Yearly Archive: 2015

Really, really long-time readers of this site may recall its first incarnation. It was very geeky, with a *NIX motif running through it. (You can view an Internet Wayback Machine snapshot of it here.) I am attempting to recreate this feel with the newly-returned covert-ops.org site, and I need your help.

Clearly, some of the headings that I had before simply won’t work these days. I mean, who has a QuickCam any more? But, there are other sections I would like to add, and sometimes, the appropriate geeky header doesn’t immediately jump to mind, or I have too many ideas that seem equally valid. This is where you come in. (more…)

There is something you must understand about Ravelry. It’s like Wikipedia for people who play with yarn. You go there looking for one specific thing, and five hours later, you’re looking at something that couldn’t possibly be more different than your original goal, and you have absolutely no idea how you got there. This blog post shall detail just a short trip a friend and I took through the Ravelry wormhole today. The whole conversation took place in less than two hours, with much of that time spent with one or the other of us not at the keyboard, or discussing terminal emulation issues, or bemoaning Kids These Days™, or the best way to feed pills to finicky cats. So, really, no time at all.

(TL; DR: Yarn, kids these days, pandas, and you really can’t ever take anything off the Internet.) (more…)

Time, Time, Time

I was talking about this with Jenn the last time I saw her, and it came to me again this morning, so I thought I’d share.

I normally wake up at 5AM. This seems like a stupid early time to many of my friends, but to me, it’s just time to wake up. However, with the latest round of sleep disorder, I’ve often found myself awake at 4AM. While this is only a difference of one hour, that one hour has a huge psychological difference to me. (more…)

I have arrived at a new milestone in the knitting of the Brownstone sweater: I have completed the actual body of the sweater. Only a few steps remain:

• Knit on the shawl collar (that gap in the cleavage (and on down to the belly button) will be filled by the collar, I promise)
• Seam underarms
• Weave in loose ends (so many!)
• Knit toggle loops
• Attach toggle loops
• Attach toggles
• Weave in even more loose ends
• Steam block

… Ok. There’s more to this than I realized. But! Definite progress has been made, and the end is in sight.

It looks like the sweater is going to be pretty long, particularly given the intended recipient. Luckily, this shouldn’t be a problem, as that style is a favorite of hers.

Last night, G and I were driving off to Bellevue for dinner. There was this guy on the side of the road at an intersection, holding a cardboard sign. He’s wearing hiking boots, shorts, a t-shirt, a hoodie (hood up), and sunglasses. He has a remarkable amount of facial hair.

A few things seemed kind of odd. The shorts are weird because Seattle people think it’s ‘bundle up’ weather once it hits 60°. The sunglasses were weird because it was almost dark out. The choice of intersection was weird because it was just to a side street – not exactly a great panhandling place.

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As mentioned previously, I want to learn to sew at least as well as I knit. I’ve taken one class, where I made a tote bag, and I’m taking another class next weekend, where I will learn all about adding zippers to projects. G’s parents gave me an awesome sewing / embroidery machine for Christmas. I have acquired a few books with beginner projects and tips and tricks. And now, I have found fabric with which I really want to be able to make something awesome. But, I’m not allowed to buy it until I have enough skill to make something awesome. This should be good incentive!

My new friend SR (who’s actually a phlebotomist at one of the medical offices I frequent) and I met up today. Our last outing was for coffee at the excellent SoulFood Coffee House in Redmond, so we decided to aim for lunch this time. As we are both gaming geeks – though of vastly different generations (SR was born a month after I graduated from high school; also: I am old) – we decided to check out the recently-opened Bellevue location of MOX Boarding House, a game store / pub / restaurant. (No. Really.) (more…)

This is the almost finished version of the hat. You can see that the dark blue points curl up, and the green cap doesn’t sit quite as flat as one would like.

The knitting and tacking down of points (yipe) and weaving in of (many) loose ends was actually done on Thursday. However, as you can see, it was still a bit unfinished, with the curling of the dark blue leaves and the popping up of the cap leaves. (The curling of the other leaves was handled by sewing down the points and peaks to each layer below. Yes, that was a lot of sewing.) But, since there’s no ‘layer below’ for the dark blue layer, that process wasn’t going to work. The instructions said to iron the hat, and I pondered that, but I also wanted the points and peaks of the green cap to lie more flat, so I went another route.

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I assume that most of the people who would be interested in this are already aware of it, but just in case someone’s missed it, I thought I’d point out that there’s currently a Doctor Who Audiobook Humble Bundle going on. As of this writing, there’s about 5 and a half days left on the offer. It’s a pay-what-you-want bundle, though there are price points to unlock some content. (Currently $15 or more to get everything in the bundle.) (more…)

As mentioned in my last post, I’ve made sufficient progress on my Brownstone sweater that I’ve reached the end of the first 10 skeins of yarn purchased for the project. (I also ran into a problem that involved unknitting and reknitting 10 rows or so, but I’m now back at the ‘ready to start the next bag of yarn’ state.) This seemed like a reasonable time to provide a new status photo, complete with Smaug for scale.

The sleeves (knit first) have been joined to the body. There are, however, no shoulders yet. Those will be coming up very soon, after a few more rounds of stockinette. (I do find it somewhat distressing that, at this late point in the game, I’m still only on page 7 of 12 the pattern.)

This won’t be my first finished project of 2015, though. The Flore should be finished up this weekend. (Pictures once it’s complete.)