(I feel the need to say this again – the RI post will show up.  3 hour layover in Philadelphia tomorrow, so maybe then.  Otherwise, it will likely wait until the weekend.)

So this superfast (cause I have a session really soon) post is more SF than WIP, though there has been some knitting here.  My trip so far has been amazing.  Its beautiful here, the weather perfect.  Mostly its looked like this: SF sky That’s the view from room, in one direction.  In the other, I get more city skyline and a little sliver of SF Bay.  Gorgeous!  I felt like I needed an ark when I left CT, so perfect 70 degree days have been a gift.  This morning, I woke up and saw this: fog San Francisco really does have fog!  Having been here once before, I know how good we’ve had it for 2 days.  Its burning off in a hurry though, so I suspect by the end of my first session, sun!  (great picture, I know – the camera has yet to leave my room – and its the old p & s so I have no excuse)

The conferences continues to be amazing.  Yesterday was a full day of sessions, on great topics like Performance Improvement, Volunteer Management and using Social Media for non-profits.  Really cool stuff that’s left me energized and wanting more.  I love it when I go to a conference and leave with a reading list as long as my arm and a list of other workshops to seek out.  And there’s more today before it wraps up late this afternoon.

I’ve had a little bit of time to see the city too, which has been wonderful.  On Monday, I took the trolley ($1.50 to criss-cross the city – love it!) to the Castro neighborhood (think the movie Milk), home of Imagiknit.  To all who recommended going there – thank you!  The shop itself was great but that neighborhood was just a treasure.  What a fun a place!  Imagiknit was friendly, huge for a neigborhood shop and had some stuff that I hadn’t seen before, like Malabrigo test yarns – things that will be releasing that are for now exclusive to Imagiknit and Handmaiden yarns.  It took me an hour to pick my souvenir from the trip (who needs some stupid trinket when you can bring home yarn?) – a skein of Chasing Rainbows merino/tencel yarn in Cabernet.  Yummy!  After the shop, I poked around – had lunch in a tea shop, people watched and even found a chocolate shop that was going out of business.  50% off truffles?  Can’t tell you the name because I ate ‘em (not in one sitting, in two).  Yesterday, I had a 2 hour break at lunch time and I took a walk to the nearby Museum of Modern Art to see a special exhibit – Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams.  It was amazing.  I love O’Keefe’s work and to see it in person was such a gift.  Her use of color inspires me – lots of new ideas floating around!  I’ve never been a huge fan of Ansel Adams but to see the juxaposition with O’Keefe was very cool, especially when they had the same subject.  I did the audio tour – hearing about their shared history and friendship was really interesting.  After that, lunch at a Yerba Buena Gardens next to Moscone Center, where the conference is.  It was beautiful – I’ll take the camera with me today when I go have lunch there again.  And tonight, post-conference, I plan on taking the trolley out to Fisherman’s Wharf to have dinner and do the tourist thing.  Seems like a perfect wrap up to my trip.

So for the knitting, I’ve done a little.  Some on the plane (the next idiot to ask me if security actually allowed my needles through gets treated to an explanation of how I stuffed them in my bra, got poked a lot and then enjoyed getting frisked after going through the metal detector.  the 5th time I got asked by a passenger on the way here may have pushed me over the edge on that one.  never had a problem with my needles, just my fellow passengers), some between sessions and a bit in the room.  Here’s where I am, in super-classy picture on the un-made bed style: Allegro Allegro is coming along – slowly.  I don’t know what possessed me to think I could knit this whole thing on this trip…  sock The Malabrigo socks are an inch from being done.  I’m thinking I’ll bind off at lunch in the park today.  Next up are these: sock 2 Knee High to a Grasshopper socks in Silky STR (colorway unknown in this moment).  I hope to cast them on tonight so that I can alternate projects on the plane (the cotton in Allegoro is hard on the hands after a few rows).  That’s it!

I really have to run now if I have any hope of grabbing breakfast before my first session.  Happy Wednesday!