Saturday, August 29, 2009

Combing After Bill

Bill, the hurricane that whipped up a few waves and some riptide warnings and left some fun debris. Here's my haul from today's 30 minute walk on the beach...The red bits look like they are from car taillights, and probably are. A couple of funky little pieces of iron. A whole shell - some type of whelk maybe? A beautiful flat triangular shaped rock. A heavy piece of pottery. The propeller looking thingy is the hinge end of a very large (probably clam) shell.

This beach thing is fun. It's probably a good thing that I didn't start doing this 15 year ago.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Today's Quote

"I am working on my 5-year plan, but still choosing a font."
Michael Anderson, from his blog profile at tp.oma.
http://theportfolio.ofmichaelanderson.com/about/

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Today's Quote

"It’s ok if there are better players than you on your team; sometimes your job is not to be brilliant yourself, but to enable others to be their best."

WENDII, http://www.manager-tools.com/2009/08/cricket

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Action Swatch

Some knitters complain about swatching, that it's time consuming, or that they don't need to because they already know what their own gauge is because it's so consistent. Be that as it may, swatching is a valuable exercise to ensuring the sweater or sock you are knitting doesn't become that nightmare object that you knit for size 32 but it turned out to be size 50.

And do you notice that when you do screw up gauge, it's often on the side of too big? Why don't we ever accidentally knit it too small? Well, I'm sure there are knitters who do that, too.

So have fun with your swatch! After you've knitted and counted stitches and rows and determine that yes, you were right all along, put that swatch to good use. If you are really on top of your game, you'll intentially swatch to about the same size every time and after several years will have enough swatches for a small quilt. Or a large quilt depending on how prolific you are. HA!


Action Swatch #1 is relaxing with a cup of coffee on my desk.

I spun this yarn from a 50-50 merino-silk top sample that I purchased at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. For non-knitters, that's fiber consisting of 50% merino wool and 50% silk.

This was my very first spin, by the way.


Action Swatch #2, in Lion Brand Cottentots, is holding down a small table. It doesn't say on the label that it's that strong, but clearly it's doing very well. Not only that, it's holding up a small box of found objects, a measuring tape, and the leg of freshly knitted socks. So fresh they haven't been blocked.


Action Swatch #3 is in residence as a cover for the Blue Faced Leicester I have parked on my drop spindle. This was a sock swatch for the very first socks I knit, of Regia something or other, a cotton/wool/nylon blend. Very sturdy stuff which in the hand doesn't feel like it would be that comfy but on the foot is very nice.




Sunday, August 09, 2009

Door to Shore: 35 Minutes

I'll grant you it's kinda gruesome, but this was the scene of some dastardly crime at the oceanfront this morning. I don't know if any actual crime was committed, or how all these fish died...but they are very dead. Might have been someone's bait.

This morning I went to the oceanfront to take my morning constitutional, as in the Virginia Beach oceanfront, that bastion of touristy tackiness. I've been going up to the Ocean View section of Norfolk, the Chesapeake Bay version of the oceanfront.

Whatever.

Anyway, OV doesn't have the great white expanse of sand that the oceanfront has but it's really pleasant, not as many persons, and the beach combing fairly decent. Yesterday I ran across a beached porcupine fish and many blue crabs that had been picked over by the seagulls. I guess they were tossed up by the storm from the previous night.

It takes me 10-15 minutes to get up to Ocean View. I thought, well, the oceanfront isn't that much farther...so I timed it. 35 minutes, door to shore at 31st street, including finding a parking spot at 6:55 am which, on a Saturday, wasn't difficult. The punchline, and I swear there's a point, is that when you live that close to the ocean, it's really dumb not to spend time there. However, I'll reserve my oceanfront time for the Labor Day to Memorial Day season, and stick to OV for now.

1" = 3 miles or something like that. The red star is Home Sweet Home. Despite the proximity to several rivers, none of them have beaches for walking. Sad.

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Beach Bumming


I walk on the beach a few times a week and it's a special, wonderful moment in my day.

Friday, August 07, 2009

Life In Triplicate

My friend Maureen came up with that line, and I had to use it.

And it got me thinking that there are a lot of things that come in threes, or have three parts, or involve the number 3. It turns out that 3 is a significant number that turns up, well, just about everywhere. In design, three is the minimum number of objects needed to create visual tension. Many schools of philosophy include three-way ideas, such as Aristotle's 3-in-1 idea (Mind, Self-knowledge, and Self-love), or Francis Bacon's three tables (presence, absence, degree).

Things that come in threes, involve three, etc:

My newborn grandkids, the most perfect little people in the world
Flute Trios
Good luck
Bad luck
Little Pigs
Billy Goats Gruff
Blind Mice
Bears (Goldilocks and the...)
Wise Men
Wishes
French Hens
Half of a knitted 6-stitch cable
Catholic Holy Trinity
Wheels on a tricycle
Movements in a sonata
Holiday weekends
Pigs In A Blanket
Months in each season
Image zones (not to be confused with the Zone System)
First odd prime number
Dimensions
Dog Night
Populations in Plato's Utopian city
Tic-Tac-Toe
Stooges
Phony dollar bills
Waltz time
Bean Salad
Is the third unique Fibonacci number
Cheers
Social group types in Great Apes
Meals a day
The adhesive company that makes sticky notes
Tenors
Geological divisions of the Earth
Strikes
Outs
Tolkein's rings
Days between Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection
Asimov's Laws of Robotics
Distinct species of the genus Homo
Semicircular canals in the human ear
Types of galaxies
Leaves on a Shamrock
R's
Letters on eight of the eleven numeric buttons on a touch tone phone
Power states: on, off, pause
Points in a right angle
Types of relationships between database table
A type of bet, and also the money positions in a horse race
Hat trick
Times that something is attempted
Hat worn by soldiers in the American Revolution, and also by Chelsea Pensioners in formal dress
A crowd
The Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes
Of a kind
Peas in a pod
Names in Neil deGrasse Tyson's name
Time a lady
Musketeers
Amigos
Faces of Eve
Questions (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)
Shells (Demolition Man)
Cherries on a pawn shop sign
Light bulbs (three-way)
Company
Short blasts or signals from a ship meaning "I am operating astern propulsion"

What are your three things?

Monday, August 03, 2009

Monday, Aug 3

A quiet weekend. Grace is home with Nicole. Jacob is still in NICU but is holding his own. All Gabrielle's digestion issues appear to be resolved, but both her's and Jacob's internal temps are being monitored. However, everything is looking good. Nicole is spending a lot of time at the nursery, and Nick is also spending as much time as he can at the nursery, too. He adores his babies.

I saw Jacob and Grace this weekend. They look lovely :)