Things I Learned at TNNA this year

1. The shuttle bus ride from the economy parking lot to the airport is often scarier than the plane ride. Adjust Atavan dosing accordingly and repeat as necessary.
2. Do not go drinking with Trisha Malcolm. Or you will wake up with the mother of all hangovers. Seriously, it lasted TWO DAYS.
   
3. Sherry from The Loopy Ewe is way taller than she looks on her blog. You would not believe it possible, but she is also even prettier and nicer in real life than she appears on her blog. (I know, right?)
   
4. You are not allowed to curse while taping a teevee segment that will air on PBS. Thank God for the miracle of tape editing. Corrollary to this rule: Even if you give the cameraman twenty bucks, he cannot make your ass look smaller on teevee. (But at least you can swear about it.)
   
5. Fans of Jillian Moreno and Amy Singer don't mess. If you jokingly try to heckle their booksigning, they will squash you like a bug.
   
6. You say "Oooo-nee", never "You-nee." If your daughter has a stuffed unicorn named "You-ni," and berates you if you call it "Oooo-nee," and you are terrified that you will call Eunny Jang the wrong name and then she'll never, ever publish any of your designs in Interweave Knits (not that she has yet, mind you, but still, one can always hope), then when you meet Eunny Jang, you remember how to pronounce her name by saying "Oooooo, it's ooooooni."
7. The ten-minute massage you splurge on at the CyberCafe is the best ten bucks you will ever spend.
8. Columbus is plagued by roving bands of young men driving up and down the main drag by the convention center yelling rude things at innocent conventioneers in the crosswalks like "Hey bitch, could ya walk a little slower?" Columbus needs to invest in some midnight basketball leagues and a few good traffic lights.
   
9. The really cool yarn companies love designers and sometimes give you color cards and/or free balls of yarn to swatch with. The not-so-cool ones act like you are a boil on the butt of the stitching community and blow you off. Ve-Ve knows what I'm talking about.
   
10. Franklin Habit is the most talented man in the world. Proof of this:
11. When you are a humble housewife who drives a stationwagon, and you go to TNNA, you will come home exhausted, dehydrated, hungover, overstimulated, with swollen blistery feet and a sinus infection, and you won't care a bit because you just had the most wonderful weekend in years.