America has Apple stores (so does Puerto Rico, but have I gone? No)

I've been to the Apple store in Portland a few times with Laurie, for one thing or another, and today I was playing with the computers while she took care of...whatever it was she was taking care of. There are a LOT of toys there, more than a couple which inspired computer driven lust in my heart. And my fingers. And then the imp came out to play. I put my blog with its latest post on about five computers. Does that make me a bad person? I think not! It was fun to see my photographs on 20 plus inch screens...wow! I'll admit, my lust does not extend to 20 inches. The ipad will do. Yes, I initially thought it was just sort of gimmicky...but now I'm sort of hooked on ipadics. At half the price of a Mac laptop, it's pretty cool (of course, there is a catch...it only uses, at this time, AT&T as a network hook up - oh well, by the time I can spring for one, it will be even cheaper and they'll have more connecting providers, no doubt). There is something new they have done to the graphics on the new Macs - and ipads have it too - where the resolution is so clear and clean, it's almost scary. Hey Steve Jobs, can you hear me now?

Along the way of today we went to Brunswick, to a very cool Art Festival along the main (Maine) street. I think it must be the town of cool - almost every time I looked in a store window, I could have easily wandered about for awhile in there...even the appliance store, which had a brand new Viking type stove but also a stove/oven I'd love to own from maybe the 20's... It looked somewhat like the one stock photo to the left here. I was having a bit of an ouchy back issue at the time so I wasn't taking photos...much, so this will have to do. Yes, I was once again having object lust...probably the only other stove that might inspire such desire is this one, made by Molteni for, of all companies, Electrolux!

I don't even know what all of the gadgetry on this stove is, but I would have it anyway! Ok, it's a bit large for the shack and I'd have to sleep in the oven, but who cares?

There were wonderful artists in photography, paints, fabric, wood and stone. There was live music, good live music mind you, fiddlers and mandolins, guitars and banjos backing up good singing, four or five of these trios and quartets along the way. It was beautiful and well worth hobbling along to see it all.

Why they'd put this mural here...next to the meters, I have no idea!

This sounded so good!

There were even jugglers!

This wasn't in the show, it was in front of an antique shop...but I loved the table base

Yarn spinner

This guy was splitting wood bits for baskets...which were being made right there too

A beautiful bowl being born

Some of the stone worker's creations

Real stone face, this one

A bit of an everything store

Flowers are all over the place here...enjoying the short season of summer

On the way home we stopped at a Whole Foods store and picked up some aged, dried steaks. Phil has this amazing recipe he got from the television show Good Eats. If I hadn't eaten this a couple of times, I would never believe in the method, which involves the oven. I can't repeat it here because I forget a few steps, but I'll try to find out for sure; it's simple and it's fabulous. With his also wonderful basil, mozzarella and tomato side, it was a perfect meal to me. Luckily, we all like our steaks the same way...flip flop moo. What a treat!

I'm posting this tonight because in about...oh dear god, 3 hours, I start getting ready to head to a beach with Laurie and our friend Frank (a different Frank; there's 3 of 'em up here and it's confusing) to shoot the sunrise. In upper 50 degree weather. Camera ready, check. Coat, socks, sweatshirt, check. It's going to be brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Have a warm, happy Sunday!