Staycation weekend

been a week since i posted. what a week.

got a mongo proposal done and sent in. Grants.gov is a pain, but buys me time for when I don't have things ready the day before for Fed Ex. also squeezed out a grant report that someone else was supposed to do. not gonna even start with the work drama.

worked a zillion hours last 2 weeks to get it done. taking Monday off to recuperate, even tho I didn't work over this weekend.

Husband and i were supposed to go to Buffalo for his annual family reunion but I just couldn't do it, so I bailed. Husband didn't want to go without me so he didn't go either. awww how sweet.

We had a little staycation weekend instead. It's restaurant week in downtown Atlanta, where participating restaurants offer a prix fix menu. I made reservations for us at Thrive, a place we hadn't been to before. It was okay. the shrimp salad was the best thing there.

In the mail we got our Dragon*Con progress report. So we headed up to the pool with adult beverages to plan our Labor Day weekend plans. Well I did. Husband played Angry Birds on his iPhone. that is an addictive, and deceptively difficult, little game.

Saturday we went to the Ga Aquarium to see the shark exhibit. Husband's been wanting to see it so I got us tickets. For dinner we had trout :)

Yesterday Husband went to work and I finally finished the BSG Season 3 disc I had. The last ep on the disc was the boxing one which showed life of New Caprica and the Sam-Kara-Lee-Dee situation. As much as I like Dee, my favorite part was seeing Laura and Bill hangout under the stars.

I also watched some fitness shows on FitTV station on cable. Caught the end of a yoga show and followed along with the belly-dancing show. My verdict: yoga is harder.

The Two Sides of the Atlantic: Florida and Europe

The past few days have been busy. Last week Husband and I went down to Ft. Lauderdale in Florida. He had a deposition to do, I went along for the ride. We spent a lot of time looking at the beach and Atlantic Ocean but not getting into it. The sand was too soft. We also spent a lot of time at the hotel pool, but didn't get into it either. There were too many kids.

However, we did avail ourselves to the bars and watched the USA-Ghana soccer game. Gotta say, still not a fan of the game.

We got back Saturday night, then on Sunday we hosted dinner for the European Marshall Memorial Fellows who came through Atlanta.

Each year, the US and Europe select 60 emerging leaders in the fields of business, philanthropy, politics, etc. under the age of 40 and send them on trips across the Atlantic to continue the bond the grew out of the Marshall Plan after World War II. I did my trip in 2007. In fact, I started in blog as a place to record my experience.

When I knew that the European fellows were coming through Atlanta this year, I immediately offered to host Sunday dinner. From my experience, I knew that there'd be little planned for them on Sunday, since most people aren't doing meetings on Sunday.

I also planned a home cooked meal, since the fellows are traveling for 3 weeks, eating out all the time. A home cooked meal's a nice change. The menu was:

chips and salsa
carrots, Wheat Thins, and onion soup dip w/sour cream
tossed salad with mandarin orange and boiled eggs
brown rice
baked chicken with potatoes, onions, and rutabagas, seasoned with Zatarain's cajun seasoning
for dessert: mini-pineapple cakes imported from Taiwan. They're like little fig newtons, but with pineapple centers.

Here they are, all busily eating. Interestingly, front and center in this pic are 2 lawyers: Husband in Atlanta, and Emrush from Kosovo. The other fellows are a Spanish economics professor, a Portugese media guy, and a German working for the Church on refugee issues. Two other European fellows didn't make it, including a Greek woman named Afroditi (isn't that cool?) who's early in her pregnancy, and another guy who was working.

The American fellows who came were my local city councilman who apparently has a day job, but I never hear him talking about it; and an IT venture capitalist (I think) but all I know is he volunteers to be the local host for the European fellows every year.

It was a busy but fulfilling long weekend. Tonight is the farewell dinner for the EMMFs as they move on to Cleveland.

Dreaming of a Russian River Cruise

Recently I went to DC for a conference, again, and stayed with Sister, again. On Wed, we both took a vacation day and hung out.

The plan was to go to the botanical garden where she's getting married this fall, but it started raining, so we went to Fiber Space yarn shop, where I got the above:

Circular knitting needle case by Della Q

Sock Yarn by Miss Babs in the colorway Raven

I also got a itty bitty circular needle, just 9 inches long, size 2.5 mm. I could use them for socks, but probably will use them to knit stuffed snakes in the round.

Still working on the green shawl, on 2.5mm needles, so that's slow going, but portable and mindless. Perfect for watching the view go by as we go cruising down the Volga River for a month.

That's what Husband and I have been dreaming of for vacation. A river boat cruise, from Moscow to St. Petersburg for a month. Or from Singapore, through the islands of Malaysia and Indonesia, with stops in Australia and New Zealand.

That's not going to happen this year, nor next, but it's fun to dream about. More realistically we are looking at a 3 or 4 day cruise down the Hudson River from NYC to Montreal. Just sit, knit, and watch the world go by.

ETA: Work is incredibly stressful this week. There was a board meeting on Saturday where I was to be evaluated by the board of directors. That's always fun. Then they dropped the news that an anonymous complaint was lodged against me so they want 5 years worth of financials, reports, etc. Plus I feel like all they did was tell me what I did wrong, nothing about what I did right. Then after the meeting, we started a national training and I'm supposed to be all happy, encouraging and upbeat, after all that? I started e-mail all the requested stuff to the board chair and of course a lot is getting bounced back because her mailbox is full.

Ahh

Had a great vacation with Husband in southern California/Los Angeles area. It was so relaxing. First a few days in Palm Springs/Joshua Tree National Park, then a few days in Santa Monica right on the Pacific coast.

Took lots of pictures, will organize and post later. Probably over the New Year's weekend when I have no plans.

In the mean time, I'm back at the office to meet some deadlines.

ETA: Photo taken on Twenty-Nine Palms Hwy just north of Joshua Tree National Park.

Vacation knitting

In a few days, Husband and I will be off to Southern California for a vacation to mark our 10th wedding anniversary. There's a way for me to blog via iPhone, but I don't think I will. I prefer typing on a full size keyboard.

I had knit the Sunrise Circle Jacket to wear on this trip, but haven't finished seaming and hemming it. I'll take it on the plane with me and do the seaming and hemming on the plane. Then I'll be able to wear it while there. It won't have buttons, but I do have a shawl pin to use.

I've got several projects on the needles, including 2 scarves. I'll take one probably the triangular scarf because that's more mindless than the Noro multidirectional scarf. More than once I forgot to stop the short rows at the right place and had to unknit. The other WIP is a big blanket. Not portable.

I also have a hankering to start another top-down raglan cardigan, maybe another Hermia. Or a Fair Isle cardigan. Or Cosmicpluto's Easy Topdown Raglan Sweater. I have 3 skeins of a pink/grey/cream yarn I could use for the yoke and then use grey for the rest. And this time I'll put in pockets. Last week I went to a work event and realized that nothing I was wearing had pockets for my business cards. Hard to network that way.

I still want to make a shawl with the yarn I mentioned here. But not portable. Plus, I really should finish something before starting another.

Torchwood: Children of Earth

I took today off from work, as part of recuperating from the vacation. I probably could have gone to work, but I have so much vacation time accrued, I felt fine taking another day off.

So I spent it watching Days 1, 2, and 3 of Torchwood: C of E. That's all that was on the Netflix DVD. Great, great storytelling. At the end of the each episode, I couldn't wait to see the next one. It was a great idea to focus on just one story and stretch it over 5 days. Now I have to wait a few days for the next dvd to get here. What will I do in the mean time?

Oh, yes. I have Buffy, of which I also watched today. I only have the 2 episode season 2 closer. I'll save that for tomorrow. Because I think I watched enough TV today.

I'm thinking of doing National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo) this year, in November. Every once in a while I'll start a novel and then abandon it. Given that, and the fact that I've been getting into the stories of the Whedonverse and Gaimanverse, I figured I should stop with the procrastinating and just do it.

Now, if only I had a plot and not just characters and fragments of ideas....

Husband's back!

Husband's back from his guys trip. He was gone Wed to Sat.

On Thursday he started getting sick and he said the best part was sitting out in the Arizona sun, soaking it up, like a lizard.

A day off

Took the day off today. Felt good.

I had a dr appt at 8:30am and then a noon meeting for an organization where I serve as a board member.

By 9am, my appt was done, but the mall doesn't open until 10am. I'm on the look out for a work appropriate purse that's big enough to hold the usual purse stuff, the baby blanket I'm knitting, and a pad of 8.5" x 11" paper; that will be strong enough to hold all that (a vinyl purse I have gets stretched all out of shape); not be too heavy or loaded down with superfluous zippers and pockets as is trendy; and is not too expensive.

Or I could skip the mall and go to a fiber and yarn shop near by that I've never been to. I printed out a list of Atlanta area yarn shops with location, hours, and phone number, just for these occasions.

Or, I could get a bagel and lox, and leisurely knit and read entire articles in the New Yorker magazine and take my eye off the clock -- okay, cellphone. The articles about vengence as a fundamental human emotion and about elevators were pretty good.

So that's what I did. And what a pleasure it was to read what I wanted, at a pace I wanted, while knitting, and in solitude. Bliss.

I did run to DSW Shoe store real quick, where I saw a few purses I liked, but not the price tags. Then it was time to go to my meeting.

It was a good meeting and again with no time pressure, I was able to stay after and talk with a few other board members and get to know them better.

Husband is out of town, on a guy's weekend trip, so I actually have to cook for myself. Ran to the grocery store and this is what I had for dinner:

• Baguette
• Garlicy hummus plate with cucumber, tomato, cilantro, sweet onion, and monterrey jack cheese
• slice of chocolate cake
• Merlot

It was quick and easy to cut up the baguette and vegetables, carry all that out to the patio and mix and match flavors from the hummus plate, while enjoying the warm spring weather, the hummingbirds, the last of the daffodils, and the latest edition of Entertainment Weekly.

Not sure if I'll do the dishes tonight. It's only me and the cat and he won't be licking the oniony cutting board anytime soon.

I'm thinking of totally abandoning my usual routine and continue the silence and solitude by not watching TV tonight.

But who am I kidding? There are Law and Order, CSI, NCIS, and other police procedural dramas on and I am helpless to resist.

Went Miami, and did nothing but eat, drink, and walk

This weekend, Husband and I went to South Beach, which is the southern tip of Miami Beach. South Beach has all the pastel Art Deco buildings, like these:

Yes, they like the neon and flash in South Beach.

But this is the first notable building we saw in South Beach

Made me think of this post by Crazy Aunt Purl about the Liquor Bank

View from the hotel:
Nice, eh? Everyday, we spent a significant amount of time on that beach, soaking up the sun.

Husband and I talked to Father-in-Law in Wisconsin while lying out there. He said there was 2 feet of snow on the ground, that it hasn't stopped snowing since December. Made me enjoy the sun and sand even more.

After checking in, we went to Joe's Stone Crab for lunch. Cutting through an alley, we saw some white ibises and pigeons scavenging from the trash. When they saw us coming, they starting scooting away.

The rest of the trip was basically about walking up and down Ocean Drive or the beach. Really, we explored very, very little of South Beach. But that's okay. The purpose of the trip was, well, there was no real purpose, other than to enjoy ourselves.

And so we did, doing a lot of this

Not pictured: the various margaritas and mojitos we enjoyed, nor the food. Mmmmm, great cerviches and Italian. Also not pictured: the scantily clad beautiful people (hence the South Beach Diet), the other tourists, and the locals who lived there before the gentrification set in.

We made sure to get tables right on Ocean Drive so we could enjoy all the high end cars cruising up and down. By high end, I mean Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Rolls Royces, and other cars Husband assured me were worth more than our house.

Here's one:

Don't know what it is, but it's expensive.

Our last night there, we saw LLCoolJ walking into Lario's, a restaurant partly owned by Gloria Estefan. I didn't see LL, but Husband did. He caused quite a stir (LL, not Husband). There was a black SUV with tinted windows and a security guy out there.

Somewhere in here is LL getting into the SUV:

As I was trying to take pictures of LL, the waiter for the table next to us (jokingly) thought I was trying to get a picture of him. So he and one of the guys at the table next to us agreed to pose for a picture:

Atlanta 35 degrees, Miami 75 degrees

It is very cold in Atlanta. Yesterday I woke up to white stuff on the ground and on my car. I'm tempted to knit another beret, having given all my berets away.

However, tomorrow Husband and I go to South Beach, Miami, which will be in the high 70s F.

South Beach has a great Art Deco district, with bright pastel colors and lots of neon. Miami Vice was set there. I will be taking many many pictures and I just know that I'll want to come back and drench myself in the sunny colors of pink and yellow and turquoise and lime. That will be quite a contrast to my usual red, black and grey.

I will not be going on the South Beach diet. I will be on vacation!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I am taking today off.

Not because of Valentine's day, but because my parents are here visiting.

Husband is so sweet. He left a box of Valentine's chocolates for my parents with a newspaper cutting about animals that mate for life. Isn't that sweet?

Then on the refrigerator, I see this:

Ooooooooh! Trip to Miami? The dates are 2/29 to 3/2 so that'll be after Ma and Ba go back to Taiwan. A little romantic trip for us!

A few years ago for 6th our anniversary, he planned a trip to Miami and Key West. He wouldn't tell me where we were going, just that I should pack for a consistently 78 degree weather and that I should protecty my toes. It turned out to be Key West, where it's warm. And full of drunken revelers, hence the need to protect the toes.

Recently I mentioned that I really enjoyed Miami, and it turns out that we're going to South Beach, hence the neon buildings. Cool!

I have the best husband in the world. Tomorrow's his birthday. I got to get him something good.
So today I'm going to take my parents to Harry's Farmer's Market and go shopping and let my mom cook her heart out, and we'll eat it all, and everyone will be happy!

Pictures from Savannah -- complete with wildlife

Over the weekend, Husband and I went to Savannah, Georgia. Saturday night we had dinner with his secretary who was having a girls' weekend with her mother in Savannah too. It's kind of interesting to go bar hopping with your husband, his secretary, and her mom. We saw plenty of wildlife, all of the human kind.

Sunday morning, despite the multiple margaritas on Saturday night, Husband and I got up at the crack of dawn to go to Fort Pulaski national park. A few weeks ago, Husband was in Savannah for work (I couldn't go with him because of my work) and went out to Fort Pulaski early to get some exercise in before starting the day. He saw deer and wanted me to go with him this time.

We got to the entrance to the park and found that the gate at the bridge to the park was still closed. So we left the car on the side of the road and walked across the bridge. Didn't take any pictures but is was nice and peaceful with river (pretty sure not the Savannah River) below us and one loon. The bird, not a person.

Here is our first encounter with deer at the gate to the visitors center and the fort itself. Conveniently, but unintentionally, Husband's head is in the foreground, for scale. Deer are kind of big. At least I think so, since the biggest animals I see are cats and dogs.

The brick wall doesn't go much beyond what's in the picture, so we just went around it and walked over to the fort. Here you can see the damage from cannon balls way back from Civil War times (I think).

Then we saw this at the edge of the moat:

We didn't get too close to the heron and thank goodness for the zoom lens on the camera. We turned away to look across the field and when we turned back, the bird was gone. Silent the whole time.

Here's deer in the morning mist, as the sun's coming up.On the way back, the mist burned off and we saw these in a clearing by the parking lot:

We took a little path off to the side and it took us down to the Savannah River, where we saw this container ship go by. Global commerce in action.
On the way back to the car, we saw
I guess the gate to the park was now open. And clearly cars don't bother them but people do. They were quite wary of us -- see blurry picture above of them running away from us.

Here's the best pictures of all:
Yes, many pictures of deer, but we're done now.

After Fort Pulaski, we went to Tybee Island for breakfast at the Breakfast Bar (or was is Club?). Then on to the beach, Husband's favorite part.

First stop, the pier, where a little girl found us fascinating and came right up to us to just stare. Then a guy caught this:

Guy was nice enough to bring it closer, saying "look at the eyes!"Here's they're using plyers to take the hook out of it.

Then they threw it back into the water. It landed belly up and slowly we could see it's white-diamond shapve sink into the green water.

After a while, Husband and I went down to the beach where we saw a seagull walking away from a dead fish. I wanted to tell it there were starving seagulls in China:

As we're walking along, I noticed that we were paralleling Husband's tire tracks in the sand. Because we were just strolling, the tracks were kind of meandering and drifted one way and then another, with little turns. So we made a little artwork. I call it "Overlapping Tire Tracks."

First Husband rolled across the sand, making sure to put in interesting curves. Then he turned around and came back, being careful to retrace on tire track. Here he is coming back around for another pass:

And then another pass. The pier is in the back ground, with a little gazebo at the end and a little dark blue sliver of the Atlantic Ocean.

Back and forth, back and forth. And now the final piece. I like the ends, where he pivoted around, creating the outer curve and little divots of sand:



And to end this post, I wrote this in the sand:

Off to Savannah

This weekend, Husband and I will go to Savannah. He has a work appointment there on Monday and I'm just along for the ride.

I am so tired. We're still short handed at work, though Complaining Employee is getting better. I thought we had a breakthrough yesterday, but today, interacting with her has just been draining. And we interacted for only an hour max today, in person, e-mail, and phone.

She's a perfectionist and very rigid. This week, the New York Times had an article about perfectionists (pasted below). I gave it to her yesterday, when I thought we had moved past some difficulties, and she laughed, saying yes, she is trying to get beyond it.

And then it flared up again today. I have to deal with her tomorrow, but then it's off to Savannah.

There is really no focus to my blog. It's a lot of knitting stuff, some news articles I find interesting, and stuff from my life. However the really hard, stressful stuff is not here. In the last 12 months or so, I have had some of my highest highs and lowest lows. That stuff I share with only a few people. It's self preservation. I don't know how long I will keep up this blog. It may be for years and I don't want to look back and see that hard stuff in black and white and relive it. I think Crazy Aunt Purl has the right idea -- hold off on posting on things until you've moved beyond it.

And so this blog has a lot of knitting. It's become more and more important to me, I think in proportion to my need for a way to deal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unhappy? Self-Critical? Maybe You’re Just a Perfectionist
By BENEDICT CAREY Dec 4, 2007.

Just about any sports movie, airport paperback or motivational tape delivers a few boilerplate rules for success. Believe in yourself. Don’t take no for an answer. Never quit. Don’t accept second best.
Above all, be true to yourself.
It’s hard to argue with those maxims. They seem self-evident — if not written into the Constitution, then at least part of the cultural water supply that irrigates everything from halftime speeches to corporate lectures to SAT coaching classes.
Yet several recent studies stand as a warning against taking the platitudes of achievement too seriously. The new research focuses on a familiar type, perfectionists, who panic or blow a fuse when things don’t turn out just so. The findings not only confirm that such purists are often at risk for mental distress — as Freud, Alfred Adler and countless exasperated parents have long predicted — but also suggest that perfectionism is a valuable lens through which to understand a variety of seemingly unrelated mental difficulties, from depression to compulsive behavior to addiction.
Some researchers divide perfectionists into three types, based on answers to standardized questionnaires: Self-oriented strivers who struggle to live up to their high standards and appear to be at risk of self-critical depression; outwardly focused zealots who expect perfection from others, often ruining relationships; and those desperate to live up to an ideal they’re convinced others expect of them, a risk factor for suicidal thinking and eating disorders.
“It’s natural for people to want to be perfect in a few things, say in their job — being a good editor or surgeon depends on not making mistakes,” said Gordon L. Flett, a psychology professor at York University and an author of many of the studies. “It’s when it generalizes to other areas of life, home life, appearance, hobbies, that you begin to see real problems.”
Unlike people given psychiatric labels, however, perfectionists neither battle stigma nor consider themselves to be somehow dysfunctional. On the contrary, said Alice Provost, an employee assistance counselor at the University of California, Davis, who recently ran group therapy for staff members struggling with perfectionist impulses. “They’re very proud of it,” she said. “And the culture highly values and reinforces their attitudes.”
Consider a recent study by psychologists at Curtin University of Technology in Australia, who found that the level of “all or nothing” thinking predicted how well perfectionists navigated their lives. The researchers had 252 participants fill out questionnaires rating their level of agreement with 16 statements like “I think of myself as either in control or out of control” and “I either get on very well with people or not at all.”
The more strongly participants in the study thought in this either-or fashion, the more likely they were to display the kind of extreme perfectionism that can lead to mental health problems.
In short, these are people who not only swallow many of the maxims for success but take them as absolutes. At some level they know that it’s possible to succeed after falling short (build on your mistakes: another boilerplate rule). The trouble is that falling short still reeks of mediocrity; for them, to say otherwise is to spin the result.
Never accept second best. Always be true to yourself.
The burden of perfectionist expectations is all too familiar to anyone who has struggled to kick a bad habit. Break down just once — have one smoke, one single drink — and at best it’s a “slip.” At worst it’s a relapse, and more often it’s a fall off the wagon: failure. And if you’ve already fallen, well, may as well pour yourself two or three more.
This is why experts have long debated the wisdom of insisting on abstinence as necessary in treating substance abuse. Most rehab clinics are based on this principle: Either you’re clean or you’re not; there’s no safe level of use. This approach has unquestionably worked for millions of addicts, but if the studies of perfectionists are any guide it has undermined the efforts of many others.
Ms. Provost said those in her program at U.C. Davis often displayed symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder — another risk for perfectionists. They couldn’t bear a messy desk. They found it nearly impossible to leave a job half-done, to do the next day. Some put in ludicrously long hours redoing tasks, chasing an ideal only they could see.
As an experiment, Ms. Provost had members of the group slack off on purpose, against their every instinct. “This was mostly in the context of work,” she said, “and they seem like small things, because what some of them considered failure was what most people would consider no big deal.”
Leave work on time. Don’t arrive early. Take all the breaks allowed. Leave the desk a mess. Allow yourself a set number of tries to finish a job; then turn in what you have.
“And then ask: Did you get punished? Did the university continue to function? Are you happier?” Ms. Provost said. “They were surprised that yes, everything continued to function, and the things they were so worried about weren’t that crucial.”
The British have a saying that encourages people to show their skills while mocking the universal fear of failure: Do your worst.
If you can’t tolerate your worst, at least once in a while, how true to yourself can you be?

She'll be coming 'round the mountain

Spent the weekend in the North Georgia mountains up by western North Carolina. The mountains are so densely wooded, you could see how Eric Robert Rudolph, the 1996 Atlanta Olympic (and abortion clinics and lesbian night club -- seeing a theme here?) bomber could have hid out there and evade capture for years.

Anyway, Husband arranged a nice little getaway for my birthday. He knows I like the mountains, and lakes, and the crafting, so we went to Hiawassee, Georgia on Lake Chatuge. North Georgia is under drought conditions and all outdoor watering has been banned. Here's a picture why:

This is the view from the top of the boat ramp. Under normal conditions, you back your boat trailer to the bottom of the ramp, and the boat would float. You can clearly see that lake levels have dropped so much.

We were going to go boating but never did. We did a lot of driving instead (yes and adding more emissions into the air, making the global warming problem worse). All the roads in the mountains are very, very windy, hence the title of this post. Husband did all the driving, which gave me time to knit (carefully). My take along project was Cosmic Pluto's easy top-down raglan cardigan, using Manos del Uruguay yarn and size 10 US needles. By the end of the trip this is what I got done:

It's for Sister, who chose the colors. The blue and orange stitch markers indicate where to increase at the arms.

Husband chose Hiawassee because of the lake, and on the other side of Lake Chatuge on the North Carolina side is the John Campbell Folk School and it's annual fall folk art fair. We had a late start to the day Saturday because Friday night is grill out night, with the attendent beer consumption and gin rummy card playing. I won by the way.

Anyway we got to the Folk School at 4pm, the folk art fair ends at 5pm. What I wanted most was to see the facilities, because I've heard they offer great pottery classes. I did get a look at their facilities, which are fine. But they're no better, as far as I can tell, than the Cobb County parks and recreation facility 3 miles from my house that I use now. For cheaper.

For dinner we went to the Old Hiawassee Grill at the Ridges Resort. Husband looked up the Ridges' fancier restaurant, Sequoyah, but it was on the other side of Lake Chatuge, in North Carolina, where we just were. D'oh!

Still it was a very nice dinner, we sat outside and looked at the sad, low-water-level lake, and enjoyed prime rib and grilled trout. Both entrees, with salad and bread, came out to $15 each. $15! You can't get those kind of prices with the same ambiance in Atlanta! On the other hand, I'm not going to drive 2 hours to Hiawassee everytime I want a nice $15 dinner.

Sunday we went to Moccasin Lake state park where the water was higher, but the one jon boat was rented out. So we visited the attached fish hatchery. Unexpectly, I quite enjoyed that.

There are these long concrete troughs with swarms of different sized trout (all the 4 inch babies together here, the 6 inchers there, the 9 inchers ready for release in yet another trough). I took many pictures, but you can't really get the scale of the thing.

Here's a poor, dying fish -- see the white scales, unlike the others? Every once in a while, the other fish would attack it and all you'd see is a swarm of them thrashing around. Husband said they were speeding up the dying process, so they could eat it.

Here's the 9 inchers which will eventually be released into the lake:

And here's the one I want for dinner:
We finished the trip by going to Tallullah Gorge. Here's the entrance to the Jane Hurt Yarn center. Jane hurt yarn? What did the yarn do to deserve it? I just had to take a picture:

The falls in Tallullah Gorge were very pretty, here's the view of the second water fall, from Overlook 2. The trails, by the way, are paved/lined with recycled tires, making them nice a springy.

Now we're home and veging and having salad for dinner, to make up for all the vacation calories.

Another nice thing? No cell reception in the mountains. So I had time to compose what I wanted to tell the board members to give them a heads up about Complaining Employee. Fortunately, no one's freaking out about it, and we'll just see what happens.

Hey, you know, I'll be able to get around that mountain too.