Mind The Gap

There are loads more pics from the trip, but I’ve decided to siphon them out a few at a time, because I feel like it.

On today’s menu we have the few pics I took of food and drink.  (I meant to do more of this, but ultimately kept getting distracted.)

This is a photo of the paper chopstick cover from a little sushi place where Ryan and I had lunch on our first day in the city.

Beer sample from the Rock Bottom brewery/restaurant.  All of them were good (although the seasonal stout is to be recommended especially), and the food was also rather tasty.  A+++ would visit again.

Photo of sake from a fancy sushi place (the name of which unfortunately escapes me).  I took several pictures of the serving setup, but ended up settling on this one.

This is my favorite photo of the serving because the sake is poured so that it overflows into the secondary dish there as a symbol of abundance (we were told), and meanwhile beside this symbol of abundance is a chipped plate, and it’s generally considered bad form to serve a guest from cracked or chipped dishes.  I found the juxtaposition amusing.

The sake itself was also of interest.  First, the bottle is comically huge, at over a foot tall.  Second, the sake is a milky white color instead of clear, is a bit milder/sweeter than normal sake, and is served chilled.  We sampled a few and as a group chose this one (Murai Family Nigori Sake).  Bit of info here.

Also known as photos, round one.

Waiting around for the thing to start, I had to take my picture with everyone.

With Ryan:

With Mom and Dad:

With grandparents:

Everyone up on stage:

Speaker (politician):

Some of the family waiting, watching Dad play with that penguin:

About to cross the stage:

I can has?

Wait…what?

Is it just me, or does Grandpa look smug here?

Now that we are over halfway through the week, I reckon it’s time to blog about last weekend. Since I remembered to stick my camera in my purse, there are many photos.

FRIDAY

Flowers seen while on a nice walk on a break at work:

Yummy dinner cooked Friday night with friends.

I can’t help but think this would make a cool wallpaper.

There was even a delicious dessert.

SATURDAY

After a quick stop by the tattoo shop (Evolve) to talk to Suzi about some work, we went over to Russ’ house, and shortly thereafter to Nathan’s house. We elected ourselves to the dinner committee and began operation Get Lost At Fresh Market, which was a HUGE SUCCESS. The food was good too.

The Rock Band was better though, and so I have pictures of it.

SUNDAY

On Sunday I went up to the shop and got the red/orange/yellow on my back touched up. It hurt. Woo!

After a hectic week, and with very little planning, Ryan made a hotel reservation, arranged some last minute puppy sitting and we headed off to Tampa. The plan was simple: Drive a bunch, eat some good food, drink some good booze, take in the sights of the strip in Ybor, show off the new wig I made, and generally get our party on. It’s not often that we do nightlife, but every once in a while it seems like a good idea.

We left a bit late, but figured that was ok since it isn’t cool to show up at a club prior to midnight anyway. Here we are in the car, driving driving.

After driving for quite a while, we hopped off the road in the middle of some insane construction, and stopped at a place called Remington’s Steakhouse.

It was the kind of place with peanut shells on the floor, and there was a ~30 minute wait to get a table. When we got a table, our waitress had also picked up an 11-top at the same time. She was very friendly and helpful though, so that made up for it. Her name was Heather as well.

Here we are waiting for our dinner, patiently.

Then the food finally arrived. (The place was packed, so it took a while, but was pretty well worth it, particularly when one considers the alternative (I think there was a Bennigan’s, and maybe a McDonald’s).)

Ryan enjoyed his:

Mine was pretty good too:

The food was, in fact, so good, that I took a time lapse video of it, for your viewing enjoyment.

Then we finished the trek to the hotel. I did not take any pictures of our approach or arrival because it was a bit scary. Instead we focused as a team on parking as close to the building as possible, and scurrying inside. Fortunately we had a styrofoam head with my valentine’s wig attached to it to protect us from harm.

Once inside we watched some anime on tv and started getting ready to go out. Here are far too many pictures of my pink eyeshadow.

Check out the size of my nose! If I didn’t feel so comfortable with you, dear reader, I would crop that. Ok, actually I’m just lazy, but lets not split hairs.

Then we started the trip to the Ybor area. We got there to find things far more insane than they usually would be. Parking at the Burger King a mile away from the strip was $20, for a start, and the traffic was absolutely unacceptable. We spread a few blocks out from this mayhem to try to find a place to get cash so we could get some overpriced parking. One place was so dimly lit and crowded with folks that looked generally unhappy that we opted not to even get out of the car. The next place was reasonably well lit, but at this time of night (midnight-ish) in that neighborhood they locked the door and you could only do business through a little teller window thing, so no ATM for us. We gave up on this and got back on the interstate, went over and exit or two, and found a well lit gas station with lots of people from various walks of life all seeming to coexist peacefully. We got cash, and then headed back downtown. I did not photograph this part of the trip.

While on the strip we learned the cause of all the craziness. The adult-oriented Gasparilla Night Parade, related to the Gasparilla Pirate Festival. It would be just our luck wouldn’t it. People were EVERYWHERE. The main street was blocked off, and filled with staggering drunkards, some ornery. As we walked to a little bar we liked to start off the night, my hair met various reactions. One guy stopped me to very enthusiastically tell me he loved it (“that hair is bomb, I really like that”) bless his soul. Others would not make eye contact with me, but would loudly say things that I suppose they hoped would spur some reaction (“them ain’t no dreads”). Really? Was it the pink color that gave it away? It’s a wig, on purpose. It’s fun. Don’t hate. To be technical they are dreads, if one considers the method of construction. They are most definitely not natural dreads, nor were they trying to be. But who keeps score anyway?

Once we made it through the crowds of people, we got to the Reservoir Bar. I like this place. We hung out there for a while, and took this picture. We were not drunk at this point. We never really got to what I would call drunk, due to the claustrophobic crowding and the need to drive back to the hotel. However, the people watching was seriously excellent.

After our feet mostly stopped hurting from the initial walk, we planned out where to go next. With my hair and outfit as they were, I thought we needed something where the music is electronic and people might have glow sticks. So, we checked out the Castle.

This place was a lot of fun. On the way there two girls stopped their car to say that they loved my hair. One police officer on a horse also complimented it. My ego was gradually recovering from the initial walk through the sometimes jeering crowd earlier. Having been a gothy kid in school, I thought this Castle place might be pretty accepting. The downstairs area seemed a little tricky while the path to the stairs was totally clear, so we headed on upstairs. The older guy in the red g-string at the top of the stairs after we got in answered that one for me. Very accepting atmosphere. I was glad this was a place he could hang out at, next to that lady in the school girl outfit and the guy with no shirt and the full-length PVC trench coat. Rock on.

Saturday night upstairs at this place is called Communion After Dark, and features “the latest and best electro, industrial, futurepop, powernoise, darkwave, synthpop, coldwave, EBM, IDM & gothic music out today” – and yes, yes it certainly did seem to be just that. On the big video screens we had the latest Harry Potter movie. (On a side note, that was a pretty dark movie.)

I noticed a guy in a batman suit on the other side of the dance floor area. There were also pretty girls (patrons, not employees, it appeared) in gothy/piratey/fetishy costumes dancing on stages around the place. That was pretty neato. Everyone we encountered was polite, and some downright friendly. A major contrast to the indifference and belligerence of the street we were on earlier. I liked it there. Next time we go to Ybor we are considering just hanging out at that place the whole night and not bothering with the main drag.

Walking back to the car, we saw this and found it funny. Someone has contributed some of their “hey show us your tits” beads to a statue of what is obviously a very important man.

We both stopped and gave up, taking off our dress shoes while sitting on a bench, and then resumed the walk back to the car. Then we high-tailed it back to the hotel. Early the next morning we started the trek back.

All in all it was a pretty fun time. Next time we’ll make sure it’s not the night of the parade, and maybe will plan a little more so we have more time to enjoy the scenery. We’ll definitely get some better shoes to wear.

This weekend was pretty busy, but pretty fun. I finished an asymmetrical shrug I’ve been working on, started on a dread wig for my Dragon*Con costume, and managed to cook a nice dinner tonight and all.

While searching for lunch on Saturday we got coffee at the 2nd St Bakery, where we encountered a creepy shed, and a really neat playground toy thing.

In the afternoon we did a bunch of work to clean and do a partial water change for the fishies. This made them happy.

Saturday evening we went to Ross’ house to play video games, and I did a lot of crocheting, finishing most of my new shrug. Today I finished said shrug, and Ryan helped photograph it.

It’s asymmetrical with a folded collar on one side, and black/white/grey/purple edging on the other side, and (mostly decorative) lacing on the back.

It has neat wide sleeves (I wanted it to have a kimono-style feel, but still be fairly practical).

I am still thinking about doing something to ornament the front where the two sides join, either a crochet flower with a cute leftover button I have in the center, or some kind of felt appliqué…still pondering on that one.

Sunday mid-day we went out to Chiefland to get some barbecue, and pick up a couple of wigs from the trailer so that I could use them as bases for costume wigs. My hair isn’t long enough for falls anymore, so for one of the costume wigs I’m going to dismantle the falls I made for Halloween, dread up a wig, and add the loose dreads to the wig. For the other, pretty much the same except that I have no falls to dismantle, so I still have a bunch of dreads to make, but I have time, I did manage to pick up some hair locally so that’s enough of a start for now.

While on the road, we encountered this great view.

For the fall recycling, this is the base wig that I’m using (leftover from a former Halloween, where I dressed up as a coworker of mine).

I sectioned off a tiny bit of fringe, and then began sectioning and back combing the rest. As each section was back combed, I twisted it so that it would wind up on itself, and secured it with a clothespin, which keeps it nice and out of the way for me. Once those were all done, I trimmed the loose hair, which is now short and fairly straight across the very back, with the fringe asymmetrical and angled down towards the front.

And here is one of the two falls that I’ll dismantle and reuse. They include double-ended dreads in long, medium and short length (made from kanekalon jumbo-braid) in a dark brown, reddish brown, and light blonde, some yummy soft variegated chenille yarn, and some pretty narrow gold ribbon.  As you can probably tell, I’m going to need to reseal some ends.  They didn’t hold up so good after a few Halloween outings, but they did ok for a first shot at dread making.

Very relaxing, crafty weekend. I’m going to miss having time for DIY projects when school starts back up for spring.

Still <3 the camera. Go see pictures taken on and around New Years.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hmfullen/NewYear08

A while back, Ryan and I were looking for a place downtown, in order to hang out at the places we like downtown more conveniently. (This kind of flopped because everything we looked at was stupid expensive, crappy, or run by shady/disorganized people.) During this time, Ryan’s brother Ross made a joke about the two of us hanging out at Maude’s, wearing matching handmade tams, and feeding our dog organic biscuits.

When I recently decided to take up crochet (again) this joke resurfaced. So, today I bought some fancy-schmancy hand dyed merino wool yarn from the new yarn and fiber store in town, and made a tam. I am so amused with myself, and can’t wait for either Ryan (or I, if it turns out this accessory is too girly for him) to show up somewhere in Ross’ presence wearing said tam. Hehehehe.

Pictures:

Construction Notes:

• The basic pattern is a free one I found on the internet [link]
• The site makes you register for a user name., btw
• Used Colinette ‘Cadenza’ easy care merino wool yarn in copper beach instead of the yarn specified by the pattern [link]
• Used N15 (10mm?) hook instead of the N13 specified
• I used the instructions for rounds 4-6 to do 3 extra rounds (so there are 6 rows in that portion instead of 3, to make the tam a bit floppier
• For round 13, instead of following the pattern for a decorative-type edge, I switched to a 6.5mm hook and did a double crochet in each stitch to finish the band.

** Update **

Pictures of Ryan wearing the tam:

It’s been nice having a few days off of work, but now I’m thinking about having to go back tomorrow. With so many people out of the office, maybe it will be pretty chill.

The time off has been relaxing mostly, albeit also hectic in many respects (4 family gatherings over 3 days time). It’s all been a lot of fun though, and it’s also been weird to get so many presents. Guess that’s a benefit of being part of two families, what with the impending husband and all. Speaking of him, he’s finished installing his new video card, and he’s just re-beat the last of portal so we could see the ending as it was intended. He seems happy with that gift (from his brother, I think, I haven’t inventoried).

I received several really cool gifts (mp3 player, cake decorating kit), but probably the coolest is a new camera, which I’ve been needing. Here are some beautiful pictures I took with it:

Our tree

Ryan in the car between events

Arthur at my parents’ house

Princess at the same place

Crochet project in progress*

* My great-grandmother had an afghan like this on the couch in the den, I wanted a scarf like it, so decided to make one. As such I’ve been re-learning my crochet skills from back in the day. How awesome is the retro color scheme, surprised I could find the rainbow yarn. Once all the squares are done I’ll wash it and stretch it such that the sides are nice and straight, then I’ll crochet an edge around it to look pretty. Yay!

The camera can also do video. Here is a camera test, using the dog as a subject. She didn’t really care.

Made some sample cakes, to feed to friends and family over thanksgiving and solicit feedback. The purpose is to decide on wedding cake flavors as early in the game as possible.

So far:

• Lemon-Lime cake with pineapple curd filling
• Coconut Icebox cake
• Sweet Potato cake with pecan cream cheese frosting
• Devil’s food cake with peppermint butter cream filling and mint-chocolate ganache frosting

All of the frosting I sampled during construction, and the cake I sampled after leveling the layers, was very good. I may do another set of 3 or 4 flavors at Christmas time, in hopes of coming out with 3 or 4 well liked flavors in the end.

Since I would like to have the wedding cake be a big cantilevered, tiered, fancy display thing, covered in itty bitty petit fours of various flavors sitting on each tier, the job after flavor decisions will be to figure out how to adapt the cake and frosting recipes to make petit fours out of them.

Finally took some pictures off of the camera.