The people at this venue rock. I'm now sitting on a chair inside instead of standing outside in the line.

Nice.

Victor's there somewhere too, I think.

Nice venue indeed. I hope you have a good time at the concert, sj!

The ducklings at Ryan's childcare will be leaving today for life on a farm. He's really enjoyed watching them, and I think he's learned from the experience too. We discussed how the ducklings are growing up and getting bigger, and they're going to grow into ducks. He's been telling us that he's growing too, and he's going to be four, and one day he'll be a man. (He seems to have grasped that he's not going to be a duck.)

Meanwhile! His Richard Scarry book has arrived, "What Do People Do All Day?" (Post here, obviously.) It is as enjoyable as I remembered, and the touches of humour still work. Ryan is thrilled, and we had a bit of a struggle to pry it from him at bedtime. However, we're going to have to have a talk about gender roles. The book could more accurately be called "What Do Men Do All Day?" - I didn't notice any women performing paid work on first pass. (Then there was this gem, when discussing how people spent their money, which from memory went something like this: "Grocer Cat bought Mother Cat a new dress. She earned it by being such a good helper around the house."

Ryan has a set of Richard Scarry DVDs, including an episode "Busy People" which goes over some of the same stories as in the book. In it, a number of the workers were changed to women (e.g. the mail carrier was changed from a male raccoon to a female owl). That may be a good jumping point for a discussion.

Brenda, we're all here together. I''m not used to concerts where the headliner walks by several times before the concert starts.

I'm now sitting on a chair inside instead of standing outside in the line.

That is great! What's the concert, did you say?

Here's the way things went today: finally go to rip wood, saw blade is dangerously dull (I had no idea because my coworker - you know the one - had been doing all the table saw work). Go back to Ace (had just come from there), buy blade, go back. Go to change blade, screws are stripped on the panel that needs to come off (saw belongs to same calamitous coworker). Take off another panel and go in through the side. Cannot get nut holding blade loose. Takes two of us and a hammer to loosen it.

Change blade, replace panel (to do which I had to lie on the ground and contort to hold the nuts in place while E tightened the screws back. She replaces the one screw we had managed to take out of the original panel and manages to lose the phillips head bit to my screwdriver. We look all over the ground, never find it. Rip the boards, great! Plane them down - those blades are dull as hell too, but we just deal because we don't want to go through more shenanigans.

Take strips up, hold them to sash to which they are to be added... and they are too narrow. I say "hey, lunch time!" E says, "no, let's do one more cut." She couldn't do it right, so... lunch time.

Everything was like that all day long. Even glazing windows, which we both love, went really crappy. It was just too humid or something. And I got dehydrated. And I banged my finger hard enough to make it bleed again.

So I broke down and ordered pizza for dinner. OM NOM NOM. I was out of food in the house and in no condition to go to the grocery store.

But hey - E and I both stayed calm and rolled with it all day long, and learned some lessons. We had a better day than my boss did - one client's wife rejected the columns she had previously approved (and claimed she hadn't), so that's $700 he has to eat unless he can use them somewhere else or sell them. Then, on another job, a router bit slipped and it ruined a $36 piece of material, so he spiked the router and broke it (very unlike him, that client has just been an absolute nightmare and he's under a ton of stress right now).

Amanda Palmer. I didn't say here because I know some people here have issues with her.

And I am one of them, but no reason you shouldn't mention it! She does a great live show. I loved her live show.

Thanks, smonster. I love her music and am so excited to be here. It's a small venue and the tickets were cheap. Of course she isn't goin on until 10:30 so must stay awake.

And I am one of them,

I am ... kinda-sorta one of them. I am conflicted about her.

but no reason you shouldn't mention it!

This! This is very true!

She does a great live show. I loved her live show.

She's an amazing performer. I love watching her shows.