Knittin' Crap: October Missions

We finally managed to escape from that bothersome planet we were stranded on during the last Starfleet Fiber Arts Corp tour of duty. For this tour, the Command and Tactical division missions span all 3 months of the tour, while the other 4 divisions have monthly missions. In other news, I was promoted to Lt. Commander at the end of the last tour.

Division	My report
Diplomatic: Follow Commander Sisko’s orders and craft something that shows your support or appreciation of the Klingons. Craft a cozy for their bloodwine, craft a sheath for their bat’leths or craft a favorite Klingon dish. Remember that Klingons are a warrior race; be bold and adventurous with this mission.	I have constructed this device to aid in the making of gagh jerky. I know most Klingons love their gagh live, but that just isn’t practical for long missions, so jerky it will have to be.
Engineering: Help Chief O’Brien upgrade the warp drives of our ship. “Upgrade” a simple pattern by adding a cable, colorwork, lace, or a decorative edging, “upgrade” your skills by trying a new knitting or crochet technique, “upgrade” your library by knitting a newly published pattern (one published in the last 6 months) or “upgrade” your tools crafting something with a new kind of needles or hook.	To aid in re-wiring the engines, I decided it would be easier to pre-wire the cabling, allowing us to lay the cabled mat in place and simply hook up the ends at the appropriate junctions. The mat is color-coded for ease of identifying which input goes where.
Medical: Craft something to help you reconnect with yourself and the world around you. Craft something you missed while stranded, something that makes you feel more connected to the world around you, or something that represents something or someone you love.	I may have had my holo-kitties with me during our time stranded, but I did not have much quality time to spend with them. In honor of our renewed snuggle time, I made a mini-Spoon:
Science: Analyze the samples that you collected. Craft something representing plant life, rock formations, or soil composition of the planet where we were stranded. For example, craft something that uses a botanical or geological pattern or craft a fossil.	We had the misfortune to stumble across this odd creature. While it seems vegetative, it is also mobile (on four feet, although it seems to have no actual legs) and seems to have an intelligence of sorts. However, what makes it truly dangerous is that once it gets close enough to a humanoid, it will explode, taking the surrounding terrain with it and causing potentially severe injury. We only managed to capture this individual kamikaze bush by creating a stasis field.

Other: Possessed Baked Goods!

We ate lunch near Porto's today, so afterward we walked over and got some baked goods. Porto's is a very popular LA-area bakery with a couple locations. Little did we know (and maybe it's just a Halloween promotion!), their baked goods are possessed...

Timeline of events:

• Approximately 1:30PM: My boss raves about the potato balls.
• Approximately 3PM: My boss says the potato balls had kicked his ass.
• 5:13PM: I announce on our IRC channel that the mango empanada on my desk is calling my name.
• 5:14PM: My boss tells me empanadas can't talk
• 5:14PM: I reply, "but potato balls can kick your ass? huh?"
• 5:14PM: He replies, yes.
• 5:30PM: We ask Samir if he ate his cupcake. He said he had tried to save it, but he ate it hours ago because "it was staring at me."

Possessed, I tell you...

Other: South Bay Plunder

At some point, the bulk of the Japanese expatriate population in Los Angeles moved from Little Tokyo in the downtown Civic Center area to Torrance, which is down in the South Bay area (roughly between LAX and Long Beach). It's a crap drive from where I live (every place that involves dealing with LA drivers is a crap drive from where I live) even though it's only about 30 miles, and is about a 2-hour trip by public transportation, but I recently heard that Daiso had opened their first Southern California location there, so I finally got off my ass last week and drove down.

The Daiso is a good size. I've only been to two others, the one in Seattle, which is not very large, and the one in Mountain View, which is cavernous. This one was sized in between, but packed with the same variety of 100-yen store awesomeness. I'm hoping it does well so that perhaps they'll open up more locations around LA County, including ones north of the 10.

Some of the crafty stuff I got at Torrance Daiso:


I also discovered that a store I'd heard of a couple years ago, but never made it to before, was only a block away from Daiso. The Store of Unbearable Cuteness, aka Tamaya, is a licensed distributor of San-X goodies, including Rilakkuma merch, so I finally made a trip, and could not, of course, leave empty-handed:



I also drove to Mitsuwa Marketplace, which is a couple miles away. The Sanseido bookstore only had a few knitting books this time, none appealing, but I got some treats from the grocery area.