Agh, Knitting Frenzy!

Warning: This is a ridiculously long blog entry. I take no prisoners!

Since Saturday, I have twice been admonished for failing to update my blog.  In an effort to redeem myself, I shall therefore blog.  First to clarify: my failure to blog is not because I have been playing WoW obsessively.  In fact, you may doubt me when I say this, but I have not actually played WoW in many weeks.  The reality is I needed a WoW break -- and frankly I had to catch up on my movie watching.

I had a burst of Roku/Netflix watching madness where I watched all available seasons of the BBC series, The Chef, many many movies -- some of which were simply a poor use of my time, random episodes of 30 Rock, South Park, and Couplings, and, well, other stuff too.

Then I decided to catch up on my Tivo list -- which was mainly episodes of this season's The Closer.  Okay, kick ass.  The Closer still retains status as one of the best shows currently on television. (Speaking of which, who the heck did I loan my Season 1 DVD collection to?) And I caught up on Top Chef (only 3 episodes so far).

Once I was back on the television side of things, one thing led to another, and I started watching some On Demand stuff.  Like S2 of True Blood. I'll confess without shame to have watched all episodes twice, now. Snarfffable Survey says: 50-50 on the rating meter.  There are essentially two story lines, one involving vampires and the other not. Having a preference to vampires, I prefer that story line.  The other story line is just a bit over the top even for me and my fondness for supernatural curiosities.  Despite that, I think I might say that S2TB is better then the first.

Lest you think I've done nothing but work on turning my brain into mush, I have also been reading a lot.  On my Kindle, of course.  I read all the books in the Sookie Stackhouse series (of which True Blood was based on).  They were okay.  The first few were very entertaining, but as the series progressed I found the author spent far too much time trying to explain pervious storylines (in case a new reader started later in the series).  This was very distracting.  Also, I think the author lost some of her interest and enthusiasm because at seemed at times like she was trying to fill up the pages with anything, rather than something really good.  Nonetheless, I don't regret the time spent. The vampire love scenes were just perfect.  Who needs women's erotica when you can just pick up one of these books and thumb to a love scene with Sookie and her vamp of the week?

I read some other stuff, too.  I started re-reading the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin in the hopes that the last book will come out soon -- or in prep for the HBO production.  Well, there are other books I could list, but suffice to say the Kindle makes it very convenient for me to read all sorts of random stuff.

So, that's a lot of TV/Movie watching and book reading.  But that is not all.  I have also been knitting like a fiend.  I knitted a little cozy for my MacBook Air because I couldn't find a cover I liked.  That then inspired me to knit a cozy for my Kindle.  Of course I then had to make cozy's for the Slacker, so know he has his own set.  I'm also knitting a scarf for PacoTacoMike to keep him warm out there in the windy madness of Chicago.  I'm using Misty Alpaca Chunky and let me tell you, such softness!  I found the very manly pattern on a knitting blog for a yarn shop out in Philly -- can't link to it yet cause I don't want PTM to see the scarf pattern before he gets his -- but that blog led me to several other patterns I am also working on -- some new scarves with lovely silk and beaded yarn and a lap blanket for the Slacker (in dark colors, of course). The yarn for the blanket is organic cotton, perfect for the Bay Area. I liked the Misty Alpaca so much that I got some for myself and am knitting another scarf for myself.  When I'll ever have cause to wear such a warm scarf, I have no idea.

This here is my MacBook Air Cozy.  One thing I do have to say about this was my seaming at the bottom kicked ass. I'd say very nearly perfect.  I also really dig the pico edge I did after the couple of inches of seed stitch. Gives it a nice finish.


This one is the Kindle Cozy I made the Slacker.  I was trying for a much different pattern, but I didn't plan out well, and this is what I ended up with.  I'm not really happy with it, but the Slacker likes it, so I guess it will do for now.  When I find another yarn I like I'll knit him a new one.  I made myself one in this same yarn, but it's a straight stockinette stitch with just a little change towards the top edge where I did a couple of rows of seed stitch before going back to stockinette for the final inch before bind-off.


Here's Slacker's MacBook Air Cozy.  The yarn I used was a much lighter weight -- really a sock yarn -- so the stitches are much finer.  I really loved the variegated blue yarn and it worked up beautifully.


Here's some pics of works-in-progress...

This one is a scarf I'm making with the scrumptious beaded silk yarn noted above (I purchased several colors so I could make one for a few of the girls). Below that is a pick of the 3 other yarn colors.




This one is another scarf in the same pattern as the above but using the Misty Alpaca Chunky.


And this one is Slacker's blanket in progress. I'm using just four colors and I'm planning on 3 repeats of those colors (though the size is off from the pattern, which will require me buying 4 more skeins of yarn). I'm thinking the middle repeat will have more rows of the pattern, maybe 8 or 10 depending on how much yarn I have.


My hands have not been idle.

Amidst all the above, I've done a little bit of socializing and relaxing, but nothing exceptional.

Oh, I am changing jobs, too.  I asked to transition from my position as the Director of the Project Management Office to a newly created position of Sr. Systems Analyst.  I decided I didn't want to keep doing the project management stuff.  I'm hoping the new position will give me a chance to get back to doing some more technical things. We'll see how that pans our over time.  I'll be in the programming/dba group and my main focus is to be the go-between between our functional users and our technical team.

So, there's my update.  I can only hope this will satisfy my impatient readers.

Ciao!

Avoid Migraine Medicine Late in the Day

Okay, note to self: do not take migraine meds (in this case the basic over-the-counter Excedrin for Migraines) late in the day. My migraine is gone, but the 65mgs of caffeine -- which doesn't seem like much to me -- has me totally wired. For the past three and a half hours I have been tackling a whole host of work related tasks. I started out just planning to do some quick project updates, but then I kept going, and going, and going, like the proverbial Energizer Bunny. I have, however, been extremely productive. But I might have also added a bunch of tasks to my Toodledo list. I will not look at it any more tonight and tackle it tomorrow instead.

I've got American Idol playing in the background, while I wait with baited breath to see who will get booted. I am surprised to say that the first two folks Ryan pulled out as in the bottom three where not from my list of poor performers. It is very stressful. LOL.

My elbow continues to improve slowly. I have a two-week hiatus between PT appointments while my physical therapist is out of town. I've been off-and-on with my stretching, but I am trying to remember to stretch the arm as much as I can during the day. I hope when I see her on Monday that there will be some improvement despite my minor slacking.

Hoping to see Watchmen this weekend. Will post a review if I do.

Update: oops, just realized I took two of those Excedrins, so that's 130mgs of caffeine! According to a Yahoo Answers! response, that's more than the caffeine in two cans of Mountain Dew and just a little less then that in two cans of Jolt! Eeek and Eee Gads! I swear I'm blinking only four times a minute right now! LOL. Please let my new SleepStream iPhone app work tonight!

Flick: Slumdog Millionaire

So, my friend/neighbor and I went to have a New Years Day coffee this afternoon and decided we'd take in a flick. After pursuing the options via my little iPhone app, Flixster, we opted on Slumdog Millionaire. Neither of us knew anything about the film, though Amy thought she had heard good things. The brief description sounded appealing and fun, and the timing was right, so we decided to give it a go.

It was a really good film and not at all what we expected. First of all, I wouldn't exactly call it fun, per se. The premise is that a young man, who grew up in the slums of Mumbai, has made it to the Indian equivalent of So You Want to be a Millionaire, but how is it this came to pass? So the film unfolds with the telling. As you can imagine, growing up in the slums of Mumbai doesn't necessarily bring out the laughs and fun -- though there are some truly wonderful moments as we witness, in an almost voyeuristic way, how this boy and his brother survive. All I have to say on that is if you ever visit the Taj Mahal, keep your shoes with you. Anyway, the film has intense moments, tender moments, love, loyalty, faith, hope and despair all piled in together. I highly recommend the film.

In terms of reading, still haven't done much. You'd think being at home as much as I am these days I'd find time to read, but my efforts so far haven't been very rewarding. I can only seem to keep my attention on the book for so long before I fling it down. Maybe I'll try another book...

A Chill 4th

I had a pretty nice and chill 4th of July this year. While the usual suspects were enjoying the great outdoors up at Lake Siskiyou, I stayed in the city just in case anything happened during our data/voice cutover. Nothing happened - went smooth as can be, I'm relieved to say (good job, team!), and I didn't have to put my feet on campus once over the weekend (at least as of now).

And for your viewing pleasure, John at the Lake Siskiyou camp ground in 2005 -- just a taste of what I missed out on this year...


Suie sure has a charmer in that John... :-)

On the 4th, Mojo, K and I went to the Park Chalet for a mid-afternoon meal with fun conversation and cocktails. I hadn't seen K in a long time and the three of us had some fun chats -- like, what would you be willing to change if you were in a relationship? Yikes. I won't go there again and the replies are safe with me, for now. We then went to see Hancock, which was fun, until the end, which was a bit too much. We ended the day at K's loft in the C of O. Mark Z came over and the 4 of us went to Jack London Square to watch the fireworks -- sweet -- and then spent the next 3.5 hours playing word games. That was actually a lot of fun. Mark Z has the vocab down -- seriously.

Today I spent with the Slacker just chillin before heading over to G's place for dinner.

All in all, a nice weekend so far.

Oh, and I was introduced to The Wire by the Slacker and now want to watch the whole first season back to back. Sigh. The tiny obsessive bit of nature rearing its ugly head.