Photos

I only had a little bit of time this weekend to play around with the camera, in between two loads of laundry and meeting pals to see Match Point (which was great, BTW). I'm using Picasa to organize and edit photos (I'm not really thrilled with the software that comes with the Canon camera). On this photo, I tried experimenting with the color saturation and a couple other effects. I've started a photo page on Flickr called A Trailer Full of Pix and have put a few things up this week. I'm just trying Flickr out for a while, so I've got a free account with limited space, i.e. there's a 20MB monthly allotment of bandwidth and I've already used 55% of it this month. So, I'll probably wait till the end of February to decide if I have any more pix that are Flickr-worthy.

Knitting Project #2

Here are two of the socks I knit using self-striping yarn from KnitPicks. It's machine washable - the orange and green socks have been washed and get softer with each washing (and a little stretched out).

Knitting Project #1

I've been knitting like crazy the last two months -- 4 scarves and 5 pairs of fingerless gloves (presents for pals), and a couple pairs of socks (for me). I just got a digital camera and can start posting pix of my projects. Not to be outdone by Anju, who posted pix of fingerless gloves she knit, I'm showing one of mine. The pattern has a placket with two buttons on each wrist -- I knit one pair according to the pattern, but then skipped the placket on the next two pair. The yarn is Casablanca -- it's 100% nylon and really slippery to work with, but I like the shimmery variegated look.

Finally, Philadelphia

I finally made it to Philadelphia for fun, not for work. I was there for Thanksgiving, and am just now getting it together to post some pix.

We started touring the city with a trip to Ikea. This is the first Ikea in America, although it was originally in a smaller building down the road. Ikea is vast! It took over 3 hours to see everything in the store and to eat at the luncheonette. The arrows on the floor were a big help in navigating the vastness of it all.

Since Ikea pretty much took up Friday, we did our downtown stuff on Saturday. We met a pal and had breakfast in a cafe across the street from the historic Eastern State Penitentiary that, unfortunately, was closed for the season (it's now a museum).

After that, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where we spent hours in the contemporary wing seeing exhibits of Beauford Delaney and Edvard Munch's mermaids. We also checked out the dada stuff and got a close look at Duchamp's Urinal.


It was windy and freezing cold when we came out on the front side of the museum, so there was no way I was going to run up the steps like Rocky.

The Mutter Museum was our last stop of the day. No photos allowed there. Lots of creepy and fascinating medical specimens. Read Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation for info about the chunk of John Wilkes Booth that they've got in a jar. Eeeeeeeew!

2005: A Pretty Good Year

Although it was a dreadful year in terms of political and natural disasters, on the personal and music fronts it wasn't bad. I ditched my crappy old job and car, and got a swell new job and a Mini. I saw Richard Thompson, Mark Knopfler and John Hiatt play live in my town. And lots of good records came out. I haven't yet decided which is my favorite of the year, but Winterpills is a heavy contender. Here's a playlist of a few highlights (some repeats from previous playlist):

• "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing" by Jack Johnson
• "The Hardest Part" by Ryan Adams & the Cardinals
• "One I Love" by David Gray
• "Tired of Being Sorry" by Ringside
• "Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight" by Amos Lee
• "Radio Campaign" by M. Ward
• "Off the Record" by My Morning Jacket
• "Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well" by Mike Doughty
• "I Burn Today" by Frank Black
• "Burning in the Sun" by Blue Merle
• "It's the Nighttime" by Josh Rouse
• "Caterpillar Girl" by Lou Barlow
• "The Boys of Mutton Street" by Richard Thompson
• "Threshing Machine" by Winterpills
• "Must Be the Whiskey" by Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez
• "When My Love Crosses Over" by John Hiatt
• "Shelter from the Storm" by Rodney Crowell
• "Devils + Dust" by Bruce Springsteen
• "Hendersonville" by Last Train Home
• "Whatever It Is" by Ben Lee

It clocks in at a little over 78 minutes. Let me know if you want me to burn this to a CD for you. Enjoy.