A really long post...

The past few days have been a bit crazy in my world. I had a connecting flight to get to Portland, OR to meet up with my tour. The part where we flew from LGA to PHI was probably the worst flight of my life. I got off it feeling sick and completely tossed about. Thankfully it was only a short, 45 minute flight. The flight to Portland was long. But, they showed a decent movie, and I diligently worked on my socks. And I have this to show for it. My first finished sock! I'm so impressed with myself. Although, I realized as I tried to do the decreases for the instep I had worked two different patterns to create my sock. I had cast on for the Yarn Harlots Basic Sock Recipe, and turned the heel of the pattern that Jen gave me with the yarn. Oops. So I adjusted as best I could to try and get the decreases back to the right spot, as I had several stitches too many. It worked out ok, Until the decreases for the toe. And well, I still had too many stitches for the pattern I had one me. So once again I faked my way through it and tried to make it shape out like a toe the best I could.


I think I was fairly successful, don't you? Even if I won't have two socks that match...

After the long flight to Portland, where my suitcase was still 10 lbs too heavy, I arrived on my tour bus (we'll have pictures of that later, as I am living on an amazing bus, that has never been on the road before). No one was there upon my arrival, so I found an empty bay spot and tossed my luggage in and tried to get a bit settled in. Somewhere in that, I managed to misplace the pouch that I had my license, debit card and amex in. (of course, I didn't realize this til last night when I was separated from the bus) I'm hopeful it just got tossed in my suitcase, and didn't fall out on the grass outside the bay. I met the rest of the crew in bits and pieces that night, before passing out. I was stuck on east coast time, and in the world of west coast time. I headed to bed early instead of joining everyone for drinks.

Our first load in and show were yesterday. Bend, OR is literally in the middle of nowhere. And most stagehands don't know much. It made for an interesting first load in. But, in the end, everything got put in its place. There were lots of little issues. Several of our lights decided they didn't like us, and needed to be swapped out. The data lines (that tell the moving lights when and how to move and change color) didn't get connected completely, which caused other issues. It turned into quite a long day for something that should have been fairly simple. It was a really small stage though, you could touch some of the lights from the ground when they were hanging from the roof. I really like my coworkers; Everyone is so friendly and welcoming. Which is great. And the music is decent too. I am going to enjoy this month.



(shots of the first show, and some of my toys!)

Well, I'm going to enjoy it if we can figure out load out. Last night got a bit ridiculous. Things seemed to move in slow motion on the out. It took longer to load two trucks than last years 22 truck load out. There wasn't a plan of action or attack, and there was no organization to things. I need to fix that tomorrow. Things will go along much smoother if we work methodically and do things the same every night. I am going to try and instill that, and hopefully move things along quicker on future shows. My crew chief is still getting on the edges of my nerves. I wish he'd give more direction and delegate exact tasks to me. I could do with a higher level of organization and structure. And someone who realized that sweat pants are not acceptable wardrobe for outside the house.

Today I traveled to Salt Lake City. I'm done with airports for the rest of the month, thankfully. This flying has messed up my body. I feel scatter brained and out of sorts. I accidentally threw away my boarding passes on Friday - thankfully I realized before anyone threw something in on top of them or emptied the barrel. I've misplaced my license and debit card. I forgot a medicine that should be taken daily in my suitcase on the bus (and when I take the two extra pills tomorrow, my body is going to over react). I'm bloated and dehydrated. I'm looking forward to road travel for the next stretch of time.

I think I've rambled on for enough time tonight. I was tagged by KM the other day, so I will get to that tomorrow. For now, I'm off to bond with my clapotis... The 4th ball of yarn is being attached tonight!