The view from Alcatraz, this is what you'd need to swim across to get away.

I had a lot of fun poking through this site, reading about all of the escape attempts over the years. Victoria, who sends me all my Alcatraz cards, was right in pointing out that no one ever really made a clean getaway. The closest were a few that are unaccounted for...

The back says, "Throughout the federal prison years, 1934-1963, the men incarcerated in U.S.P. Alcatraz endured a restrictive daily schedule of endless headcounts and constant observation. Work assignments, reading material, and family visits were privileges, not rights, and were taken away upon violation of any of the numerous rules."

I'm thinking I should tell the kids this is the rule here, too, what do you think? ;-)

It's a little hard to see on this scan, but this is a photograph of Volvomom's cat at the bottom of the postcard waiting to attack the next Mii that pops up on the TV. I thought that was funny! Her cat gets more out of the Wii than I do, that's for sure!

Our Lady of Guadalupe. I love stained glass windows, and I love Catholic saints, so this one is extra special!

An upcycled Christmas card!

Another upcycled Christmas card.

A North American Toad

This is the New Year's Moon from Arizona.

An upcycled Christmas card from Oregon.

An upcycled Christmas card from Virginia. The sender gets extra style points for skipping the traditional greetings, instead saying, "Live Long and Prosper." Yay!

I didn't realize we'd ever had a triangular stamp here in the US, but there it is in the corner, a 41 cent stamp honoring the Settlers of Jamestown!

There are other stamps from here as well as Russia, China, Israel, Finland, Malaysia, Qatar, Czechoslovakia, and the cute one in the middle with the girl kissing the fish is from Sweden.

A nice Happy New Year card from Texas!

The moon, December 31st, Florida 9:30pm.

Part of the Show Me the Moon swap.

An empty cell at Alcatraz Prison. I can see how you'd want to swim to freedom.

A sunny postcard from Florida, which according to the news is having a record cold snap. Yikes!

Blue Jays

This is an unidentified portrait by Pamela Coleman Smith, who is best known as the designer of the Rider-Waite tarot deck.

This is a woodblock print from Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) called Travelers on the Tokaido Road at Hodogaya.

The sender says he is one of her favorite artists. I had never heard of him (feeling like a bumpkin here) so I looked him up. He was a Japanese Ukiyo-e painter, a style which is pretty interesting in itself. He was extremely prolific, and is art is kind of familiar-looking because the style has been copied on a thousand cheesy Asian restaurant menus. But, his is interesting and different. Just go have a look, it's good stuff!

The sender of this postcard says she is a mail carrier, and that Swap-Bot is like job security for her! I'm going to keep doing my part :-)