Challenge Complete!

Finished my last dishcloths! (Yeah, work's still veeeeeery quiet - at least they'll be fixing my server at work on Monday, though... only 3 weeks after it went out...)
So, here you go, to finish up the year:

October mid-month - Autumn's Country Quilt.

There's an allover diamond pattern in this one. Hard to see the diamonds in there with the business of the variegated yarn, but they're there! Have several quilting friends, and Zach and I each have a quilting relative, so I can see this pattern being used again in one form or another. :)

November - Native American.

Reminds me a lot of a high school mascot near where I grew up (that's why it's in light blue - KHS colors are blue & red)

December - Grandma's Favorite Snowman.

I made this one twice, since the written directions had an error or two in there - ended up looking like my snowman was melting! Very frustrating. The green one was made looking at the chart, though, and came out very nicely.

December mid-month - Doily-style Poinsettia.

LOVE LOVE LOVE this one. Have actually already made a second one of these, and it's blocking now. Course I'm a sucker for spirally lace projects :) The second picture is me holding it up to the window, all nice and backlit, so you can see the lace pattern in it - yes, I was playing - yay for negative space! ;)

You can see all of my dishcloths from this year here at the Monthly Challenge blog. Be forewarned though - if you click on the main blog page over there, it'll take a while to load (LOTS of pictures).

Review: Yojimbo

Up this week: Yojimbo.

The plot is relatively simple. A wanderer comes into a town split by rival gang factions. He keeps himself outside the action and plays them against each other, eliminating both elements and freeing the town. Sound familiar? It was remade as Fistful of Dollars by Sergio Leone, starring a then-up-and-comer named Clint Eastwood. Ring any bells? ;)

The story is actually based on a Dashiell Hammitt story "Red Harvest," published in 1929 with an American P.I. as the lead. In Kurosawa's version, the story is set in medieval Japan, and the wanderer is a ronin, a samurai without a master to serve. He's really rather an anti-hero. At the beginning especially, the ronin seems out for all he can take. You don't see how he's setting them against each other, just how he's trying to sell himself as a sword-for-hire to the highest bidder. Toshiro Mifune is wonderful as the ronin. Steals almost every scene he's in! You never really know how heroic the ronin is, or if it's all a game to him because he was bored. He just seems so amused by all that's happening in the town. And Mifune is one of the best at the scruffy, anti-hero, too-cool-for-words sort of character! His expressions are priceless, and he has a presence that is felt throughout the movie. It's so hard to imagine anyone else in that role. Mifune worked with Kurosawa on many movies, and they made a great pair.

Kurosawa created a great action movie, with surprisingly little action. The movie has a lot of build-up and suspense, leading up to the important action, which take up relatively little screen time. There's a lot of dark humor, and the result is a highly entertaining film. If you don't like subtitles, deal with it - this movie is worth seeing!

Like a lot of Kurosawa's films, Yojimbo influenced a lot of other movie makers. Watching this movie, set in medieval Japan, complete with Japanese sentiments and culturalisms, you can still see how easily it translated to an American Western. The deserted street scenes, dust blowing on the wind as scared townsfolk shut their doors and windows while the duelists gather... Just in Kurosawa's version, the duelists carry swords, not six-shooters. :)

Overall: 5 of 5. If you've never seen a Kurosawa movie, this is the one to start with. (The Seven Samurai, also starring Mifune, is excellent as well, but very long). Highly entertaining on it's own, and a must for movie buffs.

Z is for...

Zach!

Yeah, didn't have to think hard about this letter. :) Very convenient that my husband's name starts with Z (made it one less letter that I had to worry about!) AND 'Z' conveniently lines up with our 1 year anniversary (yes, we're still relatively newlyweds).

Nothing long and sappy for this one, just a good picture of him :) This picture is actually from before we met, when he and his folks were visiting Arches National Monument a handful of years ago (2003?). Still one of my favorite pictures of him.

Merry Christmas!

Yup, all I'm gonna post today :) I'll have pictures up this weekend, though!

Massive Knitting Update :)

I've been knitting like crazy recently. Have a lot of dishcloths to catch up on by New Year's Eve, am trying to finish Abrazo, and I'm still plodding away on the baby blanket (why do those things take so LONG??) It's worked out really nicely, actually, that I've had knitting time at work too, since the snow kept everyone at home for a while, besides knocking out my Internet and e-mail at work, and almost the entire post population is out of town for the holidays (seriously, who'd stick around here over Christmas if you didn't have to!?). The result is a very quiet work place, with plenty of time to knit in the afternoon after my day's work is done. So, here you go, the results of my hard labor:

From left to right:
Love to Knit (July), Redbud Leaf (August), and Elvish Leaves (mid-August).

Ironically, I didn't like the Love to Knit dishcloth at all. The pattern took too much focusing, besides taking extra concentration to make sure lefty-me didn't get it backwards. And it was just a HUGE dishcloth. I think it's the widest one we've done this year. (That's why it's striped - I ran out of the color I was working in). I like Redbud Leaf a lot. I'm not usually a fan of the picture dishcloths (like Love to Knit). I prefer the all-over pattern ones - much easier mindless knitting, good for TV watching. If every line is changing each time, you're spending more time counting stitches. Redbud Leaf was a good one, though. Nice and simple pattern, and a pretty, clean design at the end. Speaking of allover patterns, I like Elvish Leaves too. Not exactly mindless, with all the arcs, but still enough repetition within the rows to make it more relaxing. And it's pretty when it's done too :)

And again, from left to right:

Schoolhouse (September), Woven Cables (mid-September), and Frankenstein's Monster (October).

Schoolhouse is cute - could definitely see making it for some teacher friends I know. I really liked Woven Cables. I like cables anyways, and as a dishcloth, this one will be nice and scrubby (good texture). Frankenstein's Monster is actually pretty cute. He even has little stitches (took me a few moments looking at the final picture to figure out what those extra lines were!).

One more time, left to right ... well, there's only one on this row :)
Illusion Candy Cane (mid-November). I like illusion patterns, I'm finding. Fun stuff.

And Abrazo, which is all in one piece and off the needles, but awaiting all those finishing touches, like weaving in ends and the crochet trim around the edges. Should have all that done, and hopefully some pictures taken by this time next week:

No new pictures of the baby blanket, as it looks much the same as it did when I last posted about it :\ Still, it's coming along, though!

Y is for...

Yarn!

Couldn't go through the whole year without this knitting-related one! This is a pile of yarn that I took a picture of just because - no reason really. I was sorting my stash, trying to organize it :)

I've been knitting since I was about 10, when my grandmother taught me. I didn't pick it up seriously until I hit college about 8 years later :) Definitely stuck that time! I'm getting better all the time (isn't that always the goal?) and I love trying new things, but I also like instant gratification projects. Little bit of everything. I don't like color work so much, mostly because I'm very lazy about knitting in ends - so annoying. I like lace work and cables though - nice textured patterns :)

I'm not a yarn snob, mostly because I can't afford it. That's a side effect when you start knitting in college - you start knitting with a college budget! I don't mind the acrylics now, though I usually try to go for nicer acrylics (like Jiffy or Simply Soft, instead of basic Red Heart) or the inexpensive acrylic blends (Wool-Ease, etc). If I can afford nicer yarns, I try to splurge once in a while, since those yarns are just soooo nice! Sale shopping is key! I've been trying to work through my stash this year, though. My downfall in stash-building, is that I do buy yarn with specific projects in mind, not so much the straight-out impulse buys. The problem with that is that I knit slower than my stash builds up! As a result, I have a queue of projects waiting to be tackled! So, gonna keep trying to go through them (and probably keep that resolution going next year too, now that we're getting close to that time of year!). But, still gotta admit, I loves me yarn!

X is for...

Xing! Tank Xing 'round here :)

(I know it's hard to see in the picture, but the road says Tank Xing)

I live on an Army post, home to a Cavalry unit. Nowadays, obviously, cavalry isn't horses, but tanks and the like. So, to accommodate the tanks rolling around out there in them thar' hills, there are tank crossing signs along the main road leading into post. Rather a funny thing to get used to when I got here back in March (I'm a little more used to signs for deer and schoolchildren). The kicker, though, is that they use a lot of different pictures of tanks on all these signs!! The ones below are just a sampling. Makes me smile :)

(Sorry this post took so long. I've known what I wanted to post for X since we moved here, but hadn't had a chance to take the pictures I wanted until recently! Kinda held up my alphabet...)

Review: Quantum of Solace

Wow, haven't done a movie in a while! Have a few that I want to chatter about, though, so here's the first (I'll space out the others as we go along). Let's hit it off with Quantum of Solace.

Plot? Bond, James Bond. 'Nuff said. Yeah, there's some stuff about South American dictators and environmental asset control, and a secret organization that sounds something along the lines of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. from the older Bonds, but really, it's all about Bond.

Daniel Craig has officially won me over as Bond. My favorite Bond is still Sean Connery, and I like both Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan in the role, but Craig is definitely movie up the list of my favorite Bonds. I had first seen him in Sharpe's Eagle as a bad guy. Yes, an outright villain, and a reeeeeally creepy one at that. And heading into Casino Royale, that was the only image I had of him, not having seen anything else he'd done. So, was pleasantly surprised with how he handled the role. I wasn't opposed to him for the blond thing (apparently a LOT of fans were outraged by the idea of a blond Bond). Never really bothered me. I just couldn't shake the image of creepy Lt. Berry for a while. But, he has totally shaken that role and I approve of the current Bond. My favorite Bonds are the ones that aren't quite so campy (translation: not most of the Roger Moore ones, Thunderball, etc), so Craig's movies fit in beautifully with my Bond taste. Bond should have some dry humor, but not over the top punning, should look equally beautiful in a tailored suit and kicking bad-guy butt, and be rather cold and suave and aggressive and aloof and charismatic (yeah, I know, big shoes to fill). Craig: Check, check and check.

As a Bond movie, this is a good one. I've been very pleased with both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. I guess it's the current production team? Any good action movie should have enough plot to keep things moving along, but not so involved that you lose track of who's who. This, being a continuation of Casino Royale, has Bond still brooding over Vesper's death and betrayal. His way of finding peace? Kick bad-guy butt. It's very helpful therapy for him, then, that Vesper's death was tied to her connection with big-bad-secret criminal society. Gives Bond lots of bad guys to go after. He has a few tender moments too - another friend's death, some moments thinking of Vesper. I have liked the more human moments in the most recent Bond movies (like the scene in the shower in Casino Royale). I like it in the same way I like the newer Batman movies - still good action movies to the core, focused on beating up bad guys and saving the world even if the world doesn't know or appreciate, but with enough brooding angsty-ness to round out the lead. Makes Bond a little more than a martini-sipping, fast-car-driving, gun-slinging lust machine. Don't worry though - all that stuff's still there too :)

The action scenes were both really good and really frustrating. Some of them were awesome. I loved the last shot of the one where he's hanging upside down in the rope - great shot. But some were edited oddly - very close, very fast cuts. Made it harder to tell what was happening in the scene. In the opening chase scene, for example, it was hard to tell who was chasing whom, or really what was going on. And it didn't help that both cars were dark! Get a few scratches and busted windows on them, and a dark grey car and a black car are EXTREMELY hard to tell apart!

For Bond girls, Camille (played by Olga Kurylenko) was probably one of my favorites. She can hold her own in the fight scenes, and actually didn't hop into bed with Bond! I think that makes her unique in the realm of Bond girls. And no horrible "I thought Christmas comes just once a year" puns. Yes, Christmas Jones was one of my least favorite Bond girls - Denise Richards is just NOT believable as a Nuclear Physics PhD!!

The opening theme was unique. I thought the song was OK (a first for me - not usually a fan of Jack White) but it wasn't as slinky as a lot of Bond themes are. Just a thought.

Overall: 5 of 5. Good action, good cars, good gadgets, good suits. One of the better Bonds.

Any movie buffs out there?

Here's a quiz to test your knowledge of movie posters. Identify the movie based on the font used in the title. It's really interesting how many fonts are so recognizable, so iconic.

Give it a go!

It was interesting too, for me to see how many fonts were identifiable within a genre (It's an action movie, but which? It's a comic book movie, but which one?). But then, I'm a movie junkie, so things like this entertain me :)

Oh, and I got 15, if anyone's looking for a score to beat. ;)

Craziness!!!

IT SNOWED TODAY! And not the wimpy flurries that don't stick - we actually had several inches accumulate!

In case you've missed it the past 9 months, I live in the desert, an area not particularly know for snowfall :) It was a real kick to see palmettos and palm trees covered in snow!

A friend and I were so excited - a season!! Here in the desert, a season! (One of my biggest frustrations here is that it always looks the same: brown) It was very exciting to see the snow covered trees and the big fat flakes coming down. Our road has lots of families on it, and by the time I got home, there were two little snowmen decorating our street - so cute!

Living here on post, I could enjoy the snow. The weather created some problems for those living down in Town, though, because they didn't know if the 30-some mile road to post would be cleared by the time everyone went home at the end of the work day (it was; everyone made it home). In my own way, though, I did have to be careful and plan ahead for tomorrow. I had to sweep walkways clear (we don't have a shovel), so that it's not a complete icy mess at my facility in the morning. When I took this job, the last thing I expected my job duties would include was sweeping snow off the deck and sidewalks - I actually had a regular patron at our facility stop and take a picture of me, she was so tickled seeing me out there! :) (The one below I took myself, though!)

Vacation Pt 4: Eastern NV State Parks

After leaving Cedar Breaks, it truly was just road tripping! We took the long way back to 15 from Cedar Breaks, going into Nevada and down on all these state and US highways, instead of just getting on 15 at Cedar City. Neither of us had ever been in that area of the country, so decided to see what was there - planned the trip just looking at the map, seeing if there was anything interesting to stop at on the side of the road (scenic overlooks, historical monuments, etc.). Once we crossed into Nevada, we found that there were several state parks all pretty conveniently located near each other.

The first park we stopped at was Cathedral Gorge. Much fun! There's a whole series of slot canyons at Cathedral Gorge that they refer to as caves. The "caves" really aren't - most of them don't meet at the top. They are really very narrow, very steep canyons which are VERY fun to play in. :) They'd make great chimneying, if we'd had the equipment for it. Was fun to just play in too - closest I've been to caving in a while!

We spent the night at Spring Valley, a little further north and little higher elevation. Not much there in the way of hiking - most of the park activity was centered around the resevoir there - lots of focus on fishing instead. You could tell that we were at a higher elevation, though - it got COLD that night!! It was 12 degrees when we woke up in the morning! There was ice all over our tent!!

We actually went for an early morning drive so that we could sit in the heat of the car and thaw. Made me realize I might need a warmer sleeping bag if we keep this up - my 30 degree bag just doesn't cut it when it's 12 out! :) We eventually took a hike as the weather was warming up. Had to peel off tons of layers by the time the hike was over - walked back to the car with an armful of clothes!

The third state park we stopped at was Kershaw-Ryan, just a tiny one, but good for stretching the legs. Had some gorgeous trees changing color, too - bright, bright golden in the sunlight. Just a tiny little park, really, but it was nice place to have a break and a walk on the drive back down to I-15 (this was our last park of the trip).

An interesting side note, we were just south of NV Hwy 50, which has the dubious honor of being "The Loneliest Highway." Back in the day, it was a big stretch on the Pony express route. One of the fliers we picked up at Cathedral Gorge had a bunch of info and stories about riders from the Pony Express - very interesting, actually. The best part was a reprint of an ad used to recruit riders - included a line about "Orphans preferred" (translating to "we don't want to have to notify lots of next of kin"!) Not what you want to see on a job ad!!

Vacation Pt 3: Cedar Breaks National Monument

We had a little Autumn while we were road-tripping, and then Zach felt the need for a little Winter too. Apparently it will get a little cooler still back home at post (down into the upper 30s and 40s as a high) but not enough moisture to get much in the way of snow. Kinda goes with being in a desert, I suppose. :\ So, asking around at Zion, we found that there were a few national parks up into the mountains a little bit north of Zion. Off we went!

Where we went was Cedar Breaks National Monument (a National Monument is a little smaller than a National Park, I guess). Such a pretty spot! Not a big park, not tons of trails, but really pretty, and certainly worth the day trip to visit :) Even better, there we found snow! Cedar Breaks is based around an amphitheater carved out of the mountain - yes, it's called an amphitheater because it's shaped that way. It's a natural formation, just like a man-made amphitheater, only about 3 miles wide and more than 2000 feet deep.

One of the unique features of that area are formations called Hoodoos, isolated crazy-looking pillars. Cedar Breaks has a bunch of them, and Bryce Canyon National Park (a hour and a half or so in the other direction) is known for them - thousands in their amphitheater! Hoodoos form as ridges wear down thinner and thinner, become fins, then eventually form isolated pillars in all sorts of crazy forms. They kinda remind me of cave formations - stalagmites, stalactites, columns - just the cave ones are formed by building up rock, not eroding away. :)

Our favorite point at Cedar Breaks was the Alpine Pond trail. It heads down into the amphitheater to a pond (another creative trail name). What made it so neat was that the trail and mountain side was on the shadier side of the amphitheater, and was more heavily wooded. As a result, it was still pretty snowy along the trail. We found winter!

When we actually got to the pond itself, it was frozen over - thick enough to stand on too!! It was so cool!! Totally new experience for both Zach and I :)

PS - It was really pretty at the pond :)

Vacation Pt 2: More of Zion National Park

We had a couple days at Zion, so did more than just Angel's Landing. However, there was a day when we were a bit sore after Angel's Landing, so we did the scenic drives in the park. There's a big one that stretches from the southern to the eastern entrances. It was a pretty cool drive, too. Zion is turns 100 years old next year, and back in the 1920s, they found they needed that road going through the park. So they built one, and they built the tunnel going through the mountain that the road needed. It's over 1 mile long, and they finished it in 1930! Pretty impressive! It's interesting too, because it opened up the park to travel back in the 1930s, when cars were smaller. Now that we have RVs and tour buses and Monster Cars, the tunnel's a little small. You have to get a permit during the peak season to pass through it with one of those bigger vehicles, and in the off season, they will close the tunnel to one way to allow the big ones through. Interesting how times change. Below is a view of the road leading to the tunnel, as seen from Canyon Overlook.

One of the scenic stops on the scenic drive was Checkerboard Mesa. It's pretty noticeable along the drive there, and pretty interesting. The horizontal lines are cross-bedding common in Zion, but the vertical ones are unique erosion patterns, giving it that checkered look (yes, here are all those geo classes coming out again!) Besides, little east coast kid that I am, I'd never seen a mesa before :)

Another little detour on the scenic drive was Canyon Overlook Trail. More nice views of the canyon, without the perilous drop on Angel's Landing :) This is actually a view over a side canyon which feeds into Zion Canyon itself. Little tiny trail, good place to stretch your legs a little, and get some nice pictures too!

Emerald Pools is a trail loop passing by 3 levels of pools descending down the canyon to the Virgin River (creatively, Upper, Middle and Lower Emerald Pools). They are Emerald Pools because at certain times of year, you see noticable algal growth giving them a greenish hue. It's a very pretty couple miles, not too hard. There's a waterfall descding down from the Middle Pools that is apparently beautiful in the spring. It gets stronger, due to the snow melt in the spring, and becomes one of the Things to See in the park at that time of year. In fall, like when we were there, it's still pretty, just not as impressive :) The picture below is from above the Middle Pool.

Besides Angel's Landing, one of the other famous trails at Zion is the Narrows, which follows the Virgin River upstream through Zion Canyon as it becomes a slot canyon. Very pretty, and apparently another challenging hike. Zach was all set to head up that way a bit, but I shot it down - being November, the water was a little on the chilly side. Still, looks like it's an interesting hike, so we'll just have to find some time to make it back.! Maybe we'll brave the crowds next summer and through-hike the Narrows - the water will feel good, then, right? It's a big park, so I'm sure we would find enough to do to make the trip worthwhile :)

Vacation Pt 1: Zion National Park - Angel's Landing

Our vacation was spent escaping to the outdoors. We both wanted to see seasons, or at least a change of scenery. Things don't really ever change around here, unless you count dropping from 120 degrees in the summer to a chilly 60 now. But really, we don't have leaves changing color (would help if we had trees around here, I suppose) and don't have fall rains or anything like that, so we were both missing the changing of the seasons here.

Solution? Road trip!

The trip started out with several days in Zion National Park, over in Utah. Beautiful area!! Zach had been over there before, but I'd never been, so was very excited to see it all. We started out on our vacation there.

Zion National Park focuses on Zion Canyon, and several feeder canyons that join into it. It's beautiful steep red and white rock and evergreens. This time of year there are lots of trees changing color too, so the colors were great. Red and white up at the top of the canyon with the rocks showing, evergreens on the hillsides, and greens and golds in the canyon floor. Very pretty. See below? That was the view from our campsite - a peak called The Watchman. Like I said, very pretty :)

Lots of really nice hiking too. We were both feeling a bit out of shape (being inactive all summer because of the heat will do that to you) but we still tackled a good number of the trails during the couple days we were there.

Our hardest one was Angel's Landing. It's about 2.5 miles one way, and the first 2 miles are pretty normal. It's still got a good amount of switchbacks, since the elevation change across the whole trail is about 1500 feet. The first ones (the ones on the left) are just winding. The second batch of switchbacks (on the right) are called Walter's Wiggles. These are nuts! It's pretty much a wall of switchbacks going up the cliff face.

All those wiggles get you to Scout's Overlook, which has some nice views of the canyon. Angel's Landing is at a bend in the river along the canyon, so you can see well upriver and down.

From Scout's Overlook, it's another 0.5 mile to Angel's Landing itself. That last bit, though, was honestly the longest half-mile I've ever done! According to the guide, "Strenuous with steep drop-offs and narrow trail. Not for anyone fearful of heights. Ends at summit high above Zion Canyon. Last 0.5 mi (0.8 km) follows a steep, narrow ridge; chains have been added." And no, the italics and bold are not mine - that's how it's printed in the guide. I have never been so scared on a trail. I'm not incredibly fond of heights, but I'm not terrified of them. 'Course, I'd never been on a trail like this either! In the picture below, the chains are about where the trail (and the cliff) end!

The view, though, when you finally get there, is incredible! Makes the panicked breathing on the hike up there worth it :) Here we are at the top...

...and this is what we could see from there!

I'll have a little more about Zion tomorrow, once I get some more pictures sorted :)