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Last Wednesday evening I picked up my brother, Ralph David, at the airport. His flight was about an hour and a half late. (On a one hour flight from San Diego that is pretty impressive. Evidently the plane was late coming into SD from Phoenix or some such place and so didn't leave anything like on time.) Nonetheless, I dragged him off to Smoking Pig for some eats before heading home. Thursday we measured the house and went to S&G Carpets and Carpeteria and spent much of the day looking at carpet web pages. I *think* we are further along than we were before. Friday was much the same with more emphasis on websites.
We are looking at a design from Milliken called Delicate Maze - Border B for a border. Because of the wackiness of flash websites, I cannot link you to see this design for yourself. Over the last few months I have been amazed at how bad mill and carpet websites are. Almost uniformly unusable. However, if you go to the site and put "delicate maze" in the pattern you will get a family of carpets. Mouse over and one will say "Border B". We are hoping for a plain burgundy ground with this as a border. We shall see.
Saturday and Sunday Ralph, Kurt & I headed off to the Northern California Pirate Fest in Vallejo. We decided not to try to get there at 10am and arrived at about lunchtime. We got a great parking space in the new Vallejo covered parking garage and went to the Front Room for lunch before wandering the Fest. Renn Faire attendees would recognize some of the vendors and attendees. Other folks from the steampunk, pirate and general crazy costume communities were out in force. My pictures are mostly boring pix of me and friends but for a flavour of the craziness check out this set on Flickr from my friend Greg. Dogwatch had two Saturday shows but we missed them both. The first was too early and the second not until 5pm. But they were jamming in their tent and we listened for awhile and collected hugs from Claire, so duty was served.
I had waited too late to get a hotel room in Vallejo or American Canyon so we were all the way down at the Berkeley Marina Doubletree. It was a perfectly nice hotel and it placed us for Sunday brunch at Spengers before heading back to Vallejo. Also there was a lovely bay view from the hotel restaurant.
Sunday, needless to say, we had brunch at Spengers where the Hangtown Fry still gets my vote for the most amazing breakfast omelette ever. Then back to Vallejo (yay, free covered parking) and the festival. The Sunday band that we really liked was the Mad Maggies. In fact, all the bands we heard both days were great. We were a bit old for Jack Spare Ribs' brand of humour but the kids got a kick out of him if the laughter during his set was any indication. (We were sitting next door to the stage in the Very Important Pirate area thanks to my plank ownership... a great investment I must say.) Getting three or later five seats together that near the stage would have been very hard. After the red-sailed Aldebaran sailed by on Sunday we dragged Chris and Tracey away from the fest long enough to eat some real food at the Front Room. Then the three of us headed back South and left C&T to enjoy the rest of the fair. It was fun and I plan to invest in a plank next year too.
We are looking at a design from Milliken called Delicate Maze - Border B for a border. Because of the wackiness of flash websites, I cannot link you to see this design for yourself. Over the last few months I have been amazed at how bad mill and carpet websites are. Almost uniformly unusable. However, if you go to the site and put "delicate maze" in the pattern you will get a family of carpets. Mouse over and one will say "Border B". We are hoping for a plain burgundy ground with this as a border. We shall see.
Saturday and Sunday Ralph, Kurt & I headed off to the Northern California Pirate Fest in Vallejo. We decided not to try to get there at 10am and arrived at about lunchtime. We got a great parking space in the new Vallejo covered parking garage and went to the Front Room for lunch before wandering the Fest. Renn Faire attendees would recognize some of the vendors and attendees. Other folks from the steampunk, pirate and general crazy costume communities were out in force. My pictures are mostly boring pix of me and friends but for a flavour of the craziness check out this set on Flickr from my friend Greg. Dogwatch had two Saturday shows but we missed them both. The first was too early and the second not until 5pm. But they were jamming in their tent and we listened for awhile and collected hugs from Claire, so duty was served.
I had waited too late to get a hotel room in Vallejo or American Canyon so we were all the way down at the Berkeley Marina Doubletree. It was a perfectly nice hotel and it placed us for Sunday brunch at Spengers before heading back to Vallejo. Also there was a lovely bay view from the hotel restaurant.
Sunday, needless to say, we had brunch at Spengers where the Hangtown Fry still gets my vote for the most amazing breakfast omelette ever. Then back to Vallejo (yay, free covered parking) and the festival. The Sunday band that we really liked was the Mad Maggies. In fact, all the bands we heard both days were great. We were a bit old for Jack Spare Ribs' brand of humour but the kids got a kick out of him if the laughter during his set was any indication. (We were sitting next door to the stage in the Very Important Pirate area thanks to my plank ownership... a great investment I must say.) Getting three or later five seats together that near the stage would have been very hard. After the red-sailed Aldebaran sailed by on Sunday we dragged Chris and Tracey away from the fest long enough to eat some real food at the Front Room. Then the three of us headed back South and left C&T to enjoy the rest of the fair. It was fun and I plan to invest in a plank next year too.
