November 10th, 2013.

A guerilla showcase celebrating Texas songwriters. From left to right – Brian _____, Cary Cooper, Amanda Pearcy and Matt Harlan. Below – finding ways to make yourself uniquely memorable is always a trick amongst a thousand other singer/songwriters. Artist _____ did a good job by providing a couple of good old standbys (good music and free candy) and one upped everyone by adding pangolins.

He’s apparently written a song about them and donates proceeds from his CDs to pangolin research. Odd… but I remembered him!

It’s a good day. Sometimes a day off can BE a good day you know? I think I forget that.

NERFA was productive. We caught up with some people, met some new people, nailed down some dates and kept our faces and voices and hands in the game. It’d be really hard to list everyone I listened to. I try to keep track, but frankly at least 25% of my listening time isn’t directed, it’s just stopping into different guerillas and listening. I’ve tried to keep track of the random finds – and I’ve got pictures of most of them at least, but as the nights wear on plenty of the less popular showcases (which were often lower profile and easier to see into and often both of the above because they weren’t as organized) would fall a little off track and it was difficult to line up who was on the stage with who was on the schedule.

*Well, I got to MOST things on my schedule… and added a bunch. NERFA – always intense. What’s next?!*

*Near our hotel while we were doing NERFA we discovered a high end doll shop. Very, very cool stuff.*

In any case, Sunday night rolled around and we rolled out. We headed east off to a welcome night off hanging out with our friend Josh where we rediscovered the wonder of just hanging out and chatting late into the night. Also Space Hulk, but we don’t have to talk about that – and that was mostly me and Josh. Heather didn’t partake.

We’d also stumbled across the Eric Carle Children’s Book Museum. On a whim we headed that way (well, by “whim” I mean that once I saw it on the map I’d have pitched a fit if we DIDN’T go) and were absolutely shocked to find the place uber-crowded. There wasn’t a line to go in, but the parking lot was filled to overflowing – as in the fields around the museum were filled with cars!

*We’ve been gifted with stunning weather for most of this trip. New England in autumn really can’t be beat.*

*While looking for a way to kill some time I stumbled across the Eric Carle Chidlrens Picture Book Museum on the map. Here’s Heather playing with some Mo Willems mice.*

When we got to the door we saw what was going on – Chris Van Allsburg was doing a book signing! For those of you who are shockingly under-cultured Chris Van Allsburg is the guy who illustrated one of my favourite childrens’ books ever,

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. For those of you who are slightly LESS under-cultured but still drawing a blank, he’s also the guy who wrote Jumanji and the Polar Express.

Anywho, we strode past the line (I mean, he’s cool, but I was there to see the ART and I didn’t bring anything to get signed and I wasn’t going to buy anything right THEN and… whatever) and wandered the museum admiring the awesomeness. We even stopped in and checked out storytime.

What a marvelous day.

BELOW – soooo many other pictures from NERFA 2013!