One Crazy Fiber Lady

Well even if it isn’t Wednesday, I think this will be a very random posting.

1.¬† Alex is still sick.¬† Tuesday he spent the day fever free.¬† Yay.¬† This meant he could go to school on Wednesday and I could go back to the office.¬† It happened.¬† Then yesterday he woke up, kinda whiney but cool.¬† I dragged him and his sister off to school.¬† He whimpered the entire ride, which really is only about 3 miles so it could have been way worse.¬† All right, I’m no mother of the year.¬†¬† I got a call from mom at about 11 that she heard from his teacher, he was running 102F, and that she was on her way to get him.¬† I left work early, met up with Jessica on the train, picked up Kat at daycare and then dad at a different train station further down the same line.¬† Oy.¬† The Logistics!¬† So, Kat is at school today, and Alex is at home with mom.¬† Again, I have to leave work early to get her.¬†

2.¬† I got a new cell phone having been lured by a decent plan at Sprint.¬† I’ve had T-Mobile now for a couple of years and while it was okay, nothing to really write about.¬† A coworker has been chipping away at me to go to the Sprint deal since shortly after starting here.¬†¬† I finally caved and free unlimited data was the final kicker.¬† I got me a new HTC Mogul telephone which runs Windows Mobile (really geeky in that I can develop my own software for it ¬† The downside is that I’m going through a bit of hell trying to port my number over from T-Mo.¬† Been on the phone with Sprint for almost 2 hours over as many days trying to get it straight.¬† One less than helpful CSR told me they couldn’t port the number because it was still active.¬† Um.¬† Wrong.¬† Thankfully I knew better and didn’t run off to call T-Mo and cancel my account.¬† I’m still hopeful it will all work out eventually, but in the meantime, I now have my old number forwarded to the new Sprint number.¬† Incidentally, the phone is pretty darn cool

3.¬† I don’t know about everyone else, but I just LOVE online tracking of shipments.¬† I placed an order for a microSD card (for the new phone) and a memory upgrade kit for my iMac.¬† The company shipped it FEDEX.¬† I LOVE how Fedex routes stuff.¬† Take a look at this interesting routing.¬†

4.¬† Getting geekier now for a quick bit. Sorry.¬† There will be a fiber-y reward if you make it through the next bit.¬† I promise.¬† For those who are still using Windows based computers and haven’t been lured to MacWorld yet because of the fear of not being able to run essential software (not including the intensive games) because they either don’t want to buy Mac equivalents or there aren’t any, there is a solution.¬†¬† Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac (Intel Mac).¬† I mentioned it before I believe, but now here is a real world example.¬† The development suite that I primarily use is Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and with it, write web and windows based applications.¬† While there is an attempt at making a runtime environment for the Mac for the .NET framework, this isn’t a complete solution as not all the libraries are available, blah blah and Microsoft has not yet released a version of Studio for the¬†Mac (nor do I ever expect¬†them to).¬†No other solution and a great example of why someone wouldn’t make the switch to the Mac.¬† Aha.¬†

Enter Parallels.¬† This nifty piece of software allows me to have what is essentially another computer running on my iMac, and this one is Windows XP based.¬† Sounds good?¬† Gets better.¬† It isn’t some odd dual booting scenario where if I want to¬†run Studio and happen to be surfing with Safari under Mac, I don’t have to shut down everything, restart the computer and select a different operating system when starting back up.¬†¬†Cool huh?¬†¬†Starting up Parallels and¬†the familar Windows XP logo shows up and I have¬†a full fledged, network recognized, windows based puter running at the same time.¬†¬†Now this can run in a single window¬†like a remote desktop, but¬†this is where Coherence enters the picture.¬†¬†Applications running on the windows¬†”computer” can appear¬†as if they were natively running on the¬†Mac.¬† ¬†Behold….

Here is a screen Grab of my actual desktop one day on my iMac.¬† At the bottom of the picture you can see both the Mac Dock and the Windows Taskbar.¬† Cool enough.¬† But cooler are the actual applications that are running.¬† The foremost window is Mac’s Finder.¬† The one under it is the aforementioned Visual Studio with the beginnings of an application (win mo no less .¬† All seriously good slickness if you ask me.¬† They run seamlessly together, you can cut and paste between the two, etc.¬† The only thing that gives away that they are running on different OS’s is the frame, Windows’ apps look like Windows’ apps, and Mac apps look like Mac apps.¬† I couldn’t recommend it more!

5.¬† And now for the fiber-y reward for those of you who managed to make it this far.¬† I’ve been playing with the CSM and the gloss is coming off the machine a bit for me.¬† I have super narrow feet, measuring in at a whopping 7.25″ circumference.¬† I’m having difficulties getting the socks narrow enough from the CSM.¬† If I dial up the tension to get more stitches to the inch, the machine doesn’t work right, skipping LOTS of needles and making a huge mess.¬† Switching to the 54 cylinder has helped somewhat but still the socks off there are still too large.¬† Compare the Regia Kaffe Fasset sock that I did on the 54 this week with a sock I started yesterday on the train (Tempted in Roxanne for the curious, US0 – 56St):

Notice the huge gauge difference.¬† My handknit is about 9st/in and the CSM comes in at @6or so.¬† Ugh.¬† I’m not sure where to go from here or to branch out and start selling grown up normal sized socks

In more satisfying knitting, I tossed aside that no-pattern top down raglan last night at SnB as being a seriously boring knit in favor of something else.  This SnB is bad for the stash knitting   Anyway, I was tempted by something else.  Enter Fitted Knits and the Boatneck Bluebell, which Jessica happened to be wearing.  I went scouring the Cascade cubes at the store and narrowed down the color with the help the ever wonderful SnB ladies to the orange-y heather of the Quatro.  Love that 220.  I cast on.  I took this picture on the train this morning.

Mmmmmm.  So far so good

Craft on!