Sock-pic-free blog

The socks have slowed a bit, due to the holidays and the fact that my anxiety over the other things I'm neglecting has picked up. I DID finish the sunset-coloured mate to the sock in the last post, and having re-started Adam's next sock AGAIN - I'm now almost done the leg and am trying to find a set of GOOD (as in, comprehensible to me) instructions for an alternate heel.

I've finished one of the two overdue baby quilts, which ended up being an Xmas present for the now 8-months-old neice. The one for my friends now-6-month-old preemie is still frustrating me. I think I chose the wrong mix of fabrics and thread, as I can't seem to get the free-motioning really going - thread keeps breaking despite all the tuning I'm trying to do.

I'm a month past my start date for my AthabascaU correspondence course, and while I've done some reading and the mandatory "say hello on the class chat room" post, that's about it. I printed the exercise sheet for unit 1, I suppose.

Neither my "day" job nor the gym job (occasional aerobics instructor, if you didn't know that)takes a holiday break, so I've been at both of those so far today.

I'd really rather be knitting.

Blog sock at sunset

Here is sock #5. It's mate, #6, as well as #7, are on the needles now, though #7 is giving me no end of trouble getting started and I keep re-starting it.

Things I have learned so far, as a sock newbie:
1. "Cast on Loosely" is very important. Use needles a size or two larger than called for to cast on, or you'll have a perfectly fit sock with an opening too tight for a foot to go through.
2. Rib tightly. Use needles a size or two SMALLER than the pattern to k1, p1 rib stitch the cuff. Unless you want a slouchy sock, which is not always a good thing.
3. If I drop a stitch in the first 3 rows of ribbing, it's not worth the tangling and eyestrain to try and fix it - start over. It seems after the first three rows, me and my crochet hook can usually sort it out.
3. a) A crochet hook or two are vital to knitting - picking up stitches is much easier with them.

Things I still need to figure out:
1. A better heel than the one in the pattern I have. Don't like the flap-and-turn one, it's hard to pick up the right number of stitches exactly evenly or turn with completely neat stitches.

2. How to make a Kitchener graft not look lumpy.

3. Lots more pattern stitch variations.

In non-sock news of late, I'm at the end of my second day off sick. Or, almost two full days - I made it to work yesterday but was on a fast downhill slide so came home mid-morning. Today, I had to teach at the gym in the morning, but came home and took my aches and slight fever back to bed. I'm up again with a mug of neo citran about to go out to an appointment I had (long booked, before I got sick) but after a bout of sweats and chills after taking an Advil, the fever seems down. I'll see how I feel in an hour as to whether or not I go to Yoga.

Blog Sock: The Blues

Well, here we are on pair number 2. These will be Adam's once I'm done. The first one is a near fit - he thinks it is a tiny bit short in the foot. So I'm torn. Do I make the second one a half-inch longer, which offends my sense of symmetry, or keep it the same length and have his toes wear through both of them? Decisions, decisions....

Blog Sock the Finale: My First Socks

So I've learned a bit - namely that I need to learn more, but I have a wearable, if not svelte, pair of socks. The ribbing at the top is useless - waaaay too loose, makes it look like they have scalloped edges instead of cuffs. I suppose I could pretend I meant to do that, but that's kinda silly on a brown-and-blue striped boot sock kind of thing.

I've got the cuff on my next pair started and it's going much better already. They're a blue tiger-stripey pattern and will be for the Spousal Unit.

Blog Sock II: The Left Foot

Yay! I made this.

Now the trick is getting the one for the other foot to match. More to follow....

High Irony in the IT world....

OK, so... I live my daily life based on a PDA. My cel phone knows who my friends are (and even tries to phone all by itself - sorry Sissy if I woke you up). My work environment includes integrated email and calendaring to plan all of my daily tasks down to the minute, and what my company DOES is all about digital knowledge, planning, scheduling and integration.

So today, coincident with very important European diplomats being let loose in our building, the management swag fairies came bouncing by with goodies for everyone.

A very nicely produced 2007 day planner. Yep. The dead tree variety.

This is one of those moments where I look around for the hidden camera.

Blog Sock...

So, long time no blog again.

Had a whirlwind week. Last week - er, about this time - we got word that the spousal euphemism's remaining grandparent, Bubbi, had begun a hunger strike, and decided she was done with it all, somewhere past 92 years of age. She passed away on Tuesday evening, with children and grandchildren at her side or nearby.

This has taken it's toll this week, on some folks near and dear and many more who are more distant to me. Not really my place to discuss what pertains to most of those others, but safe to say it's one of those occasions that, no matter how close or not to the actual deceased, gives you cause to see some interesting human interactions. Also safe to say, no matter what your involvement, it's kinda draining.

So, after being off work Thursday, with notice, and Friday, on less notice, I've spent Saturday dealing with a car stereo installation that took about 4 hours instead of one, and part of today catching up on work I didn't do Thursday and Friday.

In between the chores, I've gotten myself to the top of the heel on the very first sock I've ever knit.

For some reason, after buying my latest favourite sweater - twice, in case I wear out the first one - this fall, I decided I wanted to learn to knit again. The motivation for that was being able to reproduce this cool sweater, in a colour I like better, whenever I get around to wearing it (them) out. But I'm not there yet.

So following that, for no reason that I can particularly recall, I decided I wanted to knit socks. Now, I never WAS that skilled a knitter. Stockinette and garter stitch with no embellishments whatsoever were the limit of what I'd ever learned. And I gave up when I realized I really don't like sweaters much, and afghans less. BUT thinketh me, I like socks. I'm constantly buying weird socks and constantly annoyed at how fast they wear out. So, thinketh me, I shall knit socks.

Well, in favour of the idea, a nice sock can be knit with only my two favourite stitches, knit and purl. Generally. NOT in its favour, the idea involves learning to knit "in the round", and small at that. It's generally done using 4 to 5 thin, short little double-pointed needles.

This is a bit more challenging than just two sticks. Imagine trying to tie 100 shoes while holding a hedgehog in both hands. It's not exactly the same because a ball of sock yarn won't pee on you if it's upset, but close.

Anyway, after starting and pulling out my cast-on rows about 10 times and consequently wrecking the first couple metres of a ball of self-patterning sock yarn, the spousal euphemism's mom got me re-started on Friday and we are rolling. I've gotten the knack of keeping my hands working with all the little pokey bits sticking out at all angles rather than sticking in to me. For some reason my ribbing, which should be the tighter part at the top of the sock, is looser than the rest, and I've magically acquired 3 extra stitches by the time I got to the ankle, but I have a tube of yarn and the beginnings of a heel flap.

So, in addition to half a dozen unfinished quilting projects, and I now have the more ambulatory (think portable to boring business meetings, where a sewing machine is not) artsy complement to my textile addiction.

Looking for a 12-step program next... (hello... my name is Johanna and I'm a knitter.. er, quilter... er, knitter...).

Slightly disappointed though generally at peace...

I love this time of year. I like cooler weather, and I like cozy clothes, I even like rain, actually. I like when open windows bring cool, fresh, leafy fall air in but don't freeze the place.

I'm slightly disappointed that I picked up the pager for a sick colleague this weekend. Pager is a mixed blessing. Every time it beeps, I get at least an hour's bonus pay. But, I've just missed a hayride and a corn maze run - it's been beeping through some afternoon birthday plans I would have attended had it been quieter.

But the generally at peace part is overriding the "bummer, no hayride" reaction. In between beeps, I'm puttering around the office cleaning up, and Freecycling stuff. Re-ordering my space when it gets out of hand is kind of a zen exercise, it lowers my stress level immensely (I should do it at work).

I'm talking to a dozing, purring cat, who has just claimed her new "spot" in my re-ordered office. Also good for stress level.

And, since Adam did go to the birthday hay ride, I smoked up the windowsill with a pinch of incense (sorry honey - should be gone by the time you're home). I love my tiny cauldron and real, loose incense - though today's was a bit of an experiment. It was a blend called "Geminii" that I of course had to have a small sample of. Un-burned, it smells like a lovely potpourri, or maybe a seasoning blend - it has lavender and fennel in it, and I think also coriander and a bit of basil. It smells totally different when smoking, though. Oh well. This is why I buy "sample" sizes.

So, now that the beeping HAS wrapped up (for the moment) I'll finish my little tidying-project and maybe go take a walk before joining the birthday party for dinner. You go do the same! Or at least, open a window really wide and take a few deep breaths of Autumn.

Mind the Gap - Aaargh!!!

So, if you know enough to read my blog, you probably know I'm an ersatz aerobics instructor. You may not know that for a year or so now, I've been using an iPod to play my workout music at class, rather than drag around 20 very expensive CDs.

There's a minor problem with this - yes, it really is minor - that's gotten my back up now thanks to some merciless teasing from Apple. You see, an Aerobics CD is mixed to have each song blend seamlessly into the next, with no pauses and exact 32-count phrasing. The minor problem is that if you just digitize the CDs, iTunes (or probably any other software), can't help but put a small gap in each track. This RUINS aerobics music. I'm not kidding. Toss a little hitch into otherwise evenly phrased music, and an entire class of spandex-clad workout maniacs will fall like dominoes. It ain't pretty.

So the solution, which has been satisfying until two days ago, is to rip the entire CD as one long track. That works fine, as long as your CD is exactly as long as your class. This option keeps music seamless, and the limit is just that you can't jump to the next track, go back, skip one, or re-order the tracks. I've been OK with this so far and I've actually gotten pretty good at fast forwarding the exact right amount of seconds if I need to.

So what happened two days ago? Apple Inc's advertising machine ran up, bit me on the ass, and ran away giggling, knowing I had been infected. How? Well, when I loaded iTunes to get my latest podcast episodes, iTunes offered to update itself to the latest new version.

The new version featuring GAPLESS PLAYBACK. Yes, that shiny white one-mouse-button-only interface informed me that the latest step in iEvolution had happened. I could now play my continuous CDs continuously, without sacrificing my track-by-track control!!!!

Well, this seemed to good to be true, but I tried it. I re-ripped one of my workout CDs and gave it a try - YES!!!! iTunes does indeed play the CD with the lovely smooth mixed-in transitions between tracks. No one-extra-beat in the last phrase. (No lawsuits agains aerobics instructors for injuring a whole class).

A few hours later I had most of my Aerobics CDs re-encoded.

Then the bomb dropped. When I moved them to the iPOD, as opposed to iTunes, the GAPS are BACK. Oh, yes... "the gap came back, the very next day, yes the gap came back.....".

It turns out, iTunes, being the "first one's free" gateway product to the ever-addictive iPod, gets new features but they can only be used with the NEW iPod. Er, that would be the NEWEST new iPod, the one Apple released 2 days ago. It's kind of an iPod 5G-and-a-half. iPod video with bigger battery, brightness control, and GAPLESS PLAYBACK.

I only have an iPod photo (4G). Now, it does a great job. It does the same great job it did 3 days ago, and I still have 45 of its 60 GB capacity free. But just like you feel disappointed when the option package for your new car gets 3 improvements the month after you bought it - well, there ya are. Now that I know the holy grail of digitized aerobics music CAN be had, I am both covetous of the new innovation, and quite resentful because really, Apple should be able to release an update for the older iPod to do this.

If I ever meet Steve Jobs, I may hug him but I'll kick him in the shins, too. Just not sure what I'll do first.

Me, Dr. Who, and Arthur Dent...

What do the three people in the title have in common?

Well, OK, YOU may have thought of something weirder, but what I was going for was the not-infrequent cravings for a lovely cup of tea. I've been a tea-fancier in general since I was kid, starting my coffee habit much later.

Lately, I've been aided and abetted shamelessly in feeding my tea addiction by the most adorable little shop down the block from me, Distinctly Tea. Their URL is http://www.distinctlytea.com, share it around, I want their upcoming online launch to succeed so I can get more cool tea stuff close to home.

Distinctly Tea carries several hundred varieties of teas, all of which can be purchased loose in varying quantities. They can stock you up on all kinds of tea brewing paraphernalia, and the staff are walking encyclopediae of tea lore.

In the past year or so I've learned:

That you should never boil water for green, white, or oolong teas - use hot water but below the boil (80-90 degrees C).

That one of my favourite teas, Lapsang Souchong, comes from ONE mountain in China.

"Chai" means "tea" in Hindi and other middle-eastern languages. "Masala Chai" is the proper term for the spiced teas marketed as "chai" in North America

Rooibos is not a tea, per se - it is its own thing, the leaf of a bush from South Africa (as "tea" is the leaf of a bush from the orient).

Longer brewing is not the right way to make stronger tea. Use more tea, infuse for a short time.

That tea in a tea bag from a store shelf is almost intolerably poor quality.

Yes, that's it - I'll admit it, I'm now a tea snob, and I'd probably give the Doctor or Arthur Dent a good run in brewing the perfect cup nowadays.

Check out Distinctly Tea, though. If you'd like any, let me know.

A little bit of "glad"ness in the rain...

I did something yesterday that I used to do frequently in Guelph (when I lived across the road from the Farmer's Market there) but don't have as much opportunity for here.

I bought myself flowers. Gladiolas, to be specific.

I love gladiolas. I have thought they were the brightest, happiest flowers ever, even when I didn't know WHAT they were. For the longest time I couldn't find them, then in Guelph, there was a vendor who always had truckloads of them, mid-July to mid-September. When I could spare the $5, I'd buy a dozen a week, and they'd usually last for two, so I'd rotate them all summer.

I had no idea where I'd picked up this affinity for these flowering bulbs, until a few years ago, a couple years after my grandmother died. I was visiting the ole' family cottage and noted that my aunt who is now its custodian always had them on the table. "They were your grandmother's favourite", she told me. They were often planted around the cottage. Without ever having taken note of that memory consciously, I realized that was where I had often seen them. Childhood summer weekends at Grandma and Grandpa's summer place. Even though many of those days have now faded from memory, I can't help but feel sunshine and a fresh breeze off Lake Erie when there's a bucket of Gladiolas around.

Happy day, yesterday, when I wandered up to St. Jacobs Market, crowded despite the rain, even before 10 am. I picked up some cheese and nice bread, blackberries and a coffee, and on the way out passed a soggy flower vendor's tent - with the gladiolas in those plastic buckets, tucked in the back, $6/dozen.

I don't care if it's rained all weekend, the plumbing in the building is shut down, and we can't wash or cook. I've got two vases full of the happiest flowers ever.

Pluto no more!

My daily dose of learning in recent months has come from Wikipedia, an ersatz attempt to document the entirety of human knowledge and evolve the WWW into some crazy hive-minded meta-brain. It's my off-site storage for all my Trivial Pursuit answers. I love it.

For the last week or so I've been eagerly awaiting the outcome of the proposed redefinition of what comprises a "planet" in the astronomical sense.

I must admit I am quite disappointed with the result. Perhaps this is illogical, out of a need to cling to what "facts" I "know" about the universe, or a gut-level emotional reaction that we have somehow shut some new friends out in the cold. But having it confirmed that Pluto is no longer considered a true planet is giving me an odd pang of grief.

Pluto is still out there, and I'm sure its fans and many researchers will find their admiration and their work undiminished. But I must admit, I am one of the faction who was cheering for the INclusion of not only Pluto but the three to twelve additional far-out objects which might have been defined to be new "planets" in our eccentric rotational system. Somehow the result of having the family reduced to an official Eight is even worse than the more harmonious status-quo of Nine, and an immense letdown when I thought I'd have an even dozen. I'd already memorized all the names and re-framed my recitation of their order, progressing outward from the Sun! Alas, where's the challenge in now having to forget one of the names I've known by memory since I was a wee thing reading Owl magazine and watching "astronomy for tots" on PBS?

Go hit Wikipedia, or even Google, if you want the details and exact reasoning for the decision. Me, I'm off to raise an icy cold, deep, dark drink in toast to Pluto's continuing, plodding, eccentric orbit out there in the icy cold, deep, dark reaches of of our neighborhood of the galaxy.

Reverse, for Dummies

Well, the first day of my 9th year without a pancreas did not start well.

So, it's no secret that I am not firing on all cylinders first thing in the morning. And I'm worse when my sleep has been disturbed, which it has been several nights recently.

Today, unfortunately, my poor little car wound up suffering for it, and Adam and I consequently had an Amazing-race like chase around town to a body shop first thing today. And all because I was off by probably less than a centimeter.

Yep - bumped the garage door frame trying to back out of the garage. Turned the car just a smidge too soon (I was trying to do the car-shuffle manoeuver and was looking behind me at where I'd parked Adam's car). It wasn't even enough of a bump that I really felt the bump. What I FELT was the bumper cover popping bouncily off the front of my car as I nicked it right at the corner on the weatherstripping of the garage door.

The damage seems like it should be inconsequential. The tiniest of paint chips on the edge of the body panel, and the only breakage of the bumper were two of the loops that hold it to the frame. BUT - car bumpers are a single molded piece of plastic. So, you can't "repair" the clips. Rather, the body shop said they COULD, but the labour to do so would far outstrip the cost of replacing the bumper cover. Add to that, the paint chip, also tiny, nonetheless took the paint off down below the primer and the shop says that means the panel should be repainted or it will corrode - surface touch up would only be a temporary fix.

So began my Wednesday. That was a pretty expensive trip to my first cup of coffee. Bleah.

Pancreas? We don't need no steeenkin' pancreas!

I believe, if I check blog archives, I had a post this day last year. But, I never read my old journals, I bore me.

I am quietly celebrating my 8th "I'm not dead" day today, as follows:

1. One eye exam, passed with flying colours but with a prudent warning about how quickly diabetic retinas go awry with poor glucose control.
2. Some slightly deliberate but mostly impulsive shopping: I got the bottom half of an outfit to wear to the next wedding I must attend, a stunning, flouncy metallic copper skirt (any suggestions for what to look for in a top are welcome). While I was in the market for the wedding outfit, the funky sweater from France was just something I fell over and HAD to have, and the little-black-dress-that-crumples-for-travel was a long-sought lucky find and on sale, so that came home too.
3. My hybrid Macadamia Rooibos and Yogi Chai Spice infusion, in my little spherical steel teapot that makes me happy.
4. An unfortunate bit of on-call work to start in a couple of hours, but for which I will bill my time (and hopefully thereby fund the impulse shopping).

Happy Not-Dead Day! Yay!

Public Service Announcement from Snopes.com

Most folks know I generally resist passing on those "danger in your everyday environment" emails and do my best to debunk alot of them. Snopes.com is one of my favourite web sites, run by determined volunteer "mythbusters" who work hard to reassure us that floor mops do not kill dogs and there is no psychotic perfume salesman actually macing women at the shopping mall.

Snopes current list, however, includes a CONFIRMATION of a recently circulated email warning of the danger of household paper shredders. There are numerous, valid reports of children and pets being maimed, and in the case of pets, killed, as a result of these very common home office tools.

The article is here at Snopes. WARNING!!! The reports are graphic, and disturbing. You don't need to read it if you're feeling overly sensitive, here's the key point:

TURN OFF, DISCONNECT, UNPLUG, OR REMOVE THE BATTERIES from household paper shredders unless you, an ADULT person, are directly making use of such a tool. NEVER leave a paper shredder set in an "auto" mode, which causes it to turn on if something contacts the blades. NEVER leave a paper shredder unattended anywhere a child or pet might possibly gain access to it.

These are common and useful tools in any home office - but because they were designed with office/industrial environments in mind, they have no safety features aimed at preventing small fingers or curious snouts from getting to the blades.

Finally Furnishing!

Well, it's going to be 6-8 weeks to deliver, but Adam and I finally dove in and committed to the sofa! We spent most of an afternoon at Schreiter's in Kitchener, a mid-range to deluxe, contemporary furniture showplace. It's not a bargain shop, but the lines they carry are extensive, and both the service and the free cookies are top-notch. We had a very friendly and accomodating salesperson who spent a couple hours touring us through all 3 floors to flop-test every sectional they carry.

I'm guessing we made the day worth his time. It sure as heck wasn't the cheapest sofa on the market - and it's a multi-piece sectional - but it could have been worse. Let's just leave it at it's a good thing we can spread the total cost over a couple of months' credit card bills before it goes onto the mortgage/credit account.

It's an all-wood-frame, handmade-in-Canada, Stylus custom sectional sofa. Look at the Lyric model on the site - ours is actually the Chorus, which they don't have on-line, but the form factor is almost identical to the Lyric. The Chorus has topstitching on all seams rather than piping, so it's the tiniest bit smoother in its lines.

The slightly muted blue Ultrasuade we chose is a bit more intense a colour than I had imagined, but is still pretty easy to get along with. I'm going through an "avoid beige at all costs" phase, but I didn't want a piece as big as a sofa being the furniture drama queen of the house. I'm still hoping for an eventual raspberry-red accent chair to do that and will be otherwise content with muted non-browns, I think.

Adam was an absolute dear today spending a whole afternoon on the kind of shopping he hates, so I am going to do my best to keep a lid on the mania of design ideas running through my head when it comes to our loft for a couple of months. Practically speaking, this is the only BIG purchase for this year anyway. I'm hoping a couple hundred $$ here-and-there will add accent tables and lighting and such, or maybe I'll get to paint my office, but we'll be harboring my old futon armchair and the $25 IKEA cube ottoman for a little while, I guess. I'm pondering asking Schreiters if they can get Stylus to send me a couple extra metres of the upholstery so I can slipcover an existing thing or two to match.

Back home. Ugh...

Back home, 3 days into penicillin for the strep throat that began flaring as we travelled on Thursday (hence the lack of posting). I felt it hit, so got to the doc for the antibiotics right away Friday and STILL spent 2 days in bed with a 39 degree fever. Now that the outside temperature is about that high, I can't tell the difference between me and not me and I think I'm diffusing. At least I'm dizzy.

Always good to keep me distracted, my buddy Steve's alter-ego cat blog made me spit-take. Check out the post entitled "Some of my Retarded Cousins" by Puddy.

One last day by The Bay

Wednesday was our last full day, as we fly out mid-afternoon tomorrow. Today we decided to stay in the city, but I wanted to get to The Other Side and make sure I could at least claim that I'd dipped my toes in the Pacific (as technically, when I was in Vancouver, I only got to the strait).

I've often heard it said if you want to see the real city, ride a bus. Yep. Sadly, very true. We took the Muni out to the Great Highway and saw a few sad (but harmless) examples of real life here. Like the ever-present homeless panhandling, it does dampen the glamour some and make you think. In contrast, we were shortly out to Cliff House, another glitzy and somewhat tacky tourist destination, albeit one where the food is quite good. One of my intentions was to see the Giant Camera, a large, room-sized camera obscura that, when operating, reflects a rotating panorama of the coast. Sadly, we had to take a miss on that. The gift shop proprietors described that as a separate concession, and one whose operator "keeps his own schedule" which seems to be a mystery to anyone else. Ah, well. Brunch was quite good and Cliff House serves the table not with bread, but with fresh, warm popovers. Our waitress was quite generous when I asked for more. Adam quite enjoyed the french toast, and I had what must be a California creation - crab and avocado omelette. Yummy.

After brunch we wandered the beach, I DID get my toes, and my Crocs, into the Pacific and managed to avoid getting stuck with the floating jellyfish remains littering the surf. A good few miles of urban hiking took us to, and through, Golden Gate Park to the DeYoung museum. This was one of my citypass destinations, one which I might have passed up except for the current exhibit of the Quilts of Gee's Bend. As a quilter, this is a really neat exhibit. The quilts are very true to the nature of quilting - made out of desperate necessity - but also a testament to a human craving for art. Many of these quilters may never have seen a painting, much less a gallery in their lives, and grew up in newspaper-lined shacks on river mudflats in rural Alabama. Their quilts, rustic and 'unschooled' though they appear, have some fantastic appeal.

We only took a brief look at the rest of the gallery, as it was getting a bit annoying that Adam was constantly told to carry his camera pack in hand rather than on his shoulder or back, and it was a bit of a drag. We left from there, skipped the tea garden which appeared crowded beyond my comfort and charged an admission - it wasn't clear if that included tea or not. From there, a hike to the south edge of the park got us on another Muni ride to the Exploratorium. This is a hands-on arts-meets-science centre, again very kid-focused and rather kid-full today, though much of the exhibits were still fascinating for geeks like us. We sadly had less than an hour, but because it was my last CityPass destination, Adam joined me and we made the best of what we could. While many of the exhibits were things we found familiar, in principle, they were very nicely executed and installed.

After a ride home to freshen up, we took the recommendation of both a tour book and the hotel concierge and walked to Sam's Grill for dinner. As a last dinner in the city - this was a darned good choice. We found it because I took Adam at his word when he said steak would be nice and went looking for steak. Turns out there are very few "steak house" restaurants in San Francisco, but many "seafood grill" places include a piece of beef or two on their menu. This one did it justice. Adam's New York Strip was at least 1.5" thick and perfectly done, and my shellfish sautee was the best I can recall having. The waiters only added to the meal. All dressed in slightly shabby tuxes, they seemed to be the sort of world-weary men who were not gangsters. They were the sort of men who were head butlers in a gangster's household, who maybe "took care of" a thing or two for the boss if needed. And judging by the food, the chef was obviously used to cooking for "the family" too. As Adam put it, it's the kind of place where the food had to be good or someone was gettin' hurt. Luckily no one had to get hurt.

So, here we are back at the Triton, packing up and trying to cool off the rest of yesterday's sunburn. I expect the next entry will be back in Waterloo, as we'll be on the run most of tomorrow.

Tuesday around the Bay, and over the Bridge

It was actually around noon Tuesday before we got to the bike rental depot. Out of interest in trying something new, we rented a tandem hybrid bike. It is something worth trying, but perhaps San Francisco was not the place for an experiment. If there's ever a next time, I think I prefer to be solely controlling the vehicle I'm powering. Adam had the front as I figured his frustration if not steering would be more severe than mine. It was a little disorienting as I couldn't see what was in front and we had to learn to call out moves to each other. You have to peddle in sync or both coast, there's no disengage between the front and back.

We took an easy meander along the waterfront part of the trail, and detoured a bit at the marina to see the Wave Organ, an art installation now built into the shoreline. Pipes extending into the Bay play "music" as the waves and tide roll in and out. The pier it is built into is constructed of material recovered from the cemeteries that were removed from the city years ago. There are no graves in San Francisco, and out on that lonely point one could fancy that the souls of those dug up might be haunting the rubble of their monuments along with the lonely breezes and seashore noise.

From there we decided we should get a move on if we were to get over the bridge much less around any part of the Bay perimeter. In the end, we didn't get too far. The ride over the Bridge was quite taxing on the strange and unfamiliar wheels, dodging pedestrians and motoring through the high winds almost 300 feet over the water. The views over the bay were spectacular, though. We made it over, me with what turned out to be a 2nd degree sunburn as the helmet didn't shade as much of my neck as my hat did, and my scant base tan was not up to it. At the end of the vertigo-inducing span, we concluded that we weren't going to get too much farther than Sausalito, but at least it was all downhill from there. We stopped at the Gaylord India restaurant and had an exceptional Tandoori lunch in an open dining room overlooking the Bay, and then walked the bike the rest of the way into town. Sausalito was a little bit slower paced than The City, though still quite busy by mid-afternoon.

Meandering up and down the main strip was a strange contrast of art galleries priced beyond reach and tourist kitsch of the sort that just gets re-printed with a different city name in every port. Other than some fun salt-water taffy we picked up as I'd finished the rest of my emergency sugar rations, we were empty-handed (except for the bike) waiting for our ferry back. The ferry ride was fun. Mainly because I didn't have to pedal it, but the views of Sausalito and Tiburon climbing their mountains, the Golden Gate, and the Bay Bridge were really fun as the fog rolled in. We wound up back at the Ferry port, having missed getting on the over-crowded earlier ferry that went back to Fisherman's Wharf. So we finished the day with an extra 20 minutes of riding to get the bike back to a drop-off. One more long hike home was interruped by a stop at Walgreens for Solarcaine. We got home just at the end of the hotel Cookie Hour, and Adam was just ready to crash so I took myself out for a quick, light dinner, and then did the same.

"Anything else you get is a priviledge"

Prisoner rule #5 at Alcatraz Island read something like "You are entitled to food. clothing, shelter, and medical care. Anything else you get is a priviledge".

Yesterday began with my aforementioned summer haircut, and then a meander down to Fisherman's Wharf (including a few pretty steep inclines!) to take in some of the more touristy sites on what we hoped (hah!) would be a less touristy day. Well, it could have been worse. We went to the Aquarium of the Bay, which though it cannot hold a candle to the Monterey facility, has the very fun feature of acrylic tunnels through the bottoms of the 700,000+ gallon tanks. Not too often you see the bottom-side of a fish swimming overhead.

I think we were both a little kidded-out by the time we got out though, between other families that seemed to have 6 of them and a summer camp tour of 50 or so. In an abstract sense, I want places like that to be filled with curious children discovering the ecosystems of our planet. Personally I just wish all kids were like the smaller Hu two - quiet, polite and articulate while being immensely curious, social little people. I've seen way too many ill-behaved pre-adolescents screaming, slamming off walls, or people, and sitting or walking on the explanatory placards this week. Its a sad reality that much of the art and science of such facilities is wasted on the majority of visitors.

At the end of the aquarium walk we encountered a touch pool where I got to touch a few rays and skates and starfish (they had that at Monterey but I missed much of it). One ray was determined to escape the small rock pool and was actually "flapping" up the wall in front of me. I really couldn't figure if that was a normal behaviour that it might attempt to flop overland if "trapped", or if that was a stressed-out animal exhibiting something neurotic. Sadly, the teenagers managing the area were just trying to keep up with the hordes of kids and some simlilarly ignorant adults and couldn't really attend to the animals.

We had a leisurely and for me tipsy late lunch/early dinner at a mercifully quiet Pier 39 restaurant (had a coupon for a free bottle of wine) and then meandered our way to the boarding pass lineup for the night cruise to Alcatraz.

Alcatraz was stark, beautiful, sad, eerie, noisy, smelly, spooky and fascinating all at once. There was so much more history there in addition to what most of the public knows of a few high-profile inmates. It operated for a relatively brief time as a notorious prison, but the history of human settlement goes back to the 1850's and is still evolving in a strange and unique way today.

We got to go through the cellhouse audio tour, narrated by guards and inmates, telling stories of the 29 years of the federal prison. It was a little disappointing that much of the island is closed off this time of year, but that is due to the bird rookeries now present through much of the place. It may need to be renamed Seagull Island, as the Western Gulls obviously own it now!

I picked up a couple of souvenier "Rocks from the Rock" - excavation rubble from the restoration effort being sold to tourists. I acknowledge I've fallen for a gimmick, but the background of this one is in keeping with things I support. Selling the rubble funds the archaeology and restoration effort, prevents tourists from trying to chip off a piece for themselves, AND has the neat side effect of removing a disposal problem the parks service might have. Traditionally rubble and garbage was just tossed in the Bay, but that is obviously no longer acceptable.

We were there at twilight and had the eerie experience of being in and around the cellhouse as the fog blew in. Seeing it billowing through doors and openings, one can half imagine how hopeless a place this must have been for inmates. At the top of the island outside the cell house, we were walled in by the fog. It creates a strange vertigo, you can see no horizon, no clear line between sea and air, nothing. In contrast, historic reports say the families and children who lived here (families of guards and wardens) found it an idyllic little enclave. Gardens were abundant and today, 60+ years since being abandoned to grow wild, tons of exotic species are flourishing among ruins and birds.

Our cruise home was short and uneventful, and another hearty hike got us back to the Triton. Today we're off to bike across the Golden Gate and see what we can see of the northern towns.