Treasures from the Renegade Craft Fair

What a perfect Southern California day!  We went to Los Angeles today for the Renegade Craft Fair.  We started with a little basketball at Venice Beach.  Well, Ethan played basketball; I saw a group of people dressed as zombies dancing down the boardwalk to “Thriller” and talked to a homeless man who looked like Robert Downey Jr. and was wearing women’s skirts (plural) and thigh high socks. 

We then ventured over to the craft fair with some of our friends.  The weather was perfect, the crafts were amazing and our picnic was delicious.  Last year I found this great Darth Vader Pez linoprint (below).

Keeping with the Star Wars theme, this year, I found another great print.  Jose from Mis Nopales Art creates caricatures of famous people as Dia de los Muertos calaveras.  Below is the print I purchased.  He also has a Han and Leia design but sadly sold out of a prints a while ago.  You should check out his Etsy shop; he has some awesome stuff!

Status Report

1. I am sunburned from my fun weekend in Oceanside.

2. There are many overdue items on my wedding to-do list.

3. I have been in school for a whole week now and feel tired a lot.  I haven’t been in student mode for a while.

4. I can’t stop listening to Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” I now know all the lyrics by heart. What can I say, it gets me pumped for number 3 above.

5. I am unbelievably excited for the Renegade Craft Fair, Los Angeles in exactly 7 days!

Becky v. The Radio

Several years ago, Ethan had an XM radio receiver and an AUX port installed in my car as a birthday present.  I am sure this was mostly because he was tired of hearing me complain about the lack of country radio stations in Los Angeles.  The XM player, until recently, has been great and the AUX port even better.  I have more radio stations than I could ever want AND I can listen to my iPod in the car.  However, these luxuries came at the price of regular AM/ FM radio.  I was sure that the people who installed it had made a mistake but I was so content with my new setup that I kept forgetting to take it back in. Months passed and it was too late to have them fix it for free and I just accepted the fact that I would no longer have regular radio.  At the time, I didn’t really care.

That was before XM radio started broadcasting commercials as often as regular, free, radio and before they started using programs with annoying DJs.  I prefer to have my morning radio free of the call-in-and-tell-us-your-most-embarrassing-sex-story hour. As irritating as my satellite radio has become, I love some of their stations too much to cancel it.  I slowly started wishing I had the option of just listening to regular FM radio every now and then.

My radio frustration came to a peak today when I realized that I would not be able to go to the Toy Story 3/ Eclipse double feature at the new drive-in because they broadcast the audio for the movies over an FM station.  I went out to my car and tried removing the XM receiver and antennae but still no radio.  I decided I needed to be a bit aggressive and removed part of the dashboard and stereo box (carefully documenting each step so that I could put my car back together).  I found a cable dangling behind some wires and a matching port on the back of the stereo box.  I plugged the cable into the box, turned the key in the ignition and prayed that I was not about to short circuit the whole car.  To my amazement, the radio came blasting on and was able to successfully scan the local stations.  I can now listen to XM radio, AM/ FM radio, my iPod, and more importantly, Edward Cullen’s beautiful voice at the drive-in tonight!
 
I realize that I merely plugged in a cable but I feel like a genius right now.  So much so, that I am not even irritated that my water is turned off until 5pm tonight.

After a 4 year battle, victory is mine!