there is some hockey thrown into all of this to.

Sometime during Friday's game, I realized that I had done something wrong with my stitch marker. But an hour after an apple martini, a long island iced tea, and a cranberry and vodka, I wasn't really ready to figure out what it was.

Our pep band hung a bulldog in effigy on Saturday as we were playing the Yale Bulldogs in the final. We lost pretty badly. I can't say I expected the loss but 5-0 hurts!

Back to the cocktails bracket. Saturday night, I continued drinking through the cocktails regional.

Pineapple Mojito vs Gin & Tonic. This was a blowout. I like mojitos. I took a sip of the gin and tonic and gave the rest to my friend Josh. People said I needed to finish the drink but you know, I'm just drinking my way through to decide which of the two I liked better and I DID NOT LIKE the gin & tonic. Pineapple Mojito wins, no contest.

White Russian vs Whiskey Sour. I'll give it to the Whiskey Sour. Both were quite tasty but the White Russian was a little too sweet. It starts to go the way of the Apple Martini and Margarita in that respects. Josh said the Whiskey Sour was well made because it was all so well balanced.

So, advancing to the next round, we have: Long Island Iced Tea vs the Irish Car Bomb and the Mojito vs. the Whisky Sour.

Cornell lost the final but they do keep playing for at least another week. They're going to Grand Rapids, MI for the regionals. So am I :)

Today, my coworkers brought in food and cake so I've been eating all day. Then, I went out to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner with Amber, Amber, and Nina. I had a peach bellini here. It was in frozen form which surprised me:

It was a fun evening with friends. I will leave you with these two pictures from the evening...first a normal picture and then me looking crazed again:




A big thank you to everyone for all the birthday wishes!

THANK YOU, CAPITALS! *clap*clap*clapclapclap*

Those of us in ravelry's Washington Capitals group have been talking about doing a Sticks n' Stitches event for a couple of years now. The difficult part has been getting any sort of feedback from either the sales office or TNNA to make it an official event like Stitch n' Pitch has been. Others in other cities have been more successful. So I took it upon myself to just get a group together and get tickets. So, this past Sunday afternoon, we met up, we watched a game, we cheered and some knitting was done. I think others may have gotten more knitting done than me. I forgot my camera but lolly did take some pictures. I'm unsure of what my plans are the second half of the year but I think it would be fun to organize a more wide reaching hockey/knitting event early next season. With the Capitals so hot, it's so damn hard to get a large set of group tickets at the end of the season! Good think I already have tickets to the last regular season game!

Why the subject line "THANK YOU, CAPTIALS! *clap*clap*clapclapclap*"? Well, on Sunday, Papa John's began a new promotion with the Caps. It's similar to the Redskins promo. Applying only to Sunday games, on Monday, you can buy a large pizza for $9.99 and for every goal the Caps score, you get one free topping. Double if they win. Well, the final score of the day was 7-4 Caps.

tomato x 2
grilled chicken x 2
banana peppers x 2
mushrooms x 2
onions x 2
sausage x 2
green peppers x 2

Where in the world is Carmen San Diego? - Part 2

And I was home for enough time to pack a new suitcase and I was off to Memphis.

Reshma and I had signed up for the Memphis St. Jude Marathon. I finished in 6 hours and 23 minutes. Not bad considering I hadn't run in about a month. Downtown was empty. It reminded me of St. Louis in how lacking in people it was but it was not as bad as St. Louis. We did go to Graceland. I love Elvis. I really loved Elvis when I was in high school but because of an unfinished school project, we never went. Well, now I get to go. Whee! Pictures are here. While I was there, I did have a peanut butter and banana sandwich - Elvis's favorite.

Scenes from Memphis:


OMG, I look crazed and starving. Reshma did a good job on the picture!

Gold Lame suit!

Chili cheese fries from Dyer's, as featured on "Deep Fried Paradise" on the travel channel. It was truly tasty.

Maryland Sheep & Wool 2008

Well, it was MD S&W weekend. I was good this year. I only spent the cash I brought with me! All of my goodies are still in the car since I'm carting it all around for show and tell. I bought some yarn and some fiber and some Noni patterns (Tulip Tote, Cascading Fuschia Market Bag, Prism Bag). I'll have pictures once I have finished with show and tell. My pictures from Sheep and Wool are here. I did a bit of a scavenger hunt and tried to take pictures of everyone I knew that I ran into. Hmm...did not see Amber and Stephanie. I am missing a picture of Beth who I even chatted with for a bit. I am also missing a picture of Lauren who made a last minute trip down. She IMed me on Friday to say that her boyfriend had decided at the last minute to visit his brother who just happened to live in Columbia, MD. She sent the boys off to do boy things while she got herself all overwhelmed with all things wooly. She is actually my friend Josh's sister and when she first started knitting, she didn't know anyone else who knitted and I was the first person he thought of :). So overall, it was a good weekend with good loot and good friends.

Let's go red!...I mean Caps!

Old habits die hard. Cornell comes first. Thankfully, there really isn't a chance for the Caps to play Cornell since they're at different levels. But the Caps have come back from being down 3-1 in the series and are forcing a game 7. Please Philly, another choke job your sports teams are known for? Please?

So I said that once I finished up the sleeves and got the needles back on the body, I would put it on and take a picture and post the pictures. So, here we go...


Labradorite chandelier earrings



Spiny Urchin Bracelet. Took the class with Paulette Baron a couple of weeks back. I need to put the magnetic clasp on and finish up the rest of the spines.

Denver pictures can be found here. A quick summary. I started taking pictures of various jerseys and we decided that next year, we'd put together some sort of bingo involving the various jerseys you see. The two guys in most of the pictures are my two friends Josh and Rich, my regular travel companions. Somewhere in there are pictures of the tour of the Coors brewery. Not as good as Anheuser-Busch last year. They knew how to present. As usual, the guys got my beer samples. It was kinda disappointing with how many beers Coors makes and yet they only let us sample a small percentage of them. The final turned into a battle of the Jesuit schools which we called "Which team does Jesus like more?" It turned out that Jesus preferred BC over Notre Dame.

Continuing on. We come to the magical season of the Washington Capitals. I started watching them in the 2001-2002 season when I had just moved down to the area and looking for an NHL team to follow. I was purely a college hockey fan at the time. I split loyalties between Washington and Colorado and finally in a game when they played each other, I found where my loyalties really were. In that time, I've watched them be unable to score on 5x3 and lose a game after leading it for a good portion of it. I've watched the Jagr era and go "wtf?" and all of the restructuring. It was frustrating and I stopped paying attention this season and all of a sudden, they made a playoff run and tonight, they came back from being down 3-1 and have a shot at advancing to the second round. I did believe they had a shot at beating the Flyers, though I thought they'd do it in 5-6 games. So, go Caps! Pics from game 5 here. And just for all of your references...yes I travel for hockey, and if we end up moving on and playing the Rangers at some point, I'd probably go to Madison Square Garden to catch a game, while cheering against Josh, the Rangers fan. But there is no way in hell I would go to Philly. I don't have a death wish.



Finally, Simple Knitted Bodice. The yarn is Elann Peruvian Highland Wool. The lighter green on the main body is the Fiddlehead Fern (0797) and the darker green on the lace portion is the Tuscany Green (7359). So far so good and I think I would actually have enough of the 797 to make this as long as I'd like. This yarn wasn't bought with this project in mind.

Life being random

It is hockey season and that means time for adventures. The first interesting event happened on a NJ Transit train. We had a bunch of Cornell alums (and 1 former Dartmouth band member) drunk on a train in front of us. We had a group of local NJ kids hop on the train and sit directly behind us. At some point, the drunken Cornell alums start belting out Aerosmith's "Don't Want to Miss a Thing" and the drunken locals start singing along behind us. It was bizarre, it was entertaining. We'd always wondered what life would be like if life were like a musical and this gave us a taste. They worked through a few other songs and entertained us quite a bit. Finally, one of the conductors had to put a stop to it cuz as he was walking up, the drunken D alum was being told that his fly was open so he was taunting everyone about whipping it out...All fun must come to an end, I guess.

Then on the way home today, I got on the train and found a seat. Then a guy walks up and asks if the seat next to me is taken. I look at him and thinks he looks really familiar, except that he has a Penn shirt on. The Penn shirt threw me off cuz I thought that he was another Cornell alum hockey fan that I knew. As the train passing Philadelphia and we're both finally awake, I finally ask who he is and then two of us end up feeling silly cuz we're both sitting there thinking the other person looks really familiar and it turned out it was cuz we did know each other! And of course, we each go to one game this weekend but different ones. He's sitting there going, "You weren't at Q!" and I'm going "Why weren't you at Princeton?"

Sometimes, the world is full of interesting surprises. Oh, and I did catch a good U2 coverband Saturday night and got some meat off a street vendor.

Just throwing stuff out there

My brain hurts and I have some pictures.

Progress of the Maple Leaf Shawl. I'm into the 2nd leaf pattern repeat here.

The orchid I was working on for the last couple of weeks. I'm taking a breather and then will be starting on the shop piece for Bead Obsessions. Class is on August 25th.

Me and my Tims. I've known these two guys since high school and are still two of my best friends. One of them is moving to Arizona next week so this was the reason for my trip up to NYC.

It was a wonderful Friday

Yesterday, started out at work, where Svitlana and I had agreed to bring in all of our beaded goodies so we could stare at them. It looked like this:


You can click here for more pictures. Needless to say, we didn't get much work done. Of course, we had to drag some coworkers in to say, "Look at all these pretty things!" and I even managed to sell one of the necklaces in the process. My etsy shop is a little empty now.

After work, I made a quick stop by Whole Foods for some seafood to grill and some summer roll wrappers and headed over to Anne's house to start chopping my vegetables. It was a little gathering to celebrate Amber's birthday. We had the birthday girl, Amber, Svetlana and her little cute little boy, Nina, Patricia and her husband Chris, and of course, Amber's parents, Anne, Tim, and her brother Kevin for a little bit. It was a great day and we were able to grill and eat outside. Time flew and by the time the presents were opened and we were sitting around chatting, it was late and I was ready to fall asleep on the couch!

Busy weekend!

• I discovered that why yes, you can sand the rust off of the iron railings, slap on some primer, and then a coat of paint!


• The Buffalo Sabres are really sucking. Their OT game on Saturday looked like they were playing to not lose.


• I finished that green top! I wanted to finish it for Sunday when I got to spend the day with the Dugger/Murphy clan. I need to wash it again and let it dry properly. The cotton stretched. Pictures to come later.


• After I finished the green top, I still wanted to knit so I even finished the top down raglan! I picked up the stitches on the neck and dropped down 2 needle sizes and knit a few rows and bound off. That really pulled the neckline in. The sweater itself is really comfortable! Again, pictures to come. They're all on Amber's camera.


• Spent Sunday wandering through Virginia with the Dugger/Murphy clan. It was a lovely day. I was very tired and passed out almost immediately upon reaching home.

Then, Monday doesn't count as the weekend but I did go bike riding again. Rode from Rosslyn to Old Town Alexandria with a coworker who's been after me to get a bike. I was not allowed to laugh at him and I was supposed to call 911 if anything happened to him. I did not get to laugh at him and I did not have to call 911. I don't know how I would've explained to my boss that I had to call 911 on him. It's funny though. Running, you get that immediate pain feeling. Biking, the pain doesn't set in for a while. I like that post exercise pain.

I also worked on some more flowers.

Maryland Sheep & Wool

Okay, it's the requisite post after the sheep and wool festival. Since it was my first, I had heard many things, and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. First, I did not find the deep fried twinkies. I'm upset :( I did want an angora bunny (a lot). I also got to look at sheep and pet an alpaca and hold an angora bunny. There was a lot more restraint on the spending than there had been at Stitches. Amber and I drove up Saturday morning to start shopping. We wandered around and we each fell in love with sweaters. I ended up buying the Mom's Lace Sweater kit with the black black yarn. I think I want some pewter buttons. Then, it will fit right in with my winter wardrobe of greys and blacks. I also picked up a basket. I like the basket. Svetlana and Anne met up with us Saturday night in Columbia. I was exhausted and wanted to go to sleep but I wanted to wait for them to get to the hotel so that we could do some show and tell.

Sunday started out bright and early with the Sheep to Shawl. We got there in time for the end of shearing and watched them start spinning. There was a lot of spinning and we ended up shopping since Svetlana and Anne hadn't done any shopping yet. Lunch time approached and we went to the car to get out blankets, camp chairs and food (thank you Svetlana!) and made our camp by the entrance. It was a relaxing afternoon. I spent most of it at camp alternating between napping and knitting. We were joined for a bit by Nina and Patricia also stopped by on her way out. Please note the new url to Patricia's blog. We finally left MDSW and went to a Starbucks to use a bathroom. I finally made it home, showered, ate, and crawled into bed. A good weekend!

Anyways, pictures are here. Pictures of what I actually bought, to come.

I'll probably also be documenting my fiber stash. Please see sidebar for my current spreadsheet of what I've got. I want to try to spin through a lot of it this summer.

St. Louis, now where was I?

I left off at the Anheuser Busch brewery. It was about 2 miles from our hotel and Rich wanted to walk back through the Soullard neighborhood since it looked interesting. Well, we did. The houses were cute. They were brick with different trims that were colorful and added character to the buildings. It reminded me of both Annapolis, MD and some of the area between Old City and the Italian Market in Philly. Of course, if this place had been on the east coast, the buildings would've been smaller and smushed closer together. We still saw a couple of people out and about. We did walk past Fat Toney's BBQ which looked like dinner since both Rich and Beeeej had wanted BBQ at some point. So, we kept walking past the restaurant and the very deserted farmer's market. We walked over the interestate that runs into downtown and by the river. Even though it was rush hour, there was no traffic. Back to the hotel and I am absolutely freezing. I didn't pack well for the weather. I also didn't think my blood was circulating. We cabbed it back to Fat Toney's to meet up with Beeeej for dinner which was really quite good. Then wandered back towards Union Station to see if there was anything going on there. The answer was no. We found a sports bar near by and the guys got some wings and some beer. I had my soda and the grease was starting to get to me. I was also getting really restless and wanted to go dancing so eventually, Beeeej wandered home and Rich, Josh, and I wandered down to Laclede's Landing, my last hope for people. Wandering down the street, we were pointed to a bar that had dancing and $10 to drink until closing at 3am. That sounded good to me since I had wanted to do both of those things and the guys were game. Adam was also trying to get us down to the landing and when we got there, I let him know where we were. He was all set to go until he found out that the INCH staff party was being held where we were and there are a few people there who hate him. So he refused to come over. But a little bit of convincing got him over. While sitting on the main floor, Rich was dancing with some woman who was getting married in 6 days. We also witnessed a bar brawl between some BU fans and some BC fans. Eventually, we all wandered downstairs to the dance area. That also put more floors between Adam and the INCH guys. And I dragged those guys down to the dance floor. None of them dance but they were humoring the drunk girl for the evening. There was also one of those novelty poles and soon after we got down there, they were having a pole dancing contest. The first girl got up and she was okay. Nothing fancy. The second girl got up there and did a little more. The third one got up there and she must have done it before. She wasn't wearing much and was flashing the crowd and was very comfortable on the pole. Josh also thought that she was a he, until she flashed and showed everyone her parts. There was a fourth girl who was not a professional. At some point, I realized that while everyone was staring at the girls, I could take advantage of all of this and go to the bar for another drink. Soon, after, I dragged the guys up one floor, taking pity on their misery on the dance floor. I didn't feel too bad since they did get to see half naked girls dance suggestively, as in a strip club. We eventually left to get some food and they dragged me back to the room where I stuck my head under the shower to wash some of the smoke out of my hair and fell asleep.

Saturday

Final started at 6pm. What was up with that? Sure it's 7pm EST but I didn't remember the final having started that early in previous years. I dragged myself out of bed at 1pm. Rich had gotten up to go to the open skate, and Josh had gotten up so he could take care of some business and wander around. These next couple of hours were probably the only ones that we did not spend in each others' presence. I got myself up, showered and dressed. Then I wandered to the Starbucks in the hotel lobby, and with my knitting, walked up to Union Station. I got there around when open skate was ending (3pm) so I was able to meet up with Rich to scout out dinner. My only request for dinner was that we eat something not too greasy. The dangerous/bad thing about these weekends for me is the combination of the type of food being consumed and the alcohol and the lack of sleep. Saturday, I wanted healthy. My body was rejecting greasy foods. We made a reservation at an Italian restaurant and he wandered off while I wandered back into Union Station (a mall), and stopped to knit some of Charloote's Web and watch all the hockey people go by, as well as enjoying a new found sense of peace.

Dinner was tasty. We sampled a St. Louis dish of toasted raviolis as an appetizer. That was really good. Also had some stuff calamari, also quite tasty. I had some seafood linguine. the meal took while so the anthems had played already by the time we got there. We did make it in time for the puck drop so that was good. Everyone thought BC was going to win. They scored first and kept it up. I got a bit sleepy at the start of the third. But then MSU scored halfway through the 3rd and we had a game. I was hoping for OT but it wasn't necessary since MSU scored with less than a minute left of the game! Holy crap! The entire arena, minus the BC fans, went NUTS! I gotta tell you that I missed the empty net goal with 1.2 seconds left of the game. I thought the horn was the game horn, and apparently, so did the MSU players.
Post game, the season's over. Beeeej wandered back to his hotel. Josh went off with some people he knew to make his rounds. Rich and I went back to the hotel to drop off our stuff. We decided to go back to the landing area to another place called The Big Bang. Adam was there the night before, before he met up with us and was telling us about it. This was when Josh remembered that it was where he got really trashed the last time he was in St. Louis. But before heading down there, Rich and I wandered down to a bar by the stadium. He wanted to see if this girl he met Wed night was there. Surprise, surpise! Saturday night at 10pm, the place was closed. Did I not tell you this place was weird? So we hop back onto the metro and wander to the big bang to see what the fuss was about. The place was packed and the show was amazing. There were 4 or 5 guys who took turns at the two pianos, and periodcally the drums and bass. They took requests all night, had people up on the stage for birthdays. It was the most amazing show and I was in awe of the talent. We watched dueling requests from North Dakota fans and Minnesota fans. They managed to get them to play "In heaven there is no beer" which apparently there are many verses of, but we really only know the first one. I learned this in Columbus 2 years ago, along with the fact that the Minnesota people will also drag you up and dancing while singing this. Eventually, some of the Maine fans got into it and in the end Cornell was dragged in. I was the sober one tonight since my stomach felt like this painful empty hole so I spent the last night with stinky smokey hair curled up on the bed hoping sleeping will allow me to not feel the pain in my hungry hungry stomach.

Sunday

Rich had an early morning flight so he was the first to leave. Josh had a noon flight but it was pushed back til 2 so we left the hotel together. My flight left at 3. We ended up waiting for the metro for 40 minutes. We checked in and got some food. Josh's flight was now delayed til 3 so we were leaving at the same time. We parted ways at that point cuz we were in different terminals and I just wanted to find some water to keep the dehydration headaches away and remain curled up by the gate until I could get on the plane. I had an otherwise uneventful flight back where I slept and knitted some more.


And now I'm home, and settling into the college hockey off season. At least we have the Stanley Cup playoffs...which I don't really get excited for until it's the final series, at which point, I may schedule my life around the games. Yes, I am a crazy hockey nut. And yes I still owe you people pictures.

St. Louis. Long post. No pictures

Cuz if there were to be pictures, I'd have to upload them to flickr and then write descriptions for everything and frankly, I want to go to sleep right now. Here's a map of downtown St. Louis for reference. So, my trip as follows:

Wednesday

I arrive at National an hour before my plane departs. No problem. Not so easy for my friend Josh whose flight out of Newark got cancelled. He also had the tickets to the Cardianls/Mets game that he and Rich were going to go see. Rich was the third member of the party. So they got there, and I had them leave me a key at the desk. We stayed at the Hilton by the Ballpark. We were on the 24th (of 25th) floor and had a view of the ballpark. Anyways, I took the subway (MetroLink...or Metro, how simple for someone from DC) to the ballpark and got out and saw everyone leaving. Thought it a bit odd the game was already letting out since from everyone I had talked to, they said a baseball game should last at least 2.5 hours. I got up to the room and saw that the game was still going. People just left early. So I took a nap before I had to meet up with the guys. They called me after the game was over and I went to go meet them at a bar. Then, we were back at the hotel and decided to meet up with some other folks Josh knows. We walked from Hilton at the Ballpark to the Sheraton by the ScottTrade Center. And we saw nothing. No people. No lit buildings. No fast food. Nothing. We were hungry and couldn't find food at 11pm in what is supposed to be a city. So then we wandered northwards to Washington Ave where a woman at the airport told me had some bars. During the walk, someone screamed out of a cab at us. It was Beeeej who had our 4th ticket. He was just getting into town and was staying at a Hampton Inn. We barely found bars and they weren't really serving food. Here we met up with Adam of College Hockey News. One of the worst kept secrets in college hockey land is that Adam, as a member of the media, is one of us...a fanatical Cornell hockey fan. He also did not see anyone while wandering the streets. We got a bite to eat and wandered back to the hotel.

Thursday

I got up and went to the gym. Yay me! We then met up with Beeeej and got some food at a grill. But first we found a liquor store so that we could get some rum to sneak into the game. The rum was divided out into 2 bottles and they did confiscate one. They didn't take the other only because they didn't see it. Game one was Michigan State vs. Maine. We were cheering for Michigan State who seemed to be the lesser of the two evils. The game was over and we had a hour and a half to kill so we decided to wander back to the liquor store for more rum. Well, the next one we found, a Maine fan put it best as "Is this a vending machine?" We were in a check cashing shop that also sold liquor. The liquor was on shelves behind glass so you could look to see what they had. Then you had to ask the woman for it. Pay her through the bullet proof glass. Then, she passed you the bottle through the pass through under the counter where the outer door had to be shut completely before the door to the inner section could be opened. Note, the first liquor store we were at was the front of a restaurant, and we weren't sure if we could walk up and pick up a bottle or not. So, after getting more rum, we had dinner at a pizza place next door that also sold liquor by the bottle. Ya, this place is getting weird. Back to the rink for North Dakota vs. Boston College. This is the game that most of the college hockey world tends to view as having to pick between the lesser of the two evils. I was hoping for the roof to collapse or for the fires of hell to swallow up both teams. North Dakota (NoDak) is in the middle of the NCAA offensive name/logo controversy. They are the "Fighting Sioux" and along with the state have taken the NCAA to court. Note that the Sioux tribes actually are offended by the use. BC...well, their fans are obnoxious and their team is a bunch of goons. Some of whom I still have negative visceral reactions to when I see their names...this would be dating back to about the 2003 season when we played them to 2 OTs in the regional finals to advance to the Frozen Four. So there. We tried to cheer for BC, if only because eastern teams must stick together. But they had a girl in the pep band who annoyed all the neutral fans. During a BC penalty kill, when the puck was in the BC zone, they'd all start screaming for continuous noise. This one girl screams in a high pitched voice and it was so annoying that we all started to cheer for NoDak to score just so she would shut up. Not just us but the neutral fans around us as well. BC wins, good bye western evil. We (Josh, Rich, Beeeej, and I) are all very "hydrated", but Josh more so than the rest of us cuz he got another Pepsi to add some "water" to. Off to a blues bar with an amazing woman singing. I had some real water and slowed it down a bit since my stomach was starting to get a bit queasy. Enjoyed the music. that woman could sing. Josh left earlier and sent Rich a txt message saying that he peed on Busch Stadium. We were not supposed to let him pee on national monuments (which he did the last time he was in St. Louis) but Busch Statdium is not a national monument, and were in the bar. Rich and I made it back to the hotel room about an hour later and only found out the next day that Josh had thrown up in the bathroom when he got back.

Friday

We got up and went to the Arch. If you're in St. Louis, of course you have to do the tourist thing and to the top of the Arch. The ride up is interesting. The space at the top is small. And I'm afraid of heights. It was interesting and I ended up sitting in a corner, completely disoriented. It was nice to be back on solid ground. I did take some good pictures. After that it was time to tour Anheuser Busch. Last year, Rich toured the Miller brewery in Milwaukee, WI during the off day. Apparently, last year, this year and next year comnposes the trifecta of American brewery tours. Next year is Denver where there is Coors. We speculated that this may have been an odd sense of humor on the site selection committee. College hockey fans like beer. They were out of tickets by the time we got there but we were able to go standby on a tour. We got to see the Clydesdale horses and walked through some parts of the factory. The factory reminds me of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. The smell outside was horrible. It was unappetizing. They did show us a room where they aged the beer. That room smelled amazing. I wanted beer. I wanted to drink beer while I was in that room. The tour ended in the hospitality room where we could each sample 2 beers on tap. Well, actually, the first thing we were told was that the bus for the NoDak fans who were with the tour group was leaving in 5 minutes so they needed to hurry up. The rest of us looked around, saw how many empty tables there would be, and cheered on the inside. We got our first samples and I was reminded that while the vats of aging beer smelled really good, I don't like beer. We all got something different and each tried everything but the guys ended up drinking my beers. They've had me try beer in the past that I could tolerate, but not the large commercialized stuff.

I'll pick up here tomorrow cuz I really want to go to sleep now. I did get some knitting done here and there.

Some eye candy

I thought I'd share with everyone a couple of pieces of eye candy:





These were made by my coworker Svitlana. She recently had a baby and is home on maternity leave. She'd always liked jewelry and after Bead Obsessions opened, I had gotten her interested in making her own. Some people call me her dealer/pusher. But she does beautiful work too. I'm sure her husband thinks of me as "That evil person who got his wife hooked on this hobby." It's actually amazing that the amethyst sage one looks so blue. I had seen the stone on its own and it looked quite purple. So, hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Weekend, Taxes, being kept up later than I wanted

So, the weekend was fun. I got stuff done like:

which has a pretty long strap and the stone actually falls below my chest. But that is apparently because I don't have a thick neck. I also achieved my goal of putting the sleeves onto holders and joining the front and back of the top down raglan:


Other pictures from the farm can be found: here. Check out the pictures of Amber in the small cottage. It is REALLY small. The only complaint I had about the farm was all the lady bugs. There were so many of them!

So, we arrived late Friday night. From the highways to the country roads, to dirt roads. For a while on the last stretch, there was this truck following us. I started getting a little paranoid for a while there because of Mighty Oracle and Spousal Unit's talk of the mental institution and the now closed state prison in the area. But the truck turned off and we were safe. Otherwise, it was a very relaxing weekend spent crafting and eating and in the company of friends. I'm not big into nature so I think that was about as much nature as I could take. Monday's drive back included a stop at Cestari farms where I bought more yarn, and lunch in Staunton, VA where Amber and Anne and I went antiquing which was quite fun. We didn't get back til late. I had wanted to avoid DC rush hour and we did!

I didn't get to spin as much as I'd wanted to. I have the sleeves sewn onto the the back of the Flower Meadow Shrug. I still need to finish the lacework for the body edgin and attach that. I may try to do that this weekend since I really prefer to do some seaming when there's daylight out.

As of tonight, my taxes are done and filed, both state and federal. I got about 10 rows knitted at the homeowner's association meeting which was about as exciting as I had expected. My pictures are in flickr and the blog has been updated. That's about all I wanted to do tonight!

Today's Updates

I'm hungry, damn it. Okay, besides that, I spent a lovely evening at Bead Obsessions making:


My very own beaded spinning wheel oriface hook

I also managed to take a better picture of the red calla lilies at the shop. Patricia had a piece of fabric that was white so we took a nice picture:




Those are the cherry amber red (Toho 2153) and the stem is Toho 37. I shaded 2 of them. On our way home, Amber ran into some car trouble. Fortunately, I had some jumper cables in my trunk and Patricia knew how to use them.




And since my hand has been hurting and I was working on orchid today, I decided to come home and spin and test out the oriface hook. First, the oriface hook fits! So, the bobbin was spinning funny and then I finally looked back at the instructions and realized that I had the bobbin on backwards, so when I flipped it over, it just didn't work. I was spinning this multicolored dyed wool stuff of unknown origin that had vegetable fiber I kept picking out on it. I decided to put that away and start spinning some nice black suri mohair blend I had bought at My Favorite Yarn Shop on the the bead/yarn crawl with Helena earlier this month, which I could've sworn I had blogged about...but I guess not :-( Wowee. Again, what a difference the fiber choice makes while spinning. I have Spinny going fast and this baby is nice!

From fiber to yarn

Just before Christmas, I began spinning up some Romney that I had bought from Spunky Eclectic. I have been spinning a little bit everyday. Yesterday, Amber, Amber, Nina, and Helena over for a Marathon of "House" and spinning and knitting. They knitted, I spun. And I spun and I spun the Spunky Eclectic. When I finished off the fiber, I plied, and plied and plied and produced:





Then I set and hung them out to dry in the bathroom, hanks of beads being used as weights:



And then there was the finished handspun yarn. I'm quite happy with it! My wraps per inch tool is telling me that it's about 24 wraps per inch which places it just a little thinner than fingering weight. Lace weight is supposed to be 35+ WPI so i wonder what's in between. What do I plan on using this for? I think something out of Victorian Lace Today.

SUI

Spinning under the influence. No one ever said you're not supposed to spin after some alcohol. I forgot how much I enjoy alcohol. And I figured out how to make Spinny go fast before I left this afternoon. And then since I know one is not supposed to knit after drinking, unless you want to hate yourself the next morning, and have not heard anything about spinning and booze, I decided to sit down with Spinny. Spinny is good. more twists! more twists! The only thing you have to be careful of is the long hair flying around that gets caught up in the fiber. That kinda hurts. So, what we learned tonight...

• Booze is good.


• Booze in DC is expensive


• It's okay to s pin while under the influence


• Don't get hair caught in the fiber cuz that hurts

Urg. Right now I smell like a mix of smoke and heavy cologne/perfume. I must go wash this off myself before I choke on this in bed.

Food, yarn, beads, Brooklyn

I'll be heading to Brooklyn this weekend to visit with my two Tims and eat! But, first, I will be stopping at some bead shops for some purse handles and frames, then at Habu Textiles to pick up a few things.
So, I've been surfing for some yarn stores, in case I need needles or something (yeah, that's it), and visited the website of Sarah's Yarns located in Brooklyn. I had first come across this website while reading the Simple Knitted Bodice KnitAlong and had kept them in mind because of their amazing prices for yarn. For a comparison, the JaggerSpun Zephyr 2/18 Lace Weight cones normally sell for about $50. So it disturbed me greatly to read about Tilli Tomas price fixing. Tilli Tomas is the recommended yarn for the Simple Knitted Bodice and it is expensive as all bleeping hell.

I should get to sleep soon.

To New Orleans and Back

In smaller news, I just bought another digital camera. It's smaller and fits more easily into my pocket and uses and SD memory card for which my computer has a slot for. That kind of takes away excuses to not post more pictures.

Ene's scarf - in theory, there are fewer and fewer stitches on my needle. I think I'll believe it when I bind off.

My first impression of New Orleans was made when I stepped off the plane. It was really hot. I got up at 5am and in the airport at 6 for my 6:45 flight. I had one of those horrific headaches when the plane arrived in New Orleans. Ick.
Jazz Fest was great. There are many reasons people are there. Me, I think primarily, it was the food. I am a food addict and compulsive eater after all. There was so much good food. All the shrimp and crawfish and po boys. Couchon au Lait Po Boy was every bit as good as everyone said. And then there were these ribs with white beans and rice and cole slaw, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! And to drink, well, I was addicted to the strawberry lemonade. These were also great when you added some vodka, rum, or both to it!
Music. Zydeco music is pretty good. I think I can only take so much of it. I do like some of the old time stuff. Gospel...that tent was a little freaky as the people in there, according to my friend Mark, were high something, but it's not alcohol or drugs. I didn't catch much of Jimmie Buffet. We were watching Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas. Nathan (the main guy) had a 6 year old son who was playing the wash board. Then he had him play the drums for a song and wow! That kid was amazing. I'd love to see him in 20 years. Irma Thomas - I liked her. Paul Simon, that was a great set too. Didn't get to see Fats Domino. He was on the way to the hospital during Paul Simon's set. Instead, Lionel Ritchie ended up playing the Acura stage and while you would think he'd be cheesy, it was actually pretty good.
Saturday night, we had some really good African food in the French Quarter, even though we had to wait 2 hours and didn't start eating til sometime after 11pm. Then John (the local) took us to his Irish/80s bar where the band featured the sister of his infamous Lolita. I was half asleep there until they started doing Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" and I perked back up briefly.
Sunday night found us wandering out by John's place for a bite to eat and then just sitting around. I left Monday and missed the trip back to the quarter and Yo Mama's burgers. That's kind of sad.

Pictures. I didn't bring my camera. However, I point you to Mark's Flickr account where he has pictures of stuff, including me asleep at various times at JazzFest.