Success & dissapointment at world spice +meme

I used to consider world spice my ace in the hole for unusual or just plain hard to find spices. I just got back from a walking to world spice & Tenzing momo at lunch. I was rather disappointed that they didn't have a lot of the spices I was looking for.

They were all out of grains of paradise, long pepper, cubeb, and powder forte, and don't think they'll get more any time soon. However, they did have powder douce, and cassia chips.
Some of the cinnamon / cassia chunks I got at world spice look a little big (I got 2 oz.) and the ones I got at tenzing momo (they had whole cubeb, and I got another 2 oz. of cassia chips) actually look more uniform which surprised me. I'm going to be using the cassia (aka cinnamon) to experiment making candied cinnamon for one of the amazing ladies of the Madrone culinary guild. She's spiffy and her translations of some Italian (especially Venetian) recipes have really inspired me. I've got alternate translations of some of them, but I've really liked hers.

I'm a sweaty mess, but at least I've got part of what I needed. :)

Oh and why am I in this hand basket?

'Why are you going to hell?' at QuizGalaxy.com