Life as a Spectator Sport

Or something like that. No sooner did I say I'd take on northern Virginia and DC than the Maryland office started spitting out work. Twelve stores on the same day, plus batches of work from the other offices.

I looked at the deadlines, looked at the locations, used the Metro trip planner to see how best to get around DC without driving, and decided I just couldn't do it. With Clarence along, I have no choice but to stay in a hotel, rather than at Kate's, and because I can't take him on the Metro and on DC buses, he would have to stay in the hotel while I went out to do the inspections. We've done that before, when I was driving to my destinations and could get back to the hotel fairly quickly if he needed help. If I'm riding the train and the bus, it could take two hours or more to return to the hotel.

I hadn't wanted to do this, but I picked up the phone, called Shelley and asked if she would be willing for Mike to stay with Clarence, assuming that Mike was willing, of course. He doesn't much care for Clarence, but on the other hand, he is an anxious as any other teenager to earn a buck. And he is the only one Clarence trusts in my absence. Fortunately, he agreed. So I'll be on my own for the first time in almost a year, and free to stay with Kate. Whoopee! On both counts. We won't have much time together, considering that we'll both be working, but it will be more time than we've been able to spend together for months.

Now all I have to do is stock the larder with stuff Mike likes to cook and put up the bed again in what had become my craft room. And bottle the 4 gallons of root beer currently bubbling away in the ale bucket. And set up the old computer so Mike can use it while I'm gone. And twenty other things that I won't remember until the last minute.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Heart---er, computer failure

I stopped in Richmond yesterday and hauled out the laptop so I could borrow an internet signal and see whether I had any more work before heading home. Before anyone informs me that this is illegal, let me say that I have asked for and received permission from the owner of this hotel to use their internet signal any time I need to. Since I stay there several times a month and have racked up thousands of points in their membership system, that wasn't really too big a favor to ask.

In fact, if I'm in another area and need to find a signal, I simply walk into the lobby of the nearest hotel, explain that I'm traveling on business and ask politely whether I could use their wireless signal briefly. I've never been refused.

At any rate, instead of my nice Windows screen, I got a message that a file was missing or corrupt. I snarled under my breath, stuck the laptop back into the knitting bag and drove home, irritated but not panicked. After all, I had a copy of the operating system, didn't I? I would just start up the computer with the Windows Setup CD in the drive and everything would be fine.

Nope, not fine. Toshiba, bless their greedy corporate hearts, didn't provide me with a copy of the operating system, just a "Restore" CD with the system drivers on it, and a way to reset the laptop to its original state (meaning that the hard disk would be formatted and you'd lose everything on it). I'm informed that this is SOP nowadays. Since this laptop is the only commercially built computer I've used in twenty years, I didn't know that. Every computer I built and sold had a copy of the Windows operating system supplied with it.

Not only that, but in twenty years of building and selling computers, how many complete system failures have I had with a computer I built up? NONE. NOT. ONE. That's why I was so slow to buy a laptop.

So the next step was to call my son, who does have several copies of Windows. "Stop in the next time you're near," he said. I was at his house within 24 hours. He turned on the laptop, got the same message I'd gotten, and restarted it so it could boot from the Windows Setup CD he put in the drive. Instead of the standard Windows startup, however, it went right on into its normal Windows splash screen and then to my wallpaper and desktop. In other words, whatever had been wrong all the other twenty times I started it up went away. We looked at each other, and Greg asked, "Do you want me to back up your files to my network?" Yup, I sure did.

Four or five hours later, Clarence and I were back on the road with the apparently self-healing laptop, a couple of DVD's with all my files on them, and a six hour long drive home. I had to stop a couple of times to nap, and we staggered in about four in the morning.

I already had reasonably recent backups of the essential files, but there would have been at least some data to re-enter, and some knitting and fiber sites I've bookmarked that I might never have found again. So here I sit with my external hard drive plugged in dutifully making a mirror of the laptop's drive.

I do love computers, but there are times, Mr. Spock, when I would happily go back to stone knives and bear skins.

On again, off again, on again

Back in January, I was asked if I wanted to take on the inspections for northern Virginia, the only part of Virginia I didn't currently work in, plus Washington DC. Sure, I said, the more the merrier! Never mind that I thought I'd go out of my mind with the volume of work last summer. I figured I could handle one more area.

Then the man who was working in northern Virginia changed his mind and decided he didn't want to give it up. Oh well. I'd still have lots to do.

Then he gave it up after all. So now I cover the entire state of Virginia, the border counties of West Virginia, and the border counties of Maryland. And I guess the whole Eastern Shore of Virginia too. This is gonna be an interesting year.

The only thing that really concerns me is having to carry Clarence with me into some areas of Washington. This is not so much because of the risk of crime, but because of the lack of parking. If I was by myself, I'd leave the car at Kate's house and take the Metro and the bus to wherever I needed to go. But with Clarence along, I'll have to drive in (never fun) and find a place to park (not always possible). When Kate lived near Dupont Circle, there were times when I drove around for an hour or more trying to find a parking space, and sometimes ended up blocks and blocks from her apartment. So Clarence would not just be sitting alone in the car for the half hour or so that it takes me to do an inspection, but potentially for much longer, as I walk to and from the store. I guess we'll just have to see how that goes.

Clarence informed me that with his handicapped permit, I could park in places that wouldn't be available to me otherwise. I had to destroy that illusion for him. There aren't going to be many handicapped spaces in the areas I'll be driving in, and they will probably already by taken by the middle of the day. And whatever he may think, you still can't park in front of a dumpster, a fire hydrant or a driveway, and those are usually the only places left. Not to mention the fact that it's HIS handicapped permit, not mine.

The prime contractor just emailed me that she was uploading a 30-store inspection batch, so I guess I'm going to find out what the situation is pretty soon here.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Wheee!

I just sampled the Chardonnay from the carboy, and it's definitely ready to bottle. I'd had a few sips of it earlier, just to see what it tasted like, and thought it was really too light. Now, after two full wineglasses, I have to say that it is deceptively light. In other words, deceptively non-alcoholic, so much so that my typing is really suffering .

I haven't clarified it yet, and since I added the oak powder to the carboy instead of to the primary fermenting bucket, it really needs to be filtered. I don't currently have a filter. Or rather I do, but it's buried in a box somewhere in storage. So I'll leave this in the carboy until I have a chance to get to my favorite brewing supply place in Norfolk and buy another one. I don't have any work in that area right now, but it won't be long.

In the meantime, damn, it's good!

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Mystery fiber revisited

I showed my mystery fiber to Tim at The Woolery, and while he couldn't tell me what it was, he did tell me that it was probably not all from one variety of sheep. Since it was mill ends, he said, it likely was the sweepings from more than one run of processing, all gathered up and carded just enough to make a thick roving. He told me what I had already figured out, that multi-colored yarn pretty much comes on only one breed, the Jacob sheep, and that it wasn't likely to be getting sold for what I paid for this, mill ends or not. So that was interesting even if I still don't know exactly what I have. He agreed with me that it's pretty fiber and has a nice feel.

I haven't been able to spin for a week, between two out-of-town trips and a pile of other work. But I'm hoping to finish the second bobbin of this stuff, whatever it is, and ply them this weekend.

In the meantime, Kay's first sock, of red and white Opal Mosaik, is almost done, the Lorna's Laces Rainbow yarn has been ripped out once again and is now entering a new life as a baby sock, and I still haven't finished over-dyeing the sport yarn that I dyed yellow a month ago.

Friday, April 20, 2007

VA Tech

I've been asked by several people if I was going to comment on what happened at Virginia Tech. At first, I said no. It's too close to home. I have friends who work there, friends who graduated from there, friends whose children are students there. It appears that no one local was killed or injured, but that's a miracle, because a lot of local kids go to school there.

So why am I commenting after all? I guess it's because I'm so tired of listening to talking heads who have no idea what they're talking about, who toss off "West AJ" (West Ambler Johnston Hall) as though they had lived in the dorm themselves, who postulate endlessly about Cho Seung-Hui's motives (while mis-pronouncing his name, or Westernizing it), who cast about for anyone to blame--Cho's family, the university, the Blacksburg police department, the magistrate who didn't follow up on whether Cho was hospitalized (as though Cho was the only case he had to deal with).

The fact is that this man was so far removed from reality that his actions could not have been anticipated or planned for. There is no "security" plan that will stop someone determined to purchase a firearm and use it. If we're going to continue to have an open society (if we actually do still have one), the demented among us will continue to wreak havoc. The only thing that will truly work (and I'm not convinced that it would even be enough) is for everyone's lives and actions to be controlled and monitored from morning to night, from cradle to grave. That isn't the America I grew up in, and it's not an America I want to live in. I'll take my chances of being shot by a lunatic. It's probably still a lower risk than buying potentially contaminated food at the grocery store and breathing the definitely polluted air.

Test

Nothing to say, just wanted to see how the new Blogger behaves. Blogger finally forced everyone to use the new version, that requires you to have a Google account. I've been holding out, afraid that my whole blog would implode, or just vanish into thin air, but it seems to be okay.

We were without power for three days last week, as the great nor'easter blew itself out. No big deal, as it turned out. We have a bunch of old kitty litter jugs filled with water for flushing, and about twenty gallons of drinking water, a Sterno stove for cooking inside and the big propane stove for cooking outside (though it was far too windy to use that), and a solar charger to keep the C and D flashlight batteries going. I put all the non-frozen perishables into the big Coleman cooler with a bag of ice, and all the frozen stuff from the refrigerator freezer into the big freezer, and everything came through fine.

Clarence bitched about not having television, so I dug out my little pocket shortwave radio, hooked it up to the speakers I bought last year to use with the iPod and the travel computer, and set the combination up high in the room to get the best signal. I hunted through the 80 meter range looking for the BBC and some of the shortwave broadcast stations I remembered from years ago, and couldn't find them, but he was happy with the local PBS station on FM.

Then we went out of town for two days and when we came back everything was running again.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Back on satellite, not noticeably faster

[NOTE - written and posted in a hurry yesterday, edited today for better phrasing and to fix a typo I found.]

The installer came from Dish Network today, and I have satellite internet again through Wildblue. I'm not sure this is much of an improvement. Websites don't appear to download any faster than they did before, and email is definitely not faster. Sending email was a non-starter altogether at first, because when I called to get the SMTP address (the name of the outgoing email server), the Dish Network customer support person said hesitantly that they didn't support Eudora. They didn't have a "menu structure," he said, for anything but Netscape and Outlook, or Outlook Express.

I told him, rather impatiently, I'm afraid, that the protocol was the same, regardless of what program you were using. We dithered around for a while longer, with him repeatedly saying that they didn't have any information for Eudora, I trying different settings in Eudora with the SMTP address that he gave me, with the same results: "Access denied."

I finally hung up in disgust, thinking I was going to have to continue using the dial-up account for my mail, when something clicked in my brain and I went back to the settings in Eudora. Virtually all mail systems now require what is called "authentication," before they will accept outgoing mail, and sure enough--Eudora was still set up with my dial-up account as the authenticated user. I changed that to the Dishmail address, tried again, and away it went.

In the process of doing that, I discovered that one of my other addresses was still set up to send mail through an account belonging to some hotel I had stayed in while on the road. So much for their security.

Then I called Dish Network back and asked them whether they would like to know how to set up Eudora for authenticated mail. "Sure," said the man who answered the phone, but I didn't have the impression he was paying much attention. Oh well. If anyone decides to Google for Dishmail and Eudora, they'll probably come up with this entry. Email me and I'll tell you how to do it.

Having said all that, I need to add that the local installer was terrific. When I got DirectWay internet, they wanted big bucks for anything but the bare minimum installation, and one got the impression that they made sure no one qualified for the minimum. He charged $100 extra to mount the dish on a post instead of on the equally sturdy porch rail. Burying the coax would be "trenching," he said, and bringing it in through the floor instead of the side of the trailer would be "structure work," and would cost at least a couple of hundred dollars more. I was so aggravated with the extra hundred bucks for a post I didn't need that I told him to just do the minimum he had to do, and go away.

This installer moved the site of the dish to what he said was a better look angle for the satellite, put up a post, dug a shallow trench for the coax, and brought it under the trailer to the opposite side where my computer desk is, and up through the floor. He seemed amazed that the first installer wouldn't have wanted to do the same thing, wouldn't have wanted to do it right. That said a lot for this local company, I thought, and I'm pleased that I lucked into them on the first try.

The only thing I've got to be careful about now is not to dig up the coax when I'm planting things. More lines to add to the site utility drawing (yes, I have one--old engineers don't die, they just forget where they ran the plumbing, so I have a site utility plan).

Monday, April 09, 2007

Mystery yarn

Spun from mystery fiber. I asked the clerk where I bought this what kind of fiber it was, as the huge basket of brown and white wool was unmarked. She said rather dismissively that it was just some mill ends that the felters used. But it was priced right, and I liked the looks of it, so I bought a big bag. It is spinning up into the nicest yarn I've made so far, and I expect it will become my first handspun socks. But I still don't know what it is.


The staple length is 2 to 3 inches, with a lot of crimp. The dark fibers are longer and have less crimp, and the white fibers are very soft and felt together quite easily, almost as though the dark fibers were guard hairs and the white were a soft undercoat. At any rate, it is making a lovely fine yarn. I'll spin a second bobbin full when this is finished and ply them to make a 2-ply sock yarn.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Taking a break from socks . . .

And hanging out with my new baby. Is she not just too cute?




I had thought I might make a stuffed dolly to model baby clothes, but sewing seems to be pretty far down the list of priorities at the moment, so I bought a newborn size doll.

The bonnet is by Bev Galeskas, of Fiber Trends. It knit up in about six hours flat, a very satisfying break from sock-knitting. I love all of Bev's designs, but this one is particularly attractive. I really like things that turn into the finished shape of the item as you knit them (which is probably one reason that I like socks so much), and this little bonnet just takes shape in your hands, from the eyelet-adorned ruffle at the beginning to the gusset that shapes the back of the bonnet at the end. Then you pick up stitches all around the botton, knit some i-cord on to finish it and to provide ties, and you're done!

One version of it has embroidered appliques on the plain stockinette band, and the other has a pointelle eyelet pattern. I chose to do neither one, as I like the variegated yarn all by itself. I have some pretty Cestara cotton, though, that I may make another bonnet with, and I will do the eyelet pattern on the band for that one.

The sizing that Bev gives for this smaller version is for 0 to 5 months, and I'd say that is just about right. I didn't work a gauge swatch, since I wasn't worried about it being too small, but this yarn and the recommended needle size turned out to be exactly right.

The yarn is Plymouth Dreambaby DK, 50% acrylic and 50% nylon. It isn't what I would have preferred to use, in terms of the fiber content. But the baby's mother prefers traditional colors, I'm told, and the yarn store I was in didn't have a pastel I liked in any other similar weight of yarn.

Stay tuned for a new yarn store review, by the way. I bought this yarn and pattern at Limerick Fibres in Gordonsville, Virginia, and I'll post some more info about them as soon as I edit the pictures I took.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Whooee, gonna have broadband again. Sort of.

I got so disgusted with Direct TV's allegedly highspeed satellite internet service last year that I canceled it. Since I'm an agent for one of the local ISP's, I had free dial-up service anyway, and though it's slow as molasses out here nine miles from the nearest telco central office, the price far outweighed the disadvantages.

But I kept hearing about another satellite provider, Wild Blue. So I looked them up, liked what I saw, and filled out their little form to be contacted by a dealer. And then I waited. And waited. And waited. About a month went by, and I was afraid it was going to take so long for someone to get back to me that I wouldn't qualify any more for the promotional pricing. So I went back to their website to find the dealer's name, intending to contact them directly.

Uh-oh. No more list of dealers for this area. Instead, I got a brief statement that installations were not being performed in this area at that time. They would "let me know" when service was again available. I said something unprintable under my breath and went back to working on my inspections.

Today, here was an email from them saying that service was again available here, and would I please fill out the form again if I was still interested. Better believe I was. It just took over half an hour to upload twenty-two images. That's bad enough when I only have two stores to complete. When I have thirty (not an unusual situation), it's next to impossible. I was hauling the laptop into the coffee shop in town to use their not-always-reliable more-or-less high speed internet (speed depending on how many other people were trying to use it at the same time, reliability depending on where you were sitting).

Wild Blue's lowest cost option gets you only 512kbps download and 128kbps upload, which is still slow as molasses compared to cable internet or a really good DSL line. But it's twice as good as what I have now. The only serious problem with satellite internet is that you're extremely limited in the number of concurrent connections you can have without slowing the whole works down to a crawl. When Mike was living here, I would have to ask him to exit from his browser when I needed to upload images, because even having one other browser open on the network was too much. That was on Direct TV, but I suspect that Wild Blue will have the same problem.

Off to get tomorrow's paperwork ready.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Oops

I've almost finished the first of Kay's socks, and it has a problem. I've known about it for a while, and decided not to rip back and fix it. It isn't really a defect in the sock, just a mismatch. I worked the heel with the typical 50% of the total stitches. But I forgot that the sections of the sock adjacent to the heel were not the same. Because I'm working a k4, p2 flat rib over 18 stitches, the right side of the heel has 2 purl stitches adjacent to it--the end of the previous needle's stitches. But the left side has 2 knit stitches adjacent to it--the beginning of the next needle's stitches. So the gusset on one side has an attractive 2-stitch pattern for the length of the gusset--the decrease stitch and the knit stitch next to it, with the two purl stitches of the rib pattern separating it from the pattern that continues down the instep. But on the other side, the decrease stitch and its adjacent knit stitch are incorporated into the beginning of the next needle, so it has a six-stitch panel at the beginning of that needle.

The left side, as it should look.

The right side, not the same

The right side is not as distorted as it looks. I just wasn't as careful about spreading it out flat as I was with the other side.

I fussed and fiddled around with how to fix this for two days before the obvious solution presented itself, which may say something about how tired I am. All I have to do is incorporate the two purl stitches of the next needle's rib pattern into the heel, so the instep will have the same pattern on each side. Because Kay has very slim legs and ankles, I don't want to make the heel flap any larger than it is, so I'll decrease two stitches on the first row of the heel. Then I'll keep the extra stitch that I always pick up on each side when I start the gusset, and my stitch count will be back to the original number.

I've spent an enjoyable, but exhausting two days in northern Virginia--Saturday with Kate and Sunday with Kay, shopping, eating in interesting places, buying fabric and books. On the way south today, I stopped at Springwater Fiber Workshop in Alexandria, a non-profit fiber arts shop and artists' community, to see a friend who works there and to donate a book that I somehow managed to acquire two copies of. And I couldn't leave, of course, without buying more fiber--about 6 ounces each of undyed superwash merino and Blue Faced Leicester. And the Twisted Sisters Sock book, with some interesting dyeing techniques that I'll play with as soon as I have time for them. And a skein of this and a skein of that . . .

Back to uploading today's work, which is, after all, why I have the money to be doing any of this.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

More addictive than crack

This is a quote from a public forum, Get Crafty.

If you are looking at trying to learn to spin it is a fairly easy and cheap hobby to start, you can buy a Babe handspindle for under 10$ and the Roving (procesed wool) can be bought fairly cheaply as well. However I feel it is my duty to forwarn you...this hobby is more addictive than Crack and Heroine combined! It will start simply with a handspindle and a few ounces of fiber...you will practice and make ALOT of Colinette type yarns, then as you get better you will find that you need diffrent weights of handspindles so you buy a few more, then you discover all the diffrent breeds of sheep fleece you can spin so you devote a shelf to your fber stash. In as little as a month you will have gone from a simple handspindle to blowing your childs education fund for a hand turned spinning wheel, a Drumcarder and a Picker and the piece de resistance...A fully decked out floor loom that will fit nicely in your family room (once you have removed the couch and tv and...well...the family) and help you use up the various skeines of your lovely handspun and your weekends are devoted to road trips to "local" (three hours away)fiber festivals.

Yep, that's about the way it is. Except she didn't include dyeing the fiber too.

But this weekend, I'm only knitting. I brought Kay's sock along, the red and white Opal Mosaik that is making interesting patterns, not stripes, not just variegations, but swirls and little stripes and checkedy bits and pieces. I have a ball of black and white Mosaik that I'm going to make up for myself a bit later. Pictures tomorrow, maybe.

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