Crocker Art Museum Art & Craft Fesitval - November 24, 2007

Vic and I went to the Crocker Art Museum craft fair at Scottish Rite today. Very, very nice stuff. Very high quality like King's Mtn. or Palo Alto. Evidently 400 applied and they let 100 in. Didn't buy anything. Vic ordered a picture from the lady that does the asian calligraphy who I have seen at the Elks show and other places. She has a lot of asian characters and zodiac animals on tiles and cards and pictures. There was a rabbit that he liked with the calligraphy character and the rabbit head sort of coming out of the top of the character kind of like the kanji was the body of the rabbit. She had it on a small tile magnet and he liked it but she didn't have one on paper so he ordered one, only $8 or $9 something like that, big spenders we were. There was a lot of jewelry, very nice gourds, metal sculpture, pottery all sorts of stuff and most pretty expensive but not all. Went to dinner after at Kico's on Arden way. I've never been there but Vic had been with his father in the past. Had carnitas and they were as good as Carmelitas but the beans weren't quite as good but overall, good and I would eat there again. Good margarita. Put up the Xmas tree but not decorated yet. The lights are getting pretty old. Some don't work and I put other's on top and they are so old they are pretty yellow. I should probably get new ones but it's a pain to put them all on. It took me 3 days to do it when I got the tree as I wrapped them around all the branches all up and down each branch, but it's been 14 years so can't really complain as we had it one Xmas before moving here. They didn't come pre-lit when I bought it so did all the lights myself. Too much work to do again. Watched a DVD last night and this a.m. the TV had no reception just snow. Checked in my office and it worked in there. Checked the settings and had messages of power loss 4 times between 3:00 a.m and 9:45 a.m. That was probably when I was messing with it after I got up and was trying to re-boot it. Tried everything and figured it had to have something to do with watching the DVD that some setting got messed up. Finally gave up and called Dish. Didn't have to wait on hold long and got a lady with very very good English. We did about 100 steps including unplugging and tracing wires and telling her what was plugged in where, turning on the stereo and pushing buttons. She had me push the Tv/video input button and check if the tv was on TV 1, TV 2, Video 1, etc, etc. but when pushing the button the menu came up but wouldn't stay on the screen long enough to scroll through it, tried several times. Finally her lightbulb came on and she had me push the same button on the remote for the TV and I could change the setting to HDMI 1 which is what it was supposed to be on and voila! I have no idea how it changed since I didn't use the TV remote when watching the movie, just the DVD remote. At least now I know if it happens again what to do. Very frustrating and the call took over 1/2 hour, good thing it was an 800 number but the service was good and the English was good which was most important. I seem to remember the installer saying something about putting the TV onn something different besides Channel 3 when watching a DVD so that is probably what it was although I can't remember what he said, but it's an easy fix now that I know what to do.

Grass Valley Craft Fair - November 23, 2007


Jan and I went to the craft fair at the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley today. I love this venue as the grounds are old fashioned and full of beautiful huge pine trees. I picked up a bunch of pine cones. Of course we had to get big bags of Kettle Corn. I only bought a little zipper pull made from the end of silverware. Don't know if it's going to be a gift or for me yet.
On the way to Jan's before going to the fair I stopped at Circuit City to see if I could get the Black Friday bargain GPS, I got the last one!! It's a Garmin StreetPilot C340 and she talks to me. We took her to Grass Valley and named her Kim Wong, the B'otch. It's fun to play with but have to play around with her more to see what she can do. I'm going to get a friction mount so she can be moved to other vehicles without just laying on the seat and flopping around.

Thanksgiving - November 22, 2007

Thanksgiving at Irma and John's. Top row left to right, James, Joe, Joyce, Irma, Me, Vic. Bottom left to right, Ethan, John, Louise with Mitzi on her lap and Paul (Renee was taking the picture). Food was yummy. Irma got John a GPS for his birthday and it's one of the ones I've been researching and is on sale at Circuit City tomorrow for Black Friday. We went for a ride and played with it and I'm going to go get it tomorrow for myself.

Shoulder - November 20, 2007

Finally went to the Dr. about my shoulder today. Took x-rays, and said there is no space between part of the ball and the socket and there should be, maybe arthritis. Told him you don't get arthritis suddenly on October 15th. He said my lump was inflamation and gave me a cortisone shot. Hopefully will feel better in a couple of days. He said give it 72 hours. He also will refer me to a "shoulder class" with an osteo doc. Back to work today - late on my first day back due to doc. appt. Don't feel like working but the money can't be beat. I think I got lazy being off for 4 weeks and now with Christmas coming there is stuff to do. Oh well, the money pays for my plastic surgery.