Finished Socks

Aren't they beautiful! Okay these are socks I made for James, and knitted up really quickly, I think it took me about 2 weeks (including the trip to and from st. louis). I used Cascade fixation yarn, which I dig because its 97 % cotton and 3 % eleastic. For James' odd size feet I cast on 36 and worked on 3 needles, I belive I made the heel flap about 2 inches, and closed the toe when I got near the bottoms of his toes. Yes I made him try it on several times. I didn't work from a pattern, because I am still scared from the Knit Socks! book experience over Christmas. Currently I am working on another pair of socks for James using Lornas Laces, and then I have yet another pair planned for him, and then some purple socks for me. Yes I ve gone sock crazy. Somewhere in there I need to start a baby blanket. Ahh so much knitting so little time.

Finshed Fingerless Gloves

Aren't they beautiful! These are my fingerless gloves from the AlterKnits books. These knitted up very quickly. I followed the pattern in the book for the most part. I choose to mix the colors up a little just because I could, so I used one of the variagated Manos del Uruaguy yarns, and matched that with a solid of the same yarn. I cast on 32 like the pattern called for, but since I used size 7 needles instead of 8, I had to adjust the length a little. I just kinda eyeballed it. But I really like how they turned out. You might notice that one of the gloves has the varigated striped into the body, and the other one is solid. I did this mostly because after doing the stripped one I got sick of weaving all the ends in and decided to make the other one soild. I think it adds a little punkness to the gloves. Okay well the ribobn was bought at the local fabric store (hancock?) and I just got some sheer ribbon. Well hopefully these will keep my little fingers warm as I type at work!

Megabus and St. Louis Boos

So last weekend James and I headed down to St. Louis to visit Mikael. We took the Megabus. This is a new company in Chicago (although it has been around for awhile in England) that advertises 1 dollar bus rides to various places in the MidWest with Chicago being the hub. People keep asking me is it really a dollar? and how do they make money if its only a dollar? Well it wasn't only a dollar, from what I can tell when I mess around with their website you really only get a dollar price if you book like at least 30 days in advance. After that the price starts to go up depending on closeness of travel date and how many seats have already been taken. For example James and I went to St. Louis, we booked about 3 weeks in advance, and for our trip their we paid 9 dollars for the both of us. The bus was pretty empty maybe only 15 people or so, but on our way home on Easter sunday the buss was much more packed, and it coast 25 dollars for both of us to come home. So still thats like 34 dollars for both of us to get there in back, thats a hard price to beat. Not to mention it was cheaper (and better times than Amtrak) cheaper than flying or renting a car for the weekend. For us it was pretty convient.

Well we arrived at St. Louis Friday afternoon, and Mikael picked us up at Union station. Then we picked up some beer, and some meat and went to his place and grilled out. His friend Shana came over and joined us for an evening of good BBQ, beer and converstaion. On saturday we bumed around and played video games during the day then early evening we met some people for dinner and headed to the Savvis center for the St. Louis Blues game. James bought a new blues hat, and I got peanuts and preztle. They didn't have any churros, that was dissapointing. The blues did surprisingly well against the much better Detroit Red Wings, and they were tied going into the 3rd peirod, but low and behold in the last 2 minutes of play the blues buckled yet again under pressure and the Wings scored for the win. Game over. It was at least an exciting game. Sunday we slept in, and then had lunch at a local falafel place and headed back to union station to catch out bus home.

Overall the bus isn't bad, I wouldn't sit in the back, cause the toilets are kinda stinky, and dont' count on luxery for a few dollars, but a bus is a bus, and it was well worth the cost of the ticket.

Shedd Aqaurium

Last Sunday James, Chris, Becky and I headed over to Shedd Aqaurium. I haven't been there since I was like 13. Overall it was very nice and we all had a good time. James like the aquarium more than the MSI, and It was nice to hang out with my brother.

We got into the aquarium for free (since I am an employee at AIC) but had to pay the ridiculusly high fee of 15 dollars (beyond admission) to see the entire aqaurium. If we just got in for free we could only see the things on the first level, which didn't include the dolphins, Beluga whales, the ever entertaining Penguins, the sharks and more. Basically all you get with general admission is the permenant aqurium exhibits upstairs. That includes the Amazon display, the waters of the world, the Invasive species, the Caribean reef, and other little things like frogs/seahorses/jelly fish.

Anyway our first stop was the Caribean reef right when you come in, because they were feeding the hungry fish and answering questions right when we got there. It was cool, especially the poor sea turtly who was in there because a motorboat propellor cut into his shell almost to the spine, poor guy.

Next stop was the Amazon display, we saw some weird fish, and lizards, and snakes. Then we headed downstairs for lunch and after that we went to the Oceanaium. We stake out seats about 15 minuets ahead of time for the Dolphin show, which was almost worth the 15 bucks. The 5 dolphins were so cute though, I wish I could take them home, but I doubt the cats woudl appreciate that. Anyway the show was neat, dolphins are so smart they do anything for fish.

Next we went underneith the Oceanarium to watch the the dophins from below, and check out the other animals down there. The best were the Penguins. Man there were a lot of penguins and they were so interesting. Some just stood there and slept while standing up, others were swimming around, and they can swim fast! But the most entertaining were the two that looked like they were mating, and the one that had the biggest and longest poop I had every seen. Very entertaining.

Next up was the Wild reef exhibit, and the Sharks. This wasn't as cool as I thought it would be and the sharks were small sharks, the ones at the baltimore aqairum were much better.

Then we headed back up to the main level and checked out the rest of the permenant exhibits. James loved the frongs of course, and the jelly fish were cool. I like the invasive species, they showed the crazy japanese carp on video and they were litterally jumping out of the water hitting people in boats. totally crazy.

Then on to the lizards. We saw the large Komodo dragon, and some other lizards, but by then were all exhausted. so we browsed the gift shop, came home made dinner and called it a day.

AlterKnits Trunk Show

So on Friday after work (after the conference I went to at the Newberry to be more precise) I meet up with Amy from work at Nina's on Division. I have only been to 3 Local yarn stores in Chicago, but Nina's is my favorite, but closley tied with Loopy yarns downtown, and Arcadia is a distant 3rd. I enjoy Nina's because she always has wide range of yarns, I really like that she carrys the Manus del Uraguay, which is awesome yarn. Although I do wish she carried more sock yarn, oh well Loopy yarns carrys a lot of sock yarn. And she is very nice, and approchable.

Anyways Nina was having a Trunk show for the book AltherKnits. This is the crazy knitting book with patterns ranging from how to knit a screen door (yes a screen door), a couch coushin, a leather wrist cuff, a few more traditional things, and my favorite item in the book thus far is the laced fingerless gloves. Nina also had out some wine and desserts and after abotu 20-30 minutes the store was packed. I bought the alterkints book (it was 20%) off and some more Lorna's Laces sock yarn for myself. I went home and Saturday afternoon I started working on the fingerless gloves, that are knitting up really quickly, in fact I am almost done with one, and James' socks are paintently waiting in the knitting basket to be finished. Well as soon as I have the gloves done I will post a picture.

Girodet at the Art Institute

The Girodet (pronounced: jeer-o-day) exhibit opened on Feb. 11 and runs to the end of the Month. Its a great exhibit, even if my horific French meant it took me 2 weeks to pronounce the damn name correctly. Any way the exhibit is free (although you have to pay something to get into the museum; however I work 9-5 and can always get people into the museum for free).

So the exhibit is called Girodet; Romantic Rebel. I have to admit I had never heard of Girodet before this exhibit, but his work is wonderful. The library sets up a special exhibit tour for staff with the curator of the exhibit. And her tour was really informative.

Girodet lived in revolutionary/Napoleonic France, he was well educated, and lived for a few years in Rome having won a special prize from the French goverment that paid for his years in Rome. He started off as a pupil of Jacques-Louis David, but eventually moved away from the popular Neo classical style. Anyways his paintings and drawings are unique, and definatly worth a walk through the exhibit. I personally enjoyed this exhibit much more than the big Toulouse Latrec exhibit from the summer. Well here are some links, rememeber if you want free acess, just email me.


The AIC exhibit.

Wikipedia's article on Girodet.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah...

Oh boy I have to say I love this band. I mean for me they were such a serendipitis discovery. I just happened upon them one day on the internet, I listened to their album and fell in love. So thats why in mid Feb. when all the tickets had sold for their show I went to ebay and bought 2 tickets.

Armed with two tickets to the sold-out show James and I headed over to the Metro again last night to see non other then Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Yes that really is the bands name. First up was a band I had never heard of call the Brunettes. I had never heard their music before but I have to say they were entertaining. They used like every instrument you could think of, from traditional rock instruments to xylaphones, and triangles. I think I will get hold of one their albums and see what I think after further review.

The place went crazy as Clap your hands came on stage, and they immeadatly went into "Let the cool Godess Rust Away". They played every song on their album and almost in order as well (except for the 1st and last song on the album were played during the oncore) But they rocked the house. I was bouncing around a lot and singing along. I had such a great time! Their music is so unique and different, and the lead singers voice totally reminds me of Radiohead, I love it. When I think about how much I enjoy every song of theirs I can't belive how lucky I was to accidently come across their music on the internet. And of course once I did discover them for myself I devoured every piece of info on them especially the NPR clip on them. The discovery of this band on the MP3 blog "said the grammaphone" is one reason I ve finally decided to start the blog I had been thinking about for awhile.

Well back to the concert...

So we ended up getting to the metro right after I got off work, and we just grabed soemthing quick to eat. So we were at the Metro by 10 after 6 or so. We headed upstairs to the balcony and grabbed some seats, which were in high demand since most of the tables and chairs upstairs were "reserved" for who I am not sure, but later people showed up with name tags on and the mean security women let them sit down after chaseing away the rest of the rif raft. We were early enough to grab one of the non reserved tables.

Well at about 730 when the Brunettes were a ways into their set the place starting getting very packed. I mean I don't think there was any room on the main floor, I was glad we had seat. I am getting old I know I can't even hang out in GA anymore gotta run to the chairs. But I had an awesome view, and I could bounce up and down all I wanted without worry who was behind me, or who could hear me scream.

My only complaints were that I feel the lead singers (Alec I think) microphone wasn't turned up loud enough. And its already hard enought to make what he's saying, let alone with guitars and drums added into the mix. The security lady was kinda bitchy, not to us but to other people, and she just kept checking her phone, seriously who are going to talk to on the phone during a concert, especially such a loud one. Also the members of the bad didn't really talk a lot to the audience (unlike opening band the Brunettes), one member made excuses that they had a cold. Which is understandable if not dissapointing.

The funniest thing about the concert was on of the members, and I don't know whose who really, but he had bushy hair and New balance tennis shoes on (hard to miss that giant N on the side of his shoes) he kept dancy and shaking along to the music, he seemed to really enjoy himself, which is kinda refreashing considering they have been touring for some time. You would think he would be tired of playing the same 10 songs over and over again. Also the lead singer had this funny little pivot foot thing he kept doing, which was quite charming.

All and all I had a fabulous time, and I think James enjoyed himself. Good music, good company, good times.


Here is the Tribune review of the show.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Homepage

The NPR interview.


enjoy

Museum of Science and Industry

Ben Harp came and visited us this weekend. Ben has been living in Carlinville (both James' and Ben's hometown) for the past year. He starts training for a new job today so he wanted to come visit us before he was too busy. He got in Friday night, and we pretty much just hung out. But Saturday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. I haden't been to this Museum since I was like 12 or 13 so it was fun. Ben ended up driving after we had breakfeast a local dinner. It only took 30 minutes driving, as opposed to an hour to an hour and half on public transportation.

We got in for free, because all employees of the major Museums in Chicago can get into the other Museums for free. So since I work for the Art Insititute I got us in free to the Museum. We had purchased tickets the night before the special Game on Exhibit, that had video games through the ages. I played an early version of Forgger on Atari, a couple of arcade games, and one of my all time favorite games, Sim City on Super NES. James and Ben seemed thrilled by the orginal Star Wars game. James and I were both hopeing there would be more history of video games, but it was mostly just playing games.

So after Game On we explored the train set. The thing is huge and awesome. Its much bigger than I remember it, and much more detailed It was pretty neat. After that we went and got Ice Cream in the old town area. Then Went and explored more the of the permanet exhibits. I like the fairy castle, and there was an area upstairs that had a description of the periodic table and what the different elements were used in. That was informative. We saw the baby chicks of course, and then looked at the U 505 submarine and the new houseing for it. Which was really nicely done.

So after 4 hours in the museum we were exhausted, and we headed on home where later we would go get pizza bear with Riche another friend of James' and Ben's.

I have to say some of the muesum was definatly geared toward kids, but there was a lot I enjoyed about the museum and a lot that is much inproved from the last time I was there. But I do think I want to got back in the next month to see the Omnimax show about Ancient Greece, and the New Da vinici exhibit.

Finished Socks

So here are a pair of socks I finished yesterday afternoon. I bought this yarn on a whim from Nina's when she was having a sale a couple weeks ago. The yarn is Lornas Laces, Iceberg (2 skeins). I knitted on size 1 needles, and I cast on 56 sts. and did a 1 x 1 ribbing all the way. I decided not to follow a patren mostly because sometimes I find patterns to be cumbersome. And since I already had the yarn I didn't feel like hunting for a sock pattern that would fit the yarn, plus once you get the basics of socks they are real easy. So I am wearing these wonderful socks right now and they feel great. hmm Maybe I will wear them to the concert tomorrow.

An Early Morning Adventure on the CTA

So I got on at Jefferson park this morning and I think it was like at Addison or Belmont that this crazy guy gets on. He’s like at least 45 balding, totally overweight, I am talking large boobies overweight here. He's wearing a dirty, sweaty shirt that says Polish in large letters, baggy paints and a hoody, he of course sits next to me with his really loud headphones and listens to some not so great dance music. All this while I was trying to read of course. As if listening to the music too loud wasn't enough he has to dance in seat, so he starts flailing around, swinging he’s arms, bouncing up and down, and then he starts singing along to the music. Suffice to stay that everyone on the train was giving this guy strange looks and chuckling. But the best part was when I got up to get off of the train, I noticed he was wearing glow sticks around his neck and had an empty bottle of Dasini water in his had. The guy looked like he had just left a rave and was coming down off X and just realized he had to go to work so he jumped on the train. Made me glad my days at partys like that are long gone. Always an adventure on the CTA.

Orb at the Metro

So Monday the 28th James and I moseyed on over to Wrigleyville to see the Orb at the Metro. This is the second time we've gone to see the Orb at the Metro, the last time was like 3 or so years ago. Anyways this time it was not as crowded, probably since it was a Monday night. We took the bus down Irving and since there is a universal law that if you are running late the bus will surely breakdown/have a crazy passenger/get hit by a car/generally be really slow/ or some other such thing that will slow the bus down, we left early to get to the Metro. We thought it would take longer on the bus, but traffic was good, and since we weren't running late the universal bus law wasn't in affect so we got there totally early right as the doors open.

James really wanted a t-shirt, since the one he bought at the last Orb show shrunk a lot after it was washed and was bequeath to me. So I was like I am sure the shirts are like 20 bucks, but no the Metro I am sure puts a mark up on their shirts and so they were all 30 bucks. Sorry but I am not paying 30 bucks for a crappy t-shirt that has a bad silk screening job on cheap cotton that will probally shrink too much in the first wash. So he will just have to find one on the internet (or maybe I will be nice and buy one).

When the music started at 9pm it was just the skinny guy (Alex I believe) He spun for an hour. Which was kind of annoying because we came to see the Orb. Oh well I liked some of what he played so I eventually got up and when to the dance floor. That was a lot of fun, I haven't danced in awhile, and I do enjoy it. Now my legs hurt though cause I haven’t danced in so long. Oh well price you pay for fun.

Finally at 10 the other guy came on and started to play some orb songs. Well James seemed to enjoy the orb music and grooved to the beats. But at 11 we decided it was time to go (past my bedtime) so we left early. Unfortunately we hadn't counted on the spinning for an hour before the actual show. So we got home around 1130 and went to bed. And I was up for work the next morning.

Overall we had a good time. The t-shirts were overpriced, we shouldn't have bought our tickets via Ticket master (we mistakenly thought the show would sell out), and I wish they hadn't spun for an hour first. But I did have fun dancing, and the smaller venues are much nicer. And it’s always nice to do something during the week with my husband. Next week we are back at the Metro for a concert I wanted to go to, can't wait.