Blinky Lights and Shiny Objects

I met Scott in 1996, at the nerd camp "Operation Catapult" held at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.  We both ended up attending RHIT for college, and we both moved to the Chicago area after graduating.  Scott has been a wonderful friend, the sort who you don't see all the time because they are always booked solid but you know that they would clear their calendar to help you.  In 2008, he took time off from his career to hike the Appalachian Trail, a long-planned adventure that didn't end the way he expected.  He wasn't able to finish the trail due to an injury, but he did meet Audrey. Audrey and Scott are now married, and starting off on crossing the country in an orthogonal direction to their mountain hike.  You can get all of the details at Cross Country Audrey and follow along with them as they bike from California to Maine.  The trip is being undertaken to raise money for an organization that helps people who have been diagnosed with multiple sc...

I would like to request that whoever is teaching the medical community that gallbladder problems are only for the over-forty set, to please stop it.  After my previous post, I got tired enough of severe abdominal pain after eating that I decided to keep bothering my doctor until he figured it out and fixed it. Symptoms, for at least ten years previous, include occasional sharp stabbing aching pain in my torso, near enough to my stomach that I was told it was "just gas".  Pain started 20 minutes to 45 minutes after eating a rich meal, and lasted a few hours, then went away completely.  Sometimes the next few meals would also cause pain, even if they were not rich or fatty.  I'd told my doctors, and nurses, and family, but no one could figure out what was really wrong.  They would test my thyroid again, even though I'd already had it tested and everything was normal.  They would suggest it was a food sensitivity, or an allergy to a preservative, and I had t...

This is an easy pattern for a knitted scarf.  I made it up to practice knit and purl stitches, to build up speed and work on keeping an even gauge as I go.  It is supposed to be wavy when finished, resembling the shape of a sinusoid curve.  This is done simply by alternating garter stitch sections, which lay flat, with stockinette stitch sections, which tend to curl towards the knit side.  I alternate the side the stockinette faces to form the max and min points.  So, this is a very nerdy project. (Any yarn and needle size can be used, gauge is not important, adjust stitch count for the width of scarf you want.) Yarn: St. Denis Nordique, 100% wool, 50g per 150 yards, 2 to 3 balls, blue eggshell Gauge: 19 stitches for 4 inches Needle: US 8 or 5.00mm Cast on 30 stitches. Rows 1-4: knit all stitches. Row 5: purl all stitches. Row 6: knit all stitches. Row 7: purl all stitches. Rows 8-13: knit all stitches. Repeat rows 5 through 13 until scarf i...

(Title of post is from an Eddie Izzard routine where he talks about laundry.) I wear enough red clothing that reds get their own load. Pity the poor white article that gets accidentally swept into that pile! One particular expensive t-shirt was abused in just that manner, oh, many years ago. I kept it around, not sure how to remedy the pale pinks and splotchy reds now decorating the whole of it. Technology has advanced, and now they sell small packets of dry chemicals to remove evidence of this particular moment of stupidity. I tried out Carbona's color run remover on the shirt. After soaking for about an hour, most of the shirt was whiter than when I bought it. The commercially applied graphic was not harmed at all. There is a small splotch of very light pink where the darkest red splotch used to be, but you have to know it is there to see it. (I think the chemicals in one packet were exhausted by removing the rest of the color, and didn't have enough strength to tak...

Now that I have basically the nicest camera I can imagine , I've been working on upgrading my lens collection. In late November of last year, I bought a Konica Minolta 28-75 f/2.8 lens, used, from eBay. It is my absolute favorite lens ever, and I love having the constant f/2.8 aperture. The focusing is fast, and the only thing it is missing is macro capability. In most situations, this is the only lens I use. My wider angle needs are covered by a Vivitar 19-35 f/3.5-4.5. My candid very-low-light shots are handled by a "vintage" (thanks, Barb + Nik!) Minolta 50mm f/1.7 prime lens. The hole in my arsenal is at the telephoto end. I've got a Minolta 75-300 f/4.5-5.6 (known as the Big Beercan style lens) that I also bought used from eBay but has MAJOR problems. For example, it can't change apertures anymore and I think the AF motor has a short circuit inside the lens, so it is manual focus only. I've got a Quantaray 75-300 f/4-5.6 that I bought used from a local g...

If I don't start posting simple, small, things again, this blog may never restart. (I hope you are all using feed readers like Google Reader instead of checking this site manually, I'd feel less guilty for wasting your time.) Anyway, at the mall tonight I learned that I am in a minority for wanting to wear boots all year, and am particularly stupid for trying to buy more of them at the end of April. I found a few pairs on clearance to replace the ones whose heels have worn down past the point of repair, then came home and ordered another pair from the Internet. I also stopped in the Apple store. iPads are slightly smaller than I thought they would be. Maybe all the people in the promotional video are smaller than I thought, so the scale was not coming through correctly?

Yesterday I finished participating in the 2010 Ravelympics as a member of the Crochet Liberation Front's Flaming Hooks team. My chosen challenge was to use Tunisian crochet and make a sweater from the Spice Market Tunic pattern . The rules for the competition involve starting a project no earlier than the Opening Ceremony for the real Olympics started, and finishing no later than midnight PST on the day they ended. That is a lot of crochet in a short amount of time. Especially since I have a job to go to, other commitments to keep up with, and no previous experience doing Tunisian crochet. I worked crocheting sessions into spare moments, during long trips, over lunch, and put in a few marathon sessions when I had large chunks of free time. People would ask what I was doing, I'd explain it, then I'd get a variation on this next question: "So, what happens if you don't finish?" Maybe I read into it the wrong way, but it always sounded like they were wond...