My dogs are barking

But I had a good day and don't really mind.

First I visited the Winchester Mystery House. I have wanted to go there for years and just couldn't miss this chance.  I took a tour of the Mansion, and the tour guide did a decent job, but I've known better. 'Course living in a tourism environment and a past history of working for a company that does sightseeing tours might make me a bit pickier than others, I admit that.  One thing I do know happens to every tour guide is that periodically someone will ask you a question you flat out don't have an answer for.  No matter how good your spiel or how many facts you've memorized, it happens.  And the guides that I have known, that are really in it because they want to be doing it, will then later go seek out the answers to those questions, and add them to the store of knowledge for the next time someone comes up that question. So, if you ever visit the Winchester Mystery House, your mission - whether or not you choose to accept it - is to ask if the antique carriage in the carriage house has ever been appraised and how many of the plain glass windows in the house still have the original glass. Not that I am madly curious to know the answers, but more to see if they care enough to find out! Yesterday the first question came to mind because several years ago I was involved in finding and obtaining an appraisal for some vintage carriages that were owned by my employer. The second was because I noticed that some, but not all, of the windows had that thick, wavy looking glass that you can tell is older, and I see a fair amount of that where I live and like the way it looks.

After a quick snack I drove over to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. I'd never even heard  of the place until this week, which is surprising since I worked in the field (museums) and generally visit museums of all kinds wherever I go. It's a very nice facility with a fairly impressive collection, laid out in a series of galleries that flow well.  My favorite section is the reproduction of a tomb section that actually starts in one gallery, travels under the lobby, and ends in a different gallery on the other side of the building. I do regret that I didn't have as much time to spend there as I'd like, there's also a planetarium and the show is free with museum admission.  So if you are planning a visit, make sure to include it, that's what I'll do next time!

The other bummer is that my camera battery quit on me, so while I have eleventy-jillion shots of the Winchester House, there's only a few of the exterior of the Egyptian Museum exterior. But here they are:

I stopped at my hotel for about an hour and then went on to the convention center for the market preview.  I was curious to see how much of a difference it would be without the Ravelry folks there because it seemed like such a large part of things last year, with the crowd around their booth, passport game and other hijinks.  Maybe it's just me but it does seem a little quieter this year.  And I have to wonder how the event organizers feel about Ravelry's absence? I mean, we all love Ravelry, and it adds so much to the our fiber crafty lives, but for the company that puts on this whole convention - how different was last year from the previous years? Does Ravelry's attendance sort of swamp and redirect the attention of convention goers away from XRX's desired focus of the event? Just wondering....

Anyway, I was a good kid during the market preview. I didn't buy anything, I just walked up & down the aisles, checking out booths and making notes on various yarns of interest along with the vendor and price.  And before I go back to the market I'm hopping online to look at some of the vendors sites and prices, then going through and re-writing those notes. I might not even buy anything til Saturday, and just look some more on Friday.  With the size of my budget, I'm not buying much and I want to make absolutely sure that I get the best possible deal and that it is something I truly want and will use.