Mahalo

Aloha eveyone. I just found a new search engine (via a posting on Digg) that may prove quite useful: Mahalo. Unlike google, which is my mainstay, this search engine is more directory driven. Hard to explain, but you should check it out. More updates on the weekend in Texas later.

A tribute to Chris Jacobsen

I just wanted to post in honor of my dissertation chair Chris Jacobsen. I arrived at work today to find a package waiting for me. Inside was a copy of the Doctoral Hooding Ceremony Program. He snagged me one to give to my parents because I couldn't make it there myself. The people in the Physics Department at Stony Brook University are so great. I wish I could do more for them than just sending a gift basket, but that will have to do for now. My last year of grad school was full of emotional ups and downs. It would have been all downs except for the great people in the Physics Dept., my family, and my rock: The Captain. I wouldn't have made it without their support, so I dedicate my 'Dr' to all of them.

Dress Shopping

Miss Luscious Luka, LB and I went shopping for a hot little number for Luka to wear to a wedding this weekend. She was smokin' and I am sure she will catch the eye of a certain someone. Along the way we picked up some shoes- how did those get in our bags? (LB's were really cute- I should have gotten a matching pair.) I wish I could say I made a nice addition to my collection of cute heels, but the ones I bought are for tubing. That's right- tubing. I needed some good throw away shoes to wear while drifting along the Comal river while I am back home in Texas this weekend. Add to that getting to see the folks and my graduation party (Dr. Dr.)- I can't wait.

On the knitting front I am in the middle of the Baudelaire socks. I am still on the first sock- these toe up socks are different enough from cuff down that I am getting all befuddled. I never thought 5 DPNs were unwieldy until now. I feel like Edward Knitterhands, yet not as cool (hey, Johnny Depp is Johnny Depp in any costume). I am nearing completion of one project though(which helps distract me from the never ending Baudelaires). In honor of The Harlot and her love of yarn porn, here it is: the inside of the Endpaper Mitts. One mitt done, one to go- more pics to follow. (Ok, I know... I have a few more rows of ribbing to go, so it is still on DPNs, so this is a 'half of the inside of the mitt folded over', but you get the picture.)

Fall hoodie

I am happy to report that my new 'Bamboo Sisters' interchangeable needles arrived by post today- or at least that is when I went to the mailbox and found them there. They are really cool and come in a small portable case. They went on a crazy journey from Japan to America and were stuck in customs for a week, but they have arrived just in time to start the Captain's fall hoodie. I am going to try and use the new CotLin yarn from KnitPicks and a chimera of the Avast cardigan from Knitty and the Kangaroo hoodie from Purl Stitch. We will see how it goes. I have high hopes at the moment, but I know that much frogging may take place over the next few months.

I also stopped by Borders today and picked up Vintage Knits (along with a book for the Captain). The patterns are really well tailored and well accented with bits of embroidery. The Captain claims that most of the men's sweaters are a bit on the professorial side, but there were a few he was keen on. I will have to stop by the thrift store and see if I can scrounge up some wacky patterned skirts and pillbox hats to wear with some of these sweaters. I need to work on the sweater backlog before I get to any of those though. The back is done on the Equestrian blazer and one sleeve has been started, but I still have the 2,000 pound pink gorilla that is the Simple Knitted Bodice to contend with.

I have been tagged

A big hello to Heather who tagged me for the 7 random facts list. I have seen this going around the blog-o-sphere and have thought: what would I write about. I suppose it is high time to stop pondering and start listing. Without further ado, here they are.

1) I sang at Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, Universal Studios and Six Flags Fiesta Texas in my younger years. My dream was to become a professional performer, but I ended up a physicist- life is sometimes strange like that.

2) I have the same hip malady commonly found in Golden Retrievers: I was born with bilateral hip dysplasia. I am still waiting for suped-up bionic hips to come on the market, then my nickname Cylon 6 would be more apropos.

3) Speaking of Cylon 6, I love Battlestar Galactica. Adama Rocks!

4) We had a yellow-cheeked amazon parrot when I was little that used to sneak down the hall and steal my little sister's Barbies when she wasn't looking.

5) I used to live in a very small town in central Texas right on Medina Lake. We had a taxidermist, a veternary clinic, and an ice house (convenience store for all you yankees), but no grocery store or school. We had to drive an hour and a half into San Antonio for anything else we needed.

6) I have taken French lessons since I was 5 and have met the man of my dreams, who just happens to be Belgian. It looks like my life-long ambition to live in a French speaking country for a few years just might come true.

7) I am terribly afraid of heights. I abhor gondola rides, I dread wooden roller coasters, I don't even lean on the rails of our 2nd story balcony. Sure, the engineers did a good job in the initial design of said safety mechanism, but how can we be sure that over time it has not become structurally unsound? You could not pay me enough to step onto the glass observation deck over the Grand Canyon. I would probably pass out before I plummeted to my demise.

And there you have it- aren't you glad you asked? MB- you have been tagged.

All Done

I don't have a pic for this one, but the kimono is all finished. I ripped back the bind-off and made both sides even (it is a gift after all). I did whip stitch seaming on the inside and turned it inside out so there is a finished seam on both sides which looks quite nice. I am opting out on the ribbon idea. I don't know if she is going to have a boy or a girl and I would hate to put ribbons on a little boy. I am going to go to the craft store and see if I can find a bit of velcro to sew on there. I also took Nadia's suggestion and did not seam all the way to the end of the sleeve. That way there is a 'decorative slit' and, quite frankly, it will be easier to put little baby fists through.

Kimono

The baby kimono (from Mason Dixon Knitting) is nearing completion- probably and inch or two still remain on the right side. It seems that my measuring was off on the left a bit, since the bottoms don't line up too well. I have to decide whether or not to take out the bind off and add a few more rows, or to know that that is the piece that goes on the inside and let it be. This will be a gift for my friend Pam who is expecting in June. I hope the kid does not come early! I managed to get a good bit of it done today being hopped up on pain meds and muscle relaxants and therefore unable to go to work. I wish I could attribute the measuring error to being on flexerol all day, but alas, that mistake was made on Saturday in the car. Hopefully my neck will be all better by this weekend: I am being visited by Jenni, my friend from high school and I have to be in tip top shape to show her around Chitown.

The Fold

Saturday the girls and I went on a knitting field trip to The Fold. It is a little shop in the middle of nowhere-Illinois, but they had a lot to offer. I came back with 2 skeins of socks that rock yarn from Blue Mountain fiber arts, a pink and green skein of miscellaneous sock yarn and a bunch of lace weight for a soon to be determined shawl. The best part of the whole trip was the button: I got a beautiful hand blown glass button, which will be the finishing piece for the Interweave Knits blazer I am making.

I went, later, to pick up a kitchen scale at the suggestion of Kris. I want to maximize the amount of sock yarn used per hank, but I don't want to run out mid sock, so to the scales it is. Incidentally, bringing two physicists to the store to buy a non-scientific scale is a bit of a fiasco. We were running conversion factors through our heads and even busted out the calculator at some point. One box claimed to measure 1/8 oz or 1 g. The other claimed to measure in increments of 0.05 oz or 2 grams! This did not compute of course since 1 g mathematically is equivalent to 0.03 oz. After about 15 minutes of frustration we realized that they were speaking of machine increments and not precision, which evidentally on different scales for the grams versus ounces. We thought it was funny.

Not all who wander are lost

I would like to begin by highlighting the artistic talent of Brian Froud, whose work is shown here-- my favorite picture. I have had this as my desktop background since 1995. Every time I get a new computer I think, maybe, I will put a new picture in the background, but it always comes back to the faerie. The wings have an ethereal presence, but I am mostly intrigued by the hands- the hands that are a bit to large for the small body. There is a quiet quality to the work, but strength in the bone structure of the wings. I spent a good time this evening trying to figure out how to incorporate this image into the blog without messing with copyright issues or having to code too much (I do enough of that at work). In all of my wandering through blogger templates I decided that giving homage was enough.