Today was a quieter day. I had a completely packed morning, then I came back to the hotel after lunch and didn’t move all afternoon. I tried to go back out to see the Boston Public Library just before it closed, but the subways were too packed with convention goers.

I trekked out to the far reaches of Cambridge this morning to go to Cambridge Quilt Shop. It’s a great shop owned by Lynn and Monique. I spent half an hour chatting it up with Monique, who has the modern style I love. Lynn has a great eye for more traditional fabrics, so together they’ve got a great selection that appeals to everyone. I picked up some great stuff that I’ll show off when I’m back at home.

After waiting in the cold for 40 minutes to catch a bus back towards Boston (yeah, I timed that terribly), I got off at Harvard and walked around the campus. Here’s the famous statue of John Harvard.

I really wanted to get into Widener Library, but alas I am neither a student or a researcher.

There are a surprising number of children’s bookstores in Cambridge. I wanted into this one, Curious George Goes to WordsWorth.

So cute inside, my niece would love this place.

I wandered into the Harvard Book Store to check out the staff picks. I may be picking up I Love Macarons when I get home after seeing it on their display. And some great children’s books.

I also poked around Bob Slate, Stationer. I love seeing this many notebooks. I bought a couple of Where the Wild Things Are toys they had by the register.

Bought a great necklace on sale at Zinnia. It set me back $13.

This guy was busking in the subway, he was great. I’ve got no idea what that is he’s playing, but it was worth some spare change and a photo.

This is the view from our hotel room!

It was freezing outside today, but that didn’t stop the Charles River from filling up with sailboats.

Today was a good day, but man is it cold here in Boston. I wish I had my winter coat, but all I packed was my rain coat.

We took the T over to Cambridge this morning so Adam could go to a Microsoft event with Major Nelson. While he was there, I walked around MIT in the cold. It was actually snowing when we woke up.

Then I realized I was standing in front of the Charles Hayden Memorial Library, so I went inside to check out the science and humanities libraries of MIT.

Definitely not a book I’ve got in my library’s collection. And there’s my reflection.

Then we came back to the hotel, which is attached to the convention center where PAX East is being held. We lined up at 1pm to try and get seats for Wil Wheaton’s keynote address at 3pm.

And we made it in! He is hugely popular with this crowd, we got 2 of the last seats in the house. AND we sat together because we arrived at our row while the usher was moving people together to get more seats pen. Sweet!

And there’s Wil Wheaton. His keynote address was fabulous. I only understood about half of the references, but he is an excellent storyteller.

I went to a really great panel about planning a fundraiser for Child’s Play, a gaming charity to raise money for children’s hospitals. It was one of the best panels I’ve ever been to at any conference/convention, hands down. I got some really fantastic ideas for fundraising, and they gave tips and strategies for how to collect money, deal with the IRS, market your event, etc. I’m thinking on a much smaller scale, like maybe our Christmas party this year, but I’m really glad I made it to this panel.

Then we lucked out tonight and found out about an X Play meetup happening at a local dive bar called TC Lounge not far from the convention center. We talked to Adam Sessler for quite a while and met some great gamers, including a guy named Matt whose girlfriend has a YA lit blog. Very small world.

Here’s Adam with Adam.

And the TC Lounge is pretty cool..

Then we stumbled into a Wagamama for dinner. I had no idea there were any in the US, delicious. Now we’re getting ready for Day 2.

We’re heading to Boston for PAX East (Penny Arcade Expo for the East Coast)! We went to PAX in Seattle last September and had a great time. Really, I wandered around the convention floor for a couple of hours and then flitted around Seattle the rest of the time. So I can’t say I was actually at PAX. But Adam assures me it was excellent.

This time I’m planning on doing more at the show, there are some cool presentations happening. But I’ll also be wandering around Boston, including a trip to Cambridge for fabric and libraries.

I made this recipe recently, my 2nd from Cooking Light. It was delicious and quick, and made with real butter. This is a big plus since I love to cook and nothing puts me off “light” food faster than artificial ingredients. I steer clear of as much artificial, processed stuff as I can.

This is a huge recipe that yields 8 servings, so I just made 2 chops and did my best to cut all the other ingredients down to size. But I know I didn’t get it exactly right, so I’m not even going to try changing this to my measurements. Nor am I including the nutritional information, since what I ended up with was still really good but not that good.

Grilled Pork Chops with Shallot Butter (from Cooking Light)
Serves: 8

8  (7-ounce) bone-in center-cut pork chops
1  teaspoon  salt, divided
3/4  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
2  tablespoons  extra-virgin olive oil
2  teaspoons  finely chopped fresh chives
1  teaspoon  finely chopped fresh thyme
1  teaspoon  finely chopped fresh rosemary
3  garlic cloves, minced
2  tablespoons  butter, softened
2 1/2  teaspoons  minced shallots
1/4  teaspoon  grated lemon rind
(more…)

Other posts on this project: Rainbow Quilt Pt. 1, Rainbow Quilt Pt. 2, Rainbow Quilt Pt. 3, The Quilt Is Pinned and My Fabric Came (Rainbow Quilt Pt. 4), Rainbow Quilt Pt. 5, Thursday Things, How to Juggle More Than One Project.

I’ve finished quilting the Rainbow Quilt!

It really took me forever to figure out the best way to come up with a left-side guide for my walking foot. I tried a chalk liner from the hardware store, but it let out so much chalk and made such a mess that it was just wildly impractical. And there’s still blue chalk in the quilt, you can see the line of it cutting through the yellow/orange row. Fingers are still crossed that it will wash out when this quilt is completely finished.

By far the best solution was the ruler taped to the machine option. That worked pretty well, but the lines are still uneven. Eventually I decided that this is just the way it’s going to be, and I kind of like the slightly off-kilter look of it. Perfect grid lines look amazing, but I really like the personality in my lines. And I decided not to make a full grid, just the horizontal lines. I need to finish this up and move on to something else.

The quilting is white cotton Gutermann thread. There are only a few mistakes, so I’m really happy about that. The middle green square got a little bunched up during the quilting, but it’s all good. I can live with that little bit of bunching on my first big quilting job.

Now I have to trim it and bind it. That could also take a while, I’m kind of an appalling binder. But I’m going to try my best not to make a mess of it.