It’s that time of year again!  This weekend was the LA Times Festival of Books and I went with some friends.  This year they had a mobile scavenger hunt with the prize of an iPad.  Panda and I decided to participate and we invited our friend, Houdini, to join in.  Saturday, Houdini and I spent a good 4-5 hours running around the UCLA campus answering clues to the hunt.  I unfortunately took a hit when I got a question wrong, but that allowed Houdini to get a perfect score on the hunt… let’s just hope he gets enough bonus points for pictures to outdo the competition!  That’d be awesome, considering it’s his first time to the fair!

The focus this year really centered around the scavenger hunt, which was really a nice way to check out most parts of the event.  From the poetry corner to the kids’ stuff to the cooking stage to the news booths, we saw a lot!  It was also nice to get out on such a beautiful weekend rather than lazing around all day like I usually would.  I do need to get (and stay) more active and though my back hurt and my legs were aching after the first day, it felt good to be outside moving around.  I also ran into some random people, which is always fun.

I found that this year I didn’t really have an interest in checking out the booths like I have in previous years.  Perhaps it is because there were so many people there that anything I might have wanted to do would have taken up a lot of time standing in line.  Plus, I wasn’t out to buy anything, so none of those booths interested me, and I’ve never been one for book signings or readings or cooking shows.  It’s nice to just hang out and enjoy the atmosphere and catch bits of performances as I pass.

It has found a nice home over the fireplace.

Oh, and then today we got word that Houdini won the iPad from a raffle we entered on Saturday!  Pretty awesome, especially considering we were really donating money to help homeless people when we bought those tickets.  I remember seeing it was a 32 gig one, which is better than the one the LA Times has up for grabs from the scavenger hunt!  That one seems out of our reach though.  And as Panda and I were going through completing the hunt for him today, we were able to snag a really nice poster and a button, which was great for him since he has empty walls to fill and collects buttons.  🙂  All in all a great weekend, no?  If only I could have won that iPad so I could feel better about the iPod Touches that I no longer own…  😛