We have had quite a bit of snow (and rain) the last few days and I've taken the opportunity to mostly stay in and work on the China book. I now have 85 pages going through October 26, including pictures, emails and chats if they were not about my firewall troubles. I've started another file with information about the places I visited that I've copied straight off the internet. There are about 12 pages in that file. This book could have 250 pages. I have even more pictures from Japan. I don't want to think about that yet. I'm using Adobe InDesign to lay out the book and Photoshop to resize the photos. While I was in China I used Picasa on my toy computer, which had a Linux operating system. Now they are on my Mac and I am using iPhoto to manage them.

I have also started to think about the cover. I never found any fabrics in China and I really regret that, although I have some things I bought in 1982 when i visited the first time. I'm just not sure I want to cut them up. I bought two obis and a beautiful old kimono in Japan. I suppose it won't matter if I use some of that fabric. Or, I may have something else stashed away.

Congratulations to my friends in Chicago on your new governor. How did Blago ever get elected twice anyhow? I remember him from when I was still living in Chicago. I suppose I would have voted Socialist Labor again. I kinda remember the choices weren't great.