The Knitting Penguin

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Lazy weekend

Yeah, not a bad one, though. Zach and I have spent a lot of time playing on the computers, I did some cleaning, folding some laundry (which is good, because it's almost time to do it again! That's about how my laundry cycle runs...). Good weekend overall. I have to say, I think the biggest accomplistment of the weekend was getting pictures of Joey on a sunny afternoon. Thanks to some good advice from bunny-lovin' folk over at Ravelry, I paid more attention to the natural light as I was taking pictues of him. Which meant I didn't have to use the flash. Which meant he didn't have demon-bunny redeye! Woohoo! The world can now see his big brown eyes for what they are!

Behold, world! Observe the cuteness that is the bunny! (Yes, I love my little buns!)

I'd use this advice on Frank too (our Siamese cat at Mom's house) because we've been trying to get pictures of his pretty blue eyes for years! That's actually the source of his name, Ol' Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra. Unfortunately, being a cat and all, if it's nice and bright out, our Frank has got his eyes tightly shut sleeping in a sunny spot! Silly kitten :)

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Belated FO Friday

So, I didn't finish this 'til this afternoon, but it's still close enough that I can still call it a Friday FO, can't I? At anyrate, Dishcloth #3 is finished! Honestly couldn't tell what this one was at first. Could tell I'd followed the pattern correctly and that it was supposed to be something; I just couldn't tell what. It was like looking at a Magic Eye :) I looked on the Dishcloth KAL page, though, and everyone was referring to it as the Candybox, and then I saw it. It's a heartshape, with the bow tied in the middle, like a candbox! 'Course it didn't help that I was looking at it on the 'wrong' side (where the picture didn't 'pop' quite as strongly).

But it's done, and I've kept up nicely with the KAL so far this year. I am determined to finish all 24! I've plenty of cotton, and will be needing both dishclothes and washclothes (however I decide to use them), so it's not like I'm making something totally useless, right? :) I just want to follow through and keep up with it, y'know? It helps if I've got some way to check myself, and in this case, it's electronically! Between Ravelry and the blogs, I can see that I'm following through :)

Friday, February 8, 2008

'Nuff Said!

It actually wasn't a bad week, especially since all the managers were out today at a regional managerial planning meeting. Nice and quiet in the office today! Still, it's always good when Friday comes around! Have a good weekend all!

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Reason I Hate My Job #1864

Equipment.

To understand why this is as bad as it is, let me provide a little background information. I work in an environmental & engineering consulting firm. Part of my duties within the environmental department include helping out with soil and/or groundwater sampling at sites with suspected contamination (old gas stations, dry cleaners, former mills, etc). A device used in all this is a photoionization detector (PID). We use a PID in the field to measure levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs - gas, diesel, dry cleaning fluids, etc) in the soil or groundwater. Gives us an idea what levels are like before sending the samples to the lab to be analyzed.

Why is this a gripe about my company? Because for the longest time, they wouldn't buy us a new one. They always acted surprised when we complained about it - apparently the old one worked just fine.

Riiiiiight.

The old one was a relic from the 70s, had a vague dial for a read-out display, and the cable connecting the meter to the sensor was held together by electrical tape. Although, it did have a convenient shoulder carry strap! Don't believe me? Check out the pictures below, as Amy models our lovely antique.

Now, here is our new one. It's a convenient hand-held model, digital read-out, and about a billion times more accurate than the old one. Can connect it to the computer and download all your data right away, all sorts of fun little tricks Mr. PID can do. This one here is our new one that Amy bought for us. Reached the point that we kept renting a unit, and it was coming out to be more expensive to keep renting it!

So that's the new toy. Yes, we do have a good PID now, but the run-around we had to get to have it approved was ridiculous. Now, if our engineering department had wanted it, you can bet it wouldn't have been nearly such a hassle for them. Just a bit of bitterness there. Only a touch.

What happened to the old PID? Amy wanted to send it to the Museum of Jurassic Technologies in CA (yes, there is such a place), but we ended up getting rid of it in the massive storage room clean-out last week.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

WIP Wednesday

Thought I'd forgotten again, didn't you? Last Wednesday was too rough a day (heck, last week was bad, not just last Wednesday) and I forgot to post on knitting either on Monday or Friday. I know, I know. But hey - I remembered this week!

This is the latest dishcloth in the KAL. I'm only about 1/2-way through. And I can't tell what it is!! An anchor? An arrow? It's driving me nuts! But in a good way... It's like Christmas - the anticipation, what's it gonna be?? Fun! :)

Also OTN (only the active ones, of course):

Square Cake - a little white purse, using some of the leftover white cotton from I Do - been working on this one since New Year's, and it's not a hard pattern, but I just go so slowly with DPNs...
The red ripple scarf that I've been working on since Fall (the VT-W&M football game!) - almost done with it though!
A shrug with the bright ladder yarn pictured below; no pictures of the work itself yet - I'll try and get some more done on the shrug by next Wednesday and post pictures of it then - basically, yet another light shrug to wear with LBD :) My evening dress-up clothes are mostly black and sleeveless, so I like having all the options for wraps and shrugs to bring in some color to the outfit!

And finally, I leave you with a picture of Piglet, because here today, we had a very blustery day as well. That big ol' storm front rolled through today, brought tons of rain (which we need) and cooled the place off, and brought some strong winds in as well. Explains why my knees were aching all day. Stupid arthritic knees! I've got Old Man Weather Knees, and I'm only 25!!! Anyway, as they say, It's Wiiiiiindsday today!

Nerd-powers, activate!

Yes, I'll admit it. I'm a comic dork. I like comics, cartoons, anime, was heartbroken when Batman was ruined in "Batman & Robin" and rejoiced in "Batman Begins." I. am. a. dork.

But I'm not going down alone! So is Anne!

Thankfully (or at least, such as we tell ourselves), we're the type of comic dork which can still blend with the general public, not like the Comic Guy in the Simpsons, or anything like that. And we still get a kick out of the attention we can gather going into a comic shop :) The dorkage lies deep, but is definitely there!

So, following that public declaration of geek-dom, I'm sharing this series of blog posts with other folk who might find it funny. Enjoy! These are hilarious. (And thank you, Casey from Ravelry, for first posting them!)

Truly they are wise.

So, I've discovered Photobucket is actually pretty good for finding icons and such for pages, blogs, etc. I don't like it so much for organization for my own pictures (still prefer snapfish or Flickr for that) but I like PB for finding things like Happy New Year pictures, or Valentine's Day, or bookworm pictures, etc. Good general-purpose stuff.

Anyway, in all that image-browsing, I found this bit of sage advice from the penguins. I'd seen the picture, but hadn't seen it captioned, and I like it. Sort of the Do-Something-Each-Day-That-Scares-You philosophy, which, honestly, I could use a bit more of in my life. And even better, it's penguins!!