Happy March and Happy Birthday, John!

If it's March, can John's birthday be far behind? The answer to that is no. John's birthday is on the second (which, coincidentally, happens to be today), so if March has just started, it's got to be near John's birthday.

Maybe I should wait until I'm really awake to finish writing this.

Anyway:

Happy Birthday, John!

I got on Facebook earlier to wish him a happy birthday on his Facebook Wall, and stumbled around a little bit because they're always changing things around on Facebook. I clicked on "Friends" because it was in the location where I could click on it and get a list of my friends, but instead I got a list of people that are friends of my friends, and discovered my own, private "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon."

People on the list were absolutely amazing! Here's a partial list:

• Gore De Vol--Horror personality
• William Shattner-- Needs no introduction
• Nana Visitor--From Star Trek Next Gen
• Ben Bova--Science fiction author
• Michael Okuda--Science fiction TV props and design
• David Gerrold--Science fiction writer
• Walter Koenig*--Checkov on Star Trek
• Nichelle Nichols* (see photo above)--Uhura on Star Trek
• Norman Spinrad--Science fiction author
• Bill Mumy--Actor
• Arch Cambell*--Movie reviewer
• CJ Cherryh--Science fiction author 
• Diane Duane--Science fiction author 
• Susan Sackett--Behind the scenes in Star Trek
• Richard Hatch--Apollo in Battlestar Galactica (original)
• Jody Lynn Nye--Science fiction author
• Steven Hickman*--Science fiction artist
• George Stover*--Actor in all of John Waters' films, Invader & New Genesis
• Stan Lee--Famous in comic book circles
• Dave Bischoff*--Science fiction author (and past roommate of John's)
• Jackie Lichtenberg*--Science fiction author and introduced me to John
• Barbara Hambly--Science fiction author
• Linda Bushyager*--Science fiction author
• Katee Sackhoff--Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica
• Paul Williams--Singer, songwriter, star of Phantom of the Paradise
• Larry Niven--Science fiction author
• Gerry Anderson--Created Space 1999
• Joe Haldeman--Science fiction author
• Charles de Lint--Science fiction author
• Jonathan Winters--Comedian

The further I scrolled down, the more people Facebook kept adding. I have at least two friends in common with all of these people, and the ones with an asterisk are people I've either met or are friends.

I'm writing about all this because it amazes me!

It's really fun to be friends with John! I say that because most of them are friends with John. I also got to meet Sam Rami and a lot of other fun people because of him.

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In knitting news, Knitting Daily has free knitting patterns listed! Scroll down to see the free patterns. You may have to sign up to get the patterns, but it's free.

Vogue Knitting has put up their fashion preview!

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Blogger is acting wierd, and I want to get this post up before it eats the whole post.

I hope you have fun on John's birthday!

Hi, Jean and Harry!

My sister got an email from my aunt and uncle, (Jean and Harry) who have moved and wrote to let her know. She forwarded it to me, and I sent an email to them with my information, and they checked my blog!

Unless Harry's interested in science fiction, I expect him to be bored with this pretty soon. But I think Jean will be interested in the knitting and what's going on with the family.

Jean and Harry met because of a different historical reenactment group, the N-SSA (the North South Skirmish Association). They reenact the Civil War. I used to go to the events with Jean, and that's how I met Harry, too. He was in Hampton's Legion. Every once in a while, I see a car or (more usually), a truck or van with a Hampton's Legion sticker on one of the windows, and I feel nostalgic.

I may not have mentioned to them that I went to some N-SSA events after I stopped going with them. 

One day, a friend of mine, Randy, showed up all happy. He said that he was tired of me knowing all about everything, and he was sure that he had found something that I didn't know anything about at all.

He went into a long description of guys getting dressed up in Civil War gear and going and shooting muskets and cannon in competition. I said, "Oh, the N-SSA!" He looked a little confused, and said something about "Yeah, I think that's what Doug said."

At the first event I went to with him, we were signing in, and I looked over my friend's head, awestruck and said "Oh, wow! A Gatling gun!" Someone really did bring a Gatling gun!

Anyway, I went to a few skirmishes at Ft. Shenandoah in the Virginia hills out West from here. As usual, it was loads of fun! I love shooting black powder!

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I thought I was going to have the glow-in-the-dark Christmas stocking done today, and I probably will have it done later today. But no photo yet. Tomorrow.

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My TV watching (Fringe and Eureka) was interrupted last night by a phone call from John Ellis. That's always a happy interruption!

If you click the link for John, you'll see information about some of the things he's done. I also worked on Invader and New Genesis. New Genesis had the working title of Twilight of the Dogs.

He wanted to alert me to the fact that we will be doing covers for new Steve Canyon DVDs real soon now. Well, I knew that, but it's always fun to talk to him. He was trying to see how many Steve Canyon episodes he could fit on one DVD without losing quality while he was taking to me. There is some new technology he's trying out. Unfortunately, it all went horribly wrong while he was talking to me and he had to hang up to go fix it.

You can see the cover I did for the first Steve Canyon DVD at the site above and order a copy there, if you want.

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I've been thinking for a while that I might like to write a biography. As biographies go, it doesn't have much in the way of a plot.

But then, I thought it might be interesting to somebody if I wrote a little bit of a biography one day a week. Just a post about something that happened to me.

When I was 17, I thought about what I might want to do with my life. And I thought about all the fun things that I could do if I wanted to. And I resolved to have an exciting and fun life. I think I've done well at that goal, and I'd like to share the fun.

So, what I want are opinions. Does this sound interesting? Do you want to read about it?

Let me know.

Have a great Wednesday!

Great Weekend!

The weekend started on Thursday evening, when my sister, Lynn arrived.

Lynn was determined to cheer me up, and she was wildly successful. We stopped by Arby's for a quick bite, and went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

It was wonderful! Everything you would expect from the next Indiana Jones movie, and everything they need to continue the stories. I loved the movie! I could go on and on about it, and, in fact, I did, all weekend to the total annoyance of everyone around me, no doubt.

I loved it so much that I want to run out and buy lots of Indiana Jones stuff (especially a hat), so I added a page to my store.

But I don't want to include any spoilers here, and anything I said would spoil it. 

On Friday, Lynn and I had planned to go to the IRS office and get all my problems straightened out. Well we went, and they weren't there.

The people from IRS on the phone promised that I could get my problems straightened out at their local office. Well, from what I could tell, there where a whole two people there! And one of them was a security officer, so there was only one person available for help, and they told me that they couldn't do anything that the people on the phone said they could.

They urged me to come back another day, but that's pricey on public transportation, and would have me walking a couple of miles from the bus stop on a foot that's been aching and making me think there's something seriously wrong with it. With no guarantee that they wouldn't help me then, either.

So, Lynn and I went out of there wondering what we were going to do with the rest of the afternoon. I made a few suggestions and asked her what she wanted to do. She said "Why don't we get you some new glasses?" At first, I didn't think she meant it, but she did, and I had an eye exam and new glasses.

They have a gunmetal finish metal frame which is a little bigger than I might otherwise want for glasses, but there are sunglasses that clip magnetically to the frame. They are the perfect size for sunglasses. Lynn and the saleslady said it was silly to buy glasses and not get bifocals, and the difference between line and no-line was a whole $7.50, so I have no-line bifocals.

Talk about the ultimate present! She said these are for my birthday, Christmas, my birthday next year and Christmas next year, and probably a few other presents, too. It's a present for the rest of my life!

Friday and Saturday evenings, we watched some TV and movies and talked. Movies seen were: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (she hadn't seen it before) and Practical Magic. Movie shows included Ghost Whisperer, and the Blink episode of Doctor Who.

Saturday, we went to the Potomac Celtic Festival, and met Holly, Everett and Jeff. 

There was no cider! They had a problem with some of the equipment that puts various drinks on tap, and so they had just beer and (I think) stout. They could only sell two drinks, so they eliminated the cider.

We wandered around and found loads of neat stuff, and then the sky got grey, and we shopped our way back to the cars. I wanted to go back to Echo and Wild and buy a sterling rune pendant that I had seen, but all the sales booths were being packed up for the rain that was coming and I couldn't find it for a while. I bought a beautiful silver Algiz (or Elhaz) pendant. Most runes have several names. Algiz is a rune of protection, and it's a rune that also appeared in New Genesis  (also known as Twilight of the Dogs--I'm in photo 13), a movie I worked on.

I bought my rune (which I love), and it was just starting to rain, so I headed across the field, directly toward the entrance, and the sky opened up and rained harder than I've ever seen it do. I had an umbrella, but my pants were soaked through before I could get out of the open and to shelter. This was not just rain, it was a storm. When I got toward the edge (near the exit), I hid under a tent with a lot of other people who wanted to get out of the rain, and called Lynn. She had gotten back to the car, and had pulled up near the entrance. She moved a little so I could see her headlights, and I made a run for it. We also picked up Everett and Jeff, and drove them out to Holly and her car.

After a little milling around in confusion, we went to Pizza Hut and had some wonderful pizza (what else), with all the usual stuff. It was wonderful! It gave us a chance to talk and catch up, and was loads of fun!

On Sunday, Holly got together with Lynn and I for lunch and we got a chance to talk and catch up on more things, we saw Lynn off on her trip home, and Holly and I went to see The Happening. It was spooky, and strange (you were expecting something else?). I was slightly disappointed with the ending.

We went to Borders so Holly could get a copy of the next Dresden Files book, and she bought a copy of Lord Foul's Bane to loan me and to read after I'm done with it.

Then she dropped me at home, where I crashed and burned with the current cold/sore throat/misery that I'm still fighting off.

What a weekend! I feel like I've been through an adventure to rival Indy's!

Have a great Tuesday! More on cameras and photography tomorrow