friday, to champaign and back

woke around 5:30, left the house just before 6am. the weather was a bit shit, very wet snow/sleet falling as i got through downtown chicago as fast as i could. the weather kept up pretty much until i crossed the kankakee river (flooded), at which point the sun was up, and out, and the roads were clear.

arrived at lincoln bindery at 8:45, dropped off the mistakes books, and headed over to the art & design building. two of jennifer's students (sam and brett) met me in the parking lot and we loaded the traveling press and my demo prints into a classroom, then went to krannert museum where a surprising number of students and faculty had gathered for my talk.

change of plans: i decided the whole thing would go better with my slide show, so i asked for a projector and screen. got those set up, people sat down on portable benches they got from the museum, and i started in. the talk went well, with lots of questions about the process and my business.

we moved to the class room for the demo, and probably 75 people came along. typical demo, went fine. it was a bit slow, since everyone wanted turns printing, but many folks stuck around all the way through. tim stevens and brian reedy (formerly of lonely trailer) were both there, as was ed weiskamp, who runs the screenprint shirt shop in champaign.

upstairs with jennifer, walter, ed, tim van laar, and a couple students for some lunch and conversation about who's-doing-what-now.

i took off at 2:45 or so and headed north, trying to beat rush hour traffic. did fine until i got near homewood, where a cop had pulled someone over, and traffic was stopped for miles. sped up again, then stopped from comiskey park up to montrose. took that opportunity to make a couple calls, touching base with xan and andrew in hawaii, making sure turin had finished tweaking my surly, and talking to justin in LA, who is coding our 'newer' new TBM.com.

stopped by the video store to get 'the last king of scotland' and '3:10 to yuma', went home to di and some fresh hot mushroom soup, and watched both movies right up to bedtime.