This year is the 25th anniversary of Banned Book Week (Sept 23-30).

People should be allowed to make their own choices about what to read rather than having restrictions placed on them by people they may not even know.

To quote the American Library Association:

Banned Books Week emphasizes the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them.

The Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2005
100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000
Explore Banned Books through Google Books
Vote for your favorite Banned Book

I must apologise for the profusion of posts you will probably be seeing reposted in Bloglines and the like. I am updating my photos to get them all in flickr and to make sure they’re all pointing to the correct place.

Today’s eye candy is some yarn that I dyed last weekend. I used food coloring to dye a couple hanks of KnitPicks dye your own fingering weight merino. I’ve had the yarn laying around for awhile, but had never done anything with it. Then, last week I get the itch to dye something. I didn’t feel like getting completely messy, that’s why I went with the food coloring rather than the acid dyes.

In current knitting, I’m avoiding the Faux Russian Stole. Not sure why. Could be the size of the chart. But I haven’t even managed to complete one chart repeat yet. In it’s place, I’ve finished my Canadian scarf and started a hat for the husband. It’s just a basic hat, no real pattern, out of black Lana Gatto Feeling. I should also be receiving an order from Webs today containing Araucania Nature Wool in the grey colorway. I’m hoping this will work for Durrow. My order of Silky Wool arrived a couple of weeks ago, but it’s a lighter yarn than I remembered (cause looking at the gauge details on the website didn’t register). But, I can make a nice sweater out it down the road, I’m sure.

I don’t normally do WTF Wednesdays, but I’ve seen a couple of things today that I just can’t let go by without comment.

The first is the intersection closest to my apartment and the people who don’t know the meaning of “Right of way.” I am sitting at the light, waiting for it to turn green. There is a car across from me also waiting. The light turns green. The car across from me has no blinkers on, so I assume he is going to go straight. And, he does. I am turning left, so I wait for him to clear the intersection.

In the meantime, another car has approached the intersection from that same direction. He also does not have a blinker on, so I slowly enter the intersection intent on waiting for him to go straight, then I will go. But, no, wait, he wants to turn right. Not a problem, I can still go after him.

But, instead of turning right and just going and getting out of my way, this car stops at the line, angled right, with his right blinker on. I’m still waiting. Then, he sticks his arm out of the window and waves me on.

WTF? He has right of way. If he had just freaking gone, it would have taken up less of my time. I wouldn’t have been left sitting in the intersection trying to figure out what the hell he’s doing.

Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve had someone do this at this intersection.

The second item for today is Molli’s Choice — bottled water for your pet. It comes in “both unflavored water and a selection of subtle and sophisticated flavors to keep even the most discriminating pet properly hydrated.” According to the website, some of these distinctive flavors are

“For Dogs: Original (Unflavored) – Beef Tenderloin – Bacon Delight – Roasted Turkey – Roasted Chicken
For Cats: Original (Unflavored) – Roasted Turkey – Roasted Chicken – Beef Tenderloin”

This ranks up there with puppy purses.

Today’s Eye Candy is a video from my musician friend. I’ve known his music for years now, but this is the first video he’s made. He’s currently visiting friends in Prague and uses a lot of images from around the city to illustrate the song. Since he’s ask that I pass it around, I thought I’d use Eye Candy Friday to do so, since some many of the statues and things he’s included in the video are beautiful examples of Prague’s artwork.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHfNvG6MCFI]

In other news, I’m considering moving over to Blogger Beta, but it sounds like there are still a lot of bugs for them to work out. It’s also not yet compatible with Safari, which is what I use at home. It’s a hard decision cause they’ve finally added some features that it would have been nice to have, like tags (or what they’re calling labels). But, once you switch, there’s no going back. :/

Saturday, Stephanie came to Full Thread Ahead in Los Altos, CA. I got to the store at about 3 pm. Because Stephanie wasn’t due to speak until 5:30, I sat down in an empty chair at the front of the store, pulled out my knitting, and chatted with the other knitters. One of the knitters I met was Sarah, what was working away on an Icarus while wearing a very nice Handmaiden silk shawl.

They decided to seat us a little early. On my way out to the parking lot/seating area, I ran into Kathy from San Jose. I hadn’t seen her since Stitches West, so we chatted for a bit.

I ended up with a seat at the front of the middle, next to a knitter I see quite often at my LYS, who’s name completely escapes me at the moment. Once my seat was claimed I ran off and found a crepes shop just up the street. I had been heading for Le Boulanger, but could smell the crepes from across the street. I got a turkey and cheese crepes and it was delicious. May have to go back sometime to try a sweet crepes.

The only real unfortunate thing about getting seated an hour and a half before the talk was to begin was we were sitting right out in the sun. While yesterday was not hot, sitting right out in the open still gets warm. I kept kicking myself in the ass for leaving my sun hat in the car when the husband dropped me off. I knew it was supposed to be outside, but my brain didn’t make the connection.

By the time Stephanie came out the sun was headed down behind the building, so the temperature changed quite a bit. Thankfully, the knitting I had chosen to bring with me was the lace scarf I’m making out of the River Bend Alpacas yarn (33% alpaca, 33% silk, 33% cashmere) that I got in Ontario last month. It has gotten long enough that I could wrap it around my neck and kept knitting on it.

Stephanie was as funny as ever, simply put.

I was in group 5 for signing, so decided to run off with Kathy and some others (who’s names also all escape me) for dinner. We went to Maltby’s, which has a bathroom that… well… you just have to see it for yourself. All I can say is, boy, that’s a lot of red, for such a small room.

After dinner, I headed back to Full Thread Ahead to do some shopping. It is very easy to pass a lot of time touring a new yarn shop. By the time I was getting rung up, it was time for me to get in line. I had fun standing in line talking to the knitters around me that I both knew and were meeting for the first time. The knitter behind me had driven all the way from Tracey to be there.

When I got up to the table, Stephanie signed my books, and I got a picture with her and the sock. I had thought to bring a Canadian beer with me in case Stephanie was going through withdraw down here in the land of Bud. But, she told me not to worry since she can get that particular beer when she gets home. It was kind of fun to learn I have good taste in Canadian beer. 🙂

I did forget to thank Stephanie for mentioning about butter tarts on her blog. I’ve been with my husband for 8 years now, and in that time we had been to Canada together 3 times and not once was I told about butter tarts. When I saw it on Stephanie’s blog, I asked him about it, and he told me that they’re like pecan pies without the nuts. After finally getting to taste my first butter tart last month, I can say that they are much better than that. 🙂 Now, I need to get my mom to teach me how to make pie crust so I can make my own butter tarts.

Today’s Eye Candy is a swatch I made of Jodi‘s Durrow sweater cable. The swatch was done in KnitPicks Main Line (75% Pima Cotton, 25% Wool) in Dusty Lavender. I got gauge easily. Sadly, something about it didn’t do it for me. The yarn felt uncomfortable, and look a little sloppy in the cables. I ripped it out and made a stockinette swatch, and the yarn feels wonderful. It’s seems to be happier in a nice orderly medium tight st st. I may have to consider a basic vee neck sweater for the Main Line. For now, I love the cable, and there’s some Silky Wool winging its way to me from Webs (sales are great!).

So, for now, you can enjoy the simplicity of the cable.

And my thanks to Jodi. I had never heard of the Book of Durrow until I saw this sweater design, and now I’m studying the Book of Durrow for my manuscripts and incunabula class this semester. It’s a beautiful example of Insular manuscript work.

Day 11: August 9
On Day 11, we crossed the border at Sarnia, north of Detroit, to avoid the whole Detroit-Windsor mess. The day was nothing but driving and road construction.

We actually managed to make it to Davenport, Iowa. This is when we made the crazy decision that we could make it home in 3 days.

Day 12: August 10
From Davenport, IA we made it to Evanston, WY. Yes, it was insane. We once again had had hope to stay in Rock Springs, but we were told there were no room available when we called for reservations. We were, however, told that there was room in Evanston, a full 100 miles further down the highway.

We got in hideously late, feeling absolutely terrible. But, it put us that much closer to home.

Day 13: August 11
I could tell when we had crossed back into California, I had to start passing everyone on the right.

We had the joys of hitting Sacremento during rush hour, but that gave us carpool. When we got closer to home, we put in a pick-up order to a local Chinese restaurant cause there was no way dinner was actually going to be cooked in our apartment; the husband had cleaned out the fridge before we had left.

I called my mom to let her know we’d gotten home early and got the good news that my dad would be getting home from Kuwait that night as well.

There were showers and we crashed into bed, our own bed. We had a whole weekend to recoup and go shopping to stock up on essentials.

Day 8: August 6
The morning of Day 8 saw me horribly hungover. My stomach’s reminder to me that one should not drink 2 rum and cokes, then follow them up with several glasses of wine. Bad idea, mixing grains and grapes.

We loaded up the car and headed west. Once we got into New York a ways, we turned north. Following small backroad highways, leading us ever onward to Watertown. In Watertown, we joined up with 81, which took us to the Thousand Islands Bridge. It was my first time crossing at this border crossing, and I must say it’s quite a bridge. Up and over you go, over the water.

The 401 whisked us off towards Brockville. Then, we headed for Merrickville and Smith Falls where the in-laws live. We arrived in time for a very tasty dinner.

Day 9: August 7
Day 9 was spent blissfully quiet. The only time we ventured out was to get fresh corn on the cob for dinner and to see the alpacas. They looked extremely funny for they had recently been shorn. Their bodies and necks were shaved clean off leaving tuffs of fiber on their legs and heads. Funny.

Day 10: August 8
Day 10 we had plans in Merrickville, which apparently was named Canada’s most beautiful village. On the left, you can see the Merrickville lock station on the Rideau Canal. This is the lock station the husband worked at. The locks are operated manually with big gears and chains. If you enlarge the picture, you can see the gears for this gate.

We were at the lock station to meet up with the Kawartha Voyageur.

The husband worked as a deckhand on this boat. So, he and his family know the captain, and it was arranged for us to meet up with the boat and get on for a ride down to the next lock station where the in-laws would pick us up.

The section of the canal that we went down is called the Kilmarnock Reach. Part of it is a bird sactuary. It is beautiful, simply put. I had forgotten what real green looks like. Living in California, you become used to spending 8-9 months a year surrounded by dull golden brown hills with dark green live oak trees. There’s no variation in shades of green. The northeast has multiple shades of green, dark, light, everything inbetween. I almost missed living out east, just have to keep reminding myself about the snow.

When we got back into Merrickville, I got to go into the store run by the people from the alpaca farm. I found a beautiful woven alpaca/mohair shawl. I also got the only yarn purchased on the whole trip — alpaca, cashmere, and silk — 2 skeins. There was also spinning fiber — alpaca, cashmere, silk, and wool. They raise nice fiber.

A quick spin by the Hersey factory for chocolate covered almonds (I haven’t found any that taste better here), then onto dinner with friends in Brockville.

The next day would see us leaving Canada. But, before we went I did manage to get my first butter tart (although I thought it was wonderful, I’m not sure how is stacks up in available butter tarts as it was from Tim Horton’s… mmm, Tim Horton’s… we don’t have anything comparable here). The only sad part of my Canadian sorjourn was the lack of Canadian beer. So, we hit The Beer Store before we left and picked up a two-four of Upper Canada Lager. Tasty. 🙂

I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon and try to enliven Fridays. However, I’m not starting off with a photo.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has just put another Great White Shark on display. It’s a juvenile male, 5 feet 8 inches long, and 104 lbs. And, they have a Webcam, so you can see him swimming around in the Outer Bay tank no matter where you are.

Play spot the Great White Shark

The page also has links to information about the White Shark.