Blogaversary game postponed

I must postpone the blogaversary game for later in the month but will give everyone a few days warning before we start.



On another note, Secret Pal 11 is open for sign ups. Looking forward to the games once again. How many of you lurkers are playing this round? I love the Swaps. Let me know if you know any others before they start.



The Hootenanny was a blast but I will post about that in a few days. In short, Music was good, bad and in between. People were the best part of the whole show. I will go into my ramblings later.



Happy Monday everyone.

Hootenanny!

No knitting content here but lots of fun Music content!
Mrs. Twisted surprised me with tickets to a show this weekend that I thought was going to come and go without us. I know music taste are as wide as can be with a bunch of knitters but this is one of the genres I enjoy.

Rockabilly baby!

There are quite a few good bands here including Big Sandy and his Fly Right Boys ( think 50's roadhouse almost country), The Blasters( a step towards the harder edge of rock from the last band) The Supersuckers ( one my favorite live bands, the lyrics are not PG but the energy level is amazing and the performance is 2nd to none), Lee Rocker (one of the original Stray Cats), Dave Alvin ( lead guitarist for the Blaster will return to the stage later and do some solo stuff) And one of the biggest So Cal bands ever Fullerton California's own Social Distortion. If you are a fan of the band they used to play here locally for years even after multiple record contracts just because the fan base was so large. If you are a fan of the band I recommend you listen to the leader and song writer Mike Ness' single that came out a few years back. You may be surprised to hear the country inspired tunes sprinkled throughout the CD. Very Dark but great solo effort and nothing like the band sound that everyone is used to besides his signature gravely voice.

I know I introduced one of my other guitars earlier and so I guess this is a good place to introduce my favorite. Her name is Betty. Betty Page has been adopted as a moniker for the times by the Rock-a-Billy crowd and this guitar is the same model used my many of the guitar players of the time as well as the ones who still play the music from the era.

Behold my 2004 Gretsch 6120 with flame Maple body and ebony fretboard AKA "Betty"

Attending these shows is more than the music, it's so much fun to just people watch. Their is a whole sub-culture of people who live in the lifestyle all the time. It's like you have transported yourself back to 1956 and you see the old cars and the clothing styles and the hair and make-up akin to the era. Vendors who live and die with this annual show pull out the stops and the fans come in droves in support. The bad part is that it looks to be close to 100 deg F tomorrow so we plan to arrive just before our favorite bands go on and find a place in the shade.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and don't forget the sunscreen if you are going outside.

4th parade

Picture heavy post


One look at the Corona Del Mar Dolphins and you know what time of year it is... It's like the Holiday Barometer in the shape of a green fuzzy "Flipper"

We went to the Huntington Beach 4th of July parade last week and here are some of my musings of the day...

Mrs. Twisted and I have gone the last three years and enjoy the show even before the parade starts. What would make you want to give your young child a mohawk?
The one closest has the mohawk and the younger further one has the faux-hawk created with some styling gel but it still doesn't answer the question.

Later we saw the father figure walking the older boy boy and maybe it's just hair envy?

This guy took it to the next level of Raccoon tail coloring his mohawk.

Just the guy I want coming to the door to take my daughter out on a date. Imagine the comments he gets after going on job interviews. To be young and not having to worry about being business acceptable.

We knew their was going to be a fly over and we heard the jets go by but the overcast sky prevented us from seeing what we heard and then this rolled up the street. Very slow and so low you could feel the rotor wash as it went overhead. Almost felt like we were in the movie "Apocalypse Now"

Then it became the same parade that so many towns all across America have


Uncle Sam walking down the street looking so happy. We had 2 Uncle Sams today, we liked the first one because he had the real beard and no Jaylo-esque sunglasses. :)

Never would it cross my mind to have a name like Mr. Fluff on my license plate. You can come to your own conclusions on why he did .


Mr. Twisted knitting away on one of his rug squares now in continental knitting. I will end up having to rip this one out because the gage is so far off. but it was good practice and I refined my tension as I was going along. We even have knitting content at the parade.

Mrs. Twisted loves the Shriner's because of the silly cars and how could you not love guys who wear pointy shoes and dress like MC hammer in the parachute pants and the crimson red Fez hat.

Check out the Nike swoosh golf socks and the dress shoes... Stylish huh?
This cute little boy must have had a few pit stops to change the battery in his red Ferrari car.

OK enough fluff....

Birthday Meme

No, it's not my birthday thank goodness,
I wasn't tagged but the whole what happened in history on my birthday sounded fun so I took the cue from a very nice lady in Texas at The Ravelled Sleave and tried it for myself.

I know these Memes are getting crazy but I won't tag anyone and if you enjoy yourself like I did then I'm happy to bring a little smile to your day.

This is The Birthday Meme. It isn't knitting, but it's educational.Go to Wikipedia and into the search field type the month and date of your birthday (not the year). Then share with the world if you want:

• Three events



• Two births



• One holiday

My Events:

1962 - In the UK The Beatles release their first single, Love Me Do
It changed music in a way nobody ever thought possible.

1969 - The first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus airs, at 9 p.m., on the BBC.
I remember watching this very late at night and laughing harder than I ever did before.

1970 - PBS became a television network.
Great TV programming like Mr Rogers, Nova, and Huell Howser, host of California's gold.

My Births:

1829 - Chester A. Arthur, 21st President of the United States (d.1886)
I already knew this one when I had to write a paper for school.

1902 - Larry Fine, American actor and comedian (d. 1975)
Sharing a birthday with one of the Three Stooge, how cool

1951 - Bob Geldof, Irish singer (The Boomtown Rats)
One of my favorite bands from the 70's and 80's, lead by a great humanitarian. He was the one who organized the original Live Aid and was responsible for 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' as a way to raise money for the starving children in Ethiopia before it was a fashionable thing to do. Most of you readers will have never of heard of him or the band but if the song was playing you would probably recognize it because it was on the radio pretty heavely when it came out and still plays around Christmas on a variety of radio station genres. To me he was a one of the heroes from my youth.

Added side catagory Deaths:

Lodovico Ferrari (February 2, 1522 – October 5, 1565) was an Italian mathematician.
Born in Bologna, he began his career as the servant of Gerolamo Cardano. He was extremely bright, so Cardano started teaching him mathematics. Ferrari aided Cardano on his solutions for quadratic equations and cubic equations, and was mainly responsible for the solution of quartic equations that Cardano published. While still in his teens, Ferrari was able to obtain a prestigious teaching post after Cardano resigned from it and recommended him. Ferrari eventually retired young (only 42) and quite rich. He then moved back to his home town to take up a professorship of mathematics in 1565. Shortly thereafter, he died of white arsenic poisoning, allegedly murdered by his sister.

My guess is his sister not a fan of Mathematics... Sorry I couldn't resist. I guess if you had trouble with quadratic and or cubic equations in school you know who to blame.

Events:

International World Teachers' Day [1]
What would the world be without teachers? We have all had at least one teacher in out life who changed how we think, or how we live. Look beyond the regular school teachers when you think of teachers too. We all teach in our lives. At home and work, wherever. You may not realize the influence you have on others around you. Who spent the time to teach you how to ride your bike? parallel park? Thank you!

I'm turning to the dark side and picking instead of throwing.

How many of you are left handed? Not like it really matters in knitting but it will make more sense as you read on. Yes, I'm a left handed and at times it's a curse and other times it just feels right. Being raised in the um um um 60's, their wasn't much in the way of left handed stuff. I do write left handed and that was just the hardest thing about school or at least it was a constant reminder. For those of you who are lefties, you know what I mean. From Jr High School forward they mostly had seats with attached writing tables affixed to the right side. Imagine writing in any spiral or ring binder with your left hand, it's next to impossible. OK enough of the pity party. We do have our benefits though. In Sports and the Arts it seems like left handers have the advantage. I have also been in a room of Engineers where we all realized after half of a days worth of training that their was 9 of 11 lefties in a technical environment. It was the highest concentration of lefties I have ever seen. Left handed Fun Fact Swimmers typically see better underwater when left handed. Mark Spitz was left handed as a few other world class swimmers. Fencing is dominated by left handers. For more fun facts check this out http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/fam_sport.html
One day soon I will take a fencing class to test this theory with the bonus of being 6'5" helps with the reach advantage too. Another life goal if to learn to fence and we have local clubs who promote beginners in low cost adult education classes. Watch out for another obsession lol


I have been hearing that Continental knitting is a whole lot easier for the left handed folk. That wasn't what attracted me to the mysterious other style. I saw knitting as a time motion study from the very beginning. One of my first questions was "Why do I need to turn it around?" "Why can't I just knit back the other way." Then the more I learned the more I liked the economics of movement in Continental knitting. Fewer variables that give a more consistent stitch that should give a more constant gage. I know I know, it's supposed to be relaxing and there is no wrong way to knit but when you are a psycho about this kind of stuff you look at life differently.

Mrs. Twisted says if your are nodding off to skip to the next red words where there is more knitting content.

If you want to read more about how my brain works then plow on ahead


Here is a prime example;







What do you see when you look at this picture?








Now, what looks like it doesn't fit?






When I saw this I immediately thought why are they using metallic green trucks with Yellow service equipment trailers. But that wasn't what intrigued me. Why do they have sleepers on the truck's when all they are used for is slow moving of trailers used to build or repair the freeways here. Nobody sleeps in these trucks, they park here in this lot and are dispersed to the work site each night. This was a 1/4 mile from where we were sitting but it drew my attention because of the way things just didn't fit. My guess is that the purchasing agent for the construction company found a great deal on some used or rebuilt trucks and the fact that they are green or that they had a sleeper was irrelevant and the reduced price out weighed the additional equipment or color disparity.

More knitting content here.


Welcome back to those of you who skipped ahead. Do you read the cliff notes too?

Back to my point here, I have changed over to Continental and like Leanne from "To Knit Is Divine" said with such eloquence, "You'll knit like the wind when it stops feeling like your knitting with your toes"


I have along way to go before I'm NOT feeling like I'm knitting with my toes but it's slowly coming along. It like I'm starting all over again. A newbie once again. One discovery I have made is that I love the Knit Picks Options more and more because the reduced drag. My poor wooden needles are all nervous as they see me with the nickle plated conquerors of yarn.

Happy 4th of July!

Mrs. Twisted and I are off to the 102nd annual Huntington Beach parade for some third rate movie and TV stars and then to our normal knitting group tonight. Hope everyone has a safe 4th..

Jumping for joy

I'm a pretty moderate and easygoing individual I don't get excited very often or maybe it just doesn't seem like it. The completion of the socks seemed like a good time to show some excitement for it was the last project that I will throw because I'm converting to the dark side of picking. More on that in a later post. Well I thought I would take Stacey's cue and do a little jump for joy. Look a the link to see her jumping on Feb 15th for a 5 star reaction. I would have hit various body parts on the ceiling if I was to do that, so we took it outside. Well one jump turned into a little slide show of silliness. We won't go into the embarrassing sock model poses that followed because those pictures will never see the light of day. :)

Honestly I was off the ground more than it looked. Ok now, it will be hard to take me seriously after this but what the heck. Oh I must admit I landed a little funny and twisted my knee. So you really won't be seeing much more of the flight of the old man. It sucks being old. Thanks to Mrs. Twisted for the great action photography Ala Randy.

Socks, Shrews and Skulls, Oh My!

FO alert! Last Thursday at the U.C.I.SNB I finished the socks that would never end. If only I knit as fast as I buy yarn. Actually I should have finished them months ago if I had only worked on them. I don't know who was more happy with the completion Mrs. Twisted or myself. I kept ripping them back over and over until I got the heels right.

Weaving in the ends on the toe.

Is that happy on my face or or just relieved that they are finally finished? Little of both.

The evil socks visiting with the rosewood H&S DPNs one last time before they part company forever.

Sally (on the right) shows of her wavy scarf made from Noro Kureyon. So pretty! Sally if one of the wonderful people who makes the Thursday night group so special.

We went to San Pedro for the 2nd show from Shakespeare By the Sea "The Taming of the Shrew." Today was in the high 80's here and we were looking forward to the cool ocean breezes while we got a dose of culture. Much lighter production tonight, lots of laughs and the actors looked like they were having fun.

The park is in such a lovely place. Cliffs over the water and the views of the ocean are so pretty.

What a wonderful way to spend a Summer evening.

Almost the end of the show when the Shew is tamed.

Mr Twisted getting a picture with Katherina "The Shrew" played by Suzanne Dean. She was so nice to pose with me after the show.

I had to show you the beautiful shot of the moonlight reflecting on the calm Summer ocean. Very romantic place to do some snuggling.

Today we made a little gift for a blog friend we are meeting for brunch on Sunday morning.

No this is not photo-shopped...

Before I get the critical e-mails I know that gingham check underskirt and the plaid shorts don't go together. I was just the model. Sorry to disappoint all of you that I didn't have my pearls and heels on but alas I not Mrs. Cleaver. :)

Let's hope the recipient likes it. Hey, Stop looking up my underskirt!

Ravalry and my ramblings

I received my invitation to Ravelry a few nights ago. Are you using it? What do you think of everyone in the world knowing what you are doing? Or what you plan to do? It's sort of like a double edge sword don't you think? How much influence will other people’s projects have on your own creativity? I guess if you are a knitter who makes the patterns in the magazines using the same yarn including the same colowaycolor as the picture, it will just be another avenue to find more ideas. I think if you want to publish your ideas then you would have to restrict these projects from view. Now don't get me wrong, I love the whole idea but Mrs. Twisted posed a great question to me, "will you spend more time in the process of organizing and looking at other peoples projects and ques than knitting itself?" "is your time better spent knitting than worrying about what everyone else in the world is doing or if you have the most projects done?" You know us guys, it's always a competition about something. I had to think to myself and just wonder. I already have my stash residing in a large spreadsheet and my needles as well. The projects are in a binder like other fellow knitters do. So, what will this do for me? I do love the forum section and yet I belong to yahoo groups for certain sub-sectors of knitting and even some I haven't tried yet but just want to get my feet wet. Am I feeding the frenzy of being the first wave of people to do something? Yes I do enjoy being on the front side of technology and change but is this for me?

OK so what do I really think, the stash portion will export to an Excel file but you can ' t import one. hmmmmm..... Being the Engineer guy, I love to organize and plot and plan things to death. My stash list looks crazy with all the detail, but the detail has helped to retain some history of lots of otherwise lost info. I don't want to copy paste or re-type this. I went to the forum and posed the question and was instantly informed that they are already working on that feature. Positive result I guess just by the fact that I was answered. The needle inventory was a little strange but I already see that they are working on that. I love the people portion because you may find knit friends that you didn't know existed in your area or with similar obsessions for certain fiber. It has sort of a myspace feel to it. I was contacted just after joining to be a friend and was caught off guard but quickly realized that they were just looking for interesting blogs to read and used to live in the area and thought it would be fun to keep up with what we were doing locally. Thank you for the compliment, but I hope this little diatribe doesn't change your opinion too much. Will I use it? embrace it? I think so... I'm slowly building my stash one manufacturer at a time and move my flicker photos of my stash. Yes I photograph each hank or ball or group of balls. Just think to yourself if you wanted to see what was used to make a gifted project 2 years ago and you loved loved loved the fiber, how could you replicate it or use it on another project entirely with the same or similar results?. How else could you see the difference of Electric Purple, Vibrant purple, Royal Purple, Plum, Eggplant, and a half dozen other names some creative person uses to describe the same color yarn? What about the color Eternal? or Temptress? What about the companies who just use numbers to identify like Manos and Koigu??? I know - just a tad OCD. I know I'm just trying to justify in my own head why I do this stuff but it's just who I am. Watch out Ravalry here I come. I'll be warming up your in-box with suggestions. Last thing here, Congrats to the sharp individuals who created this, I was told it was a Knitter and her hubby, a software guy who are probably looking to sell the site soon after the release from beta version and retire like the Google and YouTube people. well, maybe on a slightly smaller scale. I hope they are looking ahead to port this site to work with scrap booking and quilting and all the other crafting people out there. Well that's my opinion, take it for what it's worth and $3.85 and buy a cup of Coffee. Oh if you want to jump on before it runs you over here is the link. http://www.ravelry.com/

I'ts better to give than receive.....

How many of you out there participate in the secret pal exchanges and especiallySecret Pal 10? I really enjoy the whole secret part of the Pal. The stealthy lurking Oh and any reason to shop just make this much more fun. Some of you may already know my giftee for this round, Moma Llama. She was presented to me as Catherine as it's given on her blog. As I read through her blog I learned of her dedication and love of her family and then realized that she was Mama Llama an independent yarn dyer. I thought I was in trouble here. How can you send a yarn dyer more yarn. Well, I thought let me step this up a notch and see what I can do. I thought who were my favorite fiber artist and maybe she would appreciate what I saw in them too. Readers of my blog have seen these names Posh Yarn and Capistrano Fiber Arts by Lori Lawson and I thought if she loves making socks she would love their wonderful sock fiber too. Her E-mail response said it all as with "Wowzers" in the subject line. Here is her Post for all you lurkers who love to read or just look at yarn pics.

As all good things come to an end the SP came to a close and I contacted her as myself. We exchanged a few e-mails and what a wonderful lady, loving wife and dedicated mother. Much to my surprise she asked us to do some testing of her newest yarn "squishy".
(80% Lambswool /10% Angora/10% Cashmere) We love the name and the fiber is amazing. Mrs. Twisted wanted to sleep with it because it was so soft. She sent some silk/cashmere as well for my fiber fix... Thank you Thank you Thank you. Catherine even asked me what colorway I would like and I selected Angelika because it looked like soft lady socks just waiting to be knit up. When he yarn arrived it looked so much more vibrant than the pictures on the net. I think you have a winner here Catherine.





I did take some outside too for a more real look.



How else to swatch sock yarn but to make a round swatch.....

What an incredible honor it is for her to ask us to do a test of her new yarn. Thank you Catherine!

I know I go a bit overboard with the SP stuff but I tend to be over the top with most everything else so why would this be different? Read my 7 things post for more clarification. :)

You know what? If you go into this just hoping to bring a smile and never expected anything more than a thank you, the rest is just icing on the yarn cake. I think the greatest gift is gaining a new knitting friendship. I can't wait for SP11 to start.

Of Man Thongs and Shakespeare

You're probably thinking, how could these two things go together but it was the highlights and low lights of the last two Saturdays. I have heard numerous people comment on here or in person that they love the pictures on this blog. Well............ As luck would have it this was the ONE day we didn't have the trusty digital camera with us for all of our sakes. Someone must have been looking out for the delicate sensibilities of my readers.


Last week I eluded to a fun a Saturday but a lack of time kept me from posting till now. We picked up an order of Bunny Hop baby yarn in the morning at one of our LYS (Yarn store #1) and Swung past A Mano Yarn Center (yarn store #2) on the way to The Santa Monica Jewelry Show. The stop at A Mano was to pick up some Manos that was 50% off that I needed for my never ending mitered rug. Annette was so sweet to put it aside for me. The Jewelry show was very slow in comparisons to shows of recent history. There was a highlight in this one booth that always has the highest quality gems, they had a a selection of loose stones and there was this brilliant 3.1 carat green tourmaline in a "kite" cut. First I've never seen a Kite cut and the stone was just radiant beyond belief. Not sure if it was the cut or the stone or a combination but WOW! I couldn't take pictures even if I did have the camera because the jewelers are not happy to see someone taking pictures of their designs. Mrs. Twisted was there to find some Graduation presents for some relatives back east. One pink Rhodochrosite bracelet and one Goldstone bracelet. Two different girls with two different frames of reference, both really special in our hearts. Oh Mrs. Twisted picked up a Tiger Eye, blue lace Agate and gold stone bracelets for herself.


We proceeded to Santa Monica Beach and found a nice place to knit in an elevated park overlooking the sand just south of the pier. An hour later the desires for some deep fried dipped meat products had us walking to the original Hot Dog-on-a-Stick shack nestled by the pier. That's when it got weird, we see this guy was about 20 yards in front of us slowly walking up the "boardwalk" in a yellow tank and a Thong. Yes a man in a thong, I told you there was a reason we forgot the camera. We were amused by the people coming the other way. As they passed the laughter and disbelief was non-stop. As we waited for our corn dog he continued walking and we though the show was over. As we finished our batter wrapped heart-attack-on-a-stick I looked up and there he was again and right in front of Mrs. Twisted and then he bent over to pick up something just as she turned to catch the full moon. Not a pretty sight nor one of our visually friendly but memorable field trips.



Fast forward one week, We napped a little this last Saturday and got out of the house in the early evening and drove North to San Pedro. We wanted to check out the harbour but quickly realized that the cruise ships left on Friday night.


Well, we drove to the end of Pt Fermin and pulled over when we saw a stage and an audience.



Always game for some free entertainment and realized we were going to see "the Merchant of Venice" by Shakespeare.

The actors would sometime wait in the rear of the audience to walk on stage and this guy graciously posed for a picture for me. What fun they had, Some of the actors looked like they were having a really good time and the audience laughed along with the light hearted but well produced show. I even worked on my knitting until it became too dark to see the stitches but I must say, I prefer the snuggling under a blanket and sharing some culture over the FULL MOON from last Saturday.

Shakespeare By The Sea has been doing these shows for 10 years now and it was quite good. Well good enough for us to consider going back next week to see "Taming of the Shrew"

I didn't have to do Laundry after all

It was a good day today. I finished my lunch reading book. I know most of you knit during lunch but I prefer to eat and it's hard to eat and knit at the same time. I take my hour and decompress while I eat, read, and listen to my MP3 player. So I began reading a series of books by Lee Child with the Jack Reacher character in them. (check the sidebar I know I need to update it) This was #3 in the series. If you are a reader you know the feeling of finishing a good book. Sort of a happy it's over and sad that you cant continue.

When I got home we decided to go shopping and not for Yarn... Mrs. Twisted heard about this store that was a discount sort of place. Nothing over $20.00 Steve And Barry. http://www.steveandbarrys.com/ NBA star Stephon Marbury has his basketball shoes here for $15.95 not $150.00 like the other players shoes. Yes he wears the $15.00 shoes. Sarah Jessica Parker has a line of clothes for the ladies and girls too. And like I said nothing over $20.00. I found 3 pairs of shorts ( dark, khaki, and plaid) 3 button down semi-dress/casual shirts, one polo, two tee's. plus can you believe this? drum roll please.... Two pair of shoes in size US 15/Eur49 for less than $138. for the whole lot. I've paid more than that for a pair of good sneakers. Look out Old Navy and Anchor Blue.We stopped in Ross on the way out of the mall and bought some socks and I realized I didn't have to do laundry tonight after all.

My Seven things MEME

I guess I need to answer the tags I have received in the last few weeks. It looks like I have been tagged 5 or six times so here goes my 7 facts about me- Interesting? You decide.

1. I have been told I'm the "noticer guy." What is the noticer guy? Well we could be driving down the street and pass some gas station and not only would I notice the color and year of the red 67 Corvette getting gas but I would also notice what book the person in the passenger seat was reading. This is a long term affliction. I used to notice the TV show inconsistencies to the point that my Mom would threaten to turn off the TV if I didn't shut up. Mrs. Twisted thinks I should work for the TV or Movie companies as boo-boo finder.
   
   
2. I have an affinity for the color purple. Also a long time passion, I have a picture of me holding a purple cake just prior to my 4th birthday. Too bad it's the early 60's and we only had a B&W Kodak Instamatic and didn't even know what color pictures were yet besides at the Movies. Too all you youngins out there this was even before we had Color TV in our living room too. My mother mixed the food colors to come up with the lilac color. If you know me personally you see little signs of purple here and there. OK maybe a billboard or two hahahaha.
   
   
3. I learned to play guitar at age 43. I've wanted to play guitar since buying a beautiful new Fender Statocaster at age 16 and giving up after 4 or 5 lessons. I wish I still had that guitar but I sold it to pay for a repair on my dirt bike. Fast forward 25 years and Mrs. Twisted and I were talking about life dreams and expressed my desire to play guitar and she encouraged me to pursue my dreams. This put me in research mode for almost a year to find the perfect guitar(see #4). I now have three different guitars and love music more because of it.
   
   
4. I'm borderline obsessive. I dab my toes over the line once in awhile. Whenever I buy a major item camera, guitar, car, or any item with much potential impact on my life I look in magazines and online for all the reviews and try to get all the info I can so I can make an informed decision. This may take a few weeks to almost a year to a year depending on the amount of data. When I learned to knit, I dove in head first devoured all the material I could find. I learned fiber types and content and now this has progressed to obtaining hand dyed yarn from all the specialty fiber artist. If you have seen my fiber inventory list in Excel you have a mild idea of my obsessions :)
   
   
5. I carry Hot sauce when I travel back east.
   I know this may not seem like much, but I love food with some spice and flavor. My sauce of choice is Tapatio. A few years ago, well pre-non liquid ban, I used to carry my own bottle with me and now I have found it in little packets like ketchup. Mrs. Twisted's family now has a bottle of hot sauce waiting for me when we visit. :)
   
   
6. I was raised in a house without gender bias.
   I was the third son and my Mom never had her little girl so We all were exposed to the things that girls typically learn. I was raised being taught that men and women were both capable of all things if you want it bad enough. Consequently I know how to Grocery Shop like a psycho with menus and coupons, cook, clean, do laundry, sew, and shop for almost any item on a budget. Christmas shopping for me is almost an Olympic Sport.
   
   
7. I met my life long musical Idol Elvis Costello a few years ago. I was a fan of his back in the late 70's and followed his careerand continued to love his music even as he blurred the lines between music genres.
   
   
8. I would list an 8th but that might be obsessive. :))
   
   If you are reading this and you have not been tagged yet, then consider this your tag.

Life is good, Happy Fathers Day!

Busy weekend again, Saturday was fun at the Jewelry show in Santa Monica but that will be told later this week. This was Fathers Day so We each spoke to our respective Fathers first thing in the morning and my kids called to give wishes and we had the day to do with as we wanted. As usual Sunday was another beautiful day here in Southern Ca. Where do we go when the weather is nice? No not shopping, that was yesterday LOL. We went to the beach, our haven from the heat and hustle and bustle of life. The chairs are just left in the back of the car in case we happen to find an inviting spot any time but especially on the weekends. Today it was Crystal Cove State Park in Newport Coast between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach. It's a group of cottages that used to be occupied by squatters until the State came in some years back and took over the property. Now it's a State run group of cottages that you can rent for the night. Just a little overcast right at the waters edge but it was still nice.


The coastline here is a little rockier than what you usually see on Southern Ca beaches but it's still so pretty and the color of the water here is so pretty.


The light coming through the waves looked so pretty





We looked in the tide pools but there wasn't much wildlife.


We did see a lonely little crab.



The erosion made some neat overhangs on the cliffs. The sandstone washed away under making a shelf. You can even see cactus on the hills. Where else can you see cactus within feet of the ocean?





Have you ever seen a "Letterbox"? As we were walking down the beach we didn't see the hole in the rocks but on the way back Mrs. Twisted said look over there and I reached in and found a pleasent surprise. These are like clues that people leave for others when they go hiking. After reading the contents we learned about the huge number of these in Dartmoor National Park in Devon England. What a cool little discovery.










I guess this was started by someone from Canada but it looks like of of almost 5k of these all over North America We left our note and fingerprints using the stamp kit inside and put the box back in it's hidden spot for someone else to find.


I'm not sure what formed the round sandstone shapes this way but they remind me of little space ships that crashed from outer space.

Loving company, Quiet Beach, warm Sun, comfy chair, tunes from the MP3 player, sun screen, nice hat to keep the sun from my face, old school Ray Ban Wayfarers, cooler of drinks, purple hand dyed sock yarn and size 2 Holtz & Stein ebony DPNs. All the things I enjoy on my day off. Life is good.