Knapping Away

Working on a Sci-Fi Club for my area

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:58:21 GMT

Me and Bob Hole were chatting on-line last night and the final outcome of the conversation was the decision to try and start a science fiction club in our area. We've both been in the area for about a year now and I have only just realized how close (he's in Roseville, a little over a half-hour away). We've also had the same problem of finding a group to join up with this side of Sacramento (and going in to Sac is a bit much for the finances right now). That of course logically led to the crazy idea of starting our own. We're in the collection of ideas phase now and of course are having plenty of fun batting back and forth ideas for names. The current name configuration is something like Science Fiction Society of Western Sierra but that is definitely not set in stone yet. I've got of course the LASFS by-laws and managed to get the by-laws from about four other groups on-line as well. Any suggestions, warnings or ideas from the general crowd here? We want to try and get the organizational framework as set up as we can before doing any sort of membership drive so that there will be less chance of chaos ... okay so that the chaos will be a bit more managed since chaos is definitely part of the fun. The whole goal is a social club with a general science fiction focus, not specifically literary, media or gaming. Anyway, I guess I'm just opening this up for hopefully productive commentary.

Help Vera Nazarian

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 20:08:20 GMT

Yet another sign of the times
Vera Nazarian is facing forclosure due to a series of truly unfortunate events (a fradulent lawsuit, mother's illness, father's death and sub-prime mortgage). Please consider donating, spreading the work, and/or participating in the charity auction. I myself sent along ten dollars ... every bit helps.

http://community.livejournal.com/helpvera/751.html

Missing Loscon this year

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:34:31 GMT

After careful consideration I've decided not to go to Loscon this year. First of all is the obvious reason of finances. The transmission going on the car recently and the higher overall business costs this year with the new store has been major drains. I usually only break-even at Loscon when I'm in town so coming from out-of-town means it would be a very poor financial decision at this stage. The second reason is very personal ... lets just say that the scab really hasn't formed over an emotional wound from earlier in the year. I don't want to drag my drama llamas into the arena .. especially when I still care deeply for this individual and don't want to cause him any troubles during a time when he is always very stressed and busy. I want to keep at least the friendship part of our relationship intact and don't want to drag other people down with my emotional swings. This is also my reason behind pretty much deciding to back out of most fannish activities since it's hard to go to any convention without running into him. This is as much as I really want to discuss on the topic but I guess I must be feeling kinda bitchy about it today to end up even bringing up the subject in the first place in a public forum. I just wanted to put all the cards on the table so people would better understand my decision and not just try and solve the financial end of the decision. I will miss you all and wish you all a wonderful Loscon.

Another Boar to Go

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:52:50 GMT

On the way home today I noticed another set of tire tracks overlaying mine from last night. Then a large blood spot with hair scattered and what looked like a bone and an obvious boar carcass on the side of the road. The blood was still mainly red which suggests that it was a fairly recent hit. Same exact spot as my hit from last night and very close to the same exact time since I was driving home a bit later than last night. When I got home I quizzed my dad who said they hadn't noticed anything except my tire skids when they had driven home a half hour earlier. Therefore it would have been at pretty much the same exact time. It makes me feel better since it was thus obvious that I hadn't done too much damage last night. However, the incident definitely didn't teach the boar a lesson about staying off the road. I'm just hoping that whoever hit him tonight didn't get hurt.

A Boar to You

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 06:08:02 GMT

As most of you know, I've moved up into the mountains. There actually is a herd of about six deer, a flock of about thirteen wild turkeys, a pair of red foxes, and plenty of skunks, squirrels (both grey and ground), and racdoons - all frequent visitors on my parents property. They have about five acres on a side of a hill with my grandparents old place of six acres next door. About a month ago a off-duty fireman on a motorcycle hit a deer just at the junction of where our dirt road (Adair) hits the main road (McCourtney). There are plenty of opportunities to hit animals along McCourtney as it winds through the foothills from my parents to Grass Valley proper (my parents are technically in an unincorporated area). I travel this road every day to and from my store in Grass Valley. It takes about a half hour to 45 minutes due to the winding nature of the road. Every day I see road kill - squirrels, skunks, and possums being the most common with a deer showing up at least once a week as well. So what did I have to hit - a boar. Of all things for me to finally hit along this road it had to be a very muddy wild pig. I was driving home from the store at about 9 PM (I close the store about 7:30 but usually don't leave until much later). It was of course very dark and I saw in front of me a pair of eyes. I started slowing down (had been going the speed limit of 45) thinking it was a possum and thus not worrying so much ... until he turned away and I saw how big he was. He was as tall as my headlights and about three feet long. He was almost the color of the asphalt because of his hair and the fact he was covered with mud from the irrigation ditch paralleling the road. I slammed on the brakes but still hit him pretty solidly sending him rolling off the far side of the road. If I had had with me anything more substantial than a pocket knife I would have stopped to dispatch him if necessary. However, I knew it could be a wild and extremely dangerous animal that I had just hurt. I could see him flopping a bit and think I just knocked his wind out more than anything. The area was near a BLM stretch of wild life preserve so he could have wandered out of that area. They are reported from that area. Wild Boars aren't native to California so I don't consider them particularly valuable wild life ... they destroy more natural habitat than contribute to it. Several native bulbs are endangered specifically because of them. Don't get me wrong, I feel terrible about hurting any life just not as bad as I would about most other types of animals. When I got home I was still shaking but the car just has mud splattered over the hood and front and has the license plate frame all bent out of shape. If I would have been going much faster I would have had much more substantial damage. I'm just still shaking my head over the fact I hit a boar ... of all things

What's in a Name

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:57:24 GMT

Yanked from baka_kit

WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle names)
Lee Warren

NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad )
Roy Warren (okay so they are male names, err)

STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name)
Glsusa (??)

DETECTIVE NAME: (fav color, fav animal)
Maroon Arabian

SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live)
Marie Grass Valley, don't like this one

SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav alcoholic drink, add "THE" to the beginning)
The Tan Scotch

FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Suon

GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie):
Carmel Ginger (I like this one)

ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet's name, current street name)
Cuddles McCourtney (okay ... now that works)

PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)
Pandy Yaleton (that's even scary)

Only that long?

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:13:42 GMT

Farewell Michael Crichton

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:11:16 GMT

A warm Goodbye to Michael Crichton. You'll be missed. But even dinosaurs can come back.

All that candy ...

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 06:36:36 GMT

No trick-or-treaters came to the store :(

I sorta expected it since I'm in a dark parking lot and back away from the street. However, I was expecting at least the AA folks to drop by and take advantage of the big bucket of candy by the door. Oh well, guess I have an overload of sugar for the next time by blood sugar gets low. I decorated up the outside of the store with Mummies, Skulls, and cobwebs but the rain coming in yesterday night messed most of that up. Luckily there was a break during the afternoon when I could reset the decorations and even set up my dollar table. No sales today but I've otherwise had a good week except for Monday. Friday and Saturday are usually my worst days at the store. I've even been considering closing on Saturday in the future and being open on Sunday instead. Tomorrow will tell if the trend continues. I really did expect more people dropping by otherwise ... but the rain probably had a great deal to do with that.

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. Part of it is the close association to my birthday and the fact that the only parties I had for my birthday (prior to Michael's shindigs) were actually Halloween parties that I pretended were for my birthday. I've always loved costuming, as most of you already know, and Halloween gave me one of the only excuses in my pre-con years. My sister really never liked Halloween and I didn't have anybody else to go out trick-or-treating with so eventually I ended up being the one at the door on Halloween. Guess I really miss that.

Tawonka comes to work ...

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 05:43:56 GMT

I've uploaded pictures of the current configurations of my store as well as pictures of Archaeology Days to my scrapbook. Below are pictures of the Trading Post's newest employee - Tawonka.

He's even gotten into the fullest spirit of the store by trying on my hat :)

Quiet Birthday but a busy busy me

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:33:04 GMT

My birthday was pretty quiet. Not very many people visited the store and nobody bought anything. However, I guess the quiet for a change was a birthday present. Kit gave me a call which was very special, thanks Kit. My new friend Elvira who drops by the store on the way to get her daily donut and Pepsi came by and gave me a donut without even knowing it was my birthday .. the best type of birthday present. My family gave me the obvious birthday present - the DVD of the newest Indiana Jones movie. No party and it turns out they had ate my birthday cake before I even got home since my niece insisted they have my "party" even without me. Because of the quite at the store I actually ended up making five more gourd rattles since over the past month I've sold more than that number ... one of my best selling items. Today sales picked up to better than ever and I even had five people in the store at one point, large number for a non-special day at the store. One guy special ordered a pair of blue glass arrowhead earrings for him wife and left a deposit. It encouraged me to not only fill that order but an outstanding order for a blue glass arrowhead necklace from one of my mother's friends. I'm trying to catch up on outstanding orders so I can get back to work restocking all the items that I've sold over the past month and to prepare for the Christmas season. Busy busy busy ... that's me.

Archaeology Days Has Gone to Dust

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:06:56 GMT

I'm glad that this weekend is finally over. For a first time event Archaeology Days at my Trading Post didn't do too bad. Attendance was much lower than I expected, in fact Saturday it was only about fifteen people. Sunday was three times that many. I found out, however, that there was at least two major regional events going on opposite me - the Auburn Pow-wow (which was definite competition) and the Bridgeport Festival (which was a heritage show so also competitive in theme). I had on Sunday at least one family group that had gone to the Bridgeport Festival and one other event before finally dropping by mine. At one time I had over seven people in the store, barely leaving enough room to turn around. For an event geared toward kids, only about a third of the attendees were children. Luckily I had stuff out that was for all age levels, since the age range of attendees went all the way from five to eight-nine. I had about eight attendees that attended due to my handouts, two due to school announcements, three due to the calendar spots, and the rest simply because they were driving by. Publicity, as always, is the one thing I really need to improve on. This year it was hampered by my run of two conferences out of state and then my car transmission problems which meant that for four weeks directly before the event I wasn't even in town. The other problem is my limited funding resources for advertising, next year I'll need to definitely budget enough for more than just printing of fliers.

The numbers of actual attendees however were large enough to test the various activities that were on hand and to test my volunteers. The most popular activity was the making of key chains - drilling holes in a piece of leather with the pump drill, then threading leather through one hole and a key chain ring through another, beading the hanging leather straps, and then stamping the leather with Native American symbols. This gave the kids something to take home while teaching them how to use an ancient tool (the pump drill) as well as about some Native American symbology. My niece Stephanie helped out with all the activities but primarily helped show attendees how to make petroglyphs (etching symbols in the paint on plaster rocks), pictographs (hand prints in paint on a wall covered by paper), and pounding acorn into flour. Each of these activities were well participated in. Stephanie personally loved pounding acorns and actually did it for about two hours straight and then off and on for the rest of the time. We came up with a new educational product as a result - a card showing the different stages of acorn reduction into flour. Stephanie went hard to work making up the stages to bag and put on the display card - whole acorns, shelled acorns, and acorn flour. My sister in the meantime was helping with the arts and crafts area while managing to make three large dreamcatchers and one double dreamcatcher. My dad got into showing the kids how to use the pump drills which he makes for my store. It really showed him how important the balancing weight is. He was also helping man the dig boxes. The dig box area is still in need of a bit more development to allow it not to have to be so heavily monitored. I've got a list of ideas of improvements and we actually had time to sit down and have a feedback session at the very end after cleaning up. Pictures are not available yet but will be coming shortly.

All in all, a good but tiring weekend with low sales but better by ten times than my usual weekend at the store. After having shows for six weekends in a row, I'm ready for a break. Even though there is the possibility that this coming weekend I might do another small craft fair that I've heard of - in which case I'd have two more weekends to go before a possible schedule break. Tomorrow, or should I say today considering the time I'm posting this, I've got to finish straightening up the store and catching up on filling on-line orders and answering e-mails.

Archaeology Days Prep

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 06:25:52 GMT

Spent the day pulling everything together for my Archaeology Days event at the store this weekend. It is always more work than you think. However, the experience from last year where I did it at the LASFS definitely helped. The hardest part was losing a week for prep due to the delay the transmission gave me last week. This week I've been also distracted by the Sierra College event. I think I've covered the publicity pretty well. I've given out at least a thousand fliers and have it posted on all the calendars for the area, the newspaper calendar, and even an announcement on the radio. Several teachers have even said they gave the flier to their students. I'm still very uncertain about the turnout. It is supposed to be a bit warmer tomorrow which might help. However, the local students have been out of school all week and that might negatively impact turnout. I've have three canopies and eleven tables for everything. There will be several activity areas - a mock dig with one special area for the very young kids, a wall of hands (pictographs) where kids can put their handprint in paint on paper on one side of the store, petroglyph making by etching pictures in paint covered plaster rocks, flintknapping demonstrations (of course), a craft area where kids can use a pump drill to make holes in a piece of leather and then turn it into a beaded key chain or they can make a feather stick, an area with a mortar/pestle and mano/metate to grind corn and pound acorns, button making with some neighbor kids helping out and also selling popcorn and sodas, and also at least three tables with touch/feel items like a beaver pelt and plenty of artifact replicas. There are several items the kids can take home free from this - petroglyph rock and a key chain - as well as several boxes of archaeology magazines I got from the Archaeological Conservancy. Meanwhile the Trading Post will have a "We'll Pay the White Man's Tax" Sale. I'm now at the point of just trying to figure out what I've forgotten to do. Should get some sleep soon to get up early for the actual setup. ... Oh almost forgotten, yesterday I picked up a great addition to the store - a large cigar store Indian. It is already attracting quite a bit of attention. I'll post pictures in a few days.

Sierra College People & Culture Days

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 03:20:20 GMT

Spent the last two days at Sierra College in Rocklin, a community college for the Sacramento and foothills area with several campuses including one not far from my store. They were holding a People & Culture Days, with different cultures and countries having booths. I had volunteered to do a demonstration and have some exhibits. In return I could make "small sales". The experience left me very discouraged about the current crop of students. Multiple questions of "Is this onyx" ... "is this onyx" ... when I specifically stated that they all were obsidian. A question of "Really?" when I stated that every region had a Stone Age ... and this wasn't stated in a sarcastic manner but with real surprise from the individuals (and it was definitely more than one). Almost half of the students approached me with the question of what country I represented. They seemed totally baffled that I was representing a generic culture (paleolithic and in particular Native Californian) and not a country, like they associated one with the other. The first day I spent trying to get my head wrapped around the fact that I had to teach such basic concepts and not specifics about what I was exhibiting, i.e. flintknapping. Today I had even a worse experience, one of the first kids to look at my stuff proceeded to pick up the Aztec sword I had displayed and wacked a tree with it. Luckily it only broke one of the blades which I should be able to easily replace. The kid (probably a 20 year old) reacted to my response with a "it must be defective ... the ones I saw on TV didn't do that". Luckily these idiots were well leavened with the admiring and interested students. My small sales were better than I expected since I sold not only a knife but two arrowhead necklaces. Meanwhile I managed to make quite a few arrowheads and knife blades, always an encouraging sign. The last guy I talked to at the show makes swords and armor for his Fair friends and the conversation with him made up for all the idiotic statements and questions I had had to deal with for the last two days.

Trading Post Pictures

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 05:23:07 GMT

As requested, here are pictures of my store in Grass Valley. However, these are old pictures from the beginning of the year. I'll take some more and post them later, maybe along with pictures of the Archaeology Days event this weekend.

	Trading Post Store Front The outside of the store. There are now aloe plants and my dad recently repainted the parking spaces so that the space is now in front of the window instead of the door.
	Trading Post Sign My dad made up this arrowhead sign for the front of my store.
	North Side Inside This is the inside of the store, turning right inside the door. These are all old pictures from the beginning of the year. Shown here are knives and gifts as well as some of the jewelry area.
	South Side Front Inside Flintknapping Supplies and Replication Supplies. Turning left once inside of the door.
	South Side Back Inside Educational Material and Gifts.
	Jewelry Area Saw the use of blinds for hanging jewelry at a street fair. Found a pile in the barn which are now put to good use.
	Under Front Window Artifact Replicas. Using Archaeological Screens as shelves
	Window to Office The small and badly crowded office area.
	Buffalo Skull Second Buffalo Skull I've had in the store, the first I got at a yard sale and sold a few months later. This one I got on e-bay and then painted and decorated myself. It is hanging on the wall in a small alcove on the back wall.
	Mortar and Pestle A mortar and pestle from just inside the door. It is now on consignment at my friend's store in Goldfield, Nevada.

A Year Later ...

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 08:19:57 GMT

A year or so later and I'm still having my good days and my bad days. This past year has been majorly hectic, hence not getting on live journal. For those of you who haven't heard, at the end of last year I moved north to Grass Valley, CA. The decision was prompted by a combination of health and financial issues. I'm back to living with the parents. However, in addition to moving north, I've also opened a store. My business, Phoenix Obsidian Designs, has grown steadily over the last five years and I decided to take it to the next level. The store isn't much, just a 10 x 20 sales floor and about the same amount of room for an office and bathroom. I've only made rent with store sales for one month this year, the on-line business has fallen off a bit, but I've managed to make up the difference and then some with phone orders and conference sales. I have backed out of convention shows and work, more from financial concerns than anything else. My time is being dominated with building up inventory and trying to get the store to pay for itself. Just finished two major shows, the Plains Anthropology Conference in Wyoming and the Great Basin Anthropology Conference in Oregon. Then on my way back south from Portland, the transmission gave out in my van near Yreka .. yeah right in my dissertation study area. I was stuck there for a week of unexpected expenses, eating up the great returns I had had from those two shows. Now I'm back in Grass Valley and had a good show in Auburn on Saturday. This coming week will be the fullest yet, with a show at Sierra College on Wednesday and Thursday and then having Archaeology Days at my store on Saturday and Sunday. The Archaeology Days event is sorta my Grand Opening Celebration for the Trading Post with a Mock Dig and much more planned. I've already had two fannish friends drop by the store this year but I welcome each and every one of you who happen through the area to also drop by - if you're heading for Reno my store is along the way. In the meantime I'm doing a major overhaul of the website to get it in shape for the Christmas shopping season.
TRADING POST
144 Hughes Rd., Suite G
Grass Valley, CA 95945
(530) 477-1957

My condition

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 01:13:25 GMT

Now for the official word ....

The doctors never did give me any straight answer about what happened so it was a very good question to start out with. They figured it was complications resulting from some sort of viral infection. I had been sick the month before and missed Comic Con. It seems that I hadn't been completely over that. When I was admitted to the hospital it was with kidney failure, anemia and pneumonia. The ketoacidosis (high blood sugar) that was the result of me getting sick had thrown me almost into a diabetic coma. They stuck me on a respirator and I'm still hearing stories about that. Fortunately I don't remember any of that even though I had a severe panic attack later on when they gave me a breathing treatment later. I'm figuring it was a subconscious rememberance. They ran through me every antibiotic they could get their hands on since they couldn't determine what exactly they were dealing with. Once I was awake they were still very concerned with my heart and were giving me actual pills to slow my heart down. After a few days after I regained consciousness they took me off the antibiotics and monitored to see if the fever came back. They really seemed to be hurrying me out of there (not that I really wanted to stay there). They released me cotingent that I stay with my parents for the next month at least. I've been slowly regaining strength and stamina. An active day still seems to end up with me laid out exhausted for the next two days. Since I got out of the hospital the biggest problem I've been having has not been with high blood sugar but low. A stay in the hospital always plays havoc with trying to get it back under control since the nurses never know the proper amount of insulin to give (and most of the time won't even listen to the patient who has had the condition for over 24 years). I'll be back at the LASFS by the 27th of October (which also happens to be my birthday). Thanks to everyone for their prayers and good wishes.

On another related note -
Meanwhile, thanks to those who left Tadao alone about this situation. To those who didn't, I'll just say I'm disappointed. Especially those that yelled at him for not letting them know. The idea was initially to keep the word within a small group until my parents had arrived since that was pretty much the hospital's orders. He even most of the time didn't know as much as others. I myself didn't even get to see him while I was conscious.

Loscon Website Updated

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 20:51:52 GMT

The Loscon 34 website is now up on-line. There is still quite a bit of information I need to glean from my committee but the basic information is all there.
Dr. Susan "Arizona" Gleason
Chair, Loscon 34: The Dig

Merry Christmas

Tue, 27 Dec 2005 08:44:01 GMT

Merry Christmas to one and all.

Well one of my gifts this Christmas I can say was a black eye. Christmas Eve I slipped and fell on the concrete stairs at the condo. Hit the left eyebrow area on the edge of one of the steps. Now I have a black eye to show for it. Also wrenched my entire left side and scraped up my left hand knuckles. We figure I got a mild concussion too. Been laid up a bit since. Otherwise, I'm okay.

We opened gifts at the Condo on Christmas Day evening (since I slept all day). Some of the cool gifts I got were a bunch of bean bag white tigers and a dragon. I've been told that there are some gifts waiting me up at my parents. This was the first Christmas I've spent away from my parents, so in some ways it was hard in that way too besides the headache.

I gave Tiny a Unicorn that I had knapped out of some white chert. That was a challenge because the horn kept breaking as I was working on it. Meanwhile I also attempted to knap a fairy out of some purple glass for Laura. It came out okay, but it was a difficult subject to do in outline which is necessary for the medium. I'll post pictures once I download them from the camera. Meanwhile I've knapped a Christmas themed necklace with a red arrowhead with a white dot in the middle. It will be up on the direct sale pages on my website in the next few days. Likewise I made another blue glass arrowhead necklace and earrings set which will also be posted. Visit any time you like to see my latest creations at http://www.obsidiandesigns.com

One nice thing is that orders are still coming through on my website and I'm finally up and around enough to fill them. By the end of the week I'm hoping to add quite a few more things to the website.

Sad News

Thu, 22 Dec 2005 07:58:58 GMT

We lost a member of our condo household on Monday, Alison's cat Comfy (also known as Cutie). He had been sick for over a month with kidney failure. Monday he started drooling blood. Alison made the hard decision to let him go. I personally think it was the right decision since he was obviously getting worse and was in pain. I just thought that some of you guys should know. Alison is obviously taking it hard. We just all are wanting this year to get overwith.

Narnia

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 08:07:19 GMT

Went out and saw Narnia this evening with one of my room mates, John, as his Christmas present. (For those who don't know I'm currently sleeping on a fold out bed with Alison in the living room of Tiny and Laura's two bedroom condo, John is a paid tennant in one of the bedrooms)

They did a great job on this movie. I loved it. It's been awhile since I read the books but from what I remember it was pretty true to the story. Now I just have to reread the book to see the differences. The beginning seemed to drag a bit but the battle scenes more than made up for it. The special effects were excellent and the wolves really blew me away. The beavers though just didn't quite feel true. I just loved the griffins, but I always have, these just felt real.

Throughout the film I was captivated by the Witches ice sceptre/blade. I just kept wondering if I'll be able to replicate it eventually. First I'll need a block of glass or at least a very thick plate glass like the computer desk glass I got once from Justin. If anyone finds a 1/2" thick glass slab at least two to three feet long, I want it. Meanwhile I also was looking at Queen Susan's outfit. Okay, the costumer in me was drooling at the various possible costumes to replicate from this movie. We'll see if I can come up with anything by Gallifrey ...

REMEMBER THIS AT CHRISTMAS TIME

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 21:48:26 GMT

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to
mid-December. Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring.

Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, EVERY single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl.

We should've known... ONLY women would be able to drag a fat-ass man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.

Live Journal Here I Come

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 05:41:38 GMT

Hello one and all. I've finally joined up to the Live Journal community after all the prompting and threats from my friends. Be prepared for my flintknapping stories with pictures and such of my latest creations. I'm hoping to have a picture to post soon of a flintknapped dragon.

Business has been brisk as people have been shopping for the holidays. If you need a last minute cool gift feel free to check out my website and I promise to try and get it to you before Christmas. Meanwhile I'll be selling at the Time Meddlers meeting at the LASFS Clubhouse tomorrow and have a full setup yet again on Thursday night at the LASFS meeting. The cool thing is that I can accept credit cards directly now at the Clubhouse, which has doubled my sales. I'm just hoping that business stays good following the holidays.