Tailfeathers 2005 and 2006

the Holiday

2006-12-27T13:00:00.000-08:00

Scott Adams on his Dilbert Blog, wrote about "Downer Ratio". His mood mirrors mine today.

So... Jan and I went to see The Holiday (** Satisfactory) at the local megaplex. (The movie poster is a link to the NY Times review.) It was everything the movie trailer promised.

This is a story of two women who trade houses during the Christmas holidays, each trying to escape their unhappiness at home. Guess what, they find love and happiness on the other side of the world. Surprise, n'est pas?

Cameron Diaz and Jude Law are beautiful to watch, and I think Cameron Diaz is funny. Kate Winslet and Jack Black aren't as sparkly as the other two lovers, but they are more likable.

There is a part of the movie in which Eli Wallach plays an aged and retired Hollywood screen play writer. When he's on screen with Kate Winslet, the movie is a pleasure to watch.

You can wait for this one on DVD.

On Vox: A Librarian and a poet

2006-12-27T03:38:00.000-08:00

Don Yarman wrote this poem:

I like my winter brewed black
with freshly ground desire
and poured steaming into sweet dry vision

Being a coffee lover, I think this poem is just wonderful

Sheryl's Tam

2006-12-26T13:15:00.000-08:00

I knit another tam, almost an exact duplicate of this tam which I gave in a gift exchange at a work party. Somebody else at the party liked the original hat and she and I worked a trade. I get a sampler of her handmade soap, and she gets her own tam.

The original was done in Debby Bliss DK weight merino wool. This one is done in Lamb's Pride Worsted, 85% Wool / 15% Mohair. Of course the gauge of the two yarns is different, so I got to do the math all over again. I finally created a worksheet in MS Excel for the next time.

This is the simplest form of tam o' shanter. There are no color patterns or textured stitches, just 9 sections. Well, I did add a round of purl stitches between the increase section and the decrease section. The thing that I like best about this tam is the tubular cast on that I got from Mary Rowe's "Knitted Tams".

Christmas Day, 2006

2006-12-25T14:08:00.000-08:00

The day here was just fine. Presents were exchanged. Several meals were eaten. We watched "The Sound of Music". And, we took a walk around the neighborhood...

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from DFNoJunk tagged with 20061225. Make your own badge here.

The Queen

2006-12-24T08:33:00.000-08:00

Helen Mirren is terrific in The Queen (**** Very Good). We've been waiting for what seems like months for this movie to arrive in Chico. Finally, it is playing at the Pageant, which shows reliably good movies and most of the foreign films shown in Chico.

The movie is one of the NY Times' Critic's Picks, and rightly so. The Queen is about the week following Princess Diana's death. It's as if the Royalty is caught unawares... people all over the world want to publicly mourn Diana's death, but the Royals want to shelter Diana's sons and choose to stay in Scotland hunting stags. I think it's a sad movie.

The Queen, and the rest of the Royals (but Diana's sons are not heard from in the entire movie) think of Diana as an embarrassment and want nothing more than for her death to pass quietly and be done with her. They are unaccustomed to displays of emotion, both privately and publicly.

The newly elected Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is instrumental in guiding the Queen out of her reclusive, private family time in Scotland and into a [cool] public display of mourning in London. It takes him a week to get her back to London, and the movie is about this week.

See it in the theater if you like Scottish scenery :-)

Handknit for Chico

2006-12-24T04:18:00.000-08:00

How could I have not know about this? I would really prefer to give locally if possible, and knitting for local people is perfect for me. I may have given a hat to this project, because I donated a hat to Heartstrings, one of the 4 local yarn shops sponsoring the event.

Next year! There is a wonderful blanket in the current issue (Winter 2006/07) knit simple magazine.

Good intentions without follow-through are useless, but I'm sure I can manage one little blanket - maybe more.

The Jesus Center in Chico fed over 100 families last night, and gave them all hand knitted items as gifts. I'm no Christian, but the Jesus Center does this very good thing every Christmas. It's worth supporting.

Casino Royale

2006-12-24T02:04:00.000-08:00

The latest James Bond is a hottie. The movie, Casino Royale (*** good), is less playful than previous bonds... fewer puns, no naked ladies in the credits, no hit song in the credits (music over credits is a nicely arranged, familiar Bond theme). NY Times doesn't list it as a critic's pick, but viewers give it thumbs up.

We were tired of waiting for The Queen to come to Chico, so this was the choice for our viewing pleasure during the holidays.

Daniel Craig plays Bond well, and he's a better actor than previous bad boy Bonds. You can see on his face what he is feeling. He has an emotional life and feels badly when the women he seduces are killed. He even falls in love with one of them.

Dame Judi Dench is again superb as a tough, strong ruler of MI6.

There is no "Q" character, but our boy does receive an Aston Martin from "M". The glove compartment has a nice collection of toys - even a blood testing kit that allows him to get medical help from HQ while he's in the middle of a poker game.

I get the feeling that this is supposed to be a setup movie which shows his beginning as the famous Bond, James Bond. His very first kills and subsequent promotion to 007 are shown at the beginning of the movie.

I recommend it.

VOGUEknitting presents knit simple winter 2006/07

2006-12-23T06:14:00.000-08:00

My last (i.e., not only latest, but also last) issue of VOGUEknitting's knitsimple arrived today. It's the best one so far. It's a young magazine and is maturing nicely, I think. It covers knit and crochet subjects.

1) Knits + That ... things to buy that you don't need, plus books introduced.

The interesting book intro is Nicky Epstein's "Knitting Beyond the Edge". I want somebody to give me this book for my birthday so I can knit the hooded shawl. In my estimation, the most interesting thing to buy is the Options Needle Set from KnitPicks. I have this set and I like it - the joins are good, cables small and pliable, and the points are sharp. I have used this set more than once now and still like it.

2) fiberfacts : Know Your Naturals, but Edie Eckman

This is a good intro to fiber facts and uses. There isn't a log of depth. It's short enough that my eyes didn't glaze over. The fibers covered are Wool, Alpaca, Mohair, Angora, Cashmere, Silk, Cotton, Linen. It's just a paragraph about each of these. Patterns for sample scarves can be found on www.knitsimplemag.com.

3) technique : size is just a (small) number, by Kathleen Power Johnson

A few pages for those of you who are thin and tall, short and average, short and plump, or short and thin. It's 4 pages of design and pattern alteration information. I have taken one class from K.P. Johnson and she is good with math, so this article might be worth a read.

4) projects

There are various projects to make: accessories, blankets, sweaters (jumpers), jumper (sleeveless overdress), scarves, hats, bags, mp3 and cell phone cases, pillows, socks.

There are two sweaters that look interesting to me:

polo solo, left (pg 34), and

sporty utility, right (pg 38).

So, if the magazine is pretty good, why am I not renewing my s*bscription? I get too many magazines (IK and Vogue Knitting are enough). I don't look at the stacks of magazines littering my house, and adding yet another stack is not required.

Webshots finally comes through

2006-12-20T22:45:00.000-08:00

I used to be a big fan of Webshots, until I started blogging. Then I had a need to refer to my photos from my blog, like the one on the left. Webshots wouldn't let me do it, so I let my subscription to Webshots expire and moved to flickr.

Yesterday I was looking for my favorite eCard facility that I used to use in Webshots and I stumbled on a new-to-me feature in Webshots that lets you refer to photos in webshots from a web page (e.g., the one in this blog entry). Finally!

Now I need to take a serious look at both photo hosting tools and decide which one to keep. If I keep Webshots, I'll have to change all the html references to photos in this blog. If I keep flickr, then I have no work. Webshots is going to have to be a lot better to make it worth my while!

On Vox: Toni Morrison

2006-12-20T02:43:00.000-08:00

Last night the library was slow, so I read this very short book (18 pages, double spaced lines): The Dancing Mind: Speech upon Acceptance of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, by Toni Morrison.She talks...

� Read more on Vox

Circumhorizontal Arc

2006-12-20T01:46:00.000-08:00

This is a beautiful sight!

It's pictures like this that make me want to go camp on the top of a mountain in Idaho this summer.

... then reality sets in. Even if I were in the neighborhood next summer, there is no way I'd be outside and awake after about 9 o'clock at night. I have turned into one of those people who wake up early and go to sleep early - a walking (or sleeping) example of old age.

Just recently I was smacked in the head with the realization that I won't live that much longer, maybe 20 more years. I'll miss so many scientific advances - maturing nanotechnology, tiny computers, medical cures for today's dreaded diseases, space and time travel, etc.

I hope the future holds cultural advances as well - an end to religious wars, and end to hate-motivated actions and government-sponsored repression, and end to hunger, a fair chance for anybody on Earth to excel.

On that hopeful note, I wish you all a happy holiday season. I don't practice a traditional Judeo-Christian religion, but we do have a tree, decorations, and presents. After all, we are US citizens :-)

Borack and Hillary

2006-12-17T04:28:00.000-08:00

Can Borack Obama win the next US Presidential election?

He's rational. He's believable. He's attractive. He's not Hillary.

I would have only 1 problem voting for Hillary if she ran. I'm afraid she couldn't be effective because too many people hate her. I think she has three strikes against her: 1: She is Bill Clinton's wife - still is after he acted badly again and again. You could say that this is a good thing instead of a bad thing; 2: She is perceived to be a little too far left of center. Left would feel good for a while; and 3: She wasn't particularly effective when given the health care problem when she was First Lady. I think it's because so many people hate her. The good news is that she's plenty smart.

And some people are talking about a Clinton/Obama ticket. Which one would agree to be Vice President?

I guess it's time to start watching Obama. He's not controversial on the issues, which is good.

Ecological Footprint

2006-12-10T01:29:00.000-08:00

Want to know how big your ecological footprint is? Take this quiz.

I use 18 acres worth of resources, compared to the average of 24 in my country. If everyone on Earth lived like me, then we would need 4.1 planets to support us.

What is my household doing that's good? We drive a hybrid car that uses less fuel than most cars. We keep the house cool in the winter and warm in the summer to conserve gas and electricity.

What could we do better? Shop for local produce at the farmer's market. Grow some of our own produce. Eat meat less often. Sell one of the cars. Walk to the local grocery store. Ride a bike. Eat less.

Stranger Than Fiction

2006-12-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

Today is the last day that Stranger Than Fiction (*** Good) is playing at our movie house, so we went to a matinee.

The story is strange. The premise is that Harold Crick is a
character in Kay Eiffel's manuscript. When Kay types words into her
manuscript, Harold hears her voice in his head. The voice tells him
his death is imminent. Harold is an IRS agent who is hearing voices
and falling in love with his current auditee, a baker, Ana Pascal.

Will Ferrell is very good as Harold. Maggy Gyllenhaal is good as Ana. Ema Thompson rocks as the author, Kay. Dustin Hoffman is also good as Jules, a literature professor.

All through the movie you are waiting to hear how Harold will die, and wondering whether the book will be a comedy or a tragedy.

I recommend it. The NY Times thought it was just okay.

Good Treo 680 Bad Treo 650

2006-12-07T01:09:00.000-08:00

I confess, I love electronic toys. A couple of years ago I purchased a Palm Treo 650. I was looking forward to dumping my cell phone and using my new PDA as a phone/camera/organizer/email all-in-one tool. It didn't work!! Anytime I left the phone turned on, it froze and had to be reset. I had it replaced once and it still didn't work. I am a bad consumer - I hate spending hours on the phone with a tech support person who doesn't speak English as a first language, and who is convinced I am an idiot. Convincing them to replace the phone once was enough. I gave up and bought a cheap cell phone and waited until the next Palm Treo was announced for Cincular.

The Palm Treo 680 has just been released and IT WORKS!! I love my new Cingular Treo 680. I leave the phone on all day and it doesn't freeze! Love it, love it, love it. Of course, it's not perfect. The selection button inside the up/down/left/right control is too small for my thumb. When I turned it on and pressed the selection button to select English as my language I mistakenly pressed the down control and select at the same time and selected Spanish as my language. I don't speak Spanish, much as I would like to.

Which brings me to... the instructions for doing a hard reset to restore the factory defaults are not in the booklet that comes with the phone. You have to search, and I mean search, for hard reset instructions on line. I finally found them, but have forgotten where now.

The keyboard is fine. I like everything else about the hardware and the software applications. Well... I would like the list of missed calls to be the default list of phone calls, but I can't figure out how to do that yet (or ever?). And the battery life is less than the 650, but good enough for my low-minute usage.

I give the Treo 680 4 1/2 out of 5 stars. Compared to my dysfunctional 650, it's a dream.

Last words

2006-12-06T00:35:00.000-08:00

The officer injured in this accident is probably going to be just fine. I travel through this intersection on the way to work -- the drive through coffee place is here. I got a free coffee because the accident knocked out the power for a few hours.

Can you imagine being stopped at an intersection and seeing a huge truck skidding right at you? I sure hope my last words aren't "Holy shit!!".

Southern Purls Socks

2006-12-03T04:05:00.000-08:00

I listened to podcasts today and knit a little on my Southern Purls socks. I was supposed to go to a knitting get together at the yarn store today, but it's the holiday season and I would have been the only one there, so I stayed home with Brenda's Cast-On. So far, I have heard through June of 2006, so I have quite a bit of catching up to do.

About the yarn, Southern Purls Sock Amethyst color yarn (wool & nylon, fingering weight)... I'm liking it. It doesn't split and it is soft. It knits up at about 9 sts / inch.

The pattern is a basket weave from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks.

AIDS Awareness

2006-12-01T01:12:00.000-08:00

Today is AIDS Awareness day.

If you are suffering from AIDS, here's my love going toward you. Take care.

If you have casual sex, BE SAFE.

If you have money, give some to AIDS research, education, and treatment.

If you have words, send some to your government representative.

Ready to knit

2006-11-30T04:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, there you have it... 2 balls of approx. 50 grams each, ready for knitting. Actually one is about 2 grams more than the other, but it's close enough.

It felt pretty soft while I was winding it, and there were no knots(!), so I should be able to zip right through the next project. I'm thinking of using a pattern from Charlene Schurch's "Sensational Knitted Socks".

100 grams

2006-11-30T04:55:00.000-08:00

The only good use I have found for my diet scale is to weigh yarn. I used my ball winder to wind up the Southern Purls. It turns out that a little over 400 yards weighs about 100 grams.

Now I am prepared to make two equal balls so I can work both socks at once :-)

Southern Purls Amethyst

2006-11-30T04:53:00.000-08:00

I bought a skein of Amethyst sock yarn from Ray at Knitivity.Com. He was prompt, sent what I asked for, and even enclosed a gift of some little purple stitch markers.

He hand dyes each skein and has some really fun colors. When he started thinking about this business (pre-retirement) he was living in New Orleans. Yes, he lived through Hurricane Katrina while staying with strangers, waiting for family to come get him. Now he has moved to Texas, is retired, and has started his business full swing.

What a guy!

Red Tam

2006-11-30T01:08:00.000-08:00

Here is the finished red tam.

Yarn is Debbie Bliss DK weight Merino. It's very soft and good to knit with. It's maybe a little soft for a tam, because tams are supposed to hold their shape, but I don't care because it feels so good.

The pattern was my own. A tubular cast on comes from Mary Rowe's "Knitted Tams". It's an excellent cast on which allows for inserting elastic into the hem if you desire. She says Monste Stanley's Knitters Handbook has good tubular cast ons if you don't have Rowe's book.

It is worked in 9 equal sections... incr eo row until 2.5 inches, then decr eo row until you have just about three sts for the icord loop on top.

Chico State W's Basketball

2006-11-30T01:00:00.000-08:00

The game against CSU Stanislaus was not fun. We won, but the officials ruined the second half. Jan was yelling at the ref's and becoming red in the face, so we left a little early.

This poor picture was taken with my Treo 650 at half time. Two of the ref's are shown (the incompetents). The scoreboard shows the score at half time was Chico 50, Stanislaus 29.

1st 2006 Holiday Gift

2006-11-26T08:54:00.000-08:00

The first gift of the season has been finished. It's a really simple Seaman's scarf. I made it wide and long for a 6'4" man. Jan picked the colors for her nephew and bought the yarn. I knit it up, so we both get to be on the gift card :-)

It is made of Plymouth Yarn's "Encore Colorspun" (worsted weight, 75 acrylic, 25% wool), col./lot - 7118/31894, made in Turkey, 3.5 oz, 200 yds). It feels soft and is semi-machine washable.

The picture on the left is the neck portion, and the picture on the right is one of the ends. The ends are garter stitch, and the neck is K4P4 ribbing. The pattern is online, just google "stahman seamans scarf" for several web sites. The scarf was popularized by Myrna Stahman, and her book "Stahman's Shawls and Scarves: Lace Faroese-Shaped Shaws from the Neck Down & Seamen's Scarves" is one of my favorites. Garter stitch is the least creative end you can put on one of these scarves. For a more creative end, try the Matthew or Matt scarf on Sarah Bradberry's Knitting-and.com.

Next up is a merino wool tam.

Sammy and leaves

2006-11-21T03:16:00.000-08:00

Here in Chico the city will pick up leaves that residents pile up in the street, except they don't pick up leaves during the heaviest leaf falling period in November, which is Now. I'm having trouble understanding the logic in this schedule :-/

Anyway, I was out raking leaves this weekend. Boy howdy, that sure got my heart rate going! Here are some of the pictures I took.

Fox News

2006-11-20T02:23:00.000-08:00

Several Fox News affiliates have decided not to show a program with O.J. Simpson, who is promoting his book "If I Did It".

Gee... you'd think it would be right up their alley.

Western Music

2006-11-18T14:04:00.000-08:00

We went to hear the North State Symphony play music which focused on the Western USA. Tonight's theme was "An American Journey: Plains, Trains, and Cowboys." The link points to the program notes, and will probably only be good for this season.

Grand Canyon Suite - "On the Trail", "Cloudburst" by Ferde Grofe

Poem For Flute and Orchestra by Charles Tomlinson Griffes - Heidi Lohse, flute

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra #3 in B minor, op. 61 by Camille St-Saens Allegro non troppo - Garrett Openshaw, violin

Pacific 231 by Arthur Honegger

Suite from Billy the Kid by Aaron Copland

The Grand Canyon Suite was beautiful, and the Suite from Billy the Kid was wonderful too.

Lights Out at CSUC W's Basketball

2006-11-17T14:57:00.000-08:00

We went to a California State University at Chico (CSUC) Women's Basketball game tonight. They are having a tournament, and we were planning on seeing the last few minutes of the first game, and then the CSUC game. At least we thought we were. When we got there the power was out, and the opening game between Sonoma State and Regis (Colorado) was stopped, unfinished. We waited about 40 minutes for the power to come back on - never were told what the problem was. The power did finally come back, and the 1st game finished. Regis won in overtime.

The 2nd game tonight was CSUC Wildcats against Tarleton State (Texas). Chico's defense is 100% better than last year, but their offense wasn't so good. They couldn't make a shot to save their lives. When we left at half time Tarleton was ahead by two points. If I didn't have to go to work tomorrow we would have stayed until the end of the game; however, just as we were walking out the power went out again.

The game was ended at the half. I don't know how you score it. And we'll never know if Molly Goodenbour, the new CSUC Women's Basketball coach, could have helped them during halftime in order to pull it out and play at both ends of the court instead of just the defensive end.

Jan and I watched Molly play at Stanford in the early 1990s. She's intense. I hope she can pass her skills on to this Wildcat team!

PS: The photos were taken with my Palm Treo 650, so the quality is just OK, but you get the idea.

A Good Year

2006-11-17T09:05:00.000-08:00

On this gray, overcast day we went to see A Good Year (** Satisfactory) and it's sunshine de provence. Provence, where wine is grown, good food is served, and love blooms.

This isn't the greatest movie of the year, but it was fun to watch. The NY Times Review (linked to the photo), called it "a three-P movie: pleasant, pretty and predictable."

If you are in the mood for some pleasing fluff, definitely go see it.

PS: Russell Crowe melts into this role like he does any other. He's still good.

Little Finished Things

2006-11-12T08:41:00.000-08:00

Not much to report on the knitting front. I finished a necklace for my iPod Nano, and a pair of ribbed socks.

I got the pattern for the iPod necklace from a free pattern on the web. The pattern was fine. The only suggestion I would make is to do the i-cord along the edges on bigger needles than the pouch.

The socks are done in Trekking (XXL) yarn. I like the yarn a lot. The color is bright and clean and the yarn had no flaws that I noticed. I didn't use a pattern for these. It's just a k2p2 ribbing from top to bottom. They fit ... me.

Next up is a gift scarf - manly garter stitch seaman's scarf done in dark Plymouth Encore Colors.

Up the hill

2006-11-12T08:30:00.000-08:00

We drove up into the mountains to see the fall colors and have lunch in Graeagle. I know you can't see it from the picture on the left, but there were tons of deciduous oak trees (California Black Oak?) in the mountains. They are a beautiful bronze-gold color, creating huge swathes of gold on the mountainsides.

And, there were Toyon berries showing... big beautiful clumps of berries that look like Christmas.

The route along Hwy 70 was breathtakingly beautiful today. The Feather River is dotted with little dams created and maintained by PG&E. In some places the river looks untouched, and the banks are full of yellow color where the low bushes are displaying their Fall foliage. One extra piece of good news: it looks like the work on all the old bridges is finished, so it's two lanes all the way with no stopping for construction zones.

(As always, lunch at the Graeagle Millworks was delicious.)

A Spot of Bother

2006-11-09T23:16:00.000-08:00

I just finished "A Spot of Bother" by Mark Haddon (link and book cover to the left). I liked it. I even considered writing Mr. Haddon a letter thanking him for making my life a little better.

This novel is set in Britain and is about the family and events surrounding a problematic wedding. The various family members and friends bounce off of the event in dark and funny ways. I recommend it.

Short walk at the Tree Farm

2006-11-05T03:59:00.000-08:00

It's another beautiful day here in semi-perfect paradise. We went for a short walk at the "Tree Farm". The leaves are turning. The air smelled wonderful. The birds were singing. Comanche Creek was singing. The dogs were happy. Here are a few images. You can click on any one to see a bigger version.

www.flickr.com

Neocons deserting the ship

2006-11-03T12:59:00.000-08:00

Since this is a day for jokes, I thought I'd pass this one on...

Article in Wall Street Journal Washington Journal, "Another Pre-Election Day Bomb?".

The slitheries are shedding their skins. It just has to make you smile.

B.C. Knits and Purls

2006-11-03T06:12:00.000-08:00

It must be joke day. This is from B.C., originally published 11/03/06. I love Johnny Hart's comics. (By the way, if you are Johnny Hart, and you think I'm violating some copyright law, then I'll delete this entry.)

... and the answer is ...

Who's on first?

2006-11-03T05:58:00.000-08:00

A conversation* between GWBush and CRice. Author unkown.

George: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?

Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.

George: Great. Lay it on me.

Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.

George: That's what I want to know.

Condi: That's what I'm telling you.

George: That's what I'm asking you Who is the new leader of China?

Condi: Yes.

George: I mean the fellow's name.

Condi: Hu.

George: The guy in China.

Condi: Hu.

George: The new leader of China.

Condi: Hu.

George: The main man in China!

Condi: Hu is leading China.

George: Now whaddya' asking me for?

Condi: I'm telling you, Hu is leading China.

George: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?

Condi: That's the man's name.

George: That's who's name?

Condi: Yes.

George: Will you, or will you not, tell me the name of the new leader of China?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he's dead in the Middle East.

Condi: That's correct.

George: Then who is in China?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir is in China?

Condi: No, sir.

George: Then who is?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir?

Condi: No, sir.

George: Look Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.

Condi: Kofi?

George: No, thanks.

Condi: You want Kofi?

George: No.

Condi: You don't want Kofi.

George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.

Condi: Kofi?

George: Milk! Will you please make the call?

Condi: And call who?

George: Who is the guy at the U.N?

Condi: Hu is the guy in China.

George: Will you stay out of China?!

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.

Condi: Kofi.

George: All right! With cream and two sugars.

* based on the original "Who's On First" comedy routine by Abbott and Costello.

Cheese? Peanuts? Food Poisoning?

2006-11-01T20:08:00.000-08:00

Oooh, boy howdy! No sleep for me last night. I think I have food poisoning. I've been spending time hugging the toilet, and having chills so bad my teeth chattered. Something like this happened to Jan a few days ago, so I'm suspecting there are some bad peanuts in the house (urp).

I am resolved to throw away the new block of Vermont Cheddar cheese I just opened, and to throw away the peanuts I bought at WinCo.

This has not been a fun night, so I think I'll have to call and cancel the rug cleaner who was supposed to come first thing today :-(

YUK!

The Prestige

2006-10-29T13:27:00.000-08:00

We went to see The Prestige (*** Good) this afternoon. It was good. The story could have been written by Poe, but it was co-written by Christopher and Jonathon Nolan, and directed by Christopher Nolan. The Nolan brothers were also responsible for the movie "Memento".

The story reminded me of the movie Amadeus in spirit, but not in detail. Two men (Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman) are good at their art, but one is not quite as gifted as the other and therefore the lesser illusionist is jealous of the other.

Their competition lasts a lifetime, and the story revolves around one great trick that involves disappearing from one spot and reappearing in another. This is a darker story than "The Illusionist", but a better one, I think; although, Edward Norton in The Illusionist gave a much better performance than either Christian Bale or Hugh Jackman did in The Prestige.

The NY Times liked it.

Persy in the sun with attitude

2006-10-29T12:59:00.000-08:00

Now that the days are growing shorter, all the kitties seek out sunny spots. Persy stretches out in the sun and looks over her shoulder to see if you notice how wonderful she looks.

Maybe that's how she maintains her happy outlook. If I tried basking in a sunny spot without giving a thought to skin cancer or West Nile virus, I might be happier too :-)

The Dilbert Blog

2006-10-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Scott Adams' Dilbert Blog, as well as his comic strip.

When he's funny, he's just my kind of funny, and when he's serious he is not irritating. What more can one ask from an almost every day read?

If I had a son

2006-10-15T23:44:00.000-07:00

If I had a son, I'd want him to be like this boy.

Work In Progress

2006-10-15T05:33:00.000-07:00

I like to work identical things, that is, things that should be the same size when finished, at the same time. So, two socks are worked at the same time, and two sleeves are worked at the same time.

The socks one the left are finished through the heel flap and are ready to have their heels turned. I'm liking this Trekking XXL sock yarn (mfd by Skacel, Zitron brand). It feels good and the colors are certainly bright enough :-)

The sleeves on the right are part of the Gentle Breeze Tee that was supposed to be done in time to wear this summer. I guess I should say "last summer", since the weather man tells me we are now officially experiencing Fall (and a very nice Fall it is).

I have never made set in sleeves before, so I'm experiencing a little Fear of Finishing the sleeves. When I lay it out on the floor (left) I can't picture in my head how these sleeves are ever(!) going to fit into the armhole. When I pin the sleeve next to the armhole (right), I have hope.

I have asked the lovely Joann at Heartstrings for encouragement, and she says as long as the perimeter of the set in part of the sleeve is the same number of inches as the armhole, then it will fit. The folks on my knitting email list offered methods for doing sleeves from the top down, so if these sleeves look awful when finished, then I can always rip back and redo from the top down.

The Departed

2006-10-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

We saw The Departed (**** Very Good) today. It's a Martin Scorsese film based on a Hong Kong movie, "Infernal Affairs".

The acting, especially Leonardo DiCaprio, is very good. The setting is Boston, so the actors all have Boston accents or try to have Boston accents. Matt Damon's accent from "Goodwill Hunting" has been dusted off and fits here very well. Jack Nicholson is a bad man who runs his little corner of the Mob with a heavy hand.

Matt Damon is a Mob guy who works for the Massachusetts State Police. Leonardo DiCaprio is an undercover cop who has infiltrated the Mob. During the coarse of the movie you can see each of them come apart from the strain of having two identities.

There are some unanswered questions that come to mind, so it looks like some plot twists are there for convenience instead of to serve the story. There are surprises right up to the very last second of the movie, and they aren't pleasant surprises. It's a Very Violent Movie (rated R for violence, language, and sex).

If you are in the right frame of mind, so that the violence won't bother you, then go see the movie. It's good.

Couldn't have said it better myself

2006-10-06T14:12:00.000-07:00

Samantha's blog entry today says it better than I could.

Have a nice weekend.

iPod Shuffle Whining

2006-10-01T03:35:00.000-07:00

For days - Days, I tell you - I have been trying to update my iPod Shuffle so I can listen to the rest of an audio book (The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho).

It's a long story, Days long. Apple put out some software updates which change the way the Shuffle is updated. Now the software that updates iPods is included with iTunes. It used to be a seperate piece of software called the iPod Updater, or something like that. I updated various pieces of software, more than once, and probably in the wrong order. Then... my iPod Shuffle would not update and iTunes told me it was corrupted, or it couldn't find the files it needed, or it just plain wouldn't recognize the shuffle (as if it wasn't plugged into the USB port).

I tried the 5 Rs as suggested on Apple's help information (reset, retry, restart, reinstall, restore). I was able to get to the Restore step a couple of times, but the restore step always failed... the progress bar just kept going and going and going, like the Energizer Bunny.

I ordered a new iPod Nano, for lots of $. Then I read a bit of information which implied that the iTunes library files might be the problem and I should restore the library to an older version. I did that, and then restarted my Windows PC with the iPod plugged in. When I started iTunes, it recogized the iPod and filled it with random songs from my music folder.

But that wasn't good enough for me. Oh no, I still wanted the rest of The Alchemist on the iPod. When I tried to add switch the random contents for the audio book, I ran into the same problem again! This time it ran out of space and started giving me error messages.

Fall in Central Oregon

2006-09-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

We had a nice few days in Central Oregon's Cascade Mountains. The Fall colors are showing in the mountains, and the mountains are truly striking. Unlike the Sierra Mountains, which seem to run together, the Cascade Mountains are discreet, each mountain standing seperate from its neighbor.

This time of year there are butterflies migrating and my car drove through many of them, I'm sorry to say. Fortunately we didn't run over any deer or cyotes, both of which we saw a few times. We didn't see elk in the wild, but we did see a big hurd of them near Sisters, OR.

If you click on this photo badge, you can see photos from the trip. Look for photos tagged "CentralOregon".

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from DFNoJunk tagged with CentralOregon. Make your own badge here.

Here are the notes:

20060925 Crescent, OR

We left home this morning at about 8:40 after running a
couple of errands, including getting me a cup of coffee at the brand new
Starbucks @ 9th & The Esplanade - oooh, drive through.

It took about 3.5H to reach Ashland, where we had lunch at a nice place
off exit 19 called The Breadbasket - not cheap for lunch but not outrageous.

We drove East out of Medford toward Union Creek and Crater Lake. The Union Cr area is in a beautiful part of a
National Forest (which one?). The Rogue River in that area is stunning as it rushes through tunnels it has made in stone and
(probably) lava tubes.

Crater Lake is still a
beautiful blue gem in a ring on top of a volcano. The visitor area at the lake is under construction. The gift store is in a temporary smaller
bldg, but I found it and bought a knit top I like. At the overlook we watched a documentary film
about how the lake was created... volcanoes erupting from at least 400,000 yrs
ago. At about 7k yrs ago a ring of eruptions
caused the top of the mountain to fall into a molten cavern about 4k ft down...
a collapsing caldera.

The weather today was beautiful and Fall color is
starting. There were some beautiful red
leaved maples and yellow leaved birch and aspen.

So we ended up in a little town called Crescent, OR,
staying at The Woodsman. We had dinner
at a place next door with a sign out
front saying "Mohawk Restaurant, Animal and Bottle Collection, Welcome Hunters". The dining room walls were COVERED with
stuffed animals and collectible souvenir bottles. I felt like the animals were watching me eat dinner - I was careful not
to order any meat.

Room at the Woodsman is fine - clean, dish Network TV,
fridge, microwave.

20060926 Bend, OR

Today was spent on scenic driving and a couple of easy,
short walks.

The West Cascades Scenic Byway, Aufderheide Nat'l Forest
Scenic Byway, Forest Rd 19 - Westfir to Blue River.... It was beautiful, with lots of striking red
color in the maples. We picked up a CD
at the Westfir Ranger Stn which gave us history, some geology, and
suggestions for sites to visit. We took
a quick, easy walk through Constitution Grove where 200 yr old trees have wooden
signs affixed to them, said plaques bearing the names of the signers of the US
Constitution. It amazes me that only one
name was familiar - George Washington.

We traveled up along the north fork of the middle fork of
the Willamette River,
and then down along the south fork of the McKenzie River. I can't say enough about what a beautiful
road this is!

After lunch we traveled the McKenzie Pass - Santium Pass Scenic Byway, OR rte 242. We stopped and took a short hike to Proxy Falls, through lava flds
dotted with brilliant maple trees, thru damp dark forests. The falls were very pretty. Toward the top of the McKenzie pass (5325 ft elev.) there
is a Huge (65 sq. miles) lava flow and views of the Three Sisters Mtns.

It was a besutiful day.

We were amazed at how much Sisters and Bend have grown! We had dinner at Baskin Robbins and scoped
out a Subway for tomorrow's lunch to go.

20060927 Bend, OR

At 12:30, in the middle of the night, my snoring was
keeping J awake, so I went to the lobby and got my own room. J finally had some relief from my snoring
and I was able to sleep all the rest of the night.

Today we took a ride on the Cascade Lakes Scenic
Byway. We stopped at several lakes, some
natural and some reservoirs.

Mt. Bachelor
looks like a good ski mountain. It was
beautiful, as were the other mtns nearby (named what?).

Bend's
older downtown is nice enough, but the outskirts appear to have grown too fast
in a poorly planned way.
Dinner at Deschutes Brewery was fine - beer was good too.

20060928 On the road home

We took another scenic road (hwy 20, 22) to Silver Falls
St Pk, just outside of Salem. We took a hike by several waterfalls:

Winter Falls wasn't flowing, but if you stood there quietly you could hear water dropping
off of the top of where the falls would be in the winter.

Next was Middle North Falls, which was lovely. We walked behind it and didnlt even get wet because this time of yr the falls aren't raging.

Next was Drake Falls, which is really more of a cascade than falls. Nice.

We skipped Double falls because we were running out of steam and the falls appeared to be nothing more then a trickle.

Finally, Lower North Falls which I have skant memory of.

The hike back to the car was all uphill and we stopped
frequently to let our hearts slpw to a normal pace.

Hollywoodland, Water, Fun with Dick & Jane

2006-09-19T06:56:00.000-07:00

We saw three movies lately. One in the theater: Hollywoodland (*** Good). Two on DVD: Water (**** Very Good) and Fun With Dick And Jane (*** Good).

Hollywoodland was better than a summer movie, but not Oscar material. Ben Afleck gives a really good performance as George Reeves, the actor who played Superman on TV in the 1950s. He wanted to be a serious actor and was unhappy with his role as a TV action hero. (I loved him when I was a kid.) In 1959 he either shot himself or was murdered. The official ruling was suicide. Adrian Brody plays a private eye who tries to find the truth. Diane Ladd is wonderful as a film maker's wife who supports Reeves and loves him. Bob Hoskins is, of course, wonderful as the film maker. With all these good performances, you'd think the movie would have been better.

Water, a wonderful film, was released in 2005. It is set in India in the 1930s, when Ghandi was alive. Hindu women are forced to live the rest of their lives in an ashram when they become widows. Actually, there are three choices: They can burn with their husbands, marry the husband's younger brother, or go to an ashram. Sending them to an ashram is a matter of money - the family no longer has to support them. This is the story of the women living in such an institution on the banks of the Ganges river. The youngest and newest resident is a 7 year old child, married young but still a virgin when her husband dies. The ashram supports itself by having its women beg, and also by pimping one beauty to rich men. The beauty travels at night across the river to the home of a rich man. There is a love story/tragedy involving the son of the rich man and the beauty. The real tragedy is that the practice of hiding women away in ashrams still goes on today.

While I was nursing a pulled muscle on my rib cage, I watched Fun With Dick And Jane, on DVD, originally released in 2005. It must have been funny to me, because I remember hurting every time I laughed. Jim Carrey, one of my favorite actors, plays Dick and T�Leoni did a great job as Jane. It's the story of a couple fallen on hard times because of an enron-like situation. They take to robbery as a way to support their family. Finally D & J setup the nasty CEO (Alec Baldwin) in order to set things right. T�Leoni is just wonderful in this.

Fiber Arts

2006-09-12T06:54:00.000-07:00

This is a Leif Parsons illustration from a NY Times article about digital music. Cool.

This is what your brain looks like after too much knitting.

The artists are Marjorie Taylor and Karen Norberg. See Oregon University's Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art.

Knitty's Fall Issue 2006

2006-09-11T09:04:00.000-07:00

I like this issue of Knitty.com. (The picture is a link to the Fall, 2006, issue.)

As usual, there are various technique articles and a spinning/dyeing section too.

Also as usual, I would pass on most of the patterns because I'm not as young as or as thin as the models, upon which most of the garments looked fine. All the women's sweater patterns I looked at had sizes up to 3X. Knitty is very good about remembering large people.

Here are the items I liked.

Tamarah, by Iris Schreier, is a nice, small shawl that will work with variegated yarn. It's made with two yarns: 1) 100% silk and 2) 70% mohair/30% silk. It is pictured in this post. It looks like the construction of this one would take a little thought, which is a good thing.

Avast, by Jesse Loesberg, is a smashing man's sweater with a horizontal cable around the hem. It has raglan shoulders so it would need a broad-shouldered body.

Sugar on Snow, by Lee Wood Juvan, is a fun, cabled hat that turns into a neck warmer. The idea is that you start out cold and then the day gets warmer, so you slip it loosely around your neck. The crown of the hat is drawn closed by an i-cord tassel that you loosen when you want to change the hat into a neck warmer. Cute, and sized for children and adults. Good gifting item.

Lizard Ridge, by Laura Aylor, is a beautiful (really beautiful) afghan. You can make it all in one piece or in small pieces that are joined. It works very well in Noro's Kureyon yarn.

Back to School, by Star Athena, is a collection of washcloths with letters (words = "study" and "party") duplicate stitched onto a band in the cloth. You could fit your own words of choice onto the cloths.

Lucie, by A.L. de Sauveterre, is a sweater which I'm not fond of; however, I do like the floppy collar.

So, that's quite a bit to like from one issue.

The Illusionist

2006-09-11T03:57:00.000-07:00

The Illusionist (**** Very Good) was definitely worth a trip to the local multiplex.

I don't remember what else I've seen Edward Norton, Jessica Biel, or Rufus Sewell in. Of course, Paul Giamatti is memorable for Sideways. The acting was fine. Even so, I didn't fall for the illusion, but I'm not sure we were meant to fall for it.

The short story this is based on, "Eisenheim The Illusionist" can be found in S. Millhauser's The Barnum Museum.

The NY Times Summary says:

Even the most diehard rationalist, in his heart of hearts, longs to
believe in magic. That�s why Neil Burger�s film �The Illusionist,�
which tells the story of Eisenheim (Edward Norton), a fictional
conjurer who enraptured Viennese audiences in 1900, rouses your
slumbering belief in the miraculous. This screen adaptation of Steven
Millhauser�s short story, �Eisenheim the Illusionist,� gives Mr. Norton
a role that perfectly fits his disturbing inscrutability. His face,
with obsidian eyes that take in everything but reflect nothing, and a
tight little mouth, is an impenetrable mask of either innocence or
cunning; you�re never sure which. Throughout the movie Eisenheim
remains a man of mystery whose few, carefully chosen words project a
wary, possibly phony omniscience. � Stephen Holden, The New York Times

Toyota is not ass

2006-09-08T14:55:00.000-07:00

I learned a new slang word today... "ass" is bad, but "not ass" is good. Toyota is not ass.

JLG and I jointly own a 2001 Toyota Prius (and a 2004 Toyota Prius). That's two Priuses. The 2001, pictured left, has had an odd, intermittent steering problem since it was a newish car. It was undiagnosable, since it only happened when the car was cold at slow speeds - like when you are backing and turning out of the driveway in the morning. All of a sudden the steering wheel would have a fit and start shuddering mightily, and scare the owner-operator almost to death. This is ass.

Finally, on the most recent visit, the dealership said that Toyota had issued a bulletin saying that cars with this problem would need a new electric steering rack (whatever that is). Toyota will pay for the parts ($1K), but not the labor ($700). The car is out of warranty so Toyota was being kind to pay for the $1K parts. I didn't agree and thought Toyota could pay for the labor as well, since the problem has existed since the car was a baby.

So, I talked to the Customer Relations person at the dealer, and I talked on the phone to Toyota. I got a case number. I explained I thought Toyota should pay for the labor. Toyota thought about it and called me back today. We still have to pay for the labor, but Toyota will reimburse us for the labor costs! Not ass, not ass at all :-)

Thanks, Toyota, for standing behind your products!

Signed,
A Happy Prius Owner

Invincible & Little Miss Sunshine

2006-09-03T08:08:00.000-07:00

Lately we've seen two good movies: Invincible (*** Good) and Little Miss Sunshine (*** Good). Invincible was a feel good movie: the good guy gets a break and does well. Worth cheering for. Little Miss Sunshine was smarter and funny. I recommend them both for theater viewing.

Quoting the NY Times:

�Invincible�
tells the true story of Vince Papale (Mark Wahlberg), a 30-year-old
substitute teacher and part-time bartender who, in 1976, was signed to
play for the struggling Philadelphia Eagles. Battling inexperience,
hostile teammates and an excess of slow-motion photography, Vince is
soon being pummeled in summer training and body-slammed in a losing
game against the Dallas Cowboys. As Jackson Browne mopes on the
soundtrack and the football fans wilt in the stands, Vince�s embittered
dad, Frank (Kevin Conway), cautions against optimism. �A man can only
take so much failure,� he warns. While Disney piles on the uplift, the
director and cinematographer, Ericson Core, counters the story�s
predictably inspirational trajectory with close attention to historical
detail and blue-collar hardship. � Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York
Times

... and

A bittersweet comedy of dysfunction, �Little Miss Sunshine� tells a
tale about genuine faith and manufactured glory that unwinds in the
American Southwest, but more rightly takes place at the terminus of the
American dream, where families are one bad break away from bankruptcy.

It feels like Fall

2006-09-03T07:53:00.000-07:00

We went for a quick walk in Bidwell Park this morning. I'm still breaking in some new shoes so I wasn't able to go far or fast. I hate new shoes :-(

There are berries on the bushes and the air is cool in the morning. Come on Fall!

Big Bear Lake

2006-09-03T07:44:00.000-07:00

On Friday we went for a walk in the Lakes Basin area. This is Big Bear lake which is only about 1/2 a mile from the parking area.

We got there late (around noon), so it was already on the warmish side (mid-80s). There was only a minor up and down and by the time we got back we were hot and tired. We had to stop several times to let our hearts slow to normal-ish.

Boy am I out of shape and swimming, which is nice and my favorite exercise, just doesn't get my heart going as much as it should. Maybe I should consider an uphill treadmill at the gym. ... yeah, like that's ever going to happen on a regular basis.

A Day in the Life

2006-09-02T15:30:00.000-07:00

Today was a work day at the library. Very few crazy people came in today, and since the internet was down it was quiet.

We've been having a theft problem. People have been stealing the movie DVDs out of their cases and leaving the empty cases hidden in the book shelves. Creeps. So, now we have to keep the movies behind the counter and make it difficult for the general public to browse the DVD collection. It's a shame that a few (one?) bad apples (I can think of more descriptive words to call them) have made it inconvenient for the rest of the people.

Our volunteers are wonderful. They do all the shelving, and the circulation people who are paid to work there are stuck behind the counters being available to JQP (Jane Q Public). We do have a couple of volunteers who think the circulation folks don't do much. It's true, there are times when we sit and rest for a bit, but on the whole the circ folks work pretty hard from the beginning to the end of the day.

Cheers,
"Check 'em in. Check 'em out" Diane

Went to Lake Almanor

2006-09-02T15:11:00.000-07:00

This is a photo which has had a brush stroke effect applied. It was a beautiful day at Lake Almanor, and you could see Mt. Lassen across the lake.

I thought I was going to drop out of this blog, but I have paid for a year, so I'll keep it up.

There is an air show at the Chico Airport, so yesterday and today Chico has been buzzed by fighter jets. The cats are not happy.

So, that's about it. I'm back, more vocal than before.

Crescent City Vacation

2006-08-05T15:27:00.000-07:00

We went to Crescent City, CA, in order to escape the hot valley weather. Here is a flickr badge of some of the pictures. Click on the link at the bottom to see the entire set (31 in all). The story of the week is below the photos.

www.flickr.com

DFNoJunk's 2006 Crescent City photoset

2006/07/29 Crescent City, CA

We left home a little late, 20 minutes late. I went through my usual last minute panicm which irritates J quite a bit (understatement).

Headed for the coast via Redding and Hwy 299 & 101. Lunch in Weaverville at the Garden Cafe - it's for sale, full of flies, average food, don't bother. After we reached the Trinity River the scenery improved. The river is full of kayakers and rafters.

The redwoods along 101 before Crescent City are beautiful.

So here we are in our little house at 640 Pebble Beach Dr... right on the beach in the Castle Rock Wildlife Refuge. There is a beautiful view of the ocean from the living room and the dining room. We are right across the street from the beach. There is an almost constant parade of Brown Pelicans flying by, punctuated by the occational sea gull or starling.

Waiting for the sun to go down, I can hear seals (sea lions?), and waves hitting the beach. Life is good.

Weather is beautiful, blue skies, in the 60's.

2006/07/30 Crescrnt City

Today's hilight was a walk on the beach. We got there a bit after low tide.

I thought it was going to be another nice walk on the beach: pelicans, prehistoric looking things flinging themselves into the water looking for fish - seagulls - driftwood - sea lions barking - fishing boats out in the deeper water. All of that was expected and it was there.

What I wasn't prepared for was the life on the rocks at low tide: Anemonies, sand crabs, muscles, barnacles, and lots of star fish.

And, did you know that sea weed has lots of different colors in it? Like red, for example?

I finished the book 'The Futurist' today. It was an entertaining look at Americans in today's global community.

2006/07/31 Crescent City

Drove along Smith River in Jedediah Smith Redwoods Park.

Myrtle creek trail was beautiful. It was good to be in a coastal fprest again - the smells were good. Plant life was varied, green... rhodies, azaleas, ferns, columbine, tiger lillies, inside out flowers, ginger, tan oak, madrone, pt orford cedars, laureal (myrtle wood), serpentine soil, fivfinger ferns, moss, fir trees, historical hydrolic mining site where they flushed away the hillside with high powred water... ditch running along a ridge with sluce gates... all happened in late 1800's. ,yrtle cr was very pretty as were the various spring fed creeklettes running down hilll.

After the walk we took the Howden Hill scenic drive past Stout Grove in Jed.Sm park..

2006/08/01 Crescent City

We went up to Gold Beach, OR, to take a ride on one of Jerry's Jet Boats. It was an hour's drive North on hwy 101 arriving at 8 for an 8:30 departure up the Rogue River.

Our guide/driver was a 20-something man named Drake... blonde, tall and thin, he must be Scandinavian. He grew up in Gold Beach, went to school in Portland, and was utterly charming. We gave him a nice tip :-)

Our ride up the river was in one of Jerry's smaller Jet Boats. When the water was deep enough Drake would spin the boat in a 360 degree turn, so the boat would turn left or right until it ran into its own wake and got everybody wet.. everybody except Drake. You definitely have to hold on to you hat!

We went about 30 miles up river to Agnes, where we had lunch and goofed off for almost an hour and a half. The Restaurant was called Cougar Lane and it was the Choice furthest up river of three choices for a lunch stop.

On the way up the river in the morning there was no wind, and the weather was beautiful all day. We saw lots of osprey nests and one bald eagle nest in the top of fir trees, a couple of beautiful bald eagles, a family of river otters, people catching big salmon in the estuary close to the Pacific ocean.

The scenery is beautiful, a different perspective from the water than from the road. I think a kayak float trip from Agnes to Gold Beach would be wonderful. When I mentioned that to Drake he said that often the wind blows up river and you have to paddle very hard to float down river.

I guess a noisy, gas guzzling jet boat driven be a capable, local guide isn't such a bad way to spend the day.

2006/08/02 Crescent City

Big deal today was going to a movie: Monster House (** Satisfactory). This is another one that was rated pretty well by Roger Ebert. I didn't care for the animation; the adults looked stupid or unloving; it was a movie released in August that was about Holloween.

Wait for the DVD.

The rest of the day was pretty slow. Went to the Rumiano cheese company and picked up some cheese made in Crescent City... the Dry Jack (aka parmesian) is particularly good.

So far on this trip I have finished two books: Bookman's Wake (Dunning) and The Futurist (Orthman), both worth a read. I'm going to have to think of a rating system for books....

2006/08/03 Crescent City

In the foggy morning air between 6 and 8am the pelecans were having a feast right across from the bay window where we take our brkfst.

They dive beak first with their wings tucked back. They look like spears throwing themselves into the water.

After brkfst we headed So. to Prairie Creek St. Pk. On the way we took the "Coastal Drive" enroute to the Scenic Drive. The Coastal Dr. turned out to be a narrow, gravel road which was paved sometimes for about 25 yards at a time. No matter wether it was paved or gravel, there were pot holes everywhere :-( The driving gods cleared away the big rocks and I didn't drag bottom, even though my 3" of clearance was making me nervous. The Prius is a good car but it is pretty low.

Finally we reached the Newton B. Drury Scenic Pkwy. It was beautiful... a drivw through a redqood forest. Our walk on Prarie Cr. Tr. was a wonderful walk in a quiet forest, where one of the loudest noises was the creek. One of the logs we went over was so large they built steps... 11 steps and 11 down. We saw all the nirmal plants one expects to see in a coastal redwood forest in August.

After lunch at a diner in Orick, we went on the 1 mile guided Lady Bird Johnson Grove trail. Is she still alive? The old growth coastal redwoods are wonderous.

2006/08/04 Crescent City

We went down to Prarie Creek St. Pk. again today. Once again we walked through giant Coastal Redwoods. The forest floor is covered with ferns, fallen limbs and nursery logs, moss, small dens created by empty spots in trees and logs. Fern Creek us a nice little meandering brook in the summer.

Now we must pack and prepare to go home and see the kitties tmorrow.

Culture in Chico?

2006-07-28T04:40:00.000-07:00

Dan Nguyen-Tan's very good blog about Chico, etc., talks about Chico's first ARTOBERFEST.

Sounds like fun, and it ought to be cool enough by then to enjoy an outing in Chico.

Pirates and Superman

2006-07-27T10:35:00.000-07:00

Today
we saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (Dead Man's Chest) (** Satisfactory). Last week we saw Superman Returns (** Satisfactory). I don't think either one was good enough for going to the big screen theater - unless you want to sit in some good air conditioning.

The acting in Superman was ho-hum. The story was ho-hum.

The acting in Pirates was pretty good, but Johnny Depp's Captain Sparrow was just a pinch over the top this time.

I say wait for the DVD.

Doing the best you can

2006-07-21T03:02:00.000-07:00

I surf the web (a lot), and there are some really good knitters and designers out there. I won't add any links because I'd leave the wrong person out. On some sites the finished work is just beautiful. On others (here comes the whining)...

The workmanship is bad (and these people are not beginners).
The fit is bad.
The color choices are bad.

Finishing is part of the work. Do it right. There are several good knitting reference books and web sites on finishing. Look it up.

The fit being wrong comes from denial, I believe. Do a gauge swatch and alter a pattern so it fits the intended recipient. Don't just make a guess and hope for the best.

There are some hand knitted things that are well made (beautiful workmanship), fit perfectly, etc., but the color choices turn your stomach. Knitty.com has some articles on color. Sally Mellville has an entire book devoted to color. You can do better.

If you knit for meditation therapy, and don't care all that much about the results, try knitting afghans with just one natural fiber color. It's really hard to screw those up. You can give them to charity.

I think, for me, the goal of perfect finished objects has come with
time. I certainly didn't care about it when I was beginning.

If you knit wearable objects, do the best work you can - be a perfectionist. Going through learning processes is a good thing. Don't settle for mediocre work. You'll be so happy with the result!

Now it's hot

2006-07-20T23:06:00.000-07:00

It's 5:45 AM. Weather.com says it's 84F / 29C outside (feels like 85F). It's supposed to be around 104F / 40C this afternoon... and humid, about 20%.

It's hot, but not as hot as it's going to be this weekend. The forecast is for 110F / 43C on Sunday. I see a Sunday movie in our future, maybe Superman Returns.

On Vox: Composed for the 1st time

2006-07-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

I'm trying a new blog tool, VOX, which has the ability to link to my flickr photos. Whoopee! This post was created on VOX and cross posted to Typepad. How does it look on Typepad?

� Read more on Vox

New Kitchen Floor

2006-07-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

The house I live in has bad kitchen floor karma. It is in the process of having it's 4th kitchen floor since the house was built: White linoleum, cheap wood like laminate, expensive stone like laminate, and finally expensive stone like Congoleum. The first floor looked cheap. The second floor looked better, but the workmanship and product were so bad that after a year I decided to replace it. The third floor looked okay, but the refrigerator leaked and the wood core warped.

Here are the pictures from yesterday and today (click on picture for larger image). This is a Congoleum DuraCeramic floor. It is laid like tile. The tiles I chose look like slate. Chuck, from Carpet One, is doing the work. He's a 65-year-old chatty fellow, but a hard worker, and he does good work.

After the first day, this is what the kitchen looks like. The old floor has been removed, and the smell from the trapped fridge leak dampness was truly awful. Chuck said there was no mold, so he dried out the floor with fans and commenced to lay the new floor. The stove and fridge (yes it has been repaired) are waiting at the far end of the room.

While Chuck worked in the kitchen, the kitties fretted. Ruso hid and whined whenever anybody would listen. Persy watched the work from a distance.

After the second day, the tile is all down, the stove and fridge are at home in their spots, and part of the grouting has been done. Sammy and Persy are more concerned about their late dinner than they are about the new floor smells.

April 8, 2007, edited to move review out of comments and into the blog entry:

Yes, I'm happy with the floor. It cleans easily, is quiet, and looks good (I think).

I went with the grout option instead of no grout. The installer
wasn't happy with all the work he had to do in order to make the grout
look good, but I am. He did one grout and then bubbles developed. He
had to come back in a couple of weeks and re-grout, but now it looks
good. (He could have come back sooner, but his schedule was busy.) Just
tell your installer to be careful with the grout.

Also be aware that the joins to the surrounding area might be a
problem. My installer had to go to the hardware store and buy some
plastic strips that match (well enough for me), because there are no
joining pieces available to buy. I don't know what joining pieces are.
Just make sure you ask about how you are going to transition from the
new floor to the old.

Once again, I like this floor and I'm happy.

Knit Simple, fall 2006

2006-07-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

I haven't written about knitting for a while... I am plugging away on my Gentle Breeze Tee. I'm within two rows of finishing the back. The front is done just past the arm hole shaping. I'll take pictures of it and post progress when the back is done.

In the mean time, I have received knitsimple as presented by Vogue Knitting. This issue is devoted to "flattering looks for fuller figures", "easy, easy cables", "a whole new breed of afghan", plus, the cover says, 30+ projects. I wonder what new, hip style of grammar dictates a total lack of capital letters in titles? Would I be ~~more~~ cool if I left out upper case letters?

I liked this issue much more than the first issue I received, but....

Article about upsizing

The technique article, "A GUIDE TO RESIZING KNITWEAR FOR LARGER BODIES; the upside of upsizing" (they used all their quota of caps in one title!), is a fine introduction to how to modify patterns for big people. You won't learn enough to do your own designs, but you do learn the types of changes you would have to make in order to upsize a pattern. There is an introduction to bust darts, and some discussion about sleeve shaping. The entire article is three pages, so this isn't meant to be an in depth tutorial.

There is a recommendation for "big girl knits" by Jillian Moreno and Amy Singer. This book appears to be quite popular with younger, full figured women. (It must be for younger women, there are no caps in the book's title on the cover.) I haven't taken the time to look at this book yet.

There is a list of resources, including: web sites, blogs, mailing lists, pattern publishers, and books.

Shelda Eggers, who hosts the Ample-Knitters web site and mailing list is quoted. Unfortunately, the mailing list hosted by Shelda will be disappearing soon. The web site is staying and Shelda has plans to enhance it. The mailing list appears to be migrating to a yahoo list as I write.

Note: many of the patterns in this issue have extra large size options, but I think patterns done with fat yarn on big needles only makes one look bigger than you already do.

Leigh Witchel article

Leigh is an entertaining writer who does a lot with the time he has in his life, so he's a good choice for writing an article about managing your time and doing holiday knitting. (already???)

His advice? Start early. Think small projects (pattern for ribbed hats included). Make a to do list and use it to manage your progress. Maximize your time by knitting everywhere, all the time. Be realistic and trust your intuition's warning signals.

And then he has an amusing summary of various knitting acronyms: TOAD, FO, AFO, UFO.

Projects

Lots of cabled sweaters done with big needles and fat yarn.
Cabled afghan, dog sweater, scarf, vest.
Crocheted chevron skirt and granny-square sweater. (ack!)
Side to side sleeveless top and creatively shaped coat.
Bell sleeve top (still? we should be done with bell shaped sleeves by now!)
More afghans. Several pillow covers, some nicely ribbed with buttons.
More short sleeve tops, one with a cowl collar.
A double-breasted jacket.
A cute dog blanket with pictures of various dog breeds.
... and on and on and on.

article about making cables

Really quick intro, with pictures, about making cables... includes "how to read a chart."

article about slip stitch color knitting

Introduction. If you're serious about slip stitch knitting, get Barbara Walker's "Mosaic Knitting" from schoolhouse press.

New books

Vogue's "Stitchionaries" 1, 2 and 3.
"Never too old to knit" (this one looks interesting.)

The Devil Wears Prada

2006-07-09T13:15:00.000-07:00

We went to see The Devil Wears Prada (*** Good) today. It was a terrific way to get away from 100F weather, and many others thought the same thing... the theater was full. It was a fun movie (here is link to NY Times review).

The devil in this story is the editor of a New York Fashion magazine (Meryl Streep). She plays a tyrant of a boss to a wannabe journalist (Anne Hathaway). Streep is just wonderful as the boss, and Hathaway manages to look innocent even as she takes on the image of a fashion magazine editor's assistant.

Stanley Tucci is wonderful as the editor's right hand man... a sympathetic character in a world of shallow, anorexic women.

The man who plays the star in "Entourage" on HBO (Adrian Grenier) plays Hathaway's boyfriend... very hot looking.

I recommend this one for fun.,

Cars

2006-07-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

We saw Cars (*** Good) today. This one is for you, car racing fans. It is safe family fun. The animation is good. There is a moral to the story that is good for kids to see.

Paul Newman (1950s Hudson race car) and Owen Wilson (hot rookie race car) are good in their parts. Everybody was good in their parts. The surprise for me was Tony Shalhoub as Luigi, the Italian car. I never would have guessed the voice of the little car speaking with an Italian accent was the same actor that plays Monk.

One of my favorite things about the movie is that Randy Newman did the music. Also, the over the top corny one line jokes are worth a smile; for example, "I'm as happy as a tornado in a trailer park.", etc.

Roger Ebert and also the NY Times give it a mixed review. They say it plays it too safe.

Deer Creek

2006-07-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

We drove east about 50 miles into the mountains where it is cooler. At lunch the car's dashboard said it was about 75F (29C). We parked at a campground near Deer Creek in Tehama County, CA.

We had a nice picnic at an empty camp site. It was nice to hear the water, still rushing since the winter snow is still melting. There were several fisher people, but I didn't see them catch anything.

By the time we got home to Chico, in the flat valley, it was 90F (32C), so it should reach about 100F (38C) today.

No, you may not take my picture

2006-07-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

When you have been taking somebody's picture for more than 20 years, they evenutally lose patience with being the artist's model, cease to be the writer's muse, etc.

It's not a pretty picture.

A Prarie Home Companion

2006-07-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

We saw A Prairie Home Companion (**** Very Good) today. If you like the radio show you'll like the movie.

Garrison Keillor wrote the screen play and so it's a fun visual version of the show. Keillor plays himself very well. Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep are wonderful as the aging Johnson sisters. Kevin Kline is Guy Noir - once you get over the fact that he doesn't have Garrison K's voice he is fun to watch. Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly play Dusty and Lefty, cowboy singers and joke tellers.

There are more excellent people in the cast, like Virginia Madsen as an angel of death, and Tommy Lee Jones as a corporate takeover guy.

One of my favorite cast members is Tom Keith, the sound effects man. He is the originator of most of the sounds you hear on the radio show.

I recommend this one to those who appreciate A Prairie Home Companion on PBS.

The Golden State

2006-07-02T05:08:00.000-07:00

This is why they call California "The Golden State". We have our annual draught every year in the summer and all the grasses dry up and turn a nice shade of beige. Of course, the fire danger is high now.

Bidwell Park, in Chico, has some of the most lovely oak trees!

This morning's walk in the park was nice. The sun was still low so the temps aren't hot yet, and we were wearing enough bug juice to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

Have a nice 4th of July holiday, everyone.

Bidwell Spice Bush

2006-07-02T05:03:00.000-07:00

The park has big bushes with these blooms on them. I have no Idea what the name of the bush is.

(Update after looking in Sunset's Western Garden Book)...

The name of it is Calycanthus occidentalis ("Spice Bush"). It is native to California, diciduous, and has a fragrance of an old wine barrel. The flower color is brownish red.

Is That All There Is?

2006-07-01T14:57:00.000-07:00

What do you want from retirement?

I always had the feeling that people who work for many years retire and live happily ever after. Here are some things I think one should have in order to live happily:

Friends, people you enjoy being with.

Family (For better or worse, they matter.)

Money, enough to live on without having to work a second career

Activity that makes you happy

I'm finding the "Activity that makes you happy" isn't going to be the same as it was when I was young and fit. Joints ache. Stamina is reduced. I can handle the reduced stamina, but the achy joints definitely put a crimp in my physical choices.

So, are there any older people out there who have found an activity that makes you happy and which doesn't require all that much physical effort?

(Just so you don't think I'm a total couch potato... I swim and walk, but can't do as much as I used to.)

Over The Hedge

2006-06-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

We saw the cartoon Over the Hedge (*** Good) today. It was a great way to spend 84 minutes on a Sunday, the hottest day of the year so far, and the day that the power company decided to turn the power off so they could trim some trees (so no air conditioner).

The picture is a link to Roger Ebert's review. He liked it better than the NY Times, but neither thought it was very good.

Jan and I both laughed and thought the theater's air conditioning was fine.

----

Also this week we saw The Beautiful Country (**** Very Good) on DVD... reviewed in the NY Times. It is the story of a young Vietnamese man, born to a Vietnamese mother and an American G.I. father. He is an outcast in Vietnam, where the movie starts. The satisfying conclusion is set in a God forsaken ranch hand's trailer in a parched corner of Texas. I liked it, and was struck by the peaceful demeanor of the young man, named Binh. The NY Times called him stoic. I guess it's all what you see in his face.

Giants Vs Pirates

2006-06-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday (a week ago) we went to see the SF Giants play Pittsburgh Pirates. It was a bad game, but our seats weren't too bad.

Note about the above photo: I usually stitch these types of pictures together to create a panorama, but the light was enough different, and the bottom of the leftmost picture was enough different, that when I attempted the stitch, it was like some altered state of reality (i.e., nothing real). Therefore, you get a collage instead of a panorama.

And my favorite part of ATT Park is the big mitt just behind where Barry Bonds would would have stood, if he had been playing that day.

The Lake House

2006-06-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

We went to see The Lake House (** Satisfactory) today. As the NY Times says, this is "... another deeply silly, effortlessly entertaining movie."

Sandra Bullock was entertaining. Keanu Reeves was painful to watch. Christopher Plummer was wasted. Dylan Walsh (from Nip/Tuck) was well cast as Sandra Bullock's jilted boyfriend.

Click on the picture to see a NY Times review and learn more about the story.

At least we sat through the entire movie, which is more than we did for The New World (* Poor), on DVD. We thought The New World wasn't good enough to watch all the way through.

eBay messages

2006-06-15T14:49:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of June, the 2nd to be exact, I bought an item for less than $3 on eBay. I paid by Paypal right away. Eventually, I received a confirmation from the seller, and my item was mailed to me on the 9th.

Usually (that is the few previous times I have purchased things on eBay) I get an email the same day as the auction is closed. I didn't receive anything for about 5 days, so I figured the seller had put something up for sale and then taken a vacation or something, and then taken care of business upon her return.

I gave her a "neutral" feedback, "Item arrived as advertised, took about a week for 1st response."... what follows is the notes that resulted from my feedback. I am amazed at 1) my inability to make myself understood without causing a fight, and 2) her complete and utter anger at me.

She said...
I think you gave me the wrong feedback. I
email as soon as you purchase something and mail within 2 days. Do we not give
time for the mail system?

I said...
Sorry, received no email from you. 1st I
heard was an acknowledgement of paypal payment, 5 days after payment cleared.
Shipping after 1st acknowledgement was fine. I usually get a response right away
after an ebay auction is closed, so was surprised not to hear. ... maybe your
email was lost in the ethernet.

She said...
Did you pay by e-check, meaning you didn't
have the money in your Ebay account so they had to transfer it to Ebay which
takes 5-7 days, then it clears on my end? I don't wait to email anyone. I would
like the negative feedback withdrawn.

I said...
1) I paid by Paypal on June 2nd.
2)
Payment to you 'cleared' on June 2nd.
3) 'Neutral' is neither
positive nor negative.
4) I do not plan on changing my feedback, and my
understanding from eBay documentation is that I cannot change it if I wanted to.

5) I'm finished corresponding about this. I didn't harm you. 1 neutral out
of 203 positive feedbacks during the last month won't hurt you.

She said...
Please do not buy from me again. I don't need
your harrasement

Is it me, or is this lady a total bitch?

Knitting Software

2006-06-13T02:26:00.000-07:00

I haven't written about knitting in a little bit, so I thought I'd talk about my knitting software.

The software I have all comes from Knitting Software, Inc., which is software developed by Carole Wulster and supported by Noah Wulster and the rest of the staff. There is a Yahoo discussion group which is monitored by Carole for technical and usability problems. Other users answer most of the questions new users come up with.

So, which applications do I have? In order of purchase (oldest to newest), they are:

Stitch and Motif Maker
I've had this for years and use it mostly for charting lace or other stitch patterns. I don't do much color work. Lately, I've started using Excel for charting lace (there are knitting fonts you can use in Excel). Either Excel or S&MM work just fine for charts.

Math Wizard
This is a good program for figuring yardage requirements and evenly distributed events in your work. You can figure vertical increases or decreases (how many rows between), horizontal events, button hole placement, etc., etc. At the bottom of the calculation screen, written instructions are shown which can be printed or exported to your favorite word processor.

Sweater Wizard
I just got this one the other day, and so far I've used it to validate the math I used to up size my Gentle Breeze Tee. It gave me a nice feeling that I had cast on the right number of stitches. Now I have to compare the shoulder and armhole shaping to my body in order modify the SW pattern (or not). The finishing work on the Tee will come from the Fiber Trends pattern, no SW.

The pattern generated from my numbers is easy to understand and can be exported to my favorite word processor.

New Tires

2006-06-09T07:27:00.000-07:00

I went to Costco this morning to have my new tires installed.

No Appointment Necessary, they said.... There was a 2 1/2 hour wait, would I like to come back another day? No, I said. I'll leave the car and return. Costco is across the street from two of my favorite stores, and a few others too. I had a book with me, but no knitting. Off I went....

I spent 40 minutes or so in Cost Plus. Found a blank card showing two cats made up to look like World Wrestlers fighting... perfect as an apology card to someone I had been mean to. Lately I've been extremely surly and unhappy with my lot in life. I have a good life, so I've decided to change my attitude, try being nicer to the people around me.

After Cost Plus, I went to Circuit City and played with the new Treo 700P. I like. When my current contract with Cingular runs out in December I'll probably go back to Verizon and try a 700P... probably. The pictures in today's blog entry were taken with my Treo 650. Not too bad for a two year old camera phone.

Finally, I got to sit down in Barnes & Noble and have lunch and read the book I had been carrying with me. I checked out the knitting section, and found the Vogue stitch dictionary book I had just ordered from Amazon. I was surprised and a little disappointed that there are no charts in the book. Oh, well....

Back in Costco, 2 and 1/2 hours later, I admired my new Michelin tires and headed home. They ride well.

Gentle Breeze Tee

2006-06-07T13:30:00.000-07:00

Don't you just hate it when somebody posts a rectangle of flat knitting and says, "Here's my current sweater in progress?"

Here's my current sweater in progress :-) Well, it's not a sweater, but a summer T-Shirt, I'm up to the arm holes on the front, and almost to the armholes in the back.

This is bamboo yarn, and so far it has been really fun to work with. It slides through your fingers as you work, and doesn't tire my hands like cotton. The knitting is boring, if you don't count the moments of terror when I am seized by the fear that it won't fit after the hours and hours I have spent knitting stockinette.

I modified the pattern (up sized it), and verified with my LYS owner that sleeves are generally not up sized as much as the body of a sweater, so I'll be doing the decreases almost as specified in the pattern... just adding an extra increase or two to the armhole, and using about the same arm hole depth as specified.

Here is a link to the blog entry that introduces the Gentle Breeze Tee.

All About My Mother

2006-06-06T15:39:00.000-07:00

We saw a Netflix DVD tonight - All About My Mother (****Very Good). This time of year there are better movies for rent on DVD than there are in the theaters.

All About My Mother is a Spanish movie that has a mother as a central character. In December, 1999, Roger Ebert wrote, "Pedro Almodovar's
films are a struggle between real and fake heartbreak--between tragedy
and soap opera. They're usually funny, too, which increases the
tension. You don't know where to position yourself while you're
watching a film like ``All About My Mother,'' and that's part of the
appeal: Do you take it seriously, like the characters do, or do you
notice the bright colors and flashy art decoration, the cheerful
homages to Tennessee Williams and ``All About Eve,'' and see it as a
parody? Even Almodovar's camera sometimes doesn't know where to stand:
When the heroine's son writes in his journal, the camera looks at his
pen from the point of view of the paper."

Early Summer in the yard

2006-06-06T14:13:00.000-07:00

I took a photo tour of the back yard today. You can click on any of the thumbnails for a larger image. The last week or so, since returning from vacation, I have been pulling weeds. It's amazing how many weeds can pop up in just two weeks or so of moist, sunny condiitons! I thought it would be nice to stop and smell the roses.

The yard is doing very, very well this year. It must be all the rain we had. These first three pictures show the yard looking toward the picnic bench. The pink rose is the newest in the family - came last year. The yellow rose is a showy girl that lives in a sunny spot. Of course I don't know the real names of the roses, but each one was picked because it smells like a rose.

A friend remarked recently that our hydrangea is the only one she knows of that has its own umbrella. If we take the umbrella down in warm weather like today (93F/34C), then the poor baby just wilts. The blossoms aren't quite "ripe" yet, so there is some green mixed in the with pink.

The rhodie bloomed this year! This poor rhodie came from the nursery as a happy, healthy plant. I put it in the wrong spot and it got too much sun and the leaves were burned. Last fall Ben, my hero-of-the-heavy-lifting, moved it to the back yard. Now it lives under and arbutus. I left on vacation (May 8) wondering whether it would bloom or not. What a treat to come home to blooms!

And, we have other plants being happy right now (from left to right): lily, gardenia bush, mock orange bush, petunias.

This is what we live through winter for!

X-Men: The Last Stand

2006-06-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

We went to see X-Men: The Last Stand (*Poor). If you are an X-Men fan you'll probably like it. I can't recommend you spend your money on it. As somebody in a local paper put it: "They blow things up real good."

And why do they call it "X-Men" when there are plenty of X-Women too?

The movie poster is a link to Roger Ebert's review. He likes it better than I did.

May Trip to the US SouthEast

2006-05-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing photos in a set called 2006VacationSouthEast. Make your own badge here.

This is going to be a really, really long post. Here is a link to all the pictures from our trip to North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virgina. So, here's the story of the trip. I took notes each day, and now I'll just copy them to here and fix the punctuation.

May 8, Sacramento, CA

We left home after spending the day cleaning house and packing and fussing. The airport hotel in Sacramento was fine and close to our termnal.

May 9, Winston-Salem, NC

6am flight to Dallas was uneventful. J gave play by play on landing, finally a little cheerier. Flight to Raleigh, NC, was fine, if you don't count the person near us with a relly, really stinky flatulence problem. Budget gave us a Chevy Cobalt.

Our drive to Winston-Salem was uneventful, stopping only for below par dinner at Ruby Tuesday's in Burlington. Beautiful wild poppies on the hwy 40 - red, pink in big swaths. Lots of green grass and plentiful trees. Lots of furniture mfrs in this part of NC. We are at a Hiliday Inn - room ok.

WE HAVE ARRIVED!

May 10, Asheville, NC

We left Winston-Salem and drove West on Hwy 40, arriving in the Asheville area at 10-ish. After arguing about where to park (J always wins), we spent the day on the Biltmore Estate. I took lots of pics in the gardens. Azaleas and rhodies almost done, but plenty of blossoms left.

We had lunch in the refurbished stable (nice stalls in rod with rod iron still there). Tour of the house was good. There are 43 batthrooms, and you can see the difference between the maids' and the rich people's rooms! We took a self-guided tour and went through the house pretty quickly. Lots of portraits by Sargeant. Many spectacular Femish tapestries on the walls, lots and lots of beautiful furniture and fabrics. 4 stories, plus the basement. Finished in 1895. 250 rooms, 31 guest bedrooms, 65 fireplaces. 175,000 square ft. Largest private house in the USA. Toured mor than 60 rooms. My feet hurt.

Tomorrow we plan to spend the day in Asheville. Rain in the forecast.

May 11, Asheville, NC

Skipped Asheville (J too tired for shuffling) and took a drive in the mountains. Stopped at cradle of forestry, Looking Glass Falls(?).

Lunch in Highland, good spiach/fruit salad w chicken... forget name of place :-(

Drove back along the Blue Ridge Parkway over 6053' summit. At about 5500' we saw tons of beautiful native pink azaleas. Also today on the BRP we saw: magnolias, trillium, dogwood, white blossom trees of at least 3 varieties, lots of small blue/white/yellow wildflwers.

Weather was mostly nice with a few showers. Windy and chilly at the tops of the mountains, warm and humid down in Asheville.

Maybe tomorrow we'll do Asheville if J can get some sleep (I snore, hotels are noisy).

May 12, Asheville, NC

We went to the North Carolina Aboretum, specializing in bonsai - beautiful. I Bought lavender straw hat for me. This place was a photo opportunity waiting to happen :-)

Then it was off to the Folk art center off the BRParkwy - bought fan pulls, corn doll St.Nick for us and 'Emily' for J direct from artist.

Then we visited downtown Asheville, which is full of young hippie types. I overheard "If you didn't do drugs, you'd have money for food" spoken by 1 young man to another. J bought funny face little pottery. I bought locally made birch knitting needles. We weren't so impressed with town.

Movie Mission Impossible 3 (** Satisfactory). I missed the Mission Impossible surprise twist at the end which explained how they pulled off the assignment. This was just a thriller with lots (and lots) of action.

May 13, Fall Creek St.Prk. Inn, TN

Left Asheville, headed for Joyce Kilmer Mem Forrest. Took a short, steepish walk up to the memorial. Turns out Joyce was a man! and he was in the infantry. His famous poem sure sounds like it was written by a woman....

Drove the Cherohala Skyway, a very scenic drive with with views of at least two different mtn ranges.

Arrived at FallCreek Falls St Prk, TN, in the afternoon - tired from the long drive. Stopped at the visiter ctr and walked to Cane Cr Falls overlook. Took short scenic drive with a stop to view Fall Cr. Falls from the overlook. Light was wrong for pics, but I took them anyway.

Drivers in TN aren't very good. They never signal and drive way under the speed limit... sometimes. At least they don't speed too often.

Mtn Laurel is in bloom here. Very nice.

May 14, Mothers Day Sunday, Lake City, TN

Visited Piney Cr Falls and Fall Cr Falls at Fall Creek Falls St Prk, TN, this morning. Hiking on the Cumberland Plateau is difficult... steep hills with many rocks and roots that make it difficult to find your footing. I think we would have done more walking if there had been fewer big slabs of sedimentary rocks (limestone, sandstone, shale), or if we had brought our hiking boots and walking sticks.

Then we drove a short two hours to Oak Ridge, TN, in order to visit the American Museum Of Science & Energy. Being Mothers Day, every chain restaurant's parking lot was full, so we had lunch at Hardee's which wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

The museum had a sculpture in front depicting the world trade towers. Inside they told the story of the Oak Ridge nuclear bomb development, how we gave the Japanese an ultimatum, they ignored it, and still didn't surrender after the first bomb so we dropped the second one.

The Oak Ridge, TN, facility was a self contained town built in the early 1940's, from scratch, surrounded by secrecy. They chose the location because it was far from the ocean, surrounded by mountains, had plenty of people with no jobs (available workforce), and had lots of power and water.

There were lots of WWII posters and history on display.

Upstairs was a science display which was fun and educational. Hint: Start at the kids level to learn a subject. At the kids level great summaries about a subject are given.

Now we are resting in a Days Inn. Tomorrow we will be in Kentucky.

May 15, Corbin, KY

Last stop in TN was the Museum of the Appalachia in Norris, TN. It was remarkable! The Hall Of Fame was jammed full of folk history, crafts, tools, musical instruments, photos and people's stories.

The outside portion was an entire community of restored cabins, barns, a scool house, a small slave cabin, corn cribs, a still, sheep, peacocks, goats, and a couple of very friendly cats.

They spun a lot of flax into linen yarn in order to weave linen cloth. I didn't see much evidence of knitting - actually none. Weaving and carving are big deal traditional crafts here.

Then we drove through the Cumberland Gap tunnel into KY. At the Cumberland Gap visitors' ctr we watched a movie showing the history... Animals. Indians. Walker explored and found no value. Daniel Boone opened up KY via the Cumberland Gap. The Boones lost two sons in indian wars in the process.

Then on to Cumberland Falls St Prk. Cumberland Falls are on a wild part of the Cumberland River on land donated to KY by a DuPont family member. The falls are big, lots of water per second. Unfortunately the river carries trash from the slobs upstream.

This is the second St Prk we've been to, and neither one charged an entrance fee. Good for them!

Here we are in Corbin. Next stop Berea.

The driving has mostly been on small roads ... all green, lots of trees and flowers, lots of farms and rural (big) houses.

May 16, Lexington, KY

We shopped Borea, bought some things.

Borea College is a free college for low income Appalachian students. All they have to do besides get an education is work 15 hrs per week in the community. Most of the young people helping us in the shops and restaurants we doing their 15 hrs.

The college is equal opportunity, believes in keeping the Appalachian crafts alive, especially the woodworking, keeps a garden to help sustain themselves.

We wanted to take a tour but the tour giver had a family emergency and it was finals day, so no tours for us.

Lunch at old historic Boone's Tavern Hotel, where I was introduced to Spoon Bread - a cornbread suffl. Oh, yes, I will try this again!

Tomorrow we tour a Thourobred horse park and take a driving tour.

May 17, Lexington, KY

First we went to the Thoroughbred Center for a tour of the race horse training facility.

We saw horses doing morning workouts... beautiful thoroughbred horses. Lots of barn cats... one even had a collar on. Took lots of pics.

Then took a driving tour through blue grass country. We saw many, many BEAUTIFUL horse (stud) farms, one owned by a sheik from the Unitrd Arab Emerites. Many of the places in the movie "Dreamer" were on the tour.

We had lunch at Wallace Station along with some of the local horse people... and I had some Kentucky Bourbon ice cream, yummy.

Last stop was Joseph Beth book store where I browsed a very good knitting book section, and J browsed a very good mystery section.

Tomorrow we will visit chocolate factory and some local natural areas.

May 18, Lexington, KY

We did a tour of a small candy store this morning... Old Kentucky Chocolates. It doesn't produce chocolate as good as the Belgian Chocolate company we visited last year, or the year before, on our first Grand Circle European river tour. But!... they make really really good Bourbon Truffles and Bourbon Cherries. Some chocolate is going home to the library staff.

This KY Bluegrass country is really beautiful. Today we visited two places: McConnell Springs and Raven Run Sanctuary. Neither place was especially wonderful... MConnell Spr was right next to, and smelled of, the local dump and the spring was full of murky water; and Raven Run Sanctuary was a little more hiking than we wanted to do in order to see the KY River pallisades... however, the ride through the country to and from these places was very nice.

This was our last full day in KY. Tomorrow we'll be in WV.

May 19, Hawks Nest St Pk, WV

We left KY and drove east to WV.

Stopped at Tamarak for shopping. It didn't hold a candle to the Folk Art Ctr in Asheville. We did have lunch before heading on.

The highlight of the day was New River Gorge Nattional River. Rhodies, azaleas, dogwood, magnolias, lilac, and lots and lots and lots of green trees... different greens and some reds blanket the hills. The rapids, popular with rafters, are all rated above thee or five... whew! They don't look thart difficult from the top of the gorge.

May 20, Lewisburg, WV

We did a lot of scenic driving this morning through New River Gorge and lots of scenic little towns too small to be on a AAA map.

West Virginia has more Baptist chuches than Starbucks! One town was called Swiss and its chuch was the Swiss Missionery Baptist Church, which is pretty funny if you don't know the name of the town. They are pretty creative with their church names.

At Gauley Bridge we pulled off the rode to take a picture of a pretty little waterfall. A man in the parking lot was very helpful and told us that the beautiful flowering tree we've been seeing is called a Paulownia. It's got lavender flowers that stand up on a stalk. He said it comes from China or Japan and has softwood good for making musical instruments.

We also stopped at a Cranberry Bog, where we spotted a mama bear and her cub. Here there was still some trillium in bloom.

We stopped at the birthplace of Pearl S. Buck. Her parents were missioneries in China but were home in WV when PSB was born. PSB spent most of her young and adolecent years in China but came home to go to college. The interesting thing about her birthplace was seeing the lifestyle of a middle class farming family in the 1800s. The man who built the house made all of the woodwork and much of the furniture as well (black walnut), mostly from wood cut to clear the farm. They came from Holland originally.

Now we are at the General Lewis Inn in Lewisburg. Can you tell that Lewis is a favorite historical figure around here?

May 21, Blue Ridge Pkwy, VA (Peaks Of Otter)

Our stay at the Gen'l Lewis Inn in Lewisburg was pleasant. Dinner last night was good and so was breakfast this morning. It's so nice to have fresh vegies and fruit! The only unpleasant part about staying there was carrying my suitcase up to the second floor... because I was too cheap to pay somebody to carry them up for me.

Today we headed East and visited Monticello, Jefferson's plantation on top of a hill. He was an intelligent man who was much interested in architecture, gardening, philosophy, law, and politics. There were many features in his house that showed his interest in all of things. See monticello.org for more info.

We lunched at the Michie Tavern... featuring sugar-laden cole slaw, blak eyed peas, bbq pulled pork, stewed tomatoes... the Southern Fried chicken wasn't sweetened :-)

Then we meandered down the Blue Ridge Pkwy to the Peaks Of Otter Inn. Many bushes in bloom, notably Dogwood, Mtn Laurel, azaleas and Rhodies.

Our room is in the bldg furthest from the dining room, which is good... still full from lunch!

Our view from the room #313 is spectalular Abbott Lake view.

May 22, Blue Ridge Pkwy, NC (Bluff's Lodge)

I kept Jan awake with my snoring last night so she didn't have much energy for anything besides driving slowly down the parkway towards our next overnight stop. Note: allergies are worse during extremely windy weather.

We stopped at a few overlooks, had lunch at Mabry Mill. MM has an exibition of old buildings, most notably the grist mill which they used to grind grains, run the lumber mill, and run the wood working shop. This was the second place where we saw an exhibit related to making lye soap by putting ashes in the end of a log, and then pooring water through the log. Then they mixed fat with the lye water to make soap. They washed clothing and people in it.

The showiest flowers today were azaleas... colors from blood orange to orange to yellow... and an occasional pink thrown in. Rhodies aren't quite in full bloom yet, but the early bloomers are a pretty lavender color.

Bluff's Lodge is rustic with a view of meadows and forest, with almost constant bird song. It is quite wonderful.

May 23, Raleigh, NC

We left Bluff's Lodge and its lovely hill top on the Blue Ridge Pkwy this morning, saying goodbye to our vacation and hello to our trip home.

We had lunch for the third and final time at a Cracker Barrel :-)

We got to Raleigh in early afternoon with an empty tank of gas and a desire to see a movie.

We filled with gas and found the movie theater....

My choice of movie was The DaVinci Code (*** Good). It was fine, much better than I expected after all the poor reviews it has been getting. The cast was good and the plot followed the book well enough. I can see where serious Christians would be upset with the movie and that probably has something to do with the bad reviews. If you aren't too caught up in the Christ issue and whether or not he was actually married to Mary Magdeline including having decendents, then it was fun entertainment, just like the book was a page turner instead of a religeously enlightening expose.

Now we are partly packed and waiting for tomorrow so we can get up and go home and reunite with the kitties.

Akeelah and the bee

2006-05-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

We went to see "Akeelah and he Bee" (good) this afternoon. It's an inspirational story about a poor black girl from Los Angeles who enters a school spelling bee and makes it all the way to the National Finals. Laurence Fishburne stars as her coach and Angela Bassett stars as her mother. The large supporting cast plays the "village" that it takes to get Akeelah to the finals. I liked it, and it sends a really good message to children. Roger Ebert loved it (4 stars), but the NY Times thought it was just good.

Also, last night we watched a Netflix DVD of "Coach Carter" (good)... about a poor black basketball team that makes it to the state finals.

Both of these movies quoted the following from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, by Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are
you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I thought it was interesting that both inspirational movies about doing something extraordinary chose this quote to motivate the characters.

... now I have to go pack my suitcase.

Pardon the Interruption

2006-05-06T15:41:00.000-07:00

I haven't been feeling like keeping up the blog lately... living the most boring life on earth.

I'm going to take a few weeks off, take a trip, charge up my run down attitude, have some fun. Here are a few pictures of where I think I'm going.

North Carolina's scenery and crafts

Tennessee's Cumberland Gap

Kentucky's Horse Country

See you when I get back, or the beginning of June, whichever happens first.

Yarn Snobbery

2006-05-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

I'm making a square for an afghan out of Lion Brand Homespun. The color is "Mediterranean". Lion Brand describes the color as "the colors of a Grecian hillside". It's the perfect color for what I want to do, which is make a 10 inch square. It's brighter than it looks in the picture, and has some blue-gray hightlights, so maybe the color is "Meadow" instead. Can you tell I don't have the label anymore?

I found a stitch pattern in an old (1984) book called "The New Knitting Dictionary" by Rhoda Ochser Goldberg. In addition to about 1000 stitches and patterns, said book includes How To Knit, Tools, Yarns, Symbols, Jacquard, Cable, and Finishing. I guess I've had this book about 20 years, and probably learned something about knitting from it, but never used the patterns. The chart shows the stitch pattern I'm making, called Garter Check Stitch.

Knit/Purl patterns like this don't jump out at you in L.B. Homespun, but if you look, the patterns are there. I chose the yarn because everything about the color is perfect. I chose the pattern because it lends itself to being square.

So, I'm knitting along and the little voice says, "This is acrylic. You know acrylic isn't good enough." Tonight I talked back to the little voice! "I have to admit that it feels a little squeaky until it has been washed, but after washing it is soft. My favorite TV watching shawl is made from this stuff."

Yarn snobs, you can stuff it. I'll knit with whatever I feel like knitting with, and tonight it was acrylic.

Yours truly,
The Low Brow, Low Class Knitter Who Just Wants To Have Fun
And Enjoy Life

The Sentinel

2006-04-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

We went to see The Sentinel (Satisfactory) today. Based on the movie trailer I thought I knew who the bad guy was. If I had bet with Jan I would have lost my nickel. After a few minutes into the film, Jan knew who the bad guy was, and she spoke up a few times during the show to point out some inconsistencies.

It's not a great movie, but it was okay. Michael Douglas, our hero, still looks good. Eva Longoria, from TV's Desperate Housewives, has a small part and acts well enough so that she isn't the same character in the film as she is on TV. Keifer Sutherland doesn't do so well. He plays the same character in the film as he does on TV's 24. Kim Basinger plays the first lady in an unconvincing way. I think she was miscast.

The NY Times says, "Why would a star of Michael Douglas's stature and intelligence attach
himself to a Washington thriller as deeply ridiculous, suspense-free
and potentially career-damaging as "The Sentinel?" That's maybe a little harsh, but not too far off the mark. You can click on the movie poster to read the NY Times review.

The Peonies are blooming

2006-04-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

The peonies, which came to live in the front court yard last spring, are in bloom. The picture on the left shows the happy bush, but you can't see the blooms because the white flowers are so bright. The picture on the right shows one of the blooms close up (you can click for a larger image of the close up).

Since the peony bush is my favorite flower in the garden, it should have a name. No wait... maybe the wisteria is my favorite flower... or maybe the roses. Well, I can't name them all, so the peony will go unnamed. But, dear Peony, today you are the favorite one.

Next day, Thursday...

Speaking of wisteria, I went to the hardware store and bought one of those long pruning things on a pole, so I can trim the wisteria growing up the side of the house and around the network phone line. There was a warning on the pruning thing's package about being careful not to electrocute yourself on wires. Smugly, I thought only a fool would cut through wires. Can you see "fool" written across my forehead? I cut the telephone wire. I called the repair company. They are coming to splice the wire back together on Friday. The satellite dish works just fine, but it needs the phone line for communicating with the network company.

Note about the weather: It's 9:30 at night. It's 78F outside and 80F inside. We skipped by Spring quickly and went strait on to Summer.

Fudge and Quilting

2006-04-21T23:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had friends over for fudge making and quilt making. I have started a tradition of bringing something home baked into the library every Saturday. This week it will be Pat's Mama's Fudge Cake. We had some for desert yesterday and it's yummy and gooey.

Donna tried to teach me how to do a little quilting. P&D gave me a small wall hanging kit for my birthday this year and I hadn't done a thing with it. Donna's mission was to help me learn enough to put it together. We traced the design onto some iron-on sticky paper, cut out the little flowers and stems, peeled the sticky paper off, and then stuck the flower stems onto the background cloth. So far, so good. Then came the sewing. With Donna's expert help I attempted to zigzag stitch around the curves and points of the plant. I'm terrible at it! Donna says she'll come back again to help some more. In the meantime, I'm going to try and find a clear foot for my sewing machine so I can see enough to zigzag in the proper place instead of blindly sew where there is not little plant stem or pointy place. So far I haven't decided to give up knitting, but I will finish this thing.

The yard is finally showing its Spring, so yesterday I hooked up the fountain, blew the fallen wisteria petals off the patio, and refilled the bird feeder. Here are some pictures taken yesterday.

Lucky Number Sleven

2006-04-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

Lucky Number Sleven (Satisfactory), was today's escape from bad weather. It's rated R and it is a very violent movie. Thank goodness it doesn't take itself seriously or I would have had to leave shortly after the movie started!

Both Roger Ebert and the NY Times gave it a bad review because they didn't like knowing from the beginning that the plot was a con. They are right; you do know right from the start that the whole story won't be told until the end, and what you see along the way cannot be believed.

The only thing that makes this movie worth watching, even a little bit, is the acting. Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu, Ben Kingsly (with a Bronx accent), Josh Hartnett, Stanley Tucci, Bruce Willis... all fun to watch.

Don't make a special trip to the theater for it, but if you want to get out of the house on a rainy day, it beats shopping at the mall.

Knitting for big me

2006-04-14T15:29:00.000-07:00

I'm working on the back of my Gentle Breeze Tee, almost done with one of the balls of yarn. I'm 5 inches up from the bottom. So I figure it's going to take about 1000 yards of yarn just for the back of this effing sweater.

If I weighed 100 pounds less, then I could buy about four balls less and save myself about $56(US). And, I could save myself having to knit a whole bunch of stitches! It seems like I knit and I knit and I knit and I knit, but I'm just creeping along in stockinette.

And then there is the fear that I have miscalculated the number of stitches to cast on and it won't fit around me... or I'll get to the armholes and screw up the shaping, because I have had to modify the pattern significantly in order to make it a bigger size than the pattern allows for.

And then there is the little voice that talks in my head and says, "You are going to go on a diet and then this sweater that you are working so hard on won't fit any more." Or the voice says, "By knitting this sweater to fit you now, you are just giving up on being a smaller size. You should wait and knit it when you are smaller." Shut UP little voice!

Oh, what a beautiful day!

2006-04-13T14:49:00.000-07:00

We took a walk in Upper Bidwell Park this morning. This must be the most beautiful day so far this year! I took a few pictures.

We saw lots and lots of wildflowers... redbud bushes, fiddleneck, blue dicks, fields of yellow tidy tips(?), a monkey flower, new lupine, and more. The birds were out and happy... flickers, wood peckers, a few big white ducks(?), lots of little birds. We saw migrating butterflies.

THE SUN WAS OUT!

This year's summer top

2006-04-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

I finally decided on my summer top for this year. It's a short sleeved, scoop neck top made from Bamboo yarn from South West Trading Company. I chose a color called "Sahara", which is a nice, muted mixture of beige, pink, green, and blue. Here is my swatch:

This is what it looks like before washing. The gauge is: 8.5 rows per inch & 6.5 sts per inch on 4mm (US 6) needles. I knit continental style on slippery metal needles, so I knit this swatch tightly. It drapes well, stretches widthwise but not so much lengthwise when I pull on it. The yarn info says I should be getting 5 sts per inch. Hmm. Should I maybe go up a needle size? I'm not a big fan of swatching, but this one feels good. I'll have to adjust the pattern because I'm getting more stitches per inch than the pattern calls for... at least before the swatch has been washed.

Here is the photo of the "Gentle Breeze Tee" from Fiber Trends. As usual, you can click on the pictures for a larger image.

Knitting for P & D

2006-04-09T11:53:00.000-07:00

We traveled to Pat and Donna's house for lunch and a good visit. I worked on finishing Donna's fingerless mittens while Jan drove. About an hour or so after arrival they were finished! So, it was early Christmas. Donna got some mittens and Pat got some socks :-) In the pictures below you can see Donna, looking lovely, but Pat is showing her feet only. (Click for larger images.)

P&D's house is on the market, but the housing market stinks right now. If the rain ever stops then more people will come out to look, but right now there are over 60 houses for sale in their large, gated community. Phooey!

Note: The sock pattern is based on Nancy Bush's basic sock in "Folk Socks", and the mitten is from Kim Salazar's Fingerless Whatevers.

Wisteria On The Corner, April 6th

2006-04-05T02:38:00.000-07:00

The wisteria isn't progressing as fast as I had hoped. Last year (by March 20th), the wisteria was already beautiful. We are way behind in all blooming things!

This picture was taken from inside the house... won't go outside because it's been raining for weeks, and the forecast says rain for about two more weeks. We are not happy campers.

National Library Week

2006-04-03T23:08:00.000-07:00

This week is National Library Week. At our public library in Chico today is "Hat Day". One wonders what wearing a hat has to do with promoting libraries, but I don't wonder out loud... don't want to upset the person who spends a lot of time promoting this week in our library. I'm working today, so I'll wear a hat, and I have a T shirt that says "Libraries Check Them Out" so I'll wear that too.

Lately I've been wondering about the book reviews in the NY Times. Words like "rollicking", "rambunctious", and "sprawling" are commonly used. What do these words mean? The Free Dictionary says:

rollicking: Carefree and high-spirited; boisterous (e.g., a rollicking celebration).

rambunctious: Boisterous and disorderly.

sprawling: Spread out in a straggling or disordered fashion, untidy.

So, "rollicking" is probably a compliment, but we can't be sure whether the reviewer likes books that are "rambunctious" or "sprawling". Reader beware.

Happy National Library Week!

Why do cats purr?

2006-04-03T01:35:00.000-07:00

This Scientific American article says maybe cats purr not because they are happy, but as a way to communicate or do some self healing.

My cats purr when they think they are going to be fed, which isn't often enough for them. Here are some old pictures of our cats on Flickr.com.

I finished Pattern 5 of the Lace Sampler last night. I'll scan it and find something in the book that talks about it, then share.

WebCams

2006-03-30T07:52:00.000-08:00

A friend sent me a link to a web cam near where she lives, showing snow on a volcano... cool. I started looking for web cams showing my neighborhood. Not much to chose from, and not nearly as exciting as a volcano view, but here are a couple of things I found.

What it looks like on Cal State University at Chico campus right now

Satellite view of Northern California

On the satallite view, Butte county is shaped like this:

Have a nice day.

Lace Sampler Patterns 3 and 4

2006-03-29T14:27:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of the Sampler Patterns 3, bottom left, and 4, top left (click on picture to see larger image).

Pattern 3 is another example of lace that is biased. Lewis says, "This kind of bias, where the side selvedges lean and the top and bottom edges are straight, will occur in all patterns where the decreases are adjacent to their eyelets and are consistently to one side or the other... You can use these patterns just as they are for fabrics with biased selvedges or for circular knitting. In the latter case, the jog in the knitting where one round ends and the next begins will spiral up the tube. If you were to insert vertical panels of another pattern within the bias pattern, you would make very dramatic spiral patterning."

Pattern 3 looks wider than pattern 4 above it, because pattern 3 was knit on 58 stitches and pattern 4 was knit on 51 stitches (so the pattern repeats would come out right).

Pattern 4 is a "Diamond ground pattern." Ground patterns can be used as accents, fillers and allover repeats. This little diamond does not have a center eyelet; it is a solid diamond surrounded by eyelets.

Notes on the experience of knitting these two patterns:

I didn't learn any new stitches.

Pattern 3 took more concentration than did pattern 4.

By the time Pattern 4 was done I was beginning to be able to read the eyelets. Anytime you can read your knitting there is less stress involved in working a pattern.

By the way... there are copies of Susanna E. Lewis' "Knitting Lace: A Workshop with Patterns and Projects" for sale on Amazon.com. Today used copies are selling at $120 (US) and up. It's pricey, but a very good book if you have some spare cash to spend.

Now I'm off to sleep. I got up at 4AM today for a swim. Finally! My shoulder surgery was in July and here it is March of the following year and I feel okay. I think I'll continue the pattern of yoga one day and swimming the next. It's feeling good.

Vogue Knitting, Spring/Summer 2006

2006-03-28T01:44:00.000-08:00

The Spring/Summer, 2006, issue of Vogue Knitting arrived yesterday. I like it. The picture to the left is the cover, and it links to the current table of contents (links not guaranteed to work when next issue is published).

Apparently lace is "in", and there are several lace patterns in this issue. The one that struck my fancy is from the ~~Spring Chickens~~ Roman Holiday Section. I haven't read the pattern, but I'm thinking this might be a suitable pattern for somebody with slumpy shoulders, a wide waist and big belly - because the "V" shape of the colors would tend to play down my shape. Anybody think otherwise? I'm wondering if the ribbing at the waist would be flattering? At any rate, this is the pattern I liked the best.

Most of the other patterns are better for somebody about 40 years younger than I, and skinny.

Meg Swansen has a short article on lace in this issue. It's worth a read. Everything she said agrees with Susanna E. Lewis's book, Knitting Lace, the book I'm working my way through now. She drops a hint that there is a new Schoolhouse Press book in the works: Reversible Knitting: Inside/Outside, You Decide by Anne Claxon, which will feature more than 200 reversible stitch patterns.

I wonder if the people are fed "I wants" from the marketing industry in their sleep? Or, maybe we are all part of a group consciousness? Lately people on my knitting list have been talking about wanting to knit lace. I am rekindling my interest in lace. Now this issue of Vogue Knitting comes out. The timing is spooky.