Poor Americans

It's ironic how combining two things to make knitting easier - garter stitch (in general, but lace in this case) and knitting in the round - can make my shawl such a pain. Admittedly, both those techniques are designed to avoid purl, so I suspect it's like negative numbers - where two negatives make a positive. Except that in this case we want negatives... as in negative amounts of purl stitch...

Ok, I think I'm babbling. Let's just say that yrn is a pain. As purl lace in general.

I'm not good at following directions

So I direct your attention to this.

Christmas is winning

Ok, Christmas gifts are kicking my *ahem* behind. I vote that it stays Advent from now on, and I don't have to worry about gifts anymore.

Christine's "This means that there was a recipe" mincemeat

***WARNING! I MADE THIS TODAY, SO IT HASN'T SAT FOR LONG ENOUGH YET***

6 cups ( about three apples), chopped into 1-1.5 cm chunks. Use varieties which will stay firm when you cook them. I actually used four because two were only partial: Cortland, Ida Red, Northern Spy and Granny Smith.

1.5 cups raisins

0.5 cups dried cranberries (this is just in here because my landlady has some, and I wanted some variety, not all raisins)

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts and pecans (straight pecans seemed like it would be a bit much, but I prefer pecans to walnuts)

0.75 cup packed brown sugar (I used golden, but I think that the darker the better)

0.25 cup butter, melted (unsalted, like always when you're baking, but who ever has that around?)

0.5 cups apple juice (or use a mix of apple cider and brandy, but I have neither of those)

zest and juice of half a lemon and half an orange (Don't forget to wash them!)

pinch of salt (skip this because you used salted butter)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

0.5 tsp each: nutmeg (as both cookbooks suggested I used freshly grated/ground nutmeg); allspice; ground cloves

You also need some thickener because I cut back so much on the sugar- I added flour as I was cooking it, but I'd recommend cornstarch (I didn't have any)

Mix all the above ingredients together and bring to a boil. Reduce to low heat and gently simmer until the fruits and nuts are glazed with a thick syrup.


Refrigerate for three days.


What I'm planning on changing for next time: cutting the apples smaller and (hopefully) more evenly; definitely brandy; bump up the spices a lot (particularly the cloves/allspice); add dates

What the Rabbit Heard at Church

The season is not about getting lots of gifts - although that is quite nice.

Eerie...

So I took Sophie out for another walk today (and forgot my camera, of course). I horribly cruel - she's going to get used to getting walks every couple of weeks, and then I'm going to leave. I went out in a different direction again (I was checking where the used bookstore was), and came across a little park. I'd seen it before, but I hadn't seen the plaque. So I dragged Sophie over to the plaque and read it. It opened with an announcement of the park's name and who provided funds for it, and then the next part referred to "Canada Company Burying Ground". That seemed a little odd for a park, so kept reading. Turns out that the land was the original cemetary, but when the new one was opened most of the people buried there were moved to the new one.

Hold on just a minute - most?!

Turns out that, yes, it is indeed most. The final explanation given was that, although there are no gravestones in the park anymore it is believed that there are still some bodies interred there, and the suggestion was given that the reader spare a thought for them.

Of course, I got jolted back to the real world soon enough. When taking Sophie back across the highway she sat down and waited right at the corner of the road. Far enough back that she wasn't hurt at all by the truck that zoomed by, but boy was she scared.

It might be possible

Ok, so since I would no longer need to make the bolereos I might be able to get the shawl done, like Angela said. She's cool, not just because she's in engineering and knits an incredible amount of stuff, but also because she designed some cool tams.

Oh, and by the way: I'm aware that I never actually needed to make the boleros.

What The Rabbit Heard in the Test Equipment Room

"Ok, new theory. It wasn't working because you were the one holding it."

Saturday, May 23, 2009

15:00

Oops

So one of the strain gauges on a test grader needed to be replaced today. There was a "pick a number" contest to see who got stuck with it, however I volunteered to do it anyhow because really, having something to do beats having nothing to do.

This job was more ummm... "interesting" than originally putting the strain gauges was because the grader has been reassembled. So instead of standing on the floor (well I'm short, so a box) and reaching inside the frame I was climbing up onto the tandem case and squishing in between the frame and the wheel. Squishing is really the right word, too. As in it's what butyl rubber (which cover all the strain gauges after they've been put on) does to jeans. More accurately, it's what butyl rubber does into jeans.

When I started to move and realised I was stuck I called for the engineer who was right there and explained what had happened. After wincing he told me to just pull myself off the side of the grader. And let me tell you, I have aim (I believe of the kind that one would call bad). In pulling the cover away from the strain gauge I took two wires with me. Not so bad, except that the wires decided to bring the solder pads from the strain gauge. The engineer was very nice about the fact that I had just ruined some expensive test equipment (to wit, the strain gauge), although he did seem to enjoy explaining that that stuff doesn't come out. (He was wrong. My jeans are in the dryer with no black patch now).

Actually it's not killing that strain gauge that bugs me. It's that when I went to glue the strain gauge to the inside of the frame (I had to try twice) I managed to kill it - popped a pad off. At that point I declared that I wasn't gluing any more strain gauges. I had already soldered two (one at least was done well, it was posited that I may have not had a good enough connection to the sink and the heat warped the pad). And I prepped the surface (sanded it with acid until it was smooth) twice on one side (once for the replacement and once after the strain gauge that I killed) and once on the other (for the first strain gauge I killed).

Given that it's probably close to half an hour to prep the bonding surface normally, plus soldering the leads to the strain gauge, gluing it to the grader, testing everything, etc., and that I had to squirm around behind the wheel, it's rather understandable that it took most of my day. What took the largest part of the rest was scrubbing my hands. And my face. And my wrists. See, not only was this grader (still) covered in coal dust, but a) my hair falls out of its braid all the time, so I constantly have to wipe it away from my face, to the point where only the part under my safety glasses wasn't grey, and b) my shop coat is too large, so I have to push it up quite a ways to keep it out of my way.

Oh, well. At least I've stopped rubbing black on other things.

Yes, I'm crazy

So, I have a question:

Do people think that I can knit four of these and the rest of this: in approximately 18 months? (click the picture... you really need to).

Actually I know I can. However let's add passing 3B and fourth year too.

I was afraid of that...

The shawl centre is somewhat odd looking because I didn't really bother blocking it much (I'm sure you can figure out why not). It seems a little small, but I haven't even finished the first thing of yarn (but it might not last out picking up new stitches), so I guess this is less than a quarter of the finished shawl.

I'm off to start courting insanity picking up stitches for the border. Toodles!

Mother Nature is Beating Me Up

So being quite dedicated to my bike (read: lazy) I decided to bike home today despite the heavy wind warnings from Environment Canada (I think the wind was down to a steady 50 km/h with gusts in the mid-sixties). I was ok leaving work, and then turned so I was biking across the wind. I work out where it's open enough that I get major cross-winds. When I hit the main highway I'd say I was a good 20 degrees off of vertical just to stay upright. I even managed to keep moving forwards when I turned into the wind. Things were going well.

Unfortunately (and you all knew that that was coming, even without the title), I had problems with the cross wind. I reached the part which is less industrial park and more just outskirts of town (or whatever the town equivalent of suburbs are) without too many problems. However, after the traffic light and the second time when I was almost blown into the curb, I decided that enough was enough. However, a victory apparently wasn't good enough for the weather. I signalled a stop and hopped onto the curb.

I actually hopped rather quickly onto the curb. You know, like when a fire truck comes by. Put one foot on the curb, pull the other leg up and over the bike then pull the bike after the outside leg. Notice that I skipped the "move the outside leg out of the way" step. It never really occured to me before that this was a step. However, I never brought the end of the handle of my bike up into my knee as it was coming down before.

Oh well, live and learn

Well That was a Bust

I just need a way to make the below threat stick to me.

Fascinating New Study!

Psychologists have recently discovered more information about etymological amnesia. Specifically, it has been determined that, while the effects can be predicted with great accuracy, there still is no known cure or preventative measure.

This suggests to me that there is simply no way to avoid that the fact that the next person to prematurely mention the w-word to me will completely slip my mind when I’m writing out guest lists.

What the Rabbit Heard as we Watched the eDAQ Output

"So what's the voltage now?"

"4.76...7...8... it's still going up."

"What about now?"

"5.37...8...9... still going up."

"That's odd."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I just unplugged the ground."

No Bigger Than a Pebble on a Gravel Road

I will not deliberately fail PDEng as a protest.
I will not deliberately fail PDEng as a protest.
I will not deliberately fail PDEng as a protest.
I will not deliberately fail PDEng as a protest.
I will not deliberately fail PDEng as a protest.
I will not deliberately fail PDEng as a protest.
I will not deliberately fail PDEng as a protest.
I will not deliberately fail PDEng as a protest.
I will not deliberately fail PDEng as a protest.
I will not... screw that. Sleep is overrated.

At Least it Wasn't Sobeys

Although it was almost as bad.

I had a short shopping list today - cereal, soy milk (to go with the cereal), peanut butter (my landlady only stocks the sugary kind), some fruit and perhaps check out the tofu products, see what the fruit ones were like (quite affordable, healthy, filling, but a little too sweet and just odd. It grew on me though). It sounds quite simple. At least to me. (And this is considering the fact that tofu is always hidden in the veggie section).

First of all, some self-pity to get out of the way. There was a "veggie block", basically a new kind of fake cheese. And it was cheddar flavoured, which is nice because the one I can get is pretty gross in the cheddar flavour. Unfortunately the second ingredient was casein. Yes, I get fake cheese anyhow (not often), but it's waaaay down on the list for that stuff. So I'm going to mope.
Just so you know.

Now on to the ranting!

I was heading for the soy milk (yes, get the heaviest thing first, that's me, always sensible) and noticed aisle-end displays of peanut butter. These displays weren't the ones directly at the end, more the ones that stick out a bit into the aisle and are at the side. They had crunchy and smooth both, one on either side of the aisle. Now, I'm rather gullable. (I'm sure you've all already figured this out), so I made the assumption that that aisle was the one with peanut butter. Nope, no such luck. Neither was the peanut butter to be found on either side of that aisle (i.e. anywhere NEAR the display). It was about as far as it was possible to be, two aisles away (at the far end of the food aisles), and at the far end of the aisle. At least they had what I wanted (but only in the 1kg jars, and I know that the small ones are evil, but they're convenient when you're only around for 2 more months).

So I found peanut butter interestingly enough it's one of the few foods that I buy without looking at the price. I bought one of the others today too - apples. While there is more than 100% variation in the price of apples they're all fairly cheap. And most of the expensive apples are from the States anyhow. Which brings me to my criterion: local fruit. (I have almost completely weaned myself off of bananas. Aren't you all so proud?) I think that grocery stores need to learn geography. Frankly if an apple is labeled "Canada" it's even odds that it's from BC. At that point, the Washington apples are just as responsible. Fortunately the stickers will often say. I'm still not sure where the plain ones are from though (I've seen BC ones and I've seen Ontario ones). Actually I didn't see any BC stickers today. And only one set of Ontario ones - on MacIntosh apples. The which I am not fond of. The bag of apples I ended up getting though, says Ontario on the bag (and no, that's referring to the apples, not the bag). Shame that it barely fit in my knapsack (yes, I need to think about this stuff BEFORE I go through the cash).

From there I hit the tofu, where I had the disappointing experience with the fake cheese. However, as I mentioned, the dessert wasn't too bad. The only thing they were short on was actualy tofu...

The cereal wasn't that big a deal, I just grabbed on because I was tired after price-checking the soy milk. Said price-checking actually turned out well. Actually, I wasn't paying that much attention to the price, more to the nutritional info. And I ended up (deliberately) getting some unsweetened soy milk. I've tried some already, and I think that I shan't bother sweetening it at all, it's pretty decent. It's only 3/4 the calories and about 1/3 the sodium, and has all the good stuff I want. So I'm quite pleased with that, and will pay the extra 70 cents that it normally costs over the PC brand stuff (which has the most sodium of any I checked). Oh, and it was on sale. So today I only paid 20 cents more.

*happy soy milk dance*

What the Rabbit Didn't Hear

I just couldn't come up with a way to turn this into a "What the Rabbit Heard".

After having been out on the floor for probably 15 minutes, covering three strain gauges with a butyl rubber coating (quite fun) and chatting with the test engineers and the shop guy who were showing me how to do this and actually doing the work...

*touches face*

"I'm not wearing my safety goggles"

*head for door*

"Yeah, good call"

What the Rabbit Heard Before Mass

"So when they assigned this seminarian here they told me to put him to work. So he'll be preaching today."

*insert panicked look on said seminarian's face*

"No, don't worry, I"m joking. He'll be sitting on various committees and helping with different ministries."

Because I Forgot My Camera Yesterday

I'd warn that this is a picture-heavy post, but really, all of you have high-speed. And besides, the title gives it away.

I took Sophie for a walk today. Doesn't she look thrilled?

(Ok, she looks confused about the fact that we're not moving, but close enough, right?)

We went out and looked at the harbour. Since you're (largely) engineers I figure that the towers from the salt mine are appropriate. As you can see, the colours aren't as cool today. But they show up on a computer screen better.
We later continued walking out towards that river I mentioned (the Maitland).
It has a cool bridge going over it. This former rail bridge has been repaired and is now part of the Maitland Trail. The (now pedestrian) bridge has little alcoves off the side so that you can get a great view of all the people standing below in the river fishing. And of the fish that are swimming around laughing at them.