A totally awesome day

I love days like this - everything seems to work the way it's supposed to and you get some good news to top it off.  My two demonstrations went very well this morning (after a bit of work to get the LCD projector to use the correct color spectrum) and I had some good feedback from the sessions.  I also had a good time talking to people I've not seen since last year's symposium.  The icing on the cake was that my sphere sculpture on display in the instant gallery was selected for an Award for Excellence.  That really made my day.  After lunch, Paul and Judy Fennel and I went to Rio Grande Jewelry.  I picked up a couple of catalogs and purchased a few bits and pieces for making earrings.  I'm looking forward to playing with some ideas that have been percolating on the back burner.  The folks there are very nice and are so knowledgeable about making jewelry.  It was a fun side trip. After dinner (Thai food), I went to the Collectors of Wood Art session.  There were some good ideas presented about promoting woodturning as art and it will be interesting to see what develops from this evening.  I'll be a bit more connected after receiving a complementary membership for the coming year. I've not yet had a chance to walk through the trade show, but I'm hoping to remedy that tomorrow morning.  I did have the time to look through the exhibit space.  There are four concurrent AAW exhibits going on - the work of Merryl Saylan, the work of Garry Knox Bennett, the Professional Outreach Program show on spindles (very loosely interpreted), and the AAW juried show on the theme of "Southwest."  I particularly enjoyed seeing the work of Merryl Saylan and Garry Knox Bennett.  The other two exhibits were also great, but one rarely has a chance to see Garry's work, and Merryl's work is always a pleasure to see in person. I have a rotation to do tomorrow afternoon, but the rest of the day is open for walking through the trade show and taking a closer look at the instant gallery.  I've been taking a lot of pictures, but I don't have my card reader for my SLR camera so it will be a while before I post any images.