Rain

We finally got some rain. It's been on and off since lunchtime today, and is forecast to continue through until Friday. The Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service sets river levels at more than 8 feet by then. It's certainly a welcome change in the weather, and a chance for me to try out my rain gear. Here is proof that I put my personal safety before image. I can only imagine how the yellow jacket and my red bike compliment each other. I have a cover for the bike now too, from E-bay. Saddle bags are on order from Chase Harper. Now all I need is some boots, a windscreen, and GPS. PS, my birthday is in a month. Christmas is just around the corner.

Folk Festival

The National Folk Festival was held in Richmond this year for the last time before it makes it's tri-annual move to another city. So, we thought we should check it out. It's a mixture of music and crafts, and one of our friends was volunteering with a group that fairly trades ethnic craft goods, called ten thousand villages. To be honest, I didn't find the event terribly interesting, and it was hot and packed full of people. This dude with an autoharp was cool. And I met a horse, which afforded the opportunity for this shot of me looking like a country boy. That in itself makes it worth me posting.

Anniversary Antics

Kristal and I recently celebrate one happy year together. She impressively constructed me the quilt picture above in complete secret. It's beautiful, double sided and very cosy! In return I helped her buy a new sewing machine. Actually, it is my sewing machine and she's just borrowing it until I learn how to sew. I has around 70 different stitch settings, and features one-touch thread routing and needle threading. Basically, I though sewing machines were kinda dull - I was wrong. They're dead cool and I own one.
We spent the day putting together a scrap book using photographs from the past year. For the first time I actually printed a decent quantity of my digital pictures. I have a HP Deskjet and was printing on Office Max photo paper, and they came out looking relatively professional. Some hues seemed to take longer to dry than others, so we ended up with a few smudges but nothing serious. The book will be a nice memory.
For dinner we had another attempt at making Sushi, but over-confidence got the best of us, and it didn't work out as well as our first effort on Valentine's Day. Still, you can't beat fish. And rice. Cucumber. Avocado. Soy Sauce.Wasabi.Ginger.