ProseKnitic – of Words und Wolle

I have been procrastinating. There is only so much that I can accomplish at the office. Much of what currently needs to be done, I must do at home since it involves printing, scanning and emailing. The British Army computer system currently at AMD only talks to itself; it is not connected to the outside world. This is wonderful in terms of computer security, but sucky when it comes to transferring documents.

And then there is the fact that I really should make a list of those things which I absolutely need to get done, just so I don’t miss any. But even the idea of that list is giving me the willies. If I acknowledge everything, it feels like it will be overwhelming. If I don’t make a list, something is going to fall and cost me more than just time and money.

If I group items, the list will be shorter. If I don’t, it will seem like I am making headway as I check them off.

What a dilemma.

So I solved it by driving to RAF Croughton. My putative excuse was needing to fill out paperwork for the new gas program card. And the mail, can not forget the importance of the mail run, especially when it nets lace weight yarn from KnitPicks.

Yarn

Agean Blue Gloss Lace

BlueGlass Shimmer

Berry Shimmer

Happy Trails - Gossmer

Audio Books

Variable Star – Robert Heinlein and Spider Robinson. Read by Spider, it is a great story and the perfect blend between the old Heinlein juveniles and Robinson’s own great style. Perfectly safe for public listening, teens and adults (yes, there is mention of sex, no, none of it is described in detail in the script).

Poison Heart – Mary Logue is on the car CD player. It is an excellent choice for driving distances. About relationships, small town Wisconsin, and “how is she going to solve it” rather than “who dun’it” I was entertained but not distracted.

Arbiter Chronicles – Man walks into a bar by the Prometheus Radio Theater. Full cast decent production, quality really decent. There is a whole series of short stories in 3-6 parts available for download.

I did it this past weekend. Converted from a PC to a Mac and am having a wonderful time. MacBook-Pro, lots of memory and a decent size hard drive. Screen bigger than what I needed. I would have gone with the Mac Air, but I know better. Without an internal CD/DvD it means an extra piece of equipment to haul, drop, lose or break. Now, it would be even nice if the lovely thing would agree to hook into the wireless network. It has twice, seemingly almost a random event. I have to get organized and get the Mole on Skype and see if we can figure it out together.

SKP2008

My Rattlesnake Creek socks are done. Knit out of one of the German Sock yarns, they are comfy and the cables do a nice job of drawing in all those excess stitches.

close up

completed socks

Shawls

My second Evelyn Clark shawl is complete, only needing blocking.

Front Side

reverse side

The beads on the edge (nothing like that last row taking forever) don’t show clearly. I will see what I can do when it is blocked.

The Candle Flame is making progress

And lastly, complete!

Garter Stitch Baby Jacket

knit out of DK weight cotton in alternating stripes of red and blue. I have not a clue where the pattern originated. It would have been nice if I had been able to find the blue to continue the striping up the hood, but I really don’t think it looks all that bad with a solid colour hood.

Podiobooks

I started listening to the Arwen Series byTimothy Callahan. It really isn’t bad, and won’t interfere with driving or knitting. But compared to David Weber’s Honor Harrington or Star Trek:Voyager the main character is quite flat. Some men seem to be able to write good heroines and others should stick to heros. Never the less, I can see it appealing to most who like speculative fiction. The first book is the best, the second has real issues and I am not going to bother with the third. (Please note, I still contribute to all but the absolute worst of the books. After all, if I had purchased them in paperback there would have been a cost).

In one of those Internet phenomenas, I found my thoughts converging between what I have written in the last couple of days, what Fabienne wrote on Monday and some concepts in the Podibook Beautiful Red by M Dursha Wehm.

I don’t find that real life is all that different between those I physically meet and those with whom I maintain an email/blog/phone link. But there are some major changes in how this community is defined for me. That difference I think relates to my age.

In my professional life, I have long been connected by phone with colleagues who I never met face to face. In 1986 when my organization added email capability, this extended to electronic communications. It was only with the advent of USENET and the early Fidob BBSs that this connection passed from the professional domain into the private where I could connect with essentially total strangers with whom I had common interests.

It takes a longer time to grow true friendships in the electronic environment than in a physical world in my opinion. Words can be deceiving and the lack of body language makes checking the veracity of our correspondent a bit trickier. For as many stories of finding soul mates and boon companions, there are balancing horror stories of fraud and deceit.

Sociologically, we haven’t kept up with labels, names or words that describe our new relationships, instead focusing more on what is real and virtual.. To say that we don’t need them begs the question. Definitions lead to common understanding and communications. In the knitting world – there is an understanding when someone says lace weight, fingering or bulky yarn for a project. A podcast is not the same as a YouTube Video.

What do you think? Should we work out words that fill those social gaps between “friend” and “acquaintance” in line with the old penpal which was a clear description of both relationship and method? English to start? Or perhaps to co-opt words from French, German, Hebrew or whatever to fill in those gaps? The fiber community has not been shy about creating and adopting new language (frog, tink, WIP, SIP, UFO). The tech community does it on a daily basis.

SKP2008

Round three was released last night. Since the release time was 1200 in the US, already there are a number of people with theirs completed. I cast on this evening, just completing the cuff of the first sock this evening out of Fortissima Colori.

My printer is out of black ink. I haven’t been able to print the pattern. Will do so in the morning along with my boarding pass and knit on the way to Zurich en route to Majorca.

the last room

The last mess to clean up.

-Holly

Memes have been around long before blogging. Being started, evolving and occasionally dying out, The advent blogging software rapidly spread the Meme phenomena to epidemic proportions. There is even The Daily Meme which provides a variety of entertainment from definitions to ideas.

Most of us participate occasionally, a few frequently. It is a shared social action that ties us together across countries and time zones. Since Ravelry seems to be more about discourse and databasing, I haven’t seen an impact on either the common posting or tag forms of memes and it just may have spread the quiz form that much faster.

You are all familiar with the Quizzes.  Several sites have a wide variety of choices that you take and then are provided HTML code to post to your own site. Most include a cute graphic describing you as a jelly donut or a cheesecake, or perhaps you checked to see if you were cotton, linen or wool.  The blogging effect is to increase traffic primarily to the quiz source and providing you content on a boring day.

The next group are the common or theme postings: Photo Friday, 365 Days, and the Alphabet are examples of this sort of meme. They draw a group together if it is a time limited meme and increase post reading among the participating members. The Webrings, brought over from static pages day are the only ones likely to increase outside readership.

Finally, there is the rampant meme that spreads with Tag.  The rules are simple – post the rules, leave messages on victim’s blogs to notify them of their tagged status, post your own answers, and link to whomever tagged you. The effect of these memes is to spread themselves to as many blogs as possible while increasing links between blogs, and [one hopes] increased readership as measured by hits or comments. The side effect of several of these is to spread personal information about one’s self. This information has as much potential to decrease readership as it does increase it.

It is obvious if you think about this in epidemiological terms most people actually don’t play. You are all familiar with the grain of rice and the chess board? Or the chain letter? The average meme asks you to tag five other bloggers. That is an R of 5. An infectious disease that has a replication value of 2 can easily become epidemic wrecking disaster on a population. The current models for pandemic influenza are actually in that range.

Now look at memes. What would happen if you actually tagged five people and they all did the meme? How long would it take to get around the world? Be on everyone’s board? How many cycles would it take?  I am sure that someone has done the modeling, maybe Fabienne who knit me the most wonderful socks in Sockapalooza4?

Why am I muttering around about this? I play only rarely.

Why? I find few which fit, are thought provoking or just so silly that I can’t resist. I have been posting architectural bits – Arches/Doors – for Photo Friday since I started blogging.  The following is not silly which means that it might fall into the thought provoking. Maybe. But mostly it might tell you more about me than you already know, a really scary concept.  Tagged by the Yarnarian – I lifted much of Carolyn’s intro to make my life easier:

“The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.”

1. What was I doing 10 years ago? Commanding Task Force Med Eagle in Bosnia. Co-located at the Blue Factory with NorMedCoy, we provided the medical support for MND(N) including evac by ground and air, Prev Med, Vet, Dental and Mental Health teams and the Role 3 hospital. Foremost on everyone’s mind was the upcoming 4th of July celebration. Hot topics included such important items as
1) Hanta (the band) and what were they going to play
2) weather
3) food
4) what were the chances of being allowed civilian clothes for the day given the theater dress code allowed for BDUs or PT Uniforms only.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today? Sick Parade, update my CV, finish writing up my notes from last week’s meetings, file all the strewn about papers in my office, and work on one of the UFOs.

3. Snacks I enjoy: Carrots, peanut butter, trail mix, diet sodas and herb teas.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: After I got done paying my taxes and the balance on the mortgage, I would grab one of the people in my DHs financial group for advice on avoiding any more tax; set up trusts (family, shul, and some educational institutions), a charitable foundation (hire the Eldest to run it – she has amazing organizational skills) and …….go back to work. I might buy a few toys that I don’t have but my life otherwise for the next three years wouldn’t change a lot.

5. Places I have lived: Minnesota (MPLS, Hopkins, Minnetoka, Chaska, St. Paul); Heidelberg, Stuttgart, Wuerzburg, Kaiserslautern, and Munich Germany; Camp Doha, Kuwait; Camberely UK (the high points including only those places where I was longer than 12 months).

6. Jobs I have had: Datapunch clerk. Night lab tech, strawberry picker, physician (couple of specialities) and 19 duty positions + duty positions with the Army (same employer for the last 27 years. Now how did that happen?)

7. Bloggers: 5 people who I hope are good sports:

Debbie

Kathy

Veronika

Ebony

Cathy-Cate

I realized as I looked at their URLs, that there are two blogspots, two WordPress and a TypePad person. All of them do an amazing amount of knitting but all have different tastes. I covered a couple of continents and several states. (For those of you who are breathing a sigh of relief, I try to spread the joy around!)

Knitting

The pattern is out for SKP2008. It is going to be my knitting this weekend as I head first to Switzerland then on to Majorca. Socks, cameras and the DHs office paying a good portion of the bill. What more could I want?

I decided to knock off the baby jacket first. Since I had to hang out at Croughton this morning, it just was the thing for a waiting room.

(imagine the picture – I will insert it as soon as I free up a USB port for uploading. This laptop only has two, one is tied up with the mouse and the other with the printer.)

Books &

Good Blood by Aaron Elkins &
Shaman’s Crossing by Robin Hobb – both from the library.
on the MP3 is South Coast by Nathan Lowell. Get it from him or Podiobooks

30 June 2008, Monday – Process, perfection or procrastination?
Camberley, UK

Perfection or Completion? Perhaps it is more critical an issue for those who make their living off writing or their blogs; I think it might be worth the rest of us thinking about it. I have seen discussions about whether someone is a process knitter or a product knitter and there are those who definitely fall to one extreme or other of the spectrum. In reality, it is probably another Bell Curve with most of us falling within those 2 standard deviations.

But perfection or completion is a bit different. Besides a variety of knitting, spinning and weaving blogs I dally at some tech, sci-fi and writing locations. Jason got me thinking. Does the need for perfection in writing a post mean that you take so much time that it doesn’t happen? Does the desire for perfection slow me down and insert delays? Is that why I hit procrastinating streaks on the publish button push? Is fear of failure/being ignored compounding the problem? Is a post with no comments a failure?

Blogging has gone from being a simple journal to a social discourse. In normal day to day events we get feedback from those around us and look askance at those who wander around talking to themselves. If you write something and no one comments, is that the same as talking to yourself? That post still might be read and have an impact. One of the commentors on Jason’s board mentioned Heilein’s rules of writing: write, finish what you write and sell it. If you don’t write a post every once in a while, then no one can read it.

On the old BBSs, USENET or mailing lists, lurking was the common accepted practice. Most posted only when they had something to say on content boards. A few seemed to have to say something on every topic; the delete key was useful in eliminating all those me too comments.

The importance was social community and shared interests. This carried over into early webpage development where people set up pages relating to one thing or another, most communications being email and out of sight of the rest of that website’s readers. Keeping content fresh and current was the key to hits.

With blogging, most enable comments to facilitate feedback or discussion. For any subject, there are some well known SMEs (subject matter experts) who draw a high readership and extensive comments. There are some subjects that lend themselves well to comments and sharing and others where you just find the particular fact and scoot off. Leaving a comment on a post several years old is just not always in the forefront of your brain, especially if you don’t know how their software platform handles comments to old posts.

There are those gems of posts I find on Tikkunknitter, Treppenwitz, or Widowswalk but I am as guilty as everyone else about reading without contributing.

I realized early on that blogging is one of my hobbies. It is not my life or career. I can then write what I like, track projects and life, and just try to keep page design under control. There is no way that I really want hundreds of responses to every post. I appreciate those who do take the time to write the occasional word. Those are precious gifts.

But if I put things off, because it is not completely what I wanted to say then the post doesn’t get written. If too many days go buy it would seem natural to have readership fall away.

I don’t think I have to worry about perfection, not with my posts frequently sounding like I was asleep or thinking in Gerglish while writing.

-Holly

Honestly, you wonder that people don’t have better things to do.  Dummy websites that pull posts from around the world based on key words. Mailers that send out dozens of offers for various insurance schemes. Drugs that none of us need or want. I would home that no one would ever answer any of these bogus offers.

I suppose that I should be grateful to somehow be missing all the porn spams.

At the same time, I have no clue why Askimet keeps dumping comments from my friend Carmen in the spam bucket. I might have thought it was because of having a gravatar (Odin is quite the cat) since I have have it set to catch all comments that have links, but this happened before she got the pix uploaded.

There has to be a logical reason why all of this spamming occurs. Someone must bite. Same reason that pfishing is out there, and all the letters from Africa hinting at untold millions should you only help by first opening an account with your own money. (That disappears. And someone might be surprised?)

Sock Wars III

The forums on both Ravelry and the Sock Wars sight have been hilarious. As of shortly before midnight, there were 81 fallen in their socks and comments flying thick and fast. Besides a few rather sour grapes, I have seem prose, poetry, beautiful sock pictures and some really creative obits. Krafty1 went all out in her packaging (and the socks are pretty cool too).

Spinning

Finished up the last ounce of Temptation and all of the plying. Picture tomorrow, since it would involve going and locating the camera.

We (the Mole and I) braved Tescos for gas and some groceries, dropped off the recycling and made it back home with only one detour. I just love people who ride on your bumper even when you are doing the speed limit.

-Holly

As should be pretty obvious, I am playing around with the blog again. I still like the simplicity of my original theme the best, but since there is still an unresolved copyright question I am not going there.

I played with MistyLook for a while. It has some nice clean lines which it seemed that everyone in the world loved. The theme itself didn’t like the random header plug-in and I really can’t make up my mind which picture of the back garden I like the best. It changes. Now, obviously, so does the header without any work from me. I suppose that I could do knitting pictures, but that might be work. The main background of snowy branches became a bit too much, so it is now grass in sunshine. I keep thinking that something other than blue is good.

This theme started out as Mandigo. There are still fixes needed. I don’t like the basic css for the pictures as I have to remember to add certain things on every line at the moment. There is also the issue of the galleries not working properly, but I think that is a side effect of two sidebars. I will try taking them out of the childpages and see if things improve.

Socks

All of this takes time away from what is important – knitting. In this case the Barcelona Socks

Spinning

And spinning some more of this wonderful merino roving. Finished up the first bobbin last night and started on the second

Audio Books

While starting a new book – Hard Truth by Nevada Barr.

-Holly

If you have been looking for % bars – let me recommend the elegant solution by Yarn Tomato. A simple script makes bars in the colour and % of your choice. Her explanations are clear and easy to follow. She also provides links to where you can find the code for the particular colour that you want.

For straight text buttons – there is Adam Kalsey’s Button Maker. There are several commercial packages out there (read, costs money).

For those of you who want to support Ravelry for the great work they are doing – head to the site and make a donation. As proof – well – Angeluna has made some great Ravatars for your button pleasure.

A slightly nutty but fun group of people who like Icons can be found at IconBuffet. A free site where you can register, send, receive and otherwise play with icons. They also have stock Icons for sale, not surprisingly. I have been contemplating cranking up the graphics program and creating a set of knitting/spinning/weaving icons.

That is, of course if I was any good at graphics programs.

It has been another quiet day. Major meeting at work, other wise just piddly things.

Didn’t turn on news, radio, audio book or DvD. Didn’t knit either.  Just read a couple of quick books and conking off to sleep.

The snow has melted, even under the trees, but it is still predicted to be below freezing tonight.

Ms Copper has successfully completed her first day of dental work. A small bit of ibuprofen and a nap seems to set her totally right. Following a dinner of Indian food (did I mention the great price and ease of cooking?) we watched the last DvD of Bones (the first season). Both are now going in the “drop off at Heidelberg” bag so that I don’t accumulate too much here.

Firefox Beta 3

If you are stuck with Wistless, upgrading to FireFox 3 (Beta) really has made a difference in browsing. There are improvements in the URL bar. And, really important to me – the multiple file upload in WordPress now works like a charm. Means I can upload all the photos for a post in one swell food, going back to insert them in their proper places as I get to that portion.

British School Slipover

The front and back are now finished. I just have to find a 3,5mm needle that is short enough for the armhole and neck ribbing.

Hodge Podge Sweater

Started a lot of years ago (certainly before I left for Kuwait, and it might even have been in Munich), I ran out of the white yarn. Then I found a few really ugly errors. Knit on the basic Odd Ball Sweater pattern (circa 1995), I was making it up as I went. The final straw was measuring and finding out it was about 20 cm bigger around than any kind of sanity would choose.

A reknit was in order. It will become Tubey from Winter 05 Knitty. Unfortunately, I can’t use the pattern construction since I have no idea how far I am going to get before running out of yarn. I don’t know about you, but I am way too old to have my stomach or belly button hanging out below a sweater hem.

Means that I will knit from the bottom up, then provisionally cast on the sleeves, working from the center out as I attach them to the live stitches on the top of the body. Wider stripes on the body and darker toward the bottom is my current plan, but my strategy is still random grab for the next colour. Yarn is handspun (and probably the last time I spun anything that could be knit on needles as large as 5,00mm).

Books

We picked up the mail yesterday. I know that have the Coffeehouse Mystery series by Cleo Coyle on my bedstand. Her website is rather well done.

-Holly

(pick the best possible answer)

1. there is a ghost
2. they feel like rattling, just to disturb my sleep
3. there is a lot of wind
4. Someone didn’t fasten any of the window latches.

It goes right along with
my room is cold because

1. The sun went down
2. I don’t have enough wool
3. The boiler went out again

You get the idea.

The amazing discoveries came about because I decided to see what kind of pictures I could take out of an upstairs window rather than through the window. While I was at it, I switched to the macro lens.

Sock Madness

Just as I was about to finish up this post, I checked my other email box. What do we have here? The second round of Sock Madness – Patterned called Reversal a day early. Ok, a backwards April Fools joke.

Meanwhile, it means that I am not crashing early.

I cast on and did the ribbing on the first sock

and then the first 12 rows of the pattern.

I don’t like the yarn. It is Noro. The colours are beautiful, but it is a singles with all the twistiness implied. It is a slow knit. Should be ok, only have to be in the first 20 in my division to slide on through.

Audio Books

First disk  of Bone Harvest completed

-Holly

as I am, in my bed wrapped in comforters, I am really regretting not having knit any handwarmers. I just can’t manage to type wearing mittens.

Heat? What heat? What plumber? Modern Housing Solutions has so pleasantly lied to me each and every time that I have spoken with them today.

0800 – given job number, told that someone should be there with 3-4 hours. The key word is should.

1250 – call back. Oh, they are working their way down the emergencies. Shouldn’t take more than three more hours.

1700 – they should be right there. But after waiting around all day – I can’t be there for the next two hours. I have to take my son to the airport. Well – you could reschedule for another day.
What! I already lost today from work. Can’t they just come, I don’t care if I am not there.

But they do, they may be bonded but apparently they are not trusted to be in the house alone.

It is the usual insane Friday traffic on the M25 with Staus up to 7 miles. Of course, we are going to have to drive through the worst of it. As we are merging in the clockwise direction, the traffic report notes that there are flight delays and numerous cancellations from Heathrow’s Terminal 5. The brand new terminal apparently is having some teething problems. The preprinted boarding card does not have an information phone number. Ok, we take the chance and it turns out that his flight is fine.

70 minutes to get there, 25 to get home (hint – I avoided the motorway completely).

1910 – Where are they? Can they still come? I am really cold.
Will send them over.

2210….still waiting.

My toes are warm, my nose is not. Wool socks are really great; my turtleneck falls down from over the lower half of my face. . My hands are aching and we are all sick of listening to me whine.

Do I call again in the morning and lose the whole day waiting? Or do I just bag it till Monday and do another day of telecommuting?

Knitting

The guy has knit about 4″ done on his scarf. It is mostly stockinette except for when he wasn’t paying attention. We decided that the random purl rows here and there are a design element. He took it with him in his backpack; I swapped out my good enameled Inoxs for Denise Needles just in case airport security decides to be dumb. No room in his suitcase (shoes in size huge take up a lot of space) but doubt he will knit on the plane. After all, he is 17.

This makes up for the fact that the ribbing was done and two pattern repeats of the English Slipover. We both looked at it.

It now looks like this.

He really wants ordinary, guy gray. Nothing fancy, nothing confusing, nothing with stripes or splotches. Just a simple vest he can wear for somewhat dressed up. Since I don’t have anything at all that meets his requirements, a trip to a yarn store is in order (see comment above about not wanting to hang out all day for the little man who is not coming).

The March Sweater Madness Group has UFOs for April. I have this sweater started.

It has several issues: it is too big, I am out of white, I don’t like the way it looks and the sleeves have a long way to go. OTOH it is going to be a pain to frog because of all the short lengths of handspun.

If I take it down by a good 8″, I should at least have enough for a decent vest. Or probably a sweater if I do more handspun and less white.

Or I could give it away to an unsuspecting stranger!

Computers

For those of you using WordPress, 2.5 should be out soon. I am using what is likely the last major beta build. Upgrade as soon as you can. There are improvements galore including a re-do of the interface, better media handling and a built in gallery maker. Not all the old plug-ins work and you will need widgets. I already have found a couple that are critical to my sanity.

Arches

-Holly

some of the towns around here on a blustery Saturday. A friend had called to ask me to come along. The shoe place – good basic sturdy shoes – didn’t have anything that fit me.

The big craft store in Aldershot was gone, replaced by a printing placed called Lime.

The other craft store was so crowded that you couldn’t move and didn’t have the jewelry findings.

But the Home Brew Store was fun. From simple kits to complicated set-ups, you can make your own alcoholic beverages completely legally. Juice in a can, with some help becomes wine. Bags of grain turn into beer and ale.

If I could drink, I might be really interested – it looked like fun.

Becoming sensible, I spent the rest of the day snugly tucked into my house before venturing out in freezing weather for dinner.

Computers

Thanks for the comments about the blog changes. I don’t have the sidebar completely under control, but at least it is there. I need to figure out who to put in non-blogroll links and the photo widget. Then tackle the page tabs. All else fails – I will copy the text out, set up new pages from templates and go from there.

Do you care about your web software? Want to encourage and support those applications that you find key?
Webware has opened the polls for the 2008 voting. Go and express your opinion!

Socks

Mingus is fun, Mingus is cool. Mingus is too complicated to knit while serving as the navigator or dinner company.

This Wild Cherry was just sitting there in the Sox Box

asking to become socks. Great colour that matches my light weight fleece top and sweatshirt. (Sounds like a good reason – right?)
Winding it into a ball was just the work of a moment

Followed by a decision to crank out a pair of Chain Links.

Heel detail doubles the number of slipped stitches to 2/1 (from 5/1).

51 1/4 socks done and a sock and a half to go prior to 1 April.

-Holly

Did you know that you really can’t easily get to the train station early in the morning?

My choices were the 0438 train, the 0547 train or missing my 0730 flight. And the road down the hill from us is still under construction. By the time I found a real street car stop, I was half way to the train station. Now, if I wanted I could spend 2,10 on fare to ride three stops and then walk to the train station. Or hike a long block and wait to take a bus to the train station, or, I could just save my money and walk.

Not that any of it mattered anyway. Once at the airport, and after hiking off the end of the earth and around all the renovations in Terminal 2 – gate area D I found that my British Airways flight out was delayed. There was heavy fog predicted for Heathrow. Gate hold is what it is called.

Only catch was – there was no fog…

more knitting occurred which would have been completely and totally fine, had not my MP3 player decided to freeze.

The second blue sock was finished and I pulled out some JaWoll Cotton that was hanging around, making significant progress.

But mostly, I contemplated an article that was in Die Welt. On the surface it seems logical – Brockhaus is giving up printing hard copy encyclopedias for an Internet based one. The major publisher for 200 years, this can be viewed as an historical change in knowledge distribution or a smart marketing decision since few people want that yardage of heavy books on their shelves. Those that have book shelves, that is.

The idea of an Internet based encyclopedia is not new – Wikipedia has been available on line for years. Free. Several of the US publishers have tried to have subscription services or CD based sales. In Germany, Brockhaus will be changing from password (cost) access to open Internet access.

The difference to what is already available? Non-wiki, that is to say articles all written by experts in their field with a major publisher standing behind the accuracy of the content. In many countries, there will be no change, but for German speaking countries I think there are going to be impacts. Students of today are more likely to look on the Internet for information than to do primary research in libraries. Wikipedia is a favorite source of information. There are times when the accuracy leaves a lot to be desired. I see major publisher’s encyclopedias free as an improvement all around. Those who care about wiki access might be motivated to improve the quality of what is out there. And all the small things that would otherwise never make a major encyclopedia will still have entries in Wikipedia. Increasing knowledge access about all subjects for everyone is not a bad thing.

Without an MP3 player, I obviously had too much thinking time on my hands.

Arriving at Heathrow right around 1030 (this was my 0845 arrival) there was a remarkable absence of fog. The whole episode reminded me of Washington, DC when there is a predicted snow fall. Businesses and government shut down on rumours while the traffic snarls hours ahead of any dusting on the roads.

First sock finished by evening. Simple eyelet pattern.

-Holly

Just so you know – if you are having problems reading this – you are likely using the most recent update of IE which doesn’t seem to be compatible with a lot of things.

Safari works, Firefox, Netscape, Mozilla …… Do I need to go on?

All the Kluges that worked with prior versions have stopped working. This leaves me with the choice of updating to conform with Microstupid or posting a warning on a regular basis. The particular theme I have is not supported any longer, so that means I would have to learn and do some major coding to fix this. The family site still works, so it is a compatibility with Word Press. I will try to update Word Press this coming weekend and see if that fixes the problem.

Knitting

got a few rows completed on the wrist warmers

Books

Last night I took a reading break. There are those books which are rather quick reads.
An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris. Ok, but not as good as the two previous in the series.
Where Angles Go by Debbie Macomber. Puff piece, not worth the time.
All Through the Night by Suzanne Brockmann. Predictable but well written.

-Holly

I thought this was a day of a lot of meetings. Turned out they all had been canceled or put off. So instead I spent the day polishing up a lecture that I am giving on Wednesday.

In case you are wondering why I am so far ahead of the curve, it has to do with the admin person for the course wanting to burn off the CDs this afternoon. Additionally, since we can’t use thumb drives anymore, it is not like I can take it with me. In fact, as it turned out, I could not email it over either. I wound up having to post the stupid thing on the shared document file space so that Beth could pull it. Then I found out that any one can post things. But once they are there, only certain people can kill them. That special, secret membership does not include the person who loaded the file in the first place.

Another improvement for computer safety and productivity. I just love “Data At Rest” new procedures.

Books

At least Book Crossing is not on the banned site list, leaving me able to log in another half-dozen books before dropping them on the library swap shelves.

I also returned Hit Parade and picked up Hit List (Lawrence Block). After listening to part of a Anna Quindlen and being bored out of my head (I find nothing interesting about rich people in New York and could not get past the first chapter. This might be a good book, but I need something more than characters who are so wrapped up in sibling issues and their own angst that they do not see others. But these two were just boring. I was surprised to see Elizabeth Berg and Anne Tyler suggested as similar writers. Both of them write interesting novels about relationships and real people, not plastic mannequins.

Finished up an old Iris Johanson from the old Loveswept Series- An Unexpected Song that was in the library on CD. Just the right thing for spinning: reasonably clear plot line while not too complicated. Which meant no need to pause for this and that.

Spinning

And it is the second bobbin.

Remember it is Azur Sky. Certainly looks purple to me!

-Holly

There has been another improvement in the computer system at work for our pleasure, convenience, satisfaction, and productivity. Blogspot is blocked. I can get to Blogger and load the Dashboard. But not the blogs themselves – nope, no way. This goes right along with the new improved file encryptions – stopping all use of outside thumb drives since the system encrypts anything it which gets hooked up.

I can still read email for now, but can’t cruise many blogs much less get to Flickr or upload anything unless I bring it in on a CD. Going back in time and technology I guess.

On the renovation front – tomorrow the shower door installer will be coming to fix up the shower. Also the repair man for the fridge since we have a door that is no longer shutting.

Spinning

I have these lovely rovings that I purchased over a year ago from Winderwood Farms. I have decided that I will spin the two wheels I have of the first one before going on to the rest.

The fine singles look rather nice if I do say so myself.

Books & Audio Books

Marcia Muller’s most recent Sharon McCone mystery is The Ever-Running Man. Although not always easy to follow, I really enjoyed it. With roots to motives and characters going back to the Viet Nam era

For those of you who do not like readers who do voices – you might want to consider Lawrence Block’s latest book in his Keller ‘Hit” series. He does his own readings. I enjoy the stories, but his gravely voice is a bit too close to a monotone for my taste. Others just love his readings.

-Holly

Are you one of those unfortunate people like me? A slave to Windoze and what ever garbage Microsoft is slinging our way because either you need the compatibility with your workplace or the programs that you need to use are not ported to a more sensible system like Mac or Linnux.

Have you met the Blue ScreamScreen of Death?

Did I mention then that my laptop computer decided to toes up? The hard drive has not yet completely failed. But to top off a morning already “great” thanks to some work emergency and a torture session at PT – I have seen that infamous screen another six times this morning. Before 0900 and certainly before my coffee.

Using the work laptop – I managed to do some email out of the house and defuse one crisis while backing up everything critical from that computer (twice) onto external hard drives. There is no way in h that I want to lose this summer’s pictures. Or my webpages or articles or journals or collected patterns. You get the idea.

Want the real fun? I can’t get WinXP anymore. The only decent laptops I found all had Vista on them. Vista is like Visa (the charge card) – you are always taking a chance when you use it and it is always going to cost you something. Those costs may be hidden or inconvenient, but they are there.

I am sitting here with my new Sony loading software. A bit more – my workhorse programs like Winstep and the FN Cataloging set – and my computer will feel a bit more “normal.” So far all the touted improvements with Vista are either frustrating or about 17 years later than Mac, or O/S2. Go figure. Most of the innovations aren’t, nor are they essential so that I have gotten just about all of them eliminated or killed off.

Now to finish getting rid of their widgets. Exactly why would I want to clutter up a clean, organized workspace of shelves with things?

No knitting, no spinning but I am working my way through new books.

Books & Audio Books

Every time I stop through the library there is something new to borrow. The cataloger is back from vacation and new books are landing on the shelf daily. Hardbacks from August and July. The September books will be out in the next week or so, the librarians tell me.

But there are audio books by Tami Hoag. Not The Alibi Man, but some of her old books from the 90s. Reissues are reissues. I wish they would not put a new copy right date on them. I understand why, since the publisher has changed, but still. It is like thinking an author has a new book out, only it is a reprint with a different cover.

Sandra Brown’s Play Dirty was alright, but certainly not a five star book.

-Holly

I have been playing with different Word Press gallery plug-ins. I finally got WPPA to work. To put up one album, which I did with all of the Friday Arches photos was not that hard through the thumbnails – I still have some tweeking to do. I might just be running a bit slow today, for I can upload for more albums, but to get them to appear with the right thumbnails – Ah, that is something else.

My alternative was to attempt the template that came with this theme. Only problem is that the theme itself has been withdrawn (as of last August) because of a copyright discussion. Leaving me without support and the question of whether I really should continue to use it or not. Problem is that I have not found another one that I like as well, much less that works with the family home pages.

This was a day of little knitting, (1/2 a sock only), some napping, doing exercises, and spending time with the family.

We all need days like that. Especially since it is time to sail back to the salt mines in the morning.

-Holly

It seemed like such a great idea this morning. A s a matter of fact about 0930, right after the DH left for the airport. I have this theme that came with a built in template for Photo Galleries. Would it not be nice, I thought, to be able to easily have a page for the Arches, and a page for the 30+ pairs of socks that have come off the needles so far this year. Deceiving myself and ignoring the fact that I have been putting this off – I jumped in with both hands on the keyboard.

Pulling out the template, going to the developer’s blog, and reading it five time, it still did not make sense to me. PHP? Haven’t learned it, but I am fine with HMTL. The instructions just weren’t clear. But, he had a plug in! Hey, I can do plug-ins. This is WordPress. Download, unpack, and FTP.

Piece of cake.

Just a few minutes later I had it installed, pages named and pictures uploaded. Then it happened. Blithely hitting the “view the blog” button I got the Word Press equivalent of that lovely WinDoze blue screen of death. Blank – total and complete white out. Didn’t matter what I tried – I could not get anything to appear in my browser.

An hour later I had moved enough things around to get some of the screens to appear (let me tell you – SmartFTP is well worth paying the subscription).

It is getting warm, I am getting crabby and this was not how I had planned on spending my day.On the terrace was the plan.

See that nice lounger? And I was going to wow you with my sock progress. (two whole rows on my Sockapaloolza and to the toe decrease on the Kew became the reality). Actually, I had planned a few cm on the Sockapalooza and finishing the first Kew, then casting on the second.

Instead, I sweated out two hours of updating WordPress to 2,2 in a vain attempt to rid myself of wonderful new restrictions on page changing and posting. Instead, it got worse. Every time I rid myself of one problem, another nasty little error unmasked itself, creeping in to join in the fun, trashing me further.

I ate Java Chip (Starbucks) ice cream at 1430 in a desperate attempt to console myself. I had a pile of files on the server and no blog. None. Nothing that would load, nothing I could reach and not enough knowledge to fix it. I couldn’t post and changing one too many parameters got me in a worse fix than the previous hour.

Have I mentioned that the lovely dudes who are diligently working on the master bathroom and DSs bedroom downstairs were stomping around all day? Making horrible quantities of noise and otherwise spreading dust with their cheer.
At 1700, the youngest two arrived home not interested in cleaning, working, or listening to me scream. They are off till Tuesday, taking away my quiet, solitude and ability to snivel unobserved.

Since the site was not reachable, I just took it down and for the next two hours downloaded what was left for an archive then rebuilt from scratch.

And it still did not work. My stubbornness kicked in. Really, there is no way that a simple program should be able to defeat anyone skilled enough to construct socks. I mean, really.

Of course, it helps if you don’t misspell something in the URL

Which I discovered after spending another hour removing the previous attempt and trying again.

This time was the charm.

I salvaged the database, finally managed to delete the pages from the album attempt. Since that still had its own files locked I wasn’t home free. Would you believe that I can’t upload pictures through WordPress? But I can drag and drop courtesy of FTP and I am hanging it. I wrote to the developer of the plug-in to see if he can give me any hints. A really nice guy, I don’t think the hijack was deliberate.

If I was a drinking woman, I would be 1/2 way through a bottle of wine by now. As is, I am hanging it for the evening and going to go swing my arm.

I would really appreciate a couple of you trying a test post and emailing me (proseknitic at yahoo dot de) if it doesn’t work.

-Holly

It was all worthwhile, the fussing and the fretting and the guy from Telekom who insisted that our equipment was old and fried. Admittedly the router has been in continous use since 2001 and the Frtiz! box almost as long. It also meant at trip to Telekom for new equipment. But we have DSL up and running once again with one combi box replacing three pieces of electronic equipment.

Wollpiraten!

Hermes followed instructions. When I got home today, there was a treasure chest waiting for me in the garage. It had come from Nala. The Pirate trove included yarn to keep me busy while underway, cream for hard worked hands, shells, candy and a log book. I have found some fun things to restock and will get it on its way Saturday.

Knitting

The Grasshopper is started (STR April). I promised myself that I would just knit it per the pattern. I even started it toe up. Then added a few extra rounds because I wanted more solid on my toes. After doing a few rounds of the P2tog, yo followed by yo p2tog, my fingers felt like they were bleeding and I felt nuts. On this kind of project I am not obsessive. I did not frog, I just changed the pattern to alternate rows of k2tog yo with yo k2tog back loop. It gives a nice mesh pattern with a lot of give as well. I have finished the heel of the first one and have just the leg to go. No fake hem in the back (why prove that my legs are weird?).

To balance out the concentration needed for Grasshopper, I needed a mindless knit. Digging out a standard guy yarn, I have made great progress on a pair for DH in the last couple of days.

A New Button for those who just want to watch people try and knit 52 pairs in a year’s time. We started with about a hundred of us on 1 April; completely insane beings. I know how long it takes me to knit a pair that are uncomplicated. And I really have no babies or small children to score rapid progress. I am ahead of where I need to be for the present (those are sock pairs 14 & 15 noted above), kind of banking socks for those months when I am unlikely to be knitting socks.

I have rescued all the comments out of the hold bin, I am not sure why Akimet caught a couple of them. I have no idea why the snail body is so white, perhaps he was just washed by the rain. She had moved on this morning, which is good considering how awake I am not when plowing down the stairs at a dead run with the dog before coffee.

-Holly

It took this little snail longer to make it across the one step than it did for me to make it the flight of 60 to the house.

It is not like I am in a hurry or need to access the Internet in the evening. Cruising knitting blogs or similiar sites is optional, right? So why would I care that the phone started working again this morning but the DSL quit? And Telekom will not be able to come until Thursday. Of course, I have not a clue as to how we are going to manage that, given that some of us (not Telekom) seem to work for a living.

Wollpiraten

Now, given a chance to stay home and wait for the post, in case the Schatz Kiste comes my way in the next couple of days – why that would be of far more interest that to wait on someone who once again will tell us they have no clue as to why the DSL does not work. Oh – the Treasure Chest? A round robin of wool treasures, where each sucessive Pirat adds to the packet before removing anything, then sends it on to the next victim participant on the list. Not leftovers, no, this is for treasure.

Shadow Socks

Ok, this way of knitting is almost as fiddly as the original, since I wanted the colours on the foot to match the original. After completing the leg, I used the cherry for a standard German heel. Then it became fun (not). Knitting all the way around twice with the moss, followed by the instep over with the cherry, backwards around the foot with the moss, interlock the two yarns then backwards with the cherry while the moss returns around the heel. It means that every fourth round is a real pain. I also noticed that I have stripes in the top; something that was not really evident in the sock, but shows clearly in the picture. Only 1/2 a foot and the toe to go.

Mai in den Tanz

Completed as ankle socks per request of the younger teen. Knit on 3,75 mm needles over 42 stitches, it was a quick knit.

Off to finish up two documents for work, and not from the comfort of my own chair.
-Holly

You have to understand that it sometimes takes us a while to get anything accomplished. Like the jungle on the property cut back, the house cleaned, or objects mounted on the walls. Years as a matter of fact in the case of hanging pictures back on the walls. We relocated from München in summer of 2001; still with work to do on the house when we moved in.

Everything that had been up on the wall prior to the move wound up stacked against the wall in the living room, placed in the wall cupboard below the stereo, or tucked up on a shelf.

And there it all sat till last weekend. I am not good with hammer and nails. Plus we have German wall construction with finishing over block. It can make hanging things extremely challenging. The teens had sorted out everything over their vacation. I enlisted the oldest’s finacé on the principle that if he can store and work on a VW bug in our garage, he might know how to hang things.
And it has happened. After being here 5 1/2 years, we now have art work back up on the walls, the mirrow hanging over sideboard in the dining room and family pictures up in the kitchen. It looks pretty impressive.

Computers and Comms

Last night was nuts, the DSL was out, and I posted from elsewhere. In the process, some updates to shared blogs did not make it through and others were duplicated. It came back on this morning, then went out again an hour ago. Checking on the set up, there was a wire that seemed to be kinked. Restarting everything plus unkinking the wire has worked for the present. Who knows how long it will hold.

Knitting

The Tanz in den Mai is almost complete, with just the toe to the second sock to complete. (I obviously managed a few cm more after taking the picture, but it is too dark outside for another photograph.

Making it just a little bit farther on the second shadow sock – I should be to the heel and the heel turned tomorrow. I am actually liking how the pattern is appearing in this method. I am thinking now about the foot construction and whether it is going to wind up being stripes, or if I have enough energy to work back and forth on the sole of the foot with the equilivant of short rows to complete it in the solid color.

Which means that I can wind the STR skein tomoorw for the April pattern. It has been interesting seeing all the pictures of these socks in progress across knitting blogs. They appear to be various shades of purple, pinks and greys. When I look at my skein, it mostly seems to be greens and pale browns. Ah well, I am having fun with this. I also need to work up some swatches for my Sockapalooza pal’s socks, as I am not going to knit any pattern at 11-12 stitches per inch.

Audio Books

Ten Big Ones is finished, as is Loyalty in Death. I just picked up Diane Mott Davidson’s Dying for Chocolate at the library on Friday for the CD player, while I am back with One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie on the cassette player. Said player which is now making weird grinding noises. I am hoping that it is not dying; I really don’t want to have an go buy another one. There are few cheap ones in Germany, only expensive. And I want something mid-range. Perhaps I will go hunting when in Vancouver later this month.
-Holly

Once more we are having DSL problems. This time around the phone is working, so there is a connection into the house. And all of the computers connect just fine with the router. But the Fritz-box says that there is no DSL coming in. And it is right.  Since I had to go over to Heidelberg Hospital and check something for work, figured to maximize the use of the medical library computer.

Knitting

May Day, pattern by Anni of Sockamania

They are knit in STR. This particular colorway is Lemon Grass. As is common for many of my sock pairs, they are fraternal rather than identical. The leg and instep were knit on 2,75mm needles, the heel, sole and foot after the first repeat on 2,5mm needles.
Remember I was thinking about alternatives to lengthwise knit for the second sock? Top on the list was a fairisle method so that the columns would run vertically, just like the other sock. After a provisional cast-on and some calculations about numbers of stitches I had a sample.

And then had the blinding flash of the obvious. Rows of purls and columns of purls are different. If I stack them in fairisle, all they are going to do is disappear into the fabric. They are not going to stand out. Why we use purl stitches to frame cables and to make the elements around them stand out. Short frog later, I restarted with the younger sib version. The direction of the pattern is 90 degrees from the other sock, but the integrity of the shadow is preserved.

Since this is going to still be a somewhat fussy knit, I decided that I needed something quick. Out came a skein of Claudia’s Handpainted in Roasted Chilli. Since the ball winder seemed to be somewhere else, the nostepinde that I purchased from Jim Childs of Hatchtown Farms came out of the basket. After winding the yarn, I started with Mai in der Tanz from my SKL. Given that I am knitting on 3,75 mm needles, I would be making rapid progress even if it were not being turned into an ankle length sock.

Audio Books

Detouring off from JD Robb for the moment, Stephanie Plum is starring on the car CD for the last couple of days. Funny is good when you are caught in traffic. And I do prefer the CD to wearing a head set while driving.
-Holly

We have a really great vacuum cleaner. It is one of those no bag models; you just empty out the container when it is full. This seems to be all the time when you have a golden retriever in the house. Even when fairly full, it has a powerful suction; strong enough to suck keys off a laptop computer. You don’t even have to ask me how I know that, do you?

Noah was my hero, managing to find the tab key, the small plastic interlocking spacer, and to get them properly settled back on the keyboard such that they actually worked.

Knitting

I am certain that I do not have to appologize for not getting much knitting done today. I managed another 15 rows on the 1/2 circle sweaeter and am doing the gusset on the first Niagara sock.

Heidelberg Community Seder

Kathi and Louis started with the cooking at 1500, I got there about 1630. My set up crew actually arrived in plenty of time to do the tablecloths, plates and everything. Final number in attendance was 45. Besides US and Germany, we had members with origins in Turkey, Hungary and the Form USSR. Our youngest attendee is 6 months old, our oldest? Well, we know she has passed 80 a number of years ago. And of course, you have to make sure that you sing all the songs now, don’t you?

It is back to work tomorrow. Good grief, that is only 6 1/2 hours from now!

-Holly

Knitting

I am still trying to find my copy of Folk Vests. The red vest is partly started as I mentioned in a previous post. Being more than happy to double count a project, I am planning on it being my UFO for my March Madness group as well as for the Red Sweater KAL.
Niagara – I have turned the heel (progress is slow, I really don’t like the yarn or pattern this time around) and have finished the 118 rows of body, to be able to start the second set of short rows. Putting this together is going to be like origami or the EZ Baby Surprise Sweater.

General Ignorance

After almost 20 years in the fun world of main frames, I started in the wild world of electronic communication with email in 1986 (yes, almost 21 years ago). Joining Fidonet in 1991, I ran a BBS using Maximus and Opus on my OS/2 Warp system. The Three Mausketeers (1:109/172), came down in 1993 when we moved back to Germany. Phone costs were so prohibitive that I could not afford to go back on line in Zone 2 and just settled for ASCII email and USENET groups.

And I have maintained a mailing list since I deployed to Bosnia in 1998 – but this is my first foray into blogging software. So you have to believe that I was astonished to find that the “moderation” section had caught six comments. Worse, they had been sitting there for over a week. I had set filters to catch anything with a link in it. Well, in capturing originating IP, WordPress algorithms considered those as being links and held them. I extended my appologies to the kind knitters who had left comments and hope that they come back sometime.

New Books

The following all arrived in the mail today, and it is an interesting mix of Urban Fantasy along with a Spinning Books:

Which means that the cassette recorder will be put away in favor of books in the hand. I can do mindless knitting at the same time. Multi-tasking occasionally really works.

-Holly