First stop - LA

I arrived in LA Friday night. Since we were flying out of LA, it made the most sense to come a few days early and relax before my 14-hour flight to Hong Kong and then onto Hanoi.

I'm staying in Santa Monica and on Saturday I decided to head over to the 3rd Street Promenade for some breakfast and people watching. They had a bunch of tents out for their earth day festival and lots of folks were out and about. I then went and walked thru Palisades Park which is right on Ocean Ave. overlooking the beach.

While on 3rd street, I came across this person dressed up as a tree person. The picture doesn't really do it justice since he really was disturbing.

Saturday night, we drove out to Pasedena to go to The Dining Room, Michael Voltaggio's restaurant. For those that don't know, Michael Voltaggio was last season's winner of Top Chef. Let's just say that the dinner was fantastic. The presentation was spectacular, and the food was really, really good. After dinner, we went back into the kitchen and had a chance to meet Michael and thank him for a great meal. Really great guy. Very laid back. The couple we were with was from Manhatten Beach and he suggested we go to a new sushi place called Sashi and to tell the chef (Morimoto's suez chef) that he sent us. So, Debby and I are going tomorrow night before we head to the ariport.

Today, we met a friend of ours from the China trip for breakfast and then I walked down to the beach, rented a bike, a rode down the beach toward Venice. I took a few snapshots from my blackberry, but I think I had the settings wrong b/c the pictures seem kind of dark.

This was my favorite. I don't know if you can see it, but you've go the "Shul on the Beach" next to a store called Unruly. Love it. If only there were a medical marijuana place on the other side. There were tons of them along the beach in Venice.

More shots along the beach trail.

I don't know if you can see it in the picture above, but there's a guy on the left in white shorts that is hanging upside down. He actually climbed up that rope upside down. Crazy. Below is a view of the bike path from Palisades Park in Santa Monica.

The best is after my 10-mile ride, 5 miles of which were against the wind, I then had to walk up this to get back to my hotel. My legs were jelly just trying to get up there.

Tonight, I'm getting together for dinner w/ my cousin and then planning to chill out by the pool tomorrow. Maybe I'll even ride a bike again if I have time. Our flight doesn't leave until 11:50pm Monday night so we have another full day here. (I should have come in yesterday, but originally thought our flight was leaving today when I booked my flight)

On the road again . . .

I'm getting ready to leave this afternoon on my latest adventure - Vietnam and Cambodia. I leave this evening for LA for the weekend and then actually leave for SE Asia on Monday night. I'm headed over there again w/ Amazing Journeys and several of my friends from other trips. I really don't think the trip has fully set in yet, which would explain my avoidance of packing! I think I'm mostly done, but still have a few things to do.

The trip will take us to the main cities in Vietnam - Hanoi, Hoi An, Hue, Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) - as well as day trips to Halong Bay and the Mekong Delta. We'll then leave Vietnam and head to Siem Reap, Cambodia to spend a few days at Angkor Wat.

I've met many people in the past few months that have been to Vietnam and all have raved about it. For some of my world traveling friends, it's their favorite country!

I'm also looking forward to really breaking in my new camera. As you've seen in past posts, I've been having fun playing around w/ it and basically trying re-learn all the functions. I can't wait to see how the pictures turn out!

I should finish packing and shower now, since I leave for the airport in an hour and a half!

Figuring out how to post from Blackberry

This way I can add pictures and comments as I go on my trip.

Let's see if I can add pics to certain places in the post too.

Hmmm, doesn't look like it.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Patio

Ok, this is cool. I was able to send this picture via my blackberry, which means I'll be able to upload pictures while I'm in Vietnam and Cambodia. Cool.

Even though this was a test, here's a picture of my patio after I set up my grill this weekend. I can't wait to move my plants outside and get some more flowering plants, but I'll wait until I get back to do it.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Testing text msg

Snowpocalypse - 2nd round

The 2nd round of the storm came through last Wednesday and I spent the day cooped up inside knitting and catching up on past seasons of LOST. By the time Thursday came around and we had another snow day at work, I was going batty. I needed to get out of the house.

After shoveling and then shoveling some more, I threw on the layers and grabbed my camera to see what was going on in the neighborhood. After getting 28 inches over the weekend, and then another 17 inches only 4 days later, I had to get out and witness the city as it had never been seen before.


A motorcycle parked in front of a neighbor's house.


Tree by the Fairmount Waterworks along the Schuylkill River.


Fairmount Waterworks on the Schuylkill River.


Buried bench by Lloyd Hall in Fairmount Park.


Philadelphia's Boathouse Row.


Reflection of the Philadelphian on Kelly Drive.


Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Eakin's Oval and City Hall


Tubing down the Art Museum steps.


More fun on the Art Museum steps.

Do you see the snowboarders waiting for their turn? As I was walking home, I saw a few boarders locking up their snowboard to a bike rack outside Bishop's Collar. That's a first.


Buried park fence - Fairmount.


Buried cars.


Outside my window.


Outside my window.


One last shot from outside my window.

Road Block

Back in December, Black Bunny Fibers (Carol) had an open house at her home. She had lots of beautiful yarns on sale and of course, I indulged. One of my purchases was this beautiful Wenselydale wool in a colorway Carol called Spearmint Ice. I loved it and wouldn't put it down.





The pictures don't really do the color justice.

Earlier this month, I finally cast on this yarn to make Sarah Shepherd's Sage Remedy Top (ravelry link). The pattern has you start on the front first and I finished that in a little over a week. It came out great.



No problem, right? I start knitting the back side, which has the same feather and fan pattern on the back. Real pretty. Last night, I finished the feather and fan pattern and started increasing for the sleeves. I looked at my ball of yarn and panicked. I have a good 30+ rows to go, not including the edging, and I'm out of yarn

I even sent a message to Carol to see if by any chance she had anymore of the base yarn and could dye me up a little more. I knew there was a fat chance that was the case, but I knew I had to at least ask. Nope. She doesn't have anymore of the base.

Some suggestions on Ravelry have been to rip out the edging at the bottom and do another color there instead as well as for the edging. Another suggestion was to rip out the pattern on the front and do it in another color as well. I was hoping that I could just reknit it in a larger gauge and that could solve the problem.

Either way, I'm screwed and have to rip out. I'm bummed b/c I really liked the top and was excited to wear it. Now I have to decide if I want to knit it again, but in a different yarn, or if I want to try some of the modification ideas first. If I feel like trekking to Rosie's today in the snow, I may try it. Otherwise, I'll figure it out over the weekend.

So bummed. :(

WOW

I don't know what else to say. I have lived in many snowy places -- Vermont, Colorado, Massachusetts -- but never have I seen a snowstorm like this. In less than 24 hours we were pounded with 28.5, that's right TWENTY-EIGHT POINT FIVE, inches of snow. Better yet, to have a season that has TWO storms like this is crazy. And to top that off, the weather folks are calling for another storm in a couple of days!

Of course, I had to go and buy a house this past summer which has on-street parking. Gone are the comfy days of covered parking in a garage. When I moved to Philly, I gave away my awesome, extendable snow scraper since I didn't need to remove snow from my car. Those days are over. This was my car a few hours before the snow stopped falling.



Yes, those are my windshield wipers sticking up thru the snow. Would you like to see a close up?



This is what it looked like when I opened the door and thought about digging myself out. I think I waited a couple more hours to make sure the snow had stopped.



Instead, I thought I'd stand in the comfort of my warm home and get creative. Here are some picture of my mailbox (and street) and front door.



The snow was piling up on (and out of) the fence out back.




In between rounds of digging myself and my car out, I wandered around the neighborhood. Many streets had been "plowed" but there were still others that hadn't been touched. It was so calm and quiet out. I would have broken out my cross-country skis, but I had waited too long and the plows had already been thru.




Just like every storm, we woke up this morning to a beautiful clear blue sky. It was cold, but not too cold. I threw on my layers and headed outside to explore and walk on Kelly Drive. Kids were out in force sledding down the hill across from the Azalea Garden. I was surprised at how many runners were out. I remember my training days I having a bitch of a time not sliding in my running shoes. Very daring.

While I was out, I couldn't help but take a few more pictures. Snow and water are just too pretty together to not capture it. These pictures weren't taken w/ my new camera, but trusty point and shoot.

Oliviaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh

I finally finished my Olivia (rav link) cardigan that I started a year ago. I had started it, got distracted (as I always do) and finally remember this past December to pick it back up. I pretty much kept w/ the directions until the sleeves. They were supposed to be more of a blousson style and I really didn't need the extra fabric.



So, I did my first major pattern modification and changed the sleeves. Every time the pattern called for a decrease on each end, I increased on each end. I took the end number of stitches for the base of the armhole and subtracted the number of increased stitches to get my cast on at the cuff. I cast on for the cuff at the beginning (which was to be added at the end) and did a matching seed stitch pattern w/ the border. I knit the cuff the same length as the cuff in the pattern and then switched to stockinette. It ended up being a very nice, tailored sleeve! I really didn't know if it was going to work since I didn't measure a thing and I am terrible at math modification and reading patterns. I don't have a great picture of the sleeve, but you can see how the cuff and bottom of the sleeve look in the picture below.



And did you notice the pocket???? That's right, the sweater has POCKETS. I've never done them before and was a little perplexed at the beginning, but once Jenna demonstrated it for me at Rosie's, I was set. They are so cute.

The pattern is from Kim Hargraeves' book, Thrown Together. It was a total impulse buy and I had to start the cardigan immediately. Of course, we now know what happened to that motivation. The sweater is knit in Rowan Felted Tweed in the treacle colorway.

I had a hard time picking out the buttons and went w/ the toggles. They do look great on the sweater, but after a day of wear, I don't think they were the right choice. I don't know how to describe it. In still life, however, they look great!



Thanks so much to Andrea for taking these pictures of me Wednesday night. My batteries died and there she was w/ her most awesome camera. We had fun trying to strike the right pose.

Photo Phun on the Eastern Shore

This week I had to drive down to Norfolk, VA for a hearing. My colleague was kind enough to do most of the driving so I could nurse a migraine I had that morning, relax, and catch up on some knitting. At the last minute, I decided to bring my camera down but wasn't sure if we'd have time to stop and take some pictures. Aside from that, we also left later than I had expected so we weren't going to reach the Bay Bridge/Tunnel until dark.

It wasn't until sunset that I had the urge to start taking pictures. We were in Virginia at this point, maybe 45 minutes north of the Bay Bridge/Tunnel. There were some really cool cloud formations on Tuesday that made the sunset very unique. I didn't want to make my colleague stop every 100 feet or so, so I just started taking photos from inside the car.



Of course, b/c we were driving, I couldn't really control what made it into the picture or not, but this house and tree ended up working out really well for some depth of field.



It's like it's spiraling out from the center. A pinwheel maybe? Plus, I love the layers of color from the layers of clouds.



I then put my camera away and we continued to drive. Just before the Bay Bridge/Tunnel, the colors in the sky changed. We were getting to the most narrow part of the Delmarva Peninsula and you could start to see the still waters of the Chesapeake Bay reflecting the sky.

I wish I had taken my camera out about 5 minutes earlier. We passed a white house set back from the road that was right on the water. The water was still and reflected back the most wonderful colors. It would have been a great picture, but I didn't want to be a pain and ask my colleague to stop the car so I could get out. It's one thing for me to do it either alone or at least if I'm driving, but w/ someone else driving, it was tough. So, after that shot, I had to take my camera back out.

Like I said, I didn't want to ask my colleague to stop the car, so the next shots were taken in obviously low light as we were moving and just about on the bridge. The blur of the pictures and the color of the sky almost make the shots look like they are painted watercolors and not photographs.







Not even a mile or two after the above pictures were taken, the light from the sun was gone. These are some pictures at the beginning of the Bay Bridge/Tunnel. They are dark and I don't think they do much, but I was trying out some composition stuff so you are now stuck looking at it too.