a very nice letter from a senator

It's not every day that you get a letter with letterhead that says United States Senate*.

You may recall in my last post I mentioned that Dan had sent off a complaint (there is a formal way of doing this) about a government agency. That was Monday, April 23rd. The letter in the photo below was dated April 24th, Dan received it two days later.  Have a look. 

Dan took this photo with his phone and sent it to me via text. I was at Cabin 12 with a big gang of knitters when I received this. I was utterly distracted after that. MOVEMENT AT LAST! 

This means that things will finally get happening. He, my new friend Senator Richard Burr, is going to "try to resolve this as soon as possible".  Dan and I want to be excited, and we sort of are, but we are also not holding our breath because things don't seem to have been going well previously. This, however, is a glimmer of hope. It means that my Three Things from my last post must be working. (I finished sock two out of four today, by the way).

Dan sent off the requested documents the first thing the following morning, yesterday. With any luck, we will hear something next week, if the fast turnaround time for the first letter is any indication.

So, YAY!

*I have cropped the official letterhead from this photo because I am not skilled enough in any photo manipulation programs to be able to blur out Dan's home address. The Internet does not need to know that.

Three things I need to do

My dear readers. I have seriously not had the inclination to write lately, despite having tons of content that I would love to share with you.

My sister has come and gone, and it was a good visit but man does she ever talk A LOT. We were up three nights in a row well past midnight, two of those nights were later than 2am, and we were talking. It took me a few days to recover from her visit.

On Saturday I volunteered for an event at Providence Farm where I wore a chef's coat and made pizza for the wood-fired oven. It was tons of fun and the beginning of my time as a volunteer there.

Last night Toni and the Skipper reduced their chicken flock by one, the bird who was the main rooster. It was hard on all of us, since he was such a good main roo, but when you have two roosters, there will be fighting for the top spot. The remaining roo, Percy, is lovers with Hen, who is currently momma to 16-day old chicks, and we couldn't separate them. Toni is planning to blog about the processing so I won't go into it (not sure my readership wants to know anyway) but it was an emotional thing. It is a powerful thing to literally come face to face with your food. I think it is something everyone should experience, to know that food comes from a place and that place is not just the grocery store.

At any rate, no, we still have not heard anything about my immigration. Apparently through your local congressman there is such a thing as Help with a Federal Agency where you basically register a complaint with a process that is not being handled well. I would say we have a valid complaint. I have written my letter and sent it to Dan, and as he is the one with the supporting documents and file number, he will be submitting this. Fingers crossed this works.

Meanwhile, believing that 'fortune favors the prepared', I have decided that not everything is out of my control: I can do everything in my power to be ready for when the time comes. The first thing I had to do was find my passport. I had actually imposed a lot of stress on myself (why?) about not knowing where it was. And instead of finding a remedy for this stress (i.e. looking for my passport), I continued to berate myself for not knowing where it was. Isn't that silly? So today I finally did it. I looked for my passport. Guess what? It took about five minutes. WHEW. And it's two years away from expiring.

The second thing I want to do is finish knitting the Dan & Stacey Reunion Socks. This is two pairs of socks with the same pattern but different yarn, both shades of green, so that next year when we celebrate St. Patrick's Day together (that's the day we met, 2013 will be six years for us), we'll have green socks to wear. But they will be reunion socks because they will be DONE by the time we are together again. I have set them down, sort of, since I am now working on a cardigan as a knit along with Toni, who has recently picked up her needles again after a long hiatus. The cardi is going swimmingly, and I think I'm far enough ahead of Toni that I can take a break from that and get back to the socks for a while. This is, in effect, a form of sympathetic magic - that is to declare and get these socks done will assure that I will be reunited with My Sweety soon. So I'll be working hard on these.

The third and final thing is that I want to repack and put all the stuff in storage that I'm not using right now. I don't need my winter gear (yay) and there are some books I have finished reading and I certainly don't need ALL my yarn (that will be the subject of another post - I have come into an abundance of yarn recently). So if I am mostly packed and ready, then when the green card comes, I will not have to waste any time in packing.

knitting FO & WIPs

Here are some things I have been working on, knitwise...

Above is a meditation mat, knit entirely in garter stitch using up tons of little bits of colored yarn threaded together with some undyed worsted & aran I found. It ended up being bigger than I planned but it will double nicely as a lap blanket, should the need arise. I might actually make more of these, using other colours as the base colour but continue the rainbow throughout. Still have to weave in ends and block it. 

This is just a simple toe-up simple sock with a short row heel. These are meant to be house socks. I'm using a Mirasol yarn and I love it! I was going to keep going until I ran out of yarn (two 50g balls) but it was already taller than I was planning so the end of the first ball went into the above mat. This is easy take-along knitting or social knitting. Hopefully I will be done this soon!

I don't remember if I mentioned these before, but these are Dan and Stacey Reunion socks. I'm using Cookie A's Sam pattern from Sock Innovation, and I'm using two different yarns as I'm doing this two at a time. This pattern does NOT lend itself well to this technique so I've had to do a fair amount of mental yoga to get it going, but I'm almost past the patterned section, the foot is entirely stockinette. Dan and I have roughly the same size feet, so we are going to share both pairs of socks. Isn't it romantic? I know, we are so mushy.

Today I paid for and downloaded my first pattern/book ever. Natalie from the Cloudy With a Chance of Fiber podcast and the woman behind #knitchat on Twitter was kind enough to send me a box stuffed with enough yarn to make a sweater and then some.

After poring over patterns in Ravelry, I found the one I'm going to knit. I'm going to keep that quiet for a bit, until I'm certain I will finish it, but it's a top down cardi.

post Christmas post

I have so much to tell you.

I won't be able to do it all justice in one post, so I'll see if I can just throw a few photos in here and maybe that will tell part of a story.

 My tender cargo. The present was the only one I brought with me, but little did everyone know, the presents for everyone were nested in here, matroyshka style.

 Does anyone know the answer to this?

What I didn't get a photo of is the three raptors (or are they T-rexes?) above this. It was hard to get a good shot of this with my iPhone - no flash and the room wasn't very well lit. But if you look closely, you should see a bicycle rim with a bunch of wood cutouts in the shape of insects, painted green, among the Christmas decorations. 

Dan's mom was the first to open the big present. With the drawings I did (accurate depictions, I may say) of each family member, she figured out right away that the whole gift was a nested present. 

 Again, my poor 3GS iPhone, not great at capturing action shots.

Slipper socks!

 Turns out, we had a bit of a theme going on here. I had been talking about matroyshkas and I guess the family heard me. These beautiful earrings are from Zola.

 Matroyshka measuring spoons! How awesome is that! Later, Zola's boyfriend came by with a gift for the family, turns out this same company also makes matroyshka measuring cups. Too awesome.

This here isn't any old Scrabble, it's Super Scrabble. Extra board, twice the number of tiles. Dan gave this to me as a New Year's present our first year together. It makes for a long game but it is something we all look forward to every Christmas! (No, I didn't win).

 The salad rolls make their final appearance for the season. I plan to do an entire post about this (I have photos of each ingredient) so please hang tight and all this delicioiusness can be yours.

 This here is what Thor called "Iranian Sunrise". As we near the end of this year's inaugural Alcohol Advent Calendar, the beverage was rum, grenadine and grapefruit juice. And it was good.

When I got home after having been out for 14 hours, Sam didn't care if I was tired, she was ready to play String. This is ribbon that would ordinarily go around gifts, but it gets much better use as crunchy string. You know, the best cat toy ever.

I went to bed, extremely full of food and love, for it was a great day. Hadn't much of a chance to communicate with Dan very much, as we were both pretty busy but we did pass each other a few text messages. I had moments of sad throughout the day, wishing he was there. At some point the fellow that hosted the party Dan was at Tweeted me and said "we have decided that next Christmas you and @flounderguts are hosting". I'd like to know how that came about. We'll see where we'll be a year from now, for the family would rather we were in Victoria for Christmas, I'm sure!

Lots more to tell you but I'm really just too knackered from all the activity and food.

DISCLAIMER: I know that "deliciousness" isn't a word. As the author, I am taking poetic license, as is my right.

Knitting considerations

This post may seem a little incongruous, given that it's just before Christmas and I have all my Christmas knitting done and wrapped. I have been thinking about a post like this for more than a week now, have even made notes! So here we go:

I listen to a lot of knitting podcasts and communicate with hundreds of knitters on the Internet. Lots of people have large yarn stashes to knit from and still seem to acquire more yarn. When the hot new pattern comes out, many people will simply go to their stash and find the right yarn for the sweater.

Knitting isn't really a cheap hobby. It can be if you choose to use acrylic yarn or yarn found at garage sales or thrift store yarns. Just over a year ago I came into a huge amount of yarn, which was mostly natural fibers but much of it was so old or had an acrylic content that I was not happy knitting with any of it, so I gave it all away. While working at Knits by the Sea in Tofino, I came to really appreciate knitting with good yarn and good fiber. So, here is my list of things to consider when knitting something:

1. How much money to spend on yarn?

While working at the yarn shop, I was given a generous discount on my purchases, which is mighty dangerous. I wasn't making a lot of money overall so I had to be mindful of how much I could actually spend. Depending on the pattern and the yarn, a sweater's worth of yarn can run anywhere from $50 for cheap yarn and averaging about $120 for anything I would want to knit. So that wasn't going to happen. They say it takes the same amount of time to knit a pair of socks as it does a sweater, and since one skein of sock yarn is much cheaper (ranging $18-30, most landing in the $22 range), that seemed a more economical way to go. Lace weight yarn makes your yarn dollar go even further, as lace is slower to knit and you get way more yardage per dollar.

Many new knitters opt for big yarns and big needles, but what they don't realize is that is the fastest way to burn through your yarn budget. If you give me a skein of bulky weight yarn, I can knit that into a hat in about three hours. (I know this for certain because it happened last Christmas). If you give me a skein of sock yarn, it will take me 40-60 hours to knit that up, which leads me to my next consideration:

2. How long will this take to knit?

I was at the Moss Street Market Christmas Fair recently and saw a number of hand knit garments. I don't think there is ever a way to make money selling hand knits, unless you think you are worth 10 cents an hour. As I looked at the garments and the prices, I thought - those handknit socks that have a $45 tag on them would take me 40 hours to knit, but a faster knitter could get them done in 30. Subtract the probable cost of the yarn and that knitter probably earns $1.25 an hour. While $45 seems expensive for a pair of socks, it's cheap compared to the labour that went into it. At another stall I saw a knitter selling hats made with bulky Lopi yarn. The yarn cost $6.00/skein (I know because Lopi is a favourite of mine), the hats probably took 5-8 hours, she was selling them for $20 per hat.

I was commissioned to knit a hat for a woman's baby while working at the yarn shop in Tofino, but when she heard the price of the hat, she decided not to pay for it after all. (I still have the hat). That made me realize that I will never make money from knitting so there is no point in even trying. The only way I would accept a commission is if it were for an art piece and I would be paid for my artistry.

As mentioned in a previous post, I have had rather a lot of time to knit in the past few years. I love knitting, so this is no real hardship for me. When I was planning my knitting before the Cookie A retreat last April, I figured I could bang out one sock per week, even working almost full time (I knit during every coffee and lunch break). That turned out to be optimistic, and instead of the planned eight socks, I got through four and a half. So now I am getting a sense of how long things take to knit and planning accordingly. How much time do I need to knit X amount of things before Christmas, for example?

Also, as mentioned in a previous post, I hadn't planned on knitting gifts. And then I ended up knitting ten gifts. Some of them were small, completed in just a few hours, some of them took a few days. I'm getting the hang of estimating how long it will take and I planned well; I finished everything yesterday. (What will I do with myself on Christmas eve if I'm not finishing last-minute projects?)

3. Knitting from Stash

As a part of my Great Migration and in an attempt to pare down my possessions to only what will fit in my truck, I have been knitting from my stash. In a #knitchat earlier this year, we had a conversation about knitting from stash as a way of coping with these rough economic times - that having a sizable stash insulates us from the brunt of less money to spend on our hobby. If I look at my stash as it is right now, I have enough yarn to get me through about six months, assuming I'll be working full time from February onward. That's pretty good. My informal goal was to not have more yarn than I could knit up in a year - partly for ease of transport but also because it felt insensible to me just have yarn laying around, yarn that I would have to keep track of, move, keep from getting dusty, organize, and think about. (Other people are way better at keeping track of their yarn, so I am not suggesting *you* are insensible, I just know my own habits). I am trying to be methodical about my knitting plans and goals, so I would rather buy yarn with a project in mind rather than just buy yarn because it's pretty. There will always be more yarn. I repeat: there will always be more yarn. I don't need to buy this bag of yarn because it's a screaming good deal - I've done that and then that bag sits and collects dust. No thanks.

4. Knitting for others: will the person actually wear and care for the thing?

This can be tricky, especially if you have never given a person your hand knits before. I lucked out with the family I married - everyone loves and appreciates my knits, which always encourages me to knit more for them. (I'm planning to do a post about some of the more creative knit projects I have done as gifts over the years, as a sort of recap). My own family needed a bit of training about my knitting - washing instructions, the mending of things, and how long it will take things to knit. My niece (my sister's daughter) asked me for yellow mittens, so I knit some and sent them off. She *loves* them, then asked for a scarf, some slippers and a pair of socks. All in good time, kiddo, but it is a tall order. I have fifteen other people to knit for too.

5. Searching for patterns versus being captivated by patterns

Okay now here I get a bit stuck. We all have our own pattern-searching methods. Ravelry makes it so easy to find just the pattern for the yarn, skill level, technique, and yardage that you want to knit from. It is the best database I have ever encountered.  For example, when Zola asked me to knit her a turban, I went to Ravelry and typed in "turban". A bunch of stuff came up. Some of the patterns were patterns that you pay for, so I rule them out. I clicked on the "free" search criteria and the list of turban patterns was significantly diminished. So if you are in a position to pay for a pattern, especially a popular one, then go for it. But I'm limited to free just now, so sometimes I just have to make something up. (I really do need to start writing down my one-off designs. I will have some time after Christmas, I think). When you find the pattern you want on Ravelry, you can either "cast on" right away or put it in your queue. Then you can organize your queue into categories (hats, neck, mitts, sweaters, etc.). If there are enough things in your queue, and you feel like you need to knit a hat, you can go to your hat folder in your queue and maybe find the yarn in your stash to knit it with. This all sounds very organized, right? These kinds of plans get derailed when the new knitting magazine comes out. It happened to me last week. I had to knit Escargot, it was haunting me. So is the Bandana Cowl, but I don't think I have the right yarn in my stash (and I can't buy yarn until I have a job) so it will have to wait.

Sigh. At the moment, given my dwindling stash, I'll be knitting mostly socks for the next few months, but that's good. I like knitting socks. In fact, through the knitting of the Christmas gifts, my hands were missing sock knitting. So, sock patterns? The only knitting book I have with me in Cowichan Bay is Sock Innovation. I do also have the Internet at my disposal, so we'll see how many socks I can knit between now and when I leave.

time for some knitting

I haven't posted any knitting in a long time, and I have had a lot of time to knit. So here's what's been happening: 

Darcy Shawlette: test knit for knitpurlgurl

 My first finished object from Victorian Lace Today. Blocking on children's alphabet foam.

Eunice socks from Cookie A's Sock Innovation. Used Gaia's Colours yarn.

I really liked knitting these. They are a shorter sock so they knit up quickly. I *love* this colour and had so many compliments on it whenever I knit in public.

(Sorry for inconsistency with text & photos here, not having much luck with this). This is Wedge from Cookie A's Knit. Sock. Love. I used Yummy yarn. O boy this was crazy. This was my third or fourth Cookie A sock, and after having found that they were all knitting up on the large side, I decided to go down a needle size when I knit the first one. Months went by before I knit the second one, and I didn't consult my notes, so I knit them on the recommended needle. What resulted was one snug sock and one slightly big sock. But after 20-25 hours per sock, I am not reknitting. The yarn bled when blocked, so I needed to re-set the dye. 

Sigh. This is a sock I started in August 2010. Did I get frustrated with the pattern? Did I just lose my sock mojo? Or was I irritated at knitting socks on dpns for the first time? I don't know, but I finally got back to it. I have to. It's Malabrigo. And I really want to wear these socks. So in the past week I have knit the same heel twice because the pattern is stupid. (Brother Amos Hellfire Lace) I remember not liking the unusual toe construction, and I am less happy with the heel. I just finished turning this heel last night, will hopefully have smooth sailing to the end. And then I have to do the second sock. But I am turning all my UFOs into FOs, so this is good! I will wear these socks soon. 

 

My collection of hand-knit socks! And more have been added since this photo was taken. 

Sunshine from Cookie A's Sock Innovation. Gaia's Colour's yarn. None of the photographs I have taken of these socks seem to do it justice, the yarn is such a pretty colour in real life. Socks on the big side. Dye had to be re-set when blocking. But now I have purple socks!



Not pictured (only because I haven't taken pictures): a dog sweater for Roxy, Spiral Tweed Cloche (my second one), and a bun basket for my niece, who just started ballet last week and needs containment for her wild hair. The bun basket (bun holder? bun net?) is of my own design, and it was an experiment that worked out pretty well. I will try to replicate it & then write down the pattern, for those who are interested. It was fun & quick.

BMW socks

I just blogged about these socks on the 12Socks Blog project. Please have a look!

well now I _have_ to blog today

O gosh my dear readers, I'm so sorry I haven't posted in nearly two weeks. Really? Twelve days?

I actually started a post telling you all about my visit with my sister & her daughter. It was tremendous fun and I have lots of pictures. That will have to wait.

Something happened today that made my day. I was driving home from Tofino, listening to the KnitWits podcast, when I heard Rick mention some of the listeners "there are even people with names like yarnsalad..." I was delighted! That's the third podcast now that I have been mentioned on (the other two being Caithness Craft Collective and Cloudy with a Chance of Fiber). Imagine how silly I felt when I discovered that this podcast that I had been mentioned on was released on March 11th. As in over a month ago. Sorry Rick & Carin. I love your show! I'm just working my way through it is all.

What else can I tell you to tide you over until I can make a proper post.. We have had a few days of sun here in Ucluelet. We know this doesn't mean winter is over. Winter is not over until April 30th, according to the signs on either side of The Pass, which tell you you must have tire chains or winter tires between October 1st and April 30th. Seven months of winter. And sunny days, while good for one's mood, do not necessarily mean warm. I think our high today was 10 - and it's been hovering around 7 for the last few weeks, so 10 isn't much of an improvement. O well. Soon we will have spring.

Knitting-wise, I have not actually been knitting very much since the Sock Retreat. Really. I have finished a piece for a secret project, and am working on another piece for that same secret project, which I obviously can't tell you about yet. But that is really fun and I can't wait to see it all come together. Don't worry, I'll tell you all about it. All of my Cookie A socks are on hold. I have gone back to a pair of socks I started almost a year ago and I really must get them finished. I only recenlty figured out how to manage the intarsia bit (thanks to a friend's help) so once I get that section done, I think these socks will fly off the needles and will be given to their intended recipient. Then I'll be on a sock-finishing streak, I'm sure. I hope. Just in time for flip-flop season.

what a weekend!

Photos will have to wait until I have a bit more time and attention span. Suffice it to say, it was a full busy weekend with yarn and knitting and socks and Cookie A and learning how to design stuff. I now look at knit stitches in an entirely new way. Ellie fed us very well via Long Beach Lodge and we were really spoiled rotten. It was a great weekend and I made some great new friends. We are already talking about who we might get next year. Alana Dakos? Spilly Jane? (Those are my votes...)

Real People Read My Blog!

Some weeks ago I passed along the URL for this blog to someone I work with. Most people I know aren't blog readers so when I say "I have a blog!" I fully expect rolling eyes. But my coworker acknowledged having read it and said "do you write about everything?"

Um...

Well yes, yes I do. Some of it goes here. What I can't put here, either lives in my head or goes in my journal.

See, I love to write and I love to share stuff. I also happen to think I'm hilarious. Some things I would love to write about are simply not appropriate for a public audience. I would love to tell you about lots of the stuff that happens at work but I signed some confidentiality thingy and I live in a small town. But twenty years from now you can bet some of these stories will surface in short stories and novels.

But maybe he meant every topic. I mean, if I'm going to write about catheters, for crying out loud. there are no limits to the things I'll write about. Well, as you can see by the lengthy list over there --------> you can see there are many topics I can go on and on and on about. They always say "write what you know" and that's what I'm doing. I write about what I experience, what I think about, and sometimes I throw in stories.  I even write about my knitting on occasion.



OH speaking of knitting, I'm going to tonight's Knit Night in Tofino (yes, going to Tofino for the second time today), and will spend tomorrow and half of Sunday at Long Beach Lodge learning from the master, Cookie A, on designing.  So it's possible and even likely my next few posts will be about knitting.

turns out, I just need to eat more or, the embarrassment post

Well I am embarrassed.

I saw the doctor on my birthday. Went on about how I got sick and never felt like I recovered, still coughing, sore throat, etc., and oh yeah I've lost 24 pounds in the last three months. She looked at me. BINGO. (She didn't say that. Doctors don't know what bingo is.) She figures the reason my body wasn't letting me get better was because my body wasn't getting enough calories to recover. That certainly explains my high level of fatigue. She also pointed out that I'm probably cold all the time too (why yes!) So there it was, my doctor told me I should eat more cake on my birthday, and that I should slow down my weight loss program (from two pounds a week to a pound and a half or just a pound).

On that note, a couple of pounds ago I came down into the "normal" range of the BMI. That sure feels good. I have a growing stack of pants I can't wear anymore. I told a friend on Skype today that I'm shrinking out of my bras. We commiserated that the breasts are always the first to go when we lose weight. I also have more and more clothes I can fit into.

Here is something else that is a bit embarrassing. When I was doing laundry yesterday (I have energy to do laundry again!), I realized that I have five lime green tops. Five. I knew I liked this colour, and to be fair, two of them were gifts, but gosh it sure still seems like a lot.

LouiseJHunt LouiseJHunt LouiseJHunt LouiseJHunt LouiseJHunt LouiseJHunt LouiseJHunt LouiseJHunt

Yes, that was a total non sequitur, but LouiseJHunt seems to be mentioning me on every podcast (more embarrassment) so perhaps I should respond in kind by mentioning her in every blog post? Louise's podcast, by the way, is the Caithness Craft Collective Podcast out of northeast Scotland. It doesn't seem to matter what Louise talks about, I just like hearing her talk in the Caithness dialect. Thanks for the birthday wishes Louise! (btw, the word you were looking for was not 'humbleness' but humility, I think) (Okay I am listening to the Sneeze episode as I'm writing this post. Total multi-media junkie am I).

Tomorrow Dan & I will hit the road at 5am to reach French Creek for an 8am offload. Oh yeah, I still work at my fish counting job! There is a fairly large offload they need a hook-and-line validator for, and they need a second person to tag the halibut, so Dan and I will go. It's a long way but we'll be paid for our time and per kilometer (.43/km) as well as the time we are working. Working with My Sweety! A road trip! A trip into Town! Depending on how tired we are, I might be able to convince Dan to stop in at the Port Alberni Hops Festival on the way back (sorry, can't seem to find a website to link to).

Last bit of news: I am on sock #5 - I was shooting for seven before Cookie A comes next weekend but it was just too ambitious a goal. That's okay though, that means I'll have only five partners to knit after the retreat and that means I can move onto other projects. As ever, I have a long queue of things I want to knit!

Our weekend in Powell River in Pictures

 At the ferry terminal.

 Mildest climate in Canada! 2000 hours of sunshine! I'm in.

 I found it really interesting that the seashore on the west side of Vancouver Island smells very different from the east side. The east side is where I have spent most of my time on this Island, so being away from it this last year I hadn't realized that it is quite a different smell.

 I finished a sock on the ferry!

 Some Random Road.

 Sorry about the shadow of my arm across my plate. What you don't see here is the empty martini glass. One drink knocked me over and it was yummy! So this was pork medallions with currants in a balsamic reduction over rice, served with vegetables, with an overall Indonesian flavor. This was the Tree Frog Bistro. We'll definitely go back!

 We stayed in the suite that once belonged to the bank manager in the old Bank of Montreal Building. It must have been built in the 1930s with some of the original fixtures. I love these floors. It was a sunny morning, which doesn't always make for good photos.

 (Faux) old meets new.

 The view from the kitchen window.

 Blackberry Port '04, yo!

 This is where we slept. There was no heat in this suite, so we were glad we happened to bring two wool blankets and pillows with us. If we had known there was no heat, we would have brought the electric blanket!

 The suite takes up the entire top floor of this building.

 My Old Country breakfast at Starvin' Marvin's, a hole in the wall and seemingly the only breakfast place in town. It was delicious.

 Um... I could point this place out on a map but it has some unpronouncable name. We were just off exploring and found the best kept marina around.

 Best kept marina with extra-wide docks.

 O look! It's me.

 We were invited to this show but couldn't manage to stay awake long enough. (We are early risers, after all). It was an erotic art show. The band that played was Gods Balls. A full house with 300 people, it was quite the party we were told.

 Log jam.

I'm surprised I didn't take more photos, it seems like we packed an awful lot into that 36 hours. Lots of it was driving. Anyway, this here is 43 photos and that is really a lot!