One Crazy Fiber Lady

There’s been another cast change for the portable toys.  HTC Incredible is out.  The battery life was dismal.  With mininal use I still had to recharge at the office by 3pm.  Unacceptable.

So now I have the Motorola Droid with actual tactile keyboard.  We’ll see if this helps my dismal texting

Picture included for camera test.

Craft on!

I know its been a bit since I last posted.  It goes without saying that I’ve been busy.  I’ve been knitting and spinning, as well as reading and working.  Not to mention, hot and sweaty.  Been a very decent summer so far.  This July girl does not complain about heat.. well too often that is.  Summer is my season and I don’t wish it gone, at all.  Even though September brings the end of paid for schooling, I’m in no rush to see it come.

A couple of weeks ago, I started knitting Featherweight Cardigan in 100purewool sock weight in a gorgeous blue.  I’m really enjoying working with this yarn.

This has been the perfect commuter project.  A lightweight cardigan that is stockinette makes for excellent reading work.  It has also been good for playing the Sims (which I’m back at for a change), especially during the 10 day west coast Red Sox swing recently.  10PM starts are way too late for me these days.  I just can’t stay up that late anymore :*(  I’m a bit further along on this than the picture indicates.  I’m about a half inch of finishing the bottom ribbing.  I need to dig out the longer needle to do the sleeves.

What’s that under the Featherweight you ask?  I know it came as no surprise when I bought the iPad, so maybe this might.  I loved the iPad, but unfortunately, it did not meet my needs in for portable computing. I found myself having to also carry my netbook (acer aspire one 10”).  Put the iPad together with the netbook and I had a bag that was a big heavier than I really wanted to carry.  I pulled out the druggy scale and discovered that the pair were actually heavier than my MacBook.   Might as well carry that for an all-in-one tech toy. 

But I really didn’t want to carry that much.  So for a bit, I replaced the iPad in the bag with my Kindle 2.  The solution was lighter, however, I was still not happy with the reading of the PDFs.  The netbook screen is too small to read it well and the Kindle 2 does a half hearted job at the PDF with lots of embedded images (and charts) that make up the majority of my tech books.  Which is why I replaced the Kindle with the iPad to begin with as it does the tech pdf very well.  Solution?  The Kindle DX!  Its a great compromise between the weight of the ebook reader with the PDF ability of the iPad.  No games, but I have my phone for that…

Which brings me to the new phone you see.  That is the HTC Incredible from Verizon.  I did go with the Android phone instead of getting a new iPhone.  I’m loving it!  Been a bit of a learning curve as it is an entirely new OS for me, but it is intuitive enough that it hasn’t been overly problematic.  I’ve kept my iPhone to use as a Touch as for some odd reason I don’t like using my phone as an iPod.  Before I got the Incredible, I carried around a separate iPod to listen to.  Amazing how long the battery is now lasting on the iPhone.  I’m impressed with the specs on this new phone and I can’t complain about having an 8MP camera with FLASH on me at all times.  As for developing apps for it?  I’m working towards that.  I’ve got my netbook set up as a development station for it and picked up a book on the subject, which I’ve been reading on the DX   Now to figure out what to do with the old iPods and the Kindle 2.

Yesterday Kat and I visited a new to us yarn store:  Yarn Diva.  I wanted some Malabrigo to knit Adrift in and didn’t have enough of anything in stash.  I’d never been to this store, but had meant to.  I’m sorry I didn’t make the trip earlier.  I loved it!  I do believe I have a new LYS.  They are so friendly and very helpful.  There’s a great selection of what I would consider basic yarns (lace, sock), as well as some of the more designer yarns that appeal to others.  I’m definitely going back there again.

Time to finish the laundry, balance the checkbook and make the necessary lists before heading off to WOOL this week!

Craft on! 

As I approach the end of my two year contract with AT&T, naturally I’m considering the next cellphone.  Do I get the new iPhone 4 or do I try something else?  While I love my iPhone and will keep this 3g around at the end of the contract and use it like a iPod Touch (handy for handing to a bored kid), I’m not sure if I want to replace it with the new iPhone.  I’m not that much of a fangirl that I HAVE to replace the old iPhone with a new one.  Yes it has been a fave tech toy since I bought it almost two years ago.

What am I considering?  The Motorola Droid X.

I read an excellent review of it here.  As a developer, this phone has two advantages for me over the iPhone:

1. Apps are written in Java – which as a C# developer I pretty much already know as opposed to Objective-C which has some similarities but is far more different and is a far bigger learning curve.  While learning yet another language is not a bad thing, I could be up and developing Android apps far faster.
2. The distribution of Droid apps is an open market – not closed like Apple.   I don’t believe I would have to pay $100 to even get the SDK let alone distribute any application I do happen to eventually turn out.
3. Since the language is Java, I could develop apps either on my Macs or a PC, depending on how the mood was flowing and which computer I actually felt like carrying around.  With the iPhone, I was locked into a Mac.  Now this is not necessarily a bad thing as I do heart my Macs, but my netbook is far lighter to schlep carry than my MacBook.

That’s the short list.  I’m sure, given enough time, I can come up with a few more reasons.  On the other hand, I’ve invested a bunch in iPhone apps.  Fortunately, that won’t go to waste as I’m still holding onto the 3G and I’ve got the beloved iPad that can take advantage of all. 

Anyone have an android phone and can offer up advice either way?  I have some time to do further research as my contract ends in early August and the X ships finally in mid-July.  I don’t want to be paying early termination like I did when I made the jump from Sprint to AT&T (though it was worth it for the iPhone).  I wonder if I could get a temporary number from Verizon and then port the old number from AT&T when that contract ends… hmmmm. 

Oh and since the iOS4 update, my battery indicator is flaky.  Unless I reboot the phone, the indicator is pretty much stuck.  Awesome.  Hope that patch fix is soon.

Wait, what is that you’re saying?  This is a crafty blog?  Hmm.  I better show some crafty pictures then post haste!  Would a picture of two different crafts make up for the geektalk above? 

The sock is the Roundabout Socks (rav).  I finished the first one on Saturday and started the second yesterday during my morning commute.  The yarn is mmMalabrigo Sock in Stonechat colorway.

The spinning is ITW Merino-Silk in the Autumn in Burgundy colorway.  I’ve moved to the high speed whorl and bobbins on my Matchless.  I’m going to two ply this stuff and hopefully get enough yardage for a decent lace project.

Okay, that’s all for today.

Craft on!

…{tap} {tap}.. is this thing on?

For someone unknown and unexplainable reason, I’m trying out Windows Live Writer to post.  I know.  Seriously crazy!  What with my undying devotion to my Apple products, not to mention my perfectly good admin interface in Wordpress. 

But there it was, suggestion by a google search this morning on how to better paste code into a textbox on Sharepoint.  I installed it so i could format the script I need to run tomorrow evening changing a bunch of site urls for a customer to make it actually legible for the Operations group to either bless or deny my change request

Who knew it worked with Wordpress.  But then again, I haven’t a clue how well it works.  It seems to be pretty decent, but time will tell.

Since I can’t leave with another text only post, here’s a picture I took of the monkeys last week on the train heading towards Hoboken.

Thursday was my annual office company picnic.  This year it was held in Prospect Park in Brooklyn.  Rather than driving the kids to the picnic as I’ve done in years past, I took them on the train to the office (had a meeting that I had to attend anyway) .  We then left the office with my group and headed to the park via subway.  A long afternoon, followed by two subways and two NJ Transit trains, we made it home by 7:30.  An enjoyable day was had by all.

{I have to admit to being somewhat impressed by this software…but it is only the first post after all.  I reserve the right to hates it down the road.  }

Craft on!

Since my last post, we had halloween!

I started and finished a sweater for the little miss:

Project details are over here.

I started a sweater for me:

Project details are over here.

I started a sweater for the little mister:

Project details for this one are here.

Yesterday, I saw this pattern and just had to make it for my littlest niece.

All this knitting, with the exception of a purchase of a single skein of red yarn for the Monster Butt has been out of stash. ¬†The youngins went shopping in my stash to pick out the colors for the Drive-Thrus. ¬†That sweater remains my absolute favorite pattern for kids. ¬†The yarn I’m using for Eyelet Cardi was added to stash in February to knit another ChicKnits pattern but was redirected to this one.

This morning we got up rather early for a Sunday, got dressed quickly and had some breakfast before heading out to stand in line. ¬†The pediatrician’s office received their requested H1N1 vaccines and scheduled today from 9 to 1 to give the vaccines. ¬†We got there about 9:30 and after an hour wait, wrestled two reluctant kids into holding still and baring their arms, they were inoculated. ¬† This was followed by a trip to the dollar store for a reward for being good. ¬†Ha. ¬†Anyway, the rest of the afternoon has been spent outdoors, enjoying the surprise 66F day.

While the twins did this:

I played with this:

The fiber is BFL from SeeKay in Sunshine Day. ¬†I bought this fiber at the NJ festival in Sept. ¬†As you can see, I’m spinning it on the Kromski Sonata. ¬†She makes a lovely outdoor wheel

When I finished the second bobbin (the first 2oz were spun at Jessica’s house yesterday), I pulled out another project.

Oh yeah, that project was on another wheel  This would be the second half of the 4oz of BFL, also from SeeKay at NJ, but in Rubies.

When that was done, I pulled out yet another spinning project in progress:

Bet you thought it was going to be another wheel ¬†This is the Pumpernickel n Jam batt that I got from Into the Whirled at Rhinebeck on the midi Bosworth spindle also from Rhinebeck. ¬†I’m tired now

Outside the hobbies, I’ve been downright exhausted. ¬†We’ve changed development methodologies at work moving to an Agile system. ¬†Instead of only working on one particular area of the application, I’m now working on things across the entire system regardless of expertise. ¬†It has been like starting a brand new job. ¬†My brain is overloading with all this knowledge! ¬†I come home, have dinner, get the kids in bed and then by 9, I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open. ¬†I’m hoping that as I get experience in the other areas of the app, I’ll be able to stay up like a big girl again. ¬†On top of this, there’s been drama that I just didn’t need. ¬†Oh well.

I’m off to ply the SeeKay singles into some yarn. ¬†The kids picked those rovings for their winter hats for this year. ¬†While it might be 66F today, that will not last much longer!

Craft on!

Yes, I was glum a few days ago. ¬†I’ve adjusted to life without a computer in my bag for a few day. ¬†Sadly the MacBook won’t turn on. ¬†It has an appointment at the Genius Bar tomorrow morning. ¬†Hopefully the damage isn’t too bad (I’m hoping against hope for something simple and cheap… and not the $600 logic board).

All is not bleak and dark now though.  My tax refund hit my checking account this morning.  Have to love direct deposit.  I already did my part to stimulate the economy and bought this:

My new 13.3 2.4Ghz MacBook. ¬†I shall not have an empty bag soon. ¬†I also ordered a RAM upgrade for it from J&R for way less than Apple charges. ¬†We have a new rule about beverages and laptops in my house. ¬†I guess that’s understandable.

Work is going extremely well too! ¬†I finished the development of a component that a partner company is waiting for yesterday, about 5 days ahead of schedule. ¬†Got a “you go” email from my boss. ¬†Yay me.

Mr. Not-s0-Greenjeans is moving right along.  I finished the second sleeve at SnB last night and picked up the buttonband this morning while commuting.  I was ecstatic when I got the same number of stitches on both front pieces the first shot.  I just need to adjust 2 stitches in the next row so that I have the right number for the stitch pattern.  Not bad if you ask me.   I also bought the perfect button for it last night. 

As my SnB buds noted last night, the sweater IRL is way bluer. ¬†The iPhone on the ferry in the morning isn’t capturing the true blue, but dulling it out to a denim-y blue instead. ¬†When it is done, I’ll try to get a good shot with the right light and the big Canon DSLR for ya. ¬†

Have a great weekend!

Craft on!

My geek radar is pinging.  I read about this new app on the elevator this morning and ran to my desk to check it out.

Go.  

I’ve got it already. ¬†

Still nothing on the MacBook, but I took a chance and plugged the power cable in. ¬†Got a faint glimmer of light from it. ¬†I think that’s a good sign. ¬†Its still sitting open and upside down near the central air vent, but not too close. ¬†

Sorry, no knitting progress to report. ¬†Fingers are too damned cold to knit on the train. ¬†On the upside, I was able to finish last week’s Time magazine while riding instead. ¬†

Craft on!

The last couple of days have seen definite Yin-Yang going on in  my life.  

Good:  

I finished the first sleeve for Mr. Not-So-Greenjeans on the way home Friday night.  I just need to get going on the second sleeve.

Even Better:

How far would you drive for a spin in? ¬†Here’s my answer (round trip)

JessaLu invited me to a spin-in at her house and because she said the monkeys could come, I did! ¬†We went up Saturday morning. ¬†Drive took just about 2 hours, which was then followed by many hours of spinning, good nibbles and excellent conversation. ¬†Can’t beat a house full of spinners!¬†We turned it into a slumber party! ¬†I had a blast, as did the kids. ¬†It was awesome to finally meet R. ¬†We went out for lunch on Sunday and from there headed home. ¬†It was a long drive but so worth it! ¬†Thanks Jess for having us.

Another good thing, I finished spinning up the final 8oz of Little Barn merino (first bobbin picture) that I bought in MD last year.

Now you may have noticed that there are no pictures. ¬†That’s the beginning of the bad. ¬†The Yin to the Yang. ¬†While I’d love to blame it all on tech problems, I did have camnesia at the actual spin-in. ¬†But I tried to take a picture of my hosts at lunch on Sunday. ¬†When I pulled out my Elph, it directed me to change the battery pack. ¬†Nice. ¬†I don’t have multiple battery packs for it. ¬†I’ll have to give it a go with the charger, but I’ve noticed reduced times between charging over the last couple of months. ¬†Might be time for a replacement. ¬†That’s one.

Oh-ho you have an iPhone, why didn’t you take picture with that, you might be asking. ¬†Well, when i got into the car Sunday to head to the restaurant, I noticed that my iPhone battery was blinking red. ¬†No prob, i have a car charger. ¬†’Cept it totally ignored the car charger. ¬†Borrowing Jess’ charger was helpful for the ride. ¬†Figured I could charge it up till we left lunch and have enough juice to get home. ¬†No no mon frere, not so fast. ¬†My car’s power ports (lighters for the older among us) are not powered when the car is off. ¬†Sigh. ¬†The phone was busy charging in Jess’ car while we ate. ¬†Ergo, no pictures of the charming hosts. ¬†That’s two.

I brought my MacBook with me over the weekend. ¬†Nothing surprising as it is usually with me. ¬†Fits nicely in that rice bag I bought about a month ago at Modern Yarn. ¬†I pulled it out to play with it at Jess’ and had awful trouble staying connected to her wifi. ¬†I’ve had periodic issues at home, but nothing like this. ¬†Ever notice how hard it is to Google for an answer when you can’t stay connected? ¬†ARG! ¬†I lost about 2 hours to the fight to get it working Sunday morning. ¬†In the end, I couldn’t get it to stay on her router. ¬†I did turn up that there was a problem with Leopard (10.5.3+) and wifi. ¬†I thought this was three, but I was premature.

Upon arriving home on Sunday, after unpacking and saying hello to the folks (who had been out at my sister’s in PA for the weekend), I settled down to work on the MacBook. ¬†I was in a bit of luck. ¬†Both the MacBook and my iMac were having trouble connecting. ¬†Not surprising, they were both running the same OS and both using Wifi. ¬†Long story short, got them both fixed by rolling back the wifi kext to the 10.5.2 version. ¬†Not a grand solution, but I’m having no problems connecting, nor staying connected now. ¬†Further pissing me off while fighting with that was the DVR was totally ignoring the remote and wouldn’t let me turn on anything. ¬†I got back at it, turned off the damn TV and turned on iTunes. ¬†So there. We won’t go into my mucking up the Sims 2 install on the MacBook because I was being dopey. ¬†I trashed it all and reinstalled (with the no-dvd patch) it but lost all my saves. ¬†Oh well, was getting tired of that family and house ¬†I started a new one.

I’m pretty sure I’d put the snow on the bad side of the ledger. ¬†We all know my distaste for the stuff. ¬†At least the folks were home and i didn’t have to snowblow ¬†The kids’ daycare was closed due to the snow yesterday and I worked from home. ¬†I had been working at my desk on my MacBook. ¬†I ran downstairs for a minute, leaving Kat in my room. ¬†She came downstairs to get me because she’d spilled some water on my desk while trying to play Tux Paint on my iMac. Oh yeah, the spill was on my computers. ¬† I grabbed a kitchen towel and went running upstairs to find a puddle with ice on the keyboard of the MacBook and a now half empty water glass next to it. ¬†I pulled the power cable off and thats about when it shut down. ¬†I hope I didn’t short anything out when it switched to battery. ¬†Sigh. ¬†I turned it over and massive amounts of water poured out of the keyboard. ¬†I took it apart (excellent instructions on the net for doing that!) and dried it with both a towel and a hair dryer on cool.

Want to know what the inside of a MacBook looks like?

and the underside of the keyboard…

I reassembled it, but the light on the power cord doesn’t come on when I plug it in. ¬†I’m have a faint glimmer of hope that a few days sitting unmolested will allow it to dry out fully and turn back on. ¬†

Having now sold my netbook to my mother, and the macbook out of commission, I have no little puter to schlep with me. ¬†Might get some knitting done during my commutes now as Jess joked last night. ¬†I had been planning on getting one of the snazzy new 13″ aluminium MacBooks with my tax refund (due to hit Friday!!!!!). ¬†The downside is that I had a prospective buyer for this one.

I’m starting to think that there’s a black cloud following me. ¬†In this morning’s freezing cold, I got stuck between the daycare center and my train station in some g-d awful traffic. ¬†There was no way I’d get through it and still make the train. ¬†I swung a U-ee and headed for a different station, closer to home. ¬†I don’t have a permit to park in that lot, and even if I did, it is full by 7:15AM. ¬†So I parked illegally in a shopper lot behind the CVS and walked over to the station. ¬†Upside, I can take the express trains today. ¬†Downside is that it is a 3¬†hour lot. ¬†I called home and mom thinks that they just ignore for the first offense. ¬†I was good with that. ¬†But there’s a thin ray of light coming through the cloud as dad got on the phone and offered to go get my car!!! ¬†They’ll pick me up tonight.

I hope that cloud is moving off.

Craft on!

Fortunately the creeping ick that passed through the house didn’t last through the weekend. ¬†Alex’s fever ended on Friday, figures because I took him to the pediatrician then. ¬†Saturday he was a little low key, which was all right be me. ¬†We took a pajama day and watched movies while I knit. ¬†After the monkeys went to bed, I watched The Other Boleyn Girl and finished Adamas which I blocked this morning:

I had my blocking supervisors to make sure all went well.

For some reason, I expected this shall to be smaller. No idea why, but I did.  I love it!  The pattern was easy to memorize and just looks very nice.  It reawakened my lace love and reminded me I have another lace project.  I pulled this one out again:

 

Wedding Ring Shawl

I managed to work 6 rows today and hope to do a few every day. ¬†This is a LONG TERM project, but it doesn’t have to be a forever one. ¬†

It was also time to return to Mr. Greenjeans, or in my case, Mr. Not-So-Greenjeans. ¬†I picked it up again late this afternoon while watching a hockey game. ¬†My Ex introduced me to the NHL when we were first dating and we regularly watched games throughout our relationship. ¬†Unfortunately our team is out of market. ¬†While I will root for the Devils as they are the local team, my heart belongs to the Boston Bruins. ¬†Guess this doesn’t come as a surprise with my avowed devotion to the Red Sox (3 days to the first spring training game!!!). ¬†G and I even went so far as to put up a satellite dish so we could watch our team play. ¬†When we split, he got the dish and I haven’t really kept up with the boys… or the rest of the NHL ¬†(with the exception of watching my fav player of all time win his first Stanley Cup after being traded to Colorado). ¬†

Now though, you don’t need a satellite dish to watch out of market games…

You just need a computer! ¬†I got an email last week from MLB.tv regarding the season subscription that was about to renew. ¬†They’ve packaged the remainder of the NHL season with it for an extra $25. ¬†SOLD. ¬†I have a lot of catching up! (Like when did Tampa Bay change their home uniforms to those dopey ones that say “BOLT” on them??)

Anyway, I made some serious progress on Mr. Not-so-Greenjeans:

Yup. ¬†I’m up to the cable rib portion at the bottom. ¬†Lurve the Malabrigo in the Buscando Azul. ¬†

I’ve stayed up way too last the last couple of nights so I think I’ll call it an early night,

Craft on!

I promise a better post shortly.   I know I have to fess up to what yarn actually came home with me from Seaport and I hopefully will do that either later today or tomorrow.

I ask now a favor. ¬†I just upgraded my WordPress from 2.6 to 2.7. ¬†I was waiting for 2.7.1 patch, but it apparently isn’t coming out so I figure it was time. ¬†If you see any problems and/or could leave a comment, I’d be most appreciative.

Craft on!