Ah, Maker Faire…I HEART You! I am always impressed with how many talented folks there are and how many of them are so young, too! When I was in the room where the Lego trains and towns were located (see the photo below), the gentleman there mentioned that one of the boys that worked on the system was 12! There was so much creativity at the Maker Faire and it’s one of those places where I’m just in awe (and feel pretty dumb, too) and just want to take it all in. I can’t even begin to describe how much fun I had. I ended up going when it opened at 10:00am but think I’ll go a little later next year. Why? Well, because I should have paid more attention to the schedule of events. All the fire stuff and power tool racing took place in the evening. There’s always Maker Faire 2009, right? Anywho…here are some photos for you to enjoy (sorry it’s not in a better format. I just kept trying to put too many together to share with you all and it was taking forever).

Mmmm, cupcakes…

The Extra Action Marching Band. I made sure I planted myself in front of the stage prior to start time once I knew they were performing. Totally awesome!

Check out this band, Total Annihilation. Look at their outfits! They are just a young group and really rocked it…

One of the “rides” you could try out; Ah, now I know what to do with all those pens I own…

Let me know if anyone else attended. I think that’s enough on the photo front.

Guess where I’m going today…

Hells yeah!  updates to follow. 

Sorry for the week that I was M.I.A., guys. I have been busy at work on a couple of things including going to my day jobs. First, I just reopened Punk-n-Pie after our move and family affairs that I mentioned earlier. There are tons of things on sale, so help us make some space in our tiny place for more items. There’s also a bunch of amazing new clothing pieces added as well. Check it out:

Camp Flannel in Baby Blue: $36.00; White Tie Top: $24.00:

I’m also working on putting together a Goodies Galore Giveaway for Mixed Plate. If you haven’t signed up for our newsletter yet, please do. That will be your chance to win a box full of handmade items. If you’re a business owner wanting a way to advertise you can email me (liana@mixedplateblog.com) and send your donation in. I’ve got an ad in N.E.E.T. Magazine coming up and donations are due soon.

Something else that’s going on is my jewelry site is getting a makeover. So, be on the lookout for the new On a Friday (I’ll let you know when).

So, enough of the shameless plugs. Where was I last weekend? I was taking pictures of boys! Oh, not like that. The husband and I rented a car and drove from San Francisco to Santa Barbara to watch a stage of the Amgen Tour of California. It was a crazy trip but the adventure was totally worth it! We got cowbells, a foam finger and yelled and cheered like crazy. It was awesome. Here’s the proof:

Yes, I am here. I am alive. I do exist. If you have been emailing me and wondering what’s up, I will get back to you shortly. I am settled (sort of) here in San Francisco and am trying to get my Hawaii blood acclimated to the cold. It’s only today that the company that I chose as my internet service provider got the modem sent to the apartment (it was a mess up - ugh). Only today do I FINALLY have my internet access. Sheesh! As you can imagine, I’ve been lost and feeling sad and out of touch with anything that may be going on. No internet is kinda like no life connection. Sad, I know, but it’s true. Plus, I ain’t got no television so I’ve been curious about what’s going on in the world. Just goes to show how much the internet and computers are part of our lives.

Anyway…thanks again for your comments and emails regarding my road trip and move. I’ll be sure to try and get some photos of stuff I saw up. Thank you for your patience with my responding to your emails (trying to sort through them all now) and lack of posts. Also, if you’ve tried to email me and it wouldn’t go through all should be fine now so you can try again.

ps - thought this was funny and sort of related to what I was feeling (I’m not that bad but may as well be)…

The Internet Was Closed Shirt by Evan Ferstenfeld at Threadless: $10.00

Thanks for being so patient with the lack of posts here.  I appreciate all of the comments left and the emails from you with well-wishes.  We left San Francisco on November 9 and hit the road going up to Redding and Weed, California.  We decided to keep going and ended up spending our first night over at Klamath Falls, Oregon.  From there we went on to check out Bend and ended up in Portland.  From Portland (where we stayed a night or 2) we went to Seattle and stayed there a couple of days.  From Seattle we went to try and get over the border to Canada (Vancouver).  The wait on the Monday that was the long weekend (last week) was going to be about 3 hours.  We ended up just spending the night in a little town nearby.  We got up early the next morning and it took us just about 10 minutes to get to the border.  We then had a ‘pop quiz’…thank goodness we passed! ha!  We spent a few days in Canada and really enjoyed ourselves.  We then left and landed back in Seattle for one night.  We spent a couple of nights back in Portland where we saw one of the coolest things ever!  We watched a CycloCross race this past Sunday!  Anyway…we left Monday and visited Eugene and we’re spent the night in Ashland.  Yup, we’re here right now. We’re going to check out a few things today and then head back to California.  I’m hoping to be somewhere in San Francisco for Thanksgiving where I can maybe find a place that serves Tofurky!

So….that’s the quick mini-update.  Sorry it lacks detail and is boring.  I’ll be sure to share photos with you all later when I have more (reliable) internet access.  Hope you’re all well!!

So, for those of you that didn’t know already…

I’ve packed up and moved from Hawaii.  I’m now in San Francisco and am starting a new journey with the hubby.  We’re looking for a place to live in the city (hopefully) and will be following up our few days here with a road trip.  I’ll keep you posted as much as I can.

Now you know why the posts haven’t been as frequent and why I even missed my Halloween feature (I’m sad…).  If you’ve sent me emails and I haven’t responded right away I appreciate your patience.  I’m trying to get back to everyone whenever I have a chance and where I can find a wireless signal.

I hope that your Halloween went well and that you all had fun.  Happy November!!!

Not that you really care, but I’m saying all this anyway. I do appreciate your patience…

First of all, I’m back in Hawaii home from San Francisco. The hubby and I are now both sick and still battling off our colds. We’re hoping that the return to familiar weather will help kick this thing. If I have time to share more photos with you I’ll be sure to do so.
Upon returning home I turned on the laptop and had to checkout the keynote speech from Steve Jobs that was made Tuesday at MacWorld. Now, I’m not that much of a computer geek and all, but I really am a fan of Apple.

MacWorld was held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. On Monday night we had dinner not far from there and walked by and wished we were able to see what fun might be going on in there. Well, I’ll tell you part of the fun that went on…

Meet the iPhone. Isn’t she pretty? I’m not a believer in spending loads of money on phones, but this is more than just a phone. But I’m sure you’ve already heard about this. Moving on…

So I watched the keynote speech which was almost 2 hours. At the very end Steve Jobs says that they had a special guest who has helped out at MacWorld before and he was there to perform. Who was it, you ask? Who? My love….John Mayer!!! What? How could that be? The day we leave San Francisco he is there at MacWorld!!!! We were in the same dang city and I was that close to him? I actually could have maybe seen him cruising around the streets of San Fran? Ugggggh. I just couldn’t believe it. While my husband thought it was quite funny, I am still in shock and disbelief that this happened. I think it’s some sort of cruel joke. Because to make it all worse we had a mix up on our hotel reservations and had to move to another hotel on our last night there. This meant we weren’t in the city and could have missed bumping into him (at least that could have happened in my head).

If you think I’m nuts…well, perhaps you’re right. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t listen to his music. I’ve been searching for a concert to go to of his and it’s not as easy as you think. He doesn’t come to Hawaii so I’ve always been on the hunt for a mainland spot that I can fly to just to watch him.

Why, John, Why?!

Anyway…you know he’s my favorite and that’s why I shared this with you. My heartbreak…sigh…

We took a tour to Muir Woods one day and it was amazing. The giant redwoods were impressive. If you have never been there before then here are a couple of photos that will hopefully get you interested in planning a visit there.

Look at this magnificent redwood tree.

I like how the sun was shining through the trees in this shot.

This is to give you an idea of how huge they are. That’s my hubby walking down the trail.

This is just a cool photo of a tree that grew with a space in it. You can see through the trunk to the other side. Beautiful, right?

One of our favorite areas that we visited was the Mission District. We ate breakfast at Bugaloos one morning and it was fabulous! Another night we ate at Papalote. It was a quaint Mexican restaurant. Yummy! I think the feeling of a “culture” there is what I love. There are no “big” stores or anything that resembles a mall, which is quite refreshing.

Here are a couple of photos from the area:

I took this just for fun. I’m not sure what the name of the place is or even what it is (a restaurant/place to drink, perhaps?). Look at the stuff that was pasted up on the outside…and look up to the right. Yup, it’s a stuffed cat (not real, thank goodness!).

This was in a little alley between two buildings. The artwork on the two walls were awesome.

If you didn’t see my post from last week you may have been wondering where I’ve been. I am in San Francisco with my husband. We’re celebrating our 3rd anniversary and are taking a much needed vacation.

First of all, Happy New Year to you all!!! I hope that you had fun ringing in the new year. My husband and I ended up eating an early dinner (since a lot of places were closing early or you had to have made reservations a while ago) and bringing back ice cream to our hotel room. Unfortunately I felt really sick last night and went to bed early. We did wake up at midnight since we could hear some of the festivities outside. Well, I wish you all a safe, healthy and happy new year!

Here are just a couple of things that we’ve seen so far..

Here’s a steep street in Pacific Heights:

We actually walked up that hill. Why, I ask you? Why? Here’s another one:

We rented bikes on Friday and rode across the Golden Gate Bridge. This is a photo taken of the bay from Under the Golden Gate Bridge:

We went through Crissy Field along our bike ride. It was a great place with nice trees and a little beach area. The fun part was seeing all the dogs running around and playing with their owners and other dog friends. See the bridge in the background?

We ended up in Sausalito where our ride came to a finish. We caught the ferry back to Pier 41 and returned our bikes. On our descent into the city of Sausalito we passed a number of beautiful homes along the bay.

So that’s just a couple of things I thought I’d share with you all. I’ll be sure to post again shortly. Sorry that I haven’t been able to get on the internet as much, but I’ll try my best.

Aloha!

Hey there! I’m back from Maui. Oh, and I’m off to Kauai today for work. Yup, headed to the airport again in a couple of minutes. I’ll be sure to post more photos of Maui and will be posting again a couple of times today. I should be back on track again now that I’m back.

Thanks for reading!

If you’re wondering where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to…

I’m in Makena on the island of Maui. I just signed up now for internet service, so that’s why I haven’t been posting. Sorry about that. I have to say that I really did miss using my computer…is that sad or normal?

Above are some pictures of Iao Valley and Iao Needle. I took these pictures on Thursday when we got to Maui.

I’m here because my husband is going to participate in the Cycle to the Sun ride on Sunday. The course starts in Paia and goes up Haleakala…up to the TOP! If you’ve been here you know it’s a pretty long and steep ride. It will probably take the riders between three and four hours to get to the finish. It will be a beautiful ride, though. We took a look at the course on Thursday - I drove the van (you know, showing my support!) while my husband and his brother rode.

Anyway…Here are a couple of other things I saw…

Maui Ocean Center - A beautiful aquarium in Wailuku. There were fishes, turtles, stingray, sharks and more. Here is a shot of a big tank with about 6 different shark species in it (and a bunch of fish). This shark is a tiger shark:

And finally, a pretty horsie that I saw up in Waihee while we were driving around and checking out the scenery. Isn’t she sweet?

So, thanks for checking in. I’ll try to post more if I can on this trip. I’ll be back in full swing on Tuesday!