Lunar Sara

Mom's birthday present

2009-05-26T17:50:00.000-04:00

I've been trying and trying to post something to the blog for a couple weeks now. I get started on this wonderful epic post, get interrupted and never get around to finishing. So, forget all that. Short post. Then maybe in a few days another short post. It's not like I have nothing to say. I've got tons to say, so much that I can't seem to organize it all into a post. So I'm gonna save all those other ideas for later and just tell you about my mom's month-of-May present.

Mom's birthday is in early May. Then there's mother's day shortly after. And a few weeks later is my parents' wedding anniversary. So I spend a lot of time in May thinking about mom. Truth is, I think about Mom all the time, but usually it's "when's the last time I called Mom?" or "I wonder if Mom heard about this?" or "I need to get that recipe from Mom." In May I'm a bit more sentimental and I spend a lot of time thinking about how lucky I am to have such a great Mom. I think about what a hard time I gave her when I was a teenager and I'm thankful that she seems to have forgiven me. I think about how much I enjoy spending time with her now that I'm an adult and I think about what a warm loving and wonderful person she is. Then I think again about how lucky I am that she's my Mom. And then I wonder if my brother realizes how lucky he is...

This year, way back near the end of February I thought about the fact that May was just two short months away and I decided I wanted to do something special for mom. So I spent March and April knitting this lap blanket for her:

I had lots of fun picking out 20 different stitch patterns and learning how to knit them all. I improved my mattress stitch skills tremendously while stitching them all together. And I recalled my meager crochet skills adding the little border. My favorite square is the green one near the middle with the leaves on a vine.

I forgot to tell Mom the best feature of this blanket: It's made out of a superwash/acrylic blend so she can just toss it in the washer and dryer and it'll come out just fine.

I hope she likes it. It's not terribly big but it's stitched full of love!

A neglected blog, some socks, and other random bits

2009-04-16T16:20:00.003-04:00

I appear to be guilty of blog neglect. I have been ever so gently, and probably unintentionally, reminded of this by a wonderful friend that I think of often and communicate with far too rarely. She tells me that she is one of my six readers. (The "six" thing, that's just a guess. It's probably only four.)

So, what the heck have I been up to for the last month?

We've had an offer on the extra house so Buster and I have been busy negotiating that and crossing our fingers that nothing goes wrong. It's all very good news and we're through the most nail-biting bits, but I'll refrain from too much excitement until the deal is closed.

There are little buds on the trees here and an occasional small pile of un-melted snow on the roadside. Yes, it is springtime in Michigan and I've started riding my bicycle outside from time to time. It's still a little on the chilly side and the roads close into town (used for shorter spring rides) are full of nasty potholes and cars that have forgotten, over the long Michigan winter, how to comfortably dodge bicycles. So long as it's over 50 degrees and dry, outdoor riding is still better than in, but the really fun cycling is yet to come.

On the knitting front, I've been working on various little things.

I finished this pair of socks for myself:

Yes, I'm aware that there's only one sock in that picture. There is a second sock, I promise.

I also made a thin little beanie cap for myself for wearing under my bicycle helmet. I don't have a picture of the finished product. It is finished but, as yet, untested.

And I finished my first pair of soldier socks a while back.

These Jolly Green Socks are on their way to Afghanistan (or maybe Iraq, I'm not quite sure) for some lucky soldier with male size 9-10 feet. If I hear from the soldier that gets these I'll be sure to share.

After these socks passed inspection I ordered more yarn to start on more soldier socks. This time Kim (the Socks for Soldiers Sarge) was out of olive drab Regia stretch sock yarn so she sent me camouflage Regia sock yarn instead. It's surprisingly pretty. I have to keep reminding myself that this yarn is not my own and that, having bought it at a discount through SFS, I'm not allowed to use it for personal projects (I might have to find some of this stuff through a retail source -- it's pretty!!).

It actually reminds me of the variegated yarn I used for the hat in my previous post. I'm not entirely sure this sort of camo works in the dessert. It's a bit too lush with all the greens and blues I'd think. But apparently this will pass muster for regulation socks and since they'll be inside combat boots and under pant legs I suppose it doesn't really matter.

I've got about 3 pair worth of camo yarn here and I'm told we mostly need to be making male size 9-10 socks since most of the deployed soldier feet fit that category. So those legs are the beginnings of another size 9-10 pair. I think I'll make the next pair for a female soldier. A woman might be more likely to appreciate the pretty colors in this camo patterned yarn.

I'm currently searching for another knitting project. I might make myself a cardigan (though I've promised myself I'd do that AFTER I lost a certian amount of weight and I'm not to that goal yet so I probably should wait), or I might make a second attempt at a lace project, or maybe...

(Don't think about Pink Elephants!)

my new hat

2009-03-11T17:00:00.002-04:00

It's a new hat! Just in time for spring when, really, there is no need for hats. So why in the world did I knit myself a hat just as spring was approaching?

It was the yarn... I couldn't resist the beautiful silk/merino blend Manos yarn. It's so soft and the colors are so pretty.
No, no, it was the colorwork. I was just itching to practice some stranded colorwork. There's a very pretty vine pattern there. It's tough to see because the contrast yarn has so many pretty colors.
No, no, I just wanted to try my hand at a fancy tubular cast-on (totally tubular, dude!) even though this pattern didn't call for it and it's really supposed to go with a ribbed edge, not a garter stitch edge.

Or maybe I just wanted Jayavarman Bhudda to have a hat that fits his serene expression. The poor guy has been hatless since we brought him home from Cambodia.

How to Knit Wacky Ankle socks

2009-02-27T13:58:00.000-05:00

I finished my wacky ankle socks and I just know you couldn't wait to see them.

All bright and cheerful with their carnival colors and mismatched ankles!

Actually, this was a bit of an experiment. I've been seeking a good sock pattern to use for cycling socks and I think this one will do quite nicely.

If you don't really care about how to knit socks, the rest will likely bore you to tears. Personally, I find sock construction, in it's zillions of variations, quite fascinating. I also do math for fun. I'm weird.

To make my toes up socks I start with a provisional cast-on over the cable of my second circular needle like in this video (the provisional cast on I use is the second of the four she demonstrates):

Then I knit a short row toe similar to the toe in Wendy's generic toe up sock pattern. Both the cast on and the short row toe take some practice. There's a short row toe tutorial on Knitty using a crochet provisional cast on. I don't like the crochet chain cast on, but I found the rest of the tutorial useful.

For the record, I like my socks to be 60 stitches around (on size 1's) so I cast on 30 stitches (plus the 30 on the second needle which hangs out of the way, or sometimes frustratingly in the way, while you make the toe). I knit back one complete row, turn and start my short rows by purling 29, wrap the 30th stitch and turn, knit back to the second to last stitch, wrap the last stitch and turn, etc until there are 14 unwrapped stitches in the middle and 8 wrapped stitches on either end.

Wendy's instructions, both in her pattern and on Knitty start the short rows with a knit row. I found that when I started with a purl row, I ended up picking up the last wrapped stitch on a knit row and could continue strait away in the round. Doing it Wendy's way had me finishing with a purl row, then having to knit back to start the round and for me that left too big of a gap when I moved to the second needle to work in the round and I ended up with little holes on either side of the toe. Perhaps I'm not following Wendy's instructions quit correctly. Not sure. Anyhow, I get holes Wendy's way. You might not.

Once the toes are both finished I arrange them on two circs and start knitting in the round. I did a 2x2 rib on the top of these sock and stockinette stitch on the bottom.

My ginormous feet are 10 inches long (really, I might be the only girl on the planet that dreads shoe shopping) so I start me heel work at 7 inches using the heel from Wendy's toe up socks with a difference. Instead of working gussets on the sides of the heel, this pattern puts the increases under the heel. It ends up looking like a little wedge under your foot. I was a bit skeptical about putting anything other than stockinette stitch under my foot until I tried this. The increases are quite flat and you will not be able to feel them.

Side view:

bottom view:

Then I work back and forth on the heel needle turning the heels with short rows and continuing with the heel flaps as described in the pattern. Once you've figured out the short rows for the toes, the short row heel turn is a piece of cake. I work up the heel flap sucking up stitches on either side as I go. Once all the stitches are worked in and I'm down to just the flap, I still have a few more stitches on the heel needle than the instep needles so I start working in the round again and swallow up those extra stitches as I go.

For these socks I knit 1 1/2 inches of 2x2 rib for the ankle, adding in the mismatched yarn as needed, then bound off in pattern with a number 3 needle.

And there you have it, toes up ankle socks suitable for cycling!

my mismatched socks (oops!)

2009-02-25T17:02:00.004-05:00

My new ankle socks started out like this. Two little short-row toes and two little half skeins of very bright yarn. The other half of those two skeins went to knit these bright and cheery little ankle socks last June for my marvelous friend Mary (who now has two blogs). Before I started knitting my own pair of bright and cheerful socks I weighed one of the two half skeins to be sure it really was at least half a skein. The skein I weighed was 25g (exactly half of the original 50g). Good! Of course I had forgotten 3 things. One: I knit Mary's socks on size 2 needles and I'm knitting my socks on size 1 needles. Guess which one uses more yarn. Two: after knitting several pair of socks I've discovered that a bit of ribbing on the instep keeps the feet from getting baggy so I knew I wanted to do that, too. Ribbing tends to use more yarn than stockinette stitch. And finally, three: When I started Mary's socks I discarded a lengthy chunk of yarn from one of the skeins so the patterns in the self patterning yarn would match up. These two half skeins were not the same size. Oblivious to all of these potential pitfalls, I cast on for my bright and cheery ankle socks toes first.

I'm kinda regretting that toes-first choice I made. You see, if I'd started at the ankles, at least the parts of my socks that show above my shoes would match.

One of my little half skeins was smaller than the other and, not surprisingly, I ran out. These are quirky socks to begin with so all is not lost. I simply grabbed the leftover yarn from these socks, joined it in, and kept on knitting. Maybe no one will notice... some of the colors are similar. There's light blue checks and dark blue and a mustardy yellow in both. So what if they're different shades. Who looks that closely at someone else's socks anyhow?

Aw heck, I don't know who I'm trying to fool. If I wear these mismatched socks out of the house everyone is going to know I'm the crazy sock knitting lady. Oh well, that was bound to happen eventually.

---

A more thrust, less drag update: 2 more pounds this week for a total of 13 pounds lost. I've got 52 pounds to go. Pass the salad...

Buster got a new hat (also, How to double knit)

2009-02-18T23:58:00.000-05:00

I finished knitting Buster's new hat yesterday. It's maroon because he likes that color and dark-gray because that matches his coat. It is NOT scarlet and gray. It is maroon and dark-gray. I would NOT give my husband a scarlet and gray hat any more than I would give him an green and white hat. That would be mean. [If you have no clue what I'm talking about, think college football and repeat after me: "Go Blue!". Ok, that's better.]

I used this pattern by Allison Hansel. sorta...

I made the hat bigger around than the pattern calls for (Buster has a big noggin), and several inches taller than the pattern (Buster likes tall hats), and I used a slightly different knitting method. So... is it still the same pattern? I don't know. Allison can have the credit. I did start out with her pattern.

The hat is "double knit" which means that it's two layers knit simultaneously. If you look closely at the picture above you can see that both the outside of the hat and the folded up brim (the inside of the hat) look like stockinette stitch. That's because they both ARE stockinette stitch. It's two layers with the purl sides together. The hat is reversible. Buster can have a maroon hat with dark-gray stripes or a dark-gray hat with maroon stripes (but he cannot have a scarlet and gray hat -- that's not welcome in this house).

There are a few ways to accomplish this double knitting thing. You could, I suppose, knit one big long tube then fold it in on itself and cinch the ends up, but that would be cheating. And it would look bad. Or you could just knit two stockinette stitch hats and sew them together. That might look a little better but it's still cheating.

If you're really knitting both layers at the same time you end up with the stitches from each layer staggered on your needles. So if the first stitch is from the maroon layer, the next is from the dark-gray layer, then maroon, and so on around.

Alison Hansel's original pattern describes a method where, once you've got the whole thing started, you carry only the maroon yarn for a full round knitting the maroon stitches and slipping each dark-gray stitch with the yarn in front, then drop the maroon and carry the dark-gray yarn, purling into the dark gray stitches and slipping the maroon stitches with the yarn in the back. So, for every row you need to go around the hat twice, handling each stitch twice and constantly moving the yarn back and forth. This seems terribly inefficient to me. And somehow it still feels like cheating.

To double knit in the traditional manner, you carry both yarns at the same time knitting the maroon yarn into the maroon knit stitches and purling the dark-gray yarn into the dark gray purl stitches (until you want to change color). You still have to swing the yarns to the other side of the needles between each stitch, but at least you're making a new stitch each time and not slipping every other stitch to save it for later.

The real catch here, and the reason so many people prefer the knit-slip method, is that holding the two strands at the same time can be awkward and you have to be careful not to cross them. Ideally you want the two layers to be attached only at the edges and the color changes. Every time you accidentally cross the strands you attach the two layers together and the contrasting color may show through especially if one or both colors are particularly bright.

You'll find a great little video showing this method of double knitting here, about two thirds of the way down the page. In the video she knits continental (holding the yarn with her left hand), tensions both yarns over her pinky, and holds the colors over different fingers. I work very similarly but hold both yarns over my index finger and tension them with different fingers to keep them from twisting in my hand. Like I said, either way is a bit awkward and you just have to find what works best for you.

Double knitting is not just for super warm reversible ski caps. You can also make double layer pot holders or cushy baby blankets. And you can even do fancy parlor tricks like knitting two socks at the same time on DPNs (double pointed needles), one inside the other. I don't think I've got enough patience for doing socks this way, but I might do a few colorful pot holders and another hat or two.

Next up, some toes-up socks in frighteningly bright colors and a color-work hat for me out of some very beautiful yarn I just bought from jimmy beans wool. I might try a tubular cast-on for that hat. Should be fun!

Actions Speak Louder Than Bumper Stickers

2009-01-28T16:45:00.002-05:00

Lately I've been feeling a great fondness for my country and a great appreciation for our military. I've been a bit nervous about the escalating animosity toward the War on Terror and I fear (God forbid!) that this animosity might be directed toward the men and women involved in that action. Frankly, I fear that some of the same folks that rudely and childishly boo'ed George W. Bush as he stepped down on January 20th may also feel inclined to boo returning soldiers. I'm horrified by the possibility. I feel a great need to show my support for the men and women in the US Military. A bumper sticker just isn't enough (and I don't really like bumper stickers anyhow).

Also, I really like knitting socks.

So I signed on with a group called Socks for Soldiers, Inc. It's a group of knitters run by a woman named Kim Opperman. We knit regulation socks and caps, along with a few "leisure" socks and caps, for the men and women in the US Military. If you've never experienced the joy of a pair of well made hand knit socks you may think we're nuts. Just trust me, they're wonderful! Besides, socks are just plain fun to knit.

I purchased a Socks for Soldiers kit when I signed on with the group so I'd have everything I'd need to make soldier socks (well, almost everything):

I had to supplement the kit with a few additional knitting needles (you need three different sizes to follow the pattern), but everything else was there. There's olive drab Regia Stretch yarn, red white and blue beaded stitch markers, a tape measure, darning needles, an official Socks for Soldiers sock band, a copy of the pattern (not pictured), KnitPicks Harmony needles, and a vintage medic's personal effects bag.

I'm really pleased with the supplies. I've never worked with the Regia Stretch yarn before. It's really great stuff! Apparently it holds up to military laundry (machine wash hot, tumble dry hot) and military combat (24+ hours between a soldier's hard working feet and a pair of combat boots). Nice, eh? I think I'm gonna get me some of this stuff in some non-military color and knit myself some bike socks!

When I first started knitting socks I was warned away from stretchy yarns -- very difficult to work with, I was told. But this stuff is pretty easy to deal with. I think the stretch in this yarn comes from the way it's spun rather than any material (elastic) added to the yarn. Maybe that's the difference, or maybe stretchy yarns simply aren't as difficult as I was told.

Regia Stretch isn't as stretchy as elastic yarns but it's certainly stretchy enough. Laid flat, these 2x2 rib sock legs measure about 2.5 inches across, but they'll stretch over a 2 liter pop bottle.

This is one of the tests we're supposed to do as we knit to make sure that our socks will fit over the most buff of military legs.

I'm also liking the Knit Picks Harmony needles. I've been using Addi Turbo Lace needles for a vast majority of my knitting because, frankly, they're the best. But they're a little expensive, running around $15 for a single circular needle (I use two matching circs to make socks). The Knit Picks Harmony needles run a bit less than half that price. They're nice and sharp like the Addis and the highly polished wood needles grip and release the stitches nearly as well as the brass coated Addis. While the Addis warm up almost immediately when you pick them up, the Knit Picks are wood and thus never feel cold (this is very nice in the winter when my fingers tend to get chilly). The only possible complaint I have is that these size zero Knit Picks feel rather flexible. I'm sure I'll get used to that.

I'm about half way through my first pair of soldier socks. No one in my family is in the military. And, with the exception of a friend from college that I've since lost touch with, none of my friends are in the military. I feel really good about this project. I'm so happy to have this opportunity to connect in a small way with a few of the folks that have taken on the job of defending my country, my freedom, and my way of life. I'm very pleased to be able to thank them and show my appreciation with something more than words.

If you want to join Socks for Soldiers check out this informational site or the main Yahoo Socks for Soldiers group site. If you don't knit (you don't know what you're missing) but you want to help out, Socks for Soldiers, Inc. takes donations toward shipping costs and other goodies that go in the care packages with the socks.

Off I go to knit some socks!

More Thrust, Less Drag: an update. And a few other random bits.

2009-01-19T17:00:00.002-05:00

Perhaps you recall project "more thrust, less drag" that I began back in June. The truth is, that project really never got off the ground. I lost a couple pounds. I got a bit stronger. In August I was strong enough to ride every last mile of Dalmac (except the stinkin' wall -- I'll get you Wall, next time you will not beat me!) without significant suffering. When I got off the bike in late October, the tiny bit of progress I'd been making came to a screeching halt. The holidays hit me like a ton of sweet buttery brick shaped Christmas cookies. The project had utterly failed.

[A side note: This is NOT, I repeat, NOT, a new year's resolution. I don't believe in that fiddle faddle. Those silly things last until February at best when the resolutioner looks around and says, "eh, this is hard, I gave it a whirl, maybe next year!" As a rule I do not make new year's resolutions. I just decide to do stuff whenever it is I decide it should be done.]

Well, ladies and gents, I'm back in the saddle and this time I ain't kiddin' around. I headed back to Weight Watcher meetings because that's what works for me. Each week I have to step on that scale and, under the watchful eye of the WW receptionists, I have to face the numbers. I know better than to think this game is all about numbers on a scale, but there's no easy/cheep way to measure a human's thrust to drag ratio (or, more properly, strength to weight ratio which, side by side with my overall health, is what I'm ultimately concerned about).

Let's throw some numbers out there so we've all got a good picture of where I'm at and where I'm headed. I'm actually hoping to achieve what I will call "wedding weight". That would be the weight I was when Buster and I got married in September of 2006. Here's a picture:

I wasn't tiny. I was actually 13lbs heavier than the highest weight WW recommends for my height. That's ok. I was comfortable and healthy and I was able to maintain that weight for several months. Wedding weight is my long term goal.

When I signed up for WW a couple weeks ago I weighed exactly 65lbs (Yikes!) over wedding weight. That first week I was on my ultimate best behavior because I really wanted to start off with a bang. I dropped 6.2 lbs. That would be a bang. The goal is actually to lose 1 to 2 lbs per week, but the first week is often an aberration. We'll see how it goes from here. Next weigh-in is Wednesday evening. 58.8lbs to wedding weight.

With that business out of the way I will move on to the other tidbits. First, Dad wanted me to know that he also loves his scarf. I'm told he wears it when he goes out to clear snow off the driveway.
He looks a little ominous in that photo. Don't let him fool you. He's actually a very nice guy (but he probably wouldn't want me to tell everyone that). I hope the scarf keeps him nice and warm while he's clearing snow because it's been downright frigid here lately.

While I'm waiting for my soldier socks kit to arrive I've been doing a bit more selfish knitting. Leftover from Christmas projects I had one more ball of that wonderful Shepard's Wool yarn from Stonehedge Fiber Mills in northern lower Michigan. From deep in the recesses of the hall closet I could hear it calling to me: "Sara, you really must knit me into something wonderful for yourself. Don't knit me up just to give me away! You lost 6lbs and you deserve something nice!". I had to agree with it.

Through this cold snap I've been wearing a very nice scarf that my mom knit for me years ago. I love it, but it's on the bulky side and it's a bit too much to fuss with when I'm grocery shopping and running other such errands where I have to carry it around with me. But it's just too cold around here to NOT wear something around my neck. Poking around on ravelry I found a cowl pattern that looked interesting and I knew the Shepard's Wool would be perfect for it.

I wasn't sure I would like a cowl, but it turns out I LOVE it. The pattern makes a big loose cowl so it doesn't cling to my neck uncomfortably (some cowls are like too tight turtle necks) and I can put it on and take it off without making my hair all staticky. I finished it late last night and I've been wearing it around the house all day today. It's warm without being bulky and the Shepard's Wool is super soft and not the slightest bit itchy.

Here it is, laid out flat on the table:

And here it is on my neck. It would look quite dressy with a shawl pin...

Kinda funny looking picture, but you get the idea.

And that's all the tidbits I've got today. Time to head for spinning class!

Mom's Scarf

2009-01-15T20:04:00.005-05:00

After reading the previous entry Mom sent pictures of her scarf. Here they are:

I'm kinda proud of it. It's definitely one of the prettiest things I've knit so far.

Thanks, Mom, for the pictures and especially for teaching me to knit.

Christmas knitting

2009-01-13T16:48:00.016-05:00

It's been a while... a long while. Bet you thought I was all done with this blogging thing. Bet you thought the facebook thing had won and I wasn't going to bother with this anymore.

Yeah, I was starting to think that, too. But I've kinda missed writing. So, to get this wagon rolling again I'll share with you my Christmas knitting. This is what kept my fingers very busy from mid November through all of December. With all this knitting to do there was no time for blogging.

For my Mommy I knit a beautiful Chicabean scarf with cables and lace in a subtly variegated blue wool. I'd bought the yarn months ago and was saving it for something special. I can't think of anything more special than a gift for my Mom. I think this scarf was the prettiest thing I made this Christmas. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture. I hope my Mom likes it. I have a feeling she tucked it carefully in a drawer and is saving it for a special occasion. I wish she wouldn't! I want her to enjoy it! If it gets worn or stained or lost or anything bad at all happens to it I will happily knit her another.

I knit socks for my grandmother. I used a worsted weight red tweed yarn. They're really meant more as house socks or sleeping socks. I forgot to take a picture of these, too. But I gotta tell ya, it was nice to knit some socks in the middle of all these scarves.

I knit a thick chunky scarf for my Dad. The pattern called for super bulky yarn but I couldn't find any I liked so I knit with two worsted weight yarns held together. One was a standard brown wool. The other was a truly wonderful yarn called Shepard's Wool, a local Michigan yarn, in a color appropriately called chocolate milk. In hindsight I wish I would have used Shepard's Wool for both strands. The resulting fabric would have been much softer. Dad doesn't often wear scarves but it's been so cold and snowy here, perhaps he's put it to good use.

I knit yet another scarf, this one for Sara-with-an-h. It's a simple brioche stitch pattern in a variegated alpaca yarn. I thought it came out very nice, though the bind-off was a little on the tight side. I can't really tell if she liked it but I enjoyed learning the stitch and working with the pretty yarn.

For my mother-in-law I made a Stolen Moments Wrap with a bulky weight merino blend in a very pretty sea green color. It came out a little smaller than the pattern example appeared and I didn't get a chance to block it (forcing it to grow). If she uses it, it should grow and get more drapy. Again, I can't really tell if she liked it but it, too, was fun to knit.

For both of Buster's sisters I made a popular knitty.com pattern called Clapotis. Neither one of them are very fond of wool so I sacrificed warmth and found a nice soft, drapy acrylic yarn. While Clapotis is quite simple to knit, it is a rather large bit of fabric so it took a lot more time than many of my other projects. I had Kate's completed before Christmas, but we had to ship it to her along with all her other gifts. Poor Kate was stuck in Portland due to the snow. We all missed her terribly.

I managed to finish Mary's about a week after Christmas but she was already on her way home by then. It's still sitting on my desk. I will be sending it to her as a an early birthday present. Her birthday is in late March but I imagine this will be much more useful to her in February than it would be in April.

When I realized I would have to clone myself and stop time all together in order to finish Mary's Clapotis by Christmas, I decided to knit up a quick little button tab hat to put under the tree for her. It took me less than two days to knit and I thought it a poor substitute for the big wrap/scarf, but it was very well received. This is made from the exact same yarn as her Clapotis but the color in the hat picture is more accurate (probably because there's white tissue paper in the picture for something called white balance -- I know just enough about photography to sound really silly trying to discuss it). Sadly, the better color in the picture hides all the detail. The top of the hat is stockinette and the brim is seed stitch with a little tab held down by the button.

Moving on to my most recent sister-in-law, my brother's lovely wife, I knit yet another scarf. I used another knitty pattern, the lace ribbon scarf, but I modified it a bit so I could use a striking chili pepper red, light worsted, bamboo wool. I really enjoyed knitting this pattern. It's a charted lace that's simple enough I could watch TV while I was knitting, but not so simple as to get boring. I enjoyed knitting this one so much that I may knit another just for me (after I'm finished with a couple other projects and feed my sock obsession a bit). Merri Su agreed to model for this picture. I think the red is a very good color for her.

Finally I knit some simple ribbed hats for my bother-in-law and my father-in-law. I knit my father-in-law's hat from the same chocolate milk Shepard's Wool that I used in my dad's scarf. I need to get more of that stuff, it's wonderful! And my brother-in-law's hat was made from a multicolored wool in blues and browns that spiraled up the hat. Buster has been appointed quality control manager of hat knitting. All the hats I've made for him so far he claims are too short. Men's stocking hats, he and his dad both insisted, should be extra long so that when you fold up the brim and pull it down to cover your ears, you still have an air pocket in the top. This, they say, keeps your head extra warm. It also looks extra silly if you put on the hat without folding the brim.

That's my father-in-law modeling his own Christmas hat, my niece modeling her dad's Christmas hat, and Buster modeling the first hat I ever made (notice how it's shorter than that others). I love this picture. Just looking at those three goofs makes me laugh.

The post-Christmas knitting continues. I knit a hat for myself because I didn't have one I liked and I finished a pair of socks that I'd started before the Christmas knitting began and I'm now working on a quick little gift. Hopefully, by the time I'm done with this gift, my Socks for Soldiers kit will have arrived (because actions speak louder than "support our troops" bumper stickers).

I'll leave you with a nice big picture of my new socks. They're keeping my toes nice and warm while yet more snow falls and the temperatures dip even lower and I dream of June.

Home Improvement

2008-11-20T21:00:00.001-05:00

I have been a very handy girl lately. These things come with the territory when one moves into a new house. There are a zillion little projects. Most of them are nagging little things that are easy to ignore once the place is really home and you've left your mark. We're not there yet. These things are not so easy for me to ignore -- though I think Buster could care less. He's not as picky as I am.

Some wives make a honey-do list then wait patiently or nag until their husbands take care of it. That's definitely not my style. I'm proud of being a handy girl and I don't like waiting or nagging. Besides, if I do it it'll be done my way, and I like that. Don't worry, Buster has plenty of his own projects.

I started my extra long to-do list a week or so ago and took most of the day off work today to tackle a few more of these little buggers.

The thermostat was digital, but not programmable so I installed this one last week:

To be honest, it was a lot easier to install than to program. Might have to replace it with something a little less obtuse sometime in the not too distant future.

The bedroom windows were all covered by nasty old roller shades, some of which were not exactly functional. Yesterday I started hanging curtains in the master bedroom. I still have to do the two smaller windows, but the big window is all done:

No, we don't have astro-turf for bedroom carpet, but it is the same color. That's on the list of big money projects. We're not ready to tackle those yet, sadly.

Today I started in my office. The dimmer switch no longer dimmed, it just turned the light on and off. I replaced it. Now I can have the right amount of light for any occasion, and the switch looks much nicer, too.

Moving on to the livingroom, this dimmer switch worked, but it was.. well.. backwards:

When I turned the dial it would click on to the brightest setting then dim as I kept turning. I know plenty of people wouldn't think twice about this but I found it really irritating. So I replaced it. Turns out that the installed dimmer was actually meant to be a fan control, not a light control. Maybe that explains the backwards operation.

This was the only project that gave me any trouble. You see, I've been stubborn and I refused to turn off the electricity to do any of the electrical work. The breakers aren't properly labeled and it's always an adventure (rebooting computers and resetting clocks) when I need to turn off a breaker. Anyhow, as I was hooking up the new switch, it bit me. It was just a little jolt to the thumb and I'm not really sure how it happened because I don't think I was even touching anything with that thumb! No harm done and I managed to finish hooking up the switch without any more zaps. It works like a champ.

In case you might think I learned a lesson from that project, I moved right on to my smoke alarm project without even thinking about flipping breakers.

The old smoke alarm seemed non-functional. I wasn't going to test it with actual smoke, but the test button didn't work. That was making me a bit nervous.

I've never had a smoke alarm that was wired into the house electricity before. Regular battery powered smoke alarms are super easy to replace but I wasn't sure about the wired kind. No problem. Turned out to be a piece of cake. No zaps this time and the new smoke alarm nearly deafened me when I hit the test button:

It's also got a "it's not a real fire, I'm just cooking" button. I need one of those.

Next up, the blinds in the bathroom.

Those are standard aluminum blinds, but that is not a standard bathroom window. It comes down a lot lower than bathroom windows should. There is no way to open those blinds without completely sacrificing all modesty. So I replaced them with a top down pleated shade.

Now we can enjoy natural light in the bathroom without sitting naked in front of our neighbors. And, the new shade is very pretty. You probably can't see it in the photo, but it's got a very nice little leaf pattern. I like this shade so much that I'm thinking about ordering more for windows in the livingroom and guestroom.

Tomorrow I have the day off work (it's my birthday) so I'll work on the rest of my list. I still need to

Hang a top down shade in the other bathroom
Hang the rest of the bedroom curtains
Put up a second smoke alarm (no wiring for this one)
Put up a CO alarm in the basement (furnace 10+ years old? Get a CO alarm.)
fix a bathroom faucet (ooh! plumbing! this should be fun.)
Install some GFIs (none of the bathroom or kitchen outlets are GFIs -- maybe I oughtta find the right breakers before I tackle this one...)

And that's just the stuff I already have parts for. If I can get all those things done I might go buy some paint -- that's when the real fun starts!

P.S. Sorry for the dark photos. I used my new iPhone (Thanks, Mom and Dad, this thing rocks!). As soon as I remember where I put away the cable for my real camera I'll start using a flash indoors again.

A New Home

2008-11-18T15:00:00.000-05:00

Departing from politics for a bit....

We're all moved into our new house.

Sorry, it was pretty cloudy when I took that picture so it looks a wee bit ominous. I promise, the house is not quite so imposing. It's warm and welcoming and bright and I like it very much. I especially like it now that I've gotten most of our stuff out of boxes...

Most. Not all.

Too many books. Not enough shelves. I need to fix that. Also on the list of things to fix:

My office has no doors (once a dining room, then a den, now my office).
Our dishwasher, garage door openers, and window shades are all so old I think Cleopatra may have been the original owner.
Our cooktop is electric (EWWW! the horror!!).
The bathrooms are painted in flat white (flat paint in a bathroom = dirty walls).

We still own the old house and until that's sold, we don't have the extra cash to do too much on our to do list. We've had a fair number of showings and we're reasonably optimistic that it will sell, perhaps early next year, sooner if we're lucky.

In the mean time, winter has arrived.

The first snow of the year is clinging to the grass in our back yard. With a heavy heart I declare the end of my 2008 road biking season. I'm going to get my mountain bike tuned up and see if I can't find warm enough clothes to spend some time exploring the many dirt roads near my house this winter. I'm also planning to spend lots of time at the gym. I want to start the 2009 road biking season strong!

Conservative Fundamentals

2008-11-05T23:12:00.002-05:00

Thank goodness, the election is over. For the first time ever the American people have elected a racial minority to the highest office in the country. That's very exciting! He happens to have been the most liberal Congressman in the Senate. That's not so exciting. I hope the conservative media are wrong about Obama. I hope he turns out to be more moderate than expected. I hope he's able to unite the country and keep taxes reasonable and improve our foreign relations and do many of the other things he's promised.

I have many fears and hopes for the next two years while the Democrats rule the roost, but that's not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the Republicans, a party that, with a good deal of personal and ideological compromise, I've recently embraced. I want to talk about the future of conservatism and my hopes and fears on that front.

Jed Babbin wrote:

Cong. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc) got it right last night. He said the Republicans need a housecleaning. They need to reclaim the title of the “party of big ideas.” Those ideas have to be conservative ideas: smaller government, strong defense, and individual freedom.

This is a popular notion among conservatives right now. Get back to fundamentals. Get back to conservative idealism and reform: Small government, strong defense, individual freedom, and a strong commitment to the Constitution. Boy, does that ever sound good! A small government that allows capitalistic free markets to function with little or no interference. A government that provides for the defense of it's citizens and defends individual freedoms. A government that focuses on staying small so taxes can stay low across the board. A government that seeks to reduce it's responsibilities rather than grow it's power. A government that seeks to abide by both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. It warms my libertarian-leaning heart.

The problem with the Republican party arrives in the baggage. In recent conservative ideology, individual freedom doesn't appear to include the freedom to marry someone of the same gender. Nor does it include a woman's reproductive freedom. The Constitutional tradition of separation of Church and State doesn't seem to stop the far right from endorsing the ridiculous notion that the public schools should teach creationism. This is all baggage that the Christian Coalition dropped on the Republican Party. These three ideas in particular don't fit on a true conservative agenda.

For some reason a vast majority of conservatives have jumped on the anti-gay marriage band wagon. Not one single person has given me a good solid reason why we should disallow two people from marrying no matter their genders. People argue that a marriage should be about the potential to have children. If that's so, then why are infertile people allowed to marry? Or women past menopause? Technology and adoption allow same sex couples to have children just as they allow infertile hetero couples to have children. Others argue that the traditional family (man, woman, children) is the backbone of society. To that I say look at the rising divorce rate, look at all the single parent homes. Divorce is causing a lot more damage to the traditional family than gay marriage! Would it be right to ban divorce to protect the institution of marriage? I don't understand how people can oppose gay marriage for any reason other than pure bigotry. This is in direct opposition to the notion of personal freedoms.

Abortion is a tough issue and I don't believe that either party has it figured out. The folks on the far left want it flat out legal even when the baby is already half born. The folks on the far right want every abortion banned even when the mother's life is at risk and the baby has little chance for a meaningful life. Both sides take it too far. Either way I personally think decisions about abortions should be left to individuals and their doctors. Until we can objectively determine at what point a fetus becomes an individual human being, any legal restrictions on abortions should come at a state or municipal level where local custom and the local moral majority can decide for themselves. If we really want to minimize government and maximize personal freedoms, such questions should not be handled at a federal level.

The ridiculous notion of creationism is just that: ridiculous. How any right thinking intelligent person could embrace such an idea is beyond my comprehension. How anyone could want such bull-hockey taught to impressionable children is again beyond my ability to comprehend. In any case, the first amendment to the Constitution guarantees your right to practice whatever religion you like. There's a tradition of separation of Church and State in this country (contrary to popular belief, the separation of Church and State is NOT part of the constitution, but a concept adopted to help uphold the first amendment). Creationism is a religious concept, NOT a scientific one. If you wish to teach your children creationism, you are free to do so, just don't ask the public school to do so.

When faced with these issues I'm embarrassed to call myself a conservative. On nearly any other topic I'm likely to agree with the conservative point of view. Smaller government, strong defense, individual freedoms, free market economics, flatter taxes, fewer social programs, patriotism, tradition, and strong adherence to the Constitution, these are conservative notions I can get behind. If the Republican party is going to make a fresh start perhaps it should shed the anti-gay pro-life creationist ideologies. Such ideas are contrary to the most fundamental of conservative ideals. I'm all for getting back to the fundamentals.

As far as President-elect Obama goes, I'm planning to give him the benefit of the doubt across the board. I will set aside my concerns about his past and judge him based on his actions from this day forward. A clean slate and a fresh start. I hope that we can look back in 20 years and remember our first black president with pride and honor.

Journalism, Politics, and Sci-Fi

2008-10-23T11:47:00.004-04:00

We're moving this weekend to that new house I mentioned a while back so I really don't have time for a nice long well thought out piece here. But a friend of mine sent me this article: Would the last Honest Reporter Please Turn on the Lights by Orson Scott Card and I wish I could read it aloud to the whole country. Everyone should hear this message. It's a call for a return to journalistic integrity and honesty. Card discusses the reporting of the mortgage crisis and the current presidential campaign and shows how very biased the media has been. He seems to be specifically directing his message to newspaper reporters but I believe the mainstream television media is even more guilty. It's important to note that Orson Scott Card is a Democrat. He's also an award winning sci-fi/fantasy author, loved by his fans and respected by his peers, a majority of whom are also Democrats.

These two paragraphs from Card's article really struck home for me:

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.

How can we, the consumers of the media, hope to learn what's really happening in the world? How can we hope to make a well informed decision at the polls when our media, our supposed watchdogs, have taken it upon themselves to make our decisions for us? We should be outraged.

The best we can do is watch Fox News in equal doses with MSNBC and CNN, read humanevents.com to balance out what we read at nytimes.com and washingtonpost.com, listen to Micheal Savage and Thayrone on the radio to balance out the major networks' nightly news broadcasts. It takes effort and judgment and a discerning ear to sort through the bias leaning to both sides. And, sadly, there's no guarantee that you'll actually discover the truth.

I'm off to pack. Go read Orson Scott Card's article. It's also available here.

Senator Government

2008-10-16T13:28:00.001-04:00

Now that I've opened this can of worms I might as well keep going.

My favorite part of the entire presidential debate last night was when McCain slipped up and called Obama "Senator Government". Ahh, here we have the biggest difference between the candidates.

Senator Government, true to the ways of a far left Democrat (is there actually a difference between a far left Democrat and a Socialist? really, not so much), wants bigger government, more programs, more mandates, more taxes. "Big Daddy government will come take care of you, just give us all your money and play by our rules. Oh, you don't have any money? That's ok. No, no, don't get off the couch, we'll just go get money from your hardworking neighbor to pay your bills."

As a moderate Republican, McCain is planning to cut taxes across the board, shrink government, and reduce pork barrel expenditures. Ahh, just the mere thought of a smaller federal government warms my little libertarian leaning heart. I thought I was falling in love with the old man when he called himself a federalist (he's using the contemporary "New Federalism" meaning of the word here which is actually anti-federalism -- It's a Bush thing. Bush. words. stumble. You get it.) and discussed giving more power and autonomy to the state governments. Boy, that's just too good to be true.

I was pretty upset, however, when both candidates started talking about bailing homeowners out of bad mortgages. And who's money do you plan to use to do that, gentlemen? Mine? I sure as heck hope not! I didn't take on a loan I can't afford. Foreclose that house and let the bank sell it to someone that can afford it. Or let the local community buy it and turn it into a park or a community garden. I heard a brief snippet of something on NPR the other day about people doing just that in Flint, MI. Wow, what a great idea. Keep it local, though. I do not want to see federal government involved in this! Property values in Flint plummeted long before the rest of the country started to feel this downturn. Auto companies had shut down plants and people had left and there were too many houses and no buyers. This community project reduces the supply of properties on the market -- basic supply and demand economics; and it intrinsically increases the value of the homes in the neighborhood -- more green space tends to do that. It's a win-win so long as your not picking the pockets of folks that live hundreds of miles away to make it happen.

Back to the big government thing here. Even if you don't believe that Obama's very very scary past has any relevance, how can you buy into his idea of an ever expanding government? Big government needs big money and that means big taxes. Obama may be talking about cutting taxes now, but he's going to find his scalpel isn't sharp enough to keep all the programs he wants, add more programs, AND reduce the budget. It's a logical impossibility. Bigger government ALWAYS means higher taxes.

If you really honestly think you want Big Government, take a really close look at some place that already has it. Really check it out first because once you start nationalizing it's nearly impossible to reverse course. Let's use a fairly benign example like France. France has big government and I'll readily admit, big government yields mighty fine wine. However, I would never want to actually become a French citizen. In France it's extremely difficult to get a job. Why? Because France has a slew of "labor friendly" laws preventing people from getting fired even due to poor performance... even when small reduction in force would prevent an entire company from collapsing. Employers are honestly afraid to hire folks because it's so difficult to fire them if things don't work out. Oh, and enjoy all the labor strikes. Get to know the entire Metro map well because at any given time one of the lines will be shutdown due to a strike. If you by chance own a vineyard, you will grow what the government tells you to grow. It matters not if the entire world has decided to stop drinking Chardonnay, the government mandates you grow those grapes anyhow because that's what grows best in your climate and soil. Good for wine, not so good, perhaps, for your bottom line. And if you get sick, I mean really sick, good luck. A nationalized health care system can't afford the state of the art equipment or the specialists that might be able to save you. Better find a way to get to the US where we still have semi free market medicine... unless you vote in Obama, then I think you just might be screwed.

Seriously folks, do you really want Big Daddy Government to take care of you? Or do you want a chance at the American Dream, earning a good living through hard work and smart choices, unfettered by overwhelming taxes and government mandates? Do you deserve to keep your own money spending any excess as you see fit to help out those you believe deserve your help? Or do you want the government to redistribute your hard earned wealth as they see fit, through an expensive bureaucracy and on to programs that you may or may not wish to support?

It's up to you. Vote with your brain, folks.

On no! Politics!

2008-10-15T15:44:00.006-04:00

oh dear... I can't hold it in any longer. I try to avoid talking politics in public because I have a lot of friends on both sides and about half of them might not like me anymore after reading this.

In general I don't like radicalism. The far religious right with their creationism in public schools, anti-abortion, anti-queer, anti-science outlook incites the same level of rage in me as the far left that think it's the government's job to ensure the same level of comfort and luxury to everyone no matter how hard they work or how valuable their skills. The far right wants to legislate morality, the far left wants to use my hard earned money to pay someone else's bills.

Barack Obama is about as far left as left gets. John McCain is a moderate Republican. Can you see where I'm going here? Is it clear who I'm planning to vote for?

Here's why I fear Obama:
- Health care: Obama has said outright that he believes that health care is a RIGHT. Health care is NOT a right. It is a service provided by highly trained and highly skilled individuals that deserve to be well compensated for their work. You may not agree with me here but nationalizing health care will shred our world class medical system.
- Ayers: Obama says he was only 8 yrs old when Bill Ayers was blowing things up. Obama says he was just a neighbor. But Ayers hosted the party when Obama launched his political career. Obama and Ayers worked together on an education project in Chicago. Ayers is a radical leftist with a history of violence and even if they aren't buddies, he and Obama are definitely running in the same circles. And the "I didn't know" defense doesn't work here either. As a politician you really should know who you're associating with.
- Rev. Jeremiah Wright: Obama's own pastor, his teacher in spiritual and moral matters, is a scary scary man. He preaches anti-Americanism and spews hatred from the pulpit. I really don't understand how Obama weaseled away from this one. Even the media, so clearly in love with Obama, thinks that Wright is wrong. How can everyone simply shrug this off?
- Acorn: Obama was their lawyer. Maybe it's not a huge conspiracy. Maybe the folks that run Acorn are just too stupid to teach their canvassers that registering false voters is against the law. And that's not the only scary thing Acorn has done. They also strong armed banks into giving home loans to low income folks, most of whom couldn't actually afford to make the payments. Now the entire world economy is suffering in part because of such loans.
- Citizenship controversy: Phillip J. Berg, a lawyer and a Democrat, has filed a lawsuit against Obama asking Obama to produce proof that he's a natural born US citizen (a constitutional requirement for the presidency). Obama has yet to produce more than a short form copy of his birth certificate and the short form will not hold up in a court of law. Obama was apparently born in Hawaii (though his grandmother claims to have been present at his birth in Kenya). Even if he was born in the US, there's evidence that he had forsaken his US citizenship so he could attend school when he lived with hist stepfather in Indonesia. In order to attend school in Indonesia at that time you had to be a citizen of Indonesia and neither Indonesia nor the US allow for dual citizenship. His school paperwork claimed he was a citizen of Indonesia. That would mean he returned to the US through immigration and is now a naturalized citizen (NOT a natural born citizen) or an illegal alien. Berg's website all about the lawsuit is here. Maybe it's all a big conspiracy theory. If it is, why in the world won't Obama just get a legal copy of his birth certificate and render the whole thing moot?!?

Obama has me shaking in my boots. He associates with some people and organizations that are downright frightening. Buster noted something rather astonishing while we watched Obama on TV the other day. Obama delivers eloquent oratory. He has the ability to inspire an audience and make people want to agree with him and believe in him no matter what he's saying. Buster said it reminded him of Hitler. I was initially shocked by the comparison but I had to agree. Obama's charisma has carried him past the controversy with Wright and it seems to be floating him by Ayers and Acorn as well.

Now, I believe people can change over time. Once upon a time I was a practicing Lutheran. Later, in college, I became an atheist Objectivist Libertarian. Now I'm an agnostic independent. But I do find that my past informs my present. I still have libertarian leanings and I still rely on a personal moral code taught to me by my parents and reinforced by my childhood church.

Obama is trying to sweep his past under a rug. He's trying to tell us all that Ayers and Acorn and Write are all "distractions". Perhaps. But perhaps his past informs his present. How could it not? At the very beginning of his political career he associated with a man so far to the political left that he was willing to bomb buildings and homes to make his point. Obama was a lawyer for a far left organization with a sketchy past and fraudulent present. And Sunday after Sunday Obama sat in a pew and listened to his spiritual leader preach anti-American sentiment, hatred, and reverse racism. And he seems reluctant to produce documentation to prove that he's constitutionally eligible to hold the office of president. Could that mean he's willing to bypass the constitution to get what he wants? How can all this be irrelevant?

Here's what I really think: Obama is so far to the left of left that you might as well call him a radical socialist. And that, all by itself, is enough to make me run screaming.

McCain is not perfect. I don't agree with his stance on abortion but I know he can't really do anything about it so I figure that one is a non-issue. What I know of his health care plan sounds sketchy if not worthless, but at least he's not trying to socialize medicine. He's getting up there in age, and he's chosen a VP without a whole lot of experience. But I think I can trust him to choose good advisers and I believe that Palin would maintain those advisers if she had to take over the presidency.

I do like McCain's plan for Iraq. And I do believe that even though McCain helped to write the economic bailout plan that eventually passed congress, he would work to restore free market banking.

Most importantly I believe in McCain's integrity. And that, more than anything else, is why I'm going to vote for him.

a little news

2008-09-25T15:15:00.001-04:00

I wish I could tell you that I've had nothing of any interest to write about and that's why it's been so gosh darn quiet around here. Truth is I've had plenty to write about, I've just been lazy! So, here are the two biggest events of the last month:

Baby K:
Baby K was born while I was away on dalmac. He's absolutely the cutest little guy I've ever seen, but so far I've only seen pictures! I've been so busy over the last month that I haven't had a chance to see him in person. I'm planning to fix that this evening. Sadly I'm still a few days away from finishing the little present I'm making for him. I'll have to mail it... or just drive over to see him again soon. Pictures of both the baby and the present are forthcoming.

Our anniversary present:
The traditional second anniversary gift is cotton and the modern gift is china. We shrugged all that off and bought a house instead. This is actually something we've been working on for about a year now. We finally have a signed sales agreement and we just need to do the inspection. Looks like we'll be moving in about a month. The new house is in a very nice area just outside of Saline. It's bigger and better laid out than our current house and it has a much bigger yard. It also has an extra garage for Buster's toys and a much larger space inside for my office and Buster's fly tying.

Once we move, we're going to replace the carpet in our old house and put it on the market. We know that buying another house before we sell this one is a risky move. But it's a calculated risk. We have a very old kitty that is prone to accidents and as long as that cat is in the house I know we'll have a terrible time selling. Also, we're prepared to sell below market price for our area so we should be able to sell quickly. Hopefully the recent economic upheaval won't screw us up too badly.

Two Years

2008-09-16T13:57:00.008-04:00

Happy Anniversary to us! Buster and I got married 2 years ago today.

The wedding was in Delhi park. It was a gorgeous day. That picture was taken on the same bridge I talked about in this post.

After the wedding we moved on to the Michigan Firehouse Museum in Ypsilanti for the reception. What a fun place for a party!

A few days later we headed off for our honeymoon. We arrived in Thailand about 24 hours after the 2006 coup d'etat.

We spent a week on Phuket Island relaxing and wishing there was more sunshine. Then we spent a few days here:

That might very well be the coolest place I've ever been.

Anyhow, after two years of marriage I really don't have anything sage to say. I love my husband as much today as I did when I married him.

my dalmac stats

2008-09-02T14:11:00.003-04:00

Thought I'd share a few stats from Dalmac for you:

Day 1, Lansing to Mt Pleasant:

miles: 82.53
time: 5:58 (does not include stops)
average: 13.8 mph

Day 2, Mt Pleasant to McBain:

miles: 68.5
time: 4:45
average: 14.42

Day 3, McBain to Elk Rapids:

miles: 61.45
time: 4:16
average: 14.4 mph

Day 4, Elk Rapids to Petoskey:

miles: 75.0
time: 5:52
average: 12.8 mph

Day 5, Petoskey to Mackinaw City:

miles: 52.0
time: 3:58
average: 13.1 mph

Total, Lansing to Mackinaw City:

miles: 339.48
time: 24:49
average: 13.7 mph

Other stats:

max: 42 mph
miles sagged: 0
calories burned: over 20,000 (hrm reported just under this but wasn't always working quite right)
damage sustained: broke my cadence meter when couldn't get clipped back in climbing the wall.
sleep: Not nearly enough!
beer consumed: plenty! (lost count by day 2)
hangovers: none (shocking! and no, guys, please don't consider this a challenge for next time)
debts incurred: One diet coke to the girl I nearly ran off the road when Ken snuck up on me in the hills on Day 3.
gambling losses: $3.25 playing bottle pool (aka, pea pool)
for next time: bring bigger duffel bags, bring an air mattress (the ground is really hard!), don't bother to bring the knitting or the novel (no time for that!), don't bother to bring a lawn chair, make time for a massage, learn how to manage the tent so it doesn't get so wet from dew, stretch more before getting in the car to go home, don't try to challenge to an ex track star no matter how little he rides these days - he will kick your ass.

My first dalmac will not be my last

2008-09-01T22:37:00.001-04:00

I returned late last night from my very first dalmac. Dalmac is a 340 mile, 5 day bike ride from Lansing to Mackinaw City. I rode with my friend-in-law, Ken and his family. Ken and Buster have been super close friends since they were little kids. When I married Buster, Ken was just as much a part of the deal as Buster's parents and siblings. Luckily, Ken is one of those genuinely good people that you can't help but like. He and his dad and his uncles and cousins made me feel very welcome on this trip. I barely even noticed that I was the only girl in the group. By the end of the first day we were all laughing and trading barbs and having a fantastic time.

Here we are in Lansing about to get on our bikes for the 81.5 mile ride to Mt Pleasant.

Ken is the tall guy in the middle and that's me in the red and white jersey standing next to him. The guy on Ken's other side in the yellow is one of Ken's cousins and peeking over his shoulder is Ken's dad. Those two are a royal pain in the tush. The gentlemen on the far right and left are Ken's uncle and his uncle's friend. They were a joy to ride with.

Here's a stop in Lake George where we ate lunch and relaxed for a bit on the second day.
Day 2 took us 67.8 miles from Mt Pleasant to McBain. There were a ton of people on this ride. It seemed there were always other dalmac riders in view ahead or behind us, despite our late starts and long stops every day.

Here's some of our group on the road on day two.
That's Ken's uncle in front. See all the little banners below the orange dalmac flag? Every year you ride dalmac they give you another banner. He's ridden a LOT of dalmacs. So has Ken and most of the guys I was riding with.

When we reached McBain we grabbed our things from the baggage truck, hopped in Ken's van, and went to spend the night with Ken's aunt and uncle in Cadillac. They're super nice folks and they have a really beautiful house. They fed us a wonderful dinner and a fantastic breakfast the next morning and we all had a really nice time. Most of the boys slept on pull out couches and air mattresses. I got the guest bed and my own room. After hardly getting any sleep on the hard ground the night before, that bed was a little slice of heaven! I felt like a million bucks in the morning and I was more than ready for the 61.3 miles from McBain to Elk Rapids.

Day 3 was a great ride. The weather was perfect and the terrain was getting a little more hilly and scenic. I rode out ahead of the group for a while enjoying the rolling hills. On the third or fourth leg I was riding with Ken and his cousins. We cut loose a little and raced and chased each other through the hills. I had no trouble getting out ahead on the downhills, flats, and low grade climbs. But they all left me in the dust on the steeper climbs.

We pulled into Elk Rapids tired and happy. We gathered our things from the baggage truck, set up camp, and headed strait down for a dip in Elk Lake.
The water was a little chilly but it felt great anyhow.

Day 4 was the Day Of Pain. At 75.4 miles, the ride from Elk Rapid s to Petoskey was the second longest day. It was also the hilliest day. 50 miles into the day we reached a low grade climb that went on and on. After about 2 miles of gentle climbing we came to a sign reporting a steep grade ahead. We turned a corner and arrived at The Wall. The Wall is an impossibly steep section of road. It's probably no more than a third of a mile long but it seems to head strait up. Walking up feels like climbing stairs. You really can't see how steep it is in the pictures.

Here's Ken's cousins climbing the wall. Look at that bum in the front showing off waving to the camera. He used to be a track star. I think that might be an unfair advantage here.

Here's Ken's cousin's friend climbing the wall. He rode that mountain bike the whole way. That guy's just plain strong. And determined.
Here's Ken climbing the wall. Ken did next to no training before this ride. With tactics, stubbornness, and raw strength he made it up the wall.

I'm a pretty strong rider and I trained quite a bit for this ride. But I couldn't get up the wall. I just wasn't strong enough.
I got within about 75 yards of the top before I simply couldn't turn over the pedals again. I stopped about 10 feet below where you see me standing. Next time I'll make it. It's one heck of a challenge!

When we reached Petoskey that evening I was more than ready to get off my bicycle. I could have used a nice long lukewarm shower. Instead, the showers were screwed up and the water was scalding hot. I ended up taking a sponge bath and washing my hair in the sink. I was tired and achy and crabby and I almost stayed behind when the guys went into town. As it turns out, sitting on the pier with a cold beer watching the sunset over Little Traverse Bay was the perfect balm for all my ills.

I couldn't help feeling a little sentimental and ended up with a couple great father-son photos.

The next day was the last. We had only 52.2 miles to ride from Petoskey to Mackinaw City. We slept in a little and took it easy, stopping several times and staying fairly close together for most of the ride. I ate ice cream and drank beer and enjoyed the scenery and the company.

Here we are a little more than half way through the day's ride at Leg's Inn in Cross Village overlooking Lake Michigan.
It was really a pretty day. We all took our time. I imagine everyone else felt the way I did. I was worn out and sore and glad the ride was coming to an end. At the same time I was sad that it was nearly over.

We arrived at Mackinaw City High School, our final destination, around 3:30pm. That must have been the slowest 52 miles I've ever ridden!
We tossed our gear in the van and strapped our bikes on top of The Chateau. We cleaned up a little and changed our clothes and hit the road.

Before turning south we made a quick stop for fudge and taffy and souvenirs near the Mackinac bridge where I snapped a picture.

It was a wonderful trip. I rode every mile of the route (except that little bit of the wall -- and I'll conquer that next time!) and had loads of fun hanging out with Ken and his family. I'm grateful to Ken for inviting me along. I couldn't possibly have fallen in with a more fun or friendly group. This will definitely not be my last dalmac. And I sure hope Ken and his family keep riding because I plan to crash their dalmac family vacations as often as I possibly can.

A challenging few days

2008-08-24T21:14:00.001-04:00

Please excuse all the little tangents in this post. I thought about editing them out and decided to leave them so you can better see how busy and scattered I've been.

I'm heading out for DALMAC before the sun rises Wedenesday morning. This trip is unlike any other travel I've done before. Not only will I be biking long miles for five days strait (Lansing to Mt Pleasant to McBain to Elk Rapids to Petoskey to Mackinaw City), I'll also be camping. I've been camping with Buster a few times, but never a progressive camp where you have to tear down, move to a new location, and set up again each day. And I've done only one other multi-day bike trip. That was two days riding in California's Russian River Valley with a really wonderful friend that I don't see nearly enough of. She was a bridesmaid at my wedding and that trip was a bit of a bachelorette party with a touch less drinking and a lot more exercise than normally called for at such events.

That's us at Hop Kiln. We stayed in a great little Inn and had a wonderful time. But back to the point. A multi-day bike trip combined with camping is a new experience for me.

I'm a little bit of a nervous traveler. I spend days before any trip thinking about what I need to pack and gathering things and making sure things at home are taken care of and generally preparing. I'm even worse when it's some new kind of trip. So, I'm very very excited about DALMAC and I've been stressing myself out a little trying to get my things together and get ready to be gone from home and work for a week. I've also been trying to ride my bicycle as much as possible. So I've had a pretty packed schedule for the last couple weeks.

In the midst of my DALMAC preparation, I've had some fun family things to do. My challenging few days started out with some family friends in Bloomfield. They have a very nice house with a beautiful swimming pool and they invited us and the K's for a mid-week BBQ and pool party. BK was in town from San Francisco with her adorable daughter. I don't see them nearly often enough and BK is the big sister I never had. So I took half the day off to go play with my family.

I had a really nice time swimming with the girls and talking with BK and everyone else. I wish I would have stayed for the whole thing!

I left the party a bit early so I could meet up with the aabts in Plymouth for a ride on Hines Drive. As I was pulling out of the the neighborhood, one of these:

driving one of these:

was stopped at the stop sign in front of me trying to make a left hand turn in rush hour traffic. It was taking an awful long time for traffic to clear and he got frustrated. So he threw the giant SUV in reverse and backed strait into my poor little Ford Escort without a single glance in the rearview. (ok, the driver was a little older than the one depicted above, but not much.) We were on a residential street and I keep wondering, what if it wasn't my little escort, but somebody's dog, or worse yet, a child that he blindly backed into? It makes me a a little sick. And frankly, I must be getting old because it also makes me question the wisdom of allowing 16-yr-olds to operate dangerous machines.

In any case, now I have to deal with this:

That looks minor, but it's nearly $1500 in body damage to bumper and hood. On top of that, the car now sounds like someone tore the muffler off. My trustworthy mechanic (I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but Fox Auto on Dexter Rd in Ann Arbor is fantastic) took one listen and told me it's most likely a cracked exhaust manifold. Indeed, much to my surprise, some parts of the exhaust system are right there up front and they're brittle. He told me the accident almost certainly caused the damage.

The poor kid driving the SUV was quaking in his boots and near tears at the thought of giving me his insurance information or filing a police report. So I got his name and phone number and gave him mine and told him to have his parents call me the next day. (This is me being too darn trusting... Live and learn.)

By the time I arrived in Plymouth for my bike ride I was too late to ride with the club, but all was not lost. My friend Courtney was also a bit late so we had a nice ride together on Hines drive.

To add to the annoyances, before the family party I'd gotten a call from my sister-in-law, Sarah. She's married to Buster's brother so we also share the same last name. UofM health labs sent my blood test results to her. While I like and trust my sister-in-law, I'm a rather upset that the lab is not more careful to avoid a breach of privacy like this. I plan to call and complain and ask them to be more careful in the future. If they do it again, I'm thinking I might be calling a lawyer. (fyi, blood tests all came back normal and healthy. That's the good news. The bad news is I still don't know why I'm having such a miserably difficult time losing weight.)

I got up Friday morning and went strait to Dusty's Collision to get an estimate to fix the damage to my car. Then I went to my sister-in-law's office to pick up my lab results. Here's where she works:

That's the Deke Shant. It's owned by the fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon, and houses their national offices. Sarah works for the national office. She gave me a tour of the building. It's smaller than I thought, but still very impressive. I especially liked the stained glass windows on the upper floor. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures.

By the end of the work day Friday (clearly I didn't get much work done) I still hadn't heard from the SUV kid's parents. I googled the phone number he gave me to verify that he wasn't trying to pull a fast one. The results matched the name he gave me and also spit out the first names of his parents and their address. I love google. I called and left a polite message on their answering machine asking them to return my call. I'm naturally a bit too trusting but I was really getting suspicious at this point.

The car thing was definitely stressing me out so I needed my Friday evening bike ride and post ride beer more than ever. Sadly, not quite half way through the ride the storms and rain that were only 30% likely landed right on top of us. We got soaked. So the ride was a bust but dinner and beer with my bicycle friends at Casey's was just as fun as ever.

Saturday, with a list as long as my arm of things I wanted to get done and still no word from SUV kid, I was getting very very frustrated. I called the number the kid gave me again around 11:30am. The mother answered. I told her I wanted to come up to Bloomfield and file a police report and go through insurance to get my car fixed and I told her about Dusty's estimate and the cracked exhaust manifold. She told me she would call me back in 20 minutes when her husband had left. She didn't want him to find out. She called back at 12:30pm to tell me she'd changed her mind and wanted to wait for her husband to return because it was so much money. When the husband/father finally called around 2pm he had some outlandish plan to have my car taken to his buddy's body shop in another town to be fixed. I handed the phone to Buster.

Buster may not always be the most sensitive or romantic of husbands but he always knows when and how to stand up for me. And that's way more important to me than flowers and candle light. He flat out told that guy NO. We would either do the right thing and file a police report and go through insurance or he would give us the money to get the car fixed here in Ann Arbor.

Michigan is a no-fault state so my insurance pays to fix my car when I'm involved in a traffic accident no matter who's at fault. And there was no damage (that I could see) to his giant SUV. I'm sure his insurance would be made aware of the accident, but I doubt they'd change his premiums unless the kid was issued a ticket. And I don't think it's possible for the kid to get a ticket since we didn't call the police to the scene. I can't figure out why filing a police report and going through my insurance to fix my car was a problem for him.

I could only hear Buster's side of the conversation but they were definitely not coming to an agreement. Buster told him we'd be filing a police report the next day. When he hung up he asked me if I had time to go right away. I hopped in the car and headed for the Bloomfield township police department immediately.

I expected to get chewed out for not calling the police to the scene. I didn't. The officer that took my report was very nice. When he asked if I'd called the other party to have them to come in and file the report with me I told him about the conversation with the father and that I simply wasn't comfortable contacting them again (honestly, every Hummer I saw in Bloomfield made me a little nervous). The officer gathered all my information, gave me a complaint number and sent me on my way within just a few short minutes. He told me he was going to follow up with the other party immediately. I was relieved.

I ran home, showered and dressed, and headed for Monroe (in my noisy car) where some close family friends were renewing their vows. I missed the beginning of the ceremony but the end was lovely and the party was great fun. I'll post pictures when I get them.

I was confident that the stress and hectic running around of the last few days was over as I pulled into my drive near midnight last night. It was a pretty warm evening and I was looking forward to walking into my air conditioned house and changing out of my dress clothes and relaxing with Buster for a bit. Only, when I walked in the door, the house was way warmer than it should have been, it was only slightly cooler than outside. oh dear...

So, on top of my mis-routed medical information, my messed up car, nearly getting screwed by rich people driving large scary SUVs, missing one bike ride and getting soaking wet on another, our AC was broken. Waah!

I bought myself a new pair of these to make myself feel better:

Some girls buy Manolo Blahniks, I buy Sidis. Also, I found a new favorite bike shop.

I feel much better now.

One Hundred Miles

2008-08-19T20:50:00.000-04:00

One hundred point six to be exact. It's a bit of a long way. It's even longer when you're on a bicycle.

I finally completed my first century of the summer this past Sunday (egads! it's almost fall! took me long enough!). I've done other centuries in years past but this is my first one that wasn't part of an organized tour with dedicated food and rest stops. This was an AABTS club ride called the Sleeker Senile (S)Century. Sleeker hosts this ride on third Sunday of each month. I regret not bringing my camera. The scenery was great, but there was a chance of rain and I was paranoid.

The ride began at 8am in Dexter. 8am and I are not the best of friends, but I made it and I was ready to ride. Sleeker handed out cue sheets (for those that might not know, a cue sheet is a list of cues or directions including the distance between turns and the total mileage at each turn). At the top of the cue sheet it said "Olivet Out n Back 130". 130? 130 miles? Oh Boy! Ok, that was not what I had in mind but wasn't really a problem, it's an out and back route so I could turn around at 50 miles instead of 65 and have my century without killing myself. Click through to see my route.

We pulled out of Dexter and within a few short miles I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep up with the pack -- "the pack" being three very fit guys. About the time we reached Chelsea (shy of 10 miles into the ride) the guys had disappeared into the distance and I was firmly on my own. The weather was lovely and I pedaled along, quite happy to be riding at my own pace and enjoying the day. There was a bit of a headwind but I didn't let it bother me -- I knew it'd be at my back helping me along when I turned back toward home.

Around 25 miles in I was in need of a restroom and some water bottle refills. Just as I began to think about ducking into the woods to take care of the restroom portion I came upon Waterloo Recreation Area. This is where hulluva ride stops for lunch. I pulled in to the campground for a quick rest and refill.

Back on the road and about 45 minutes later I came across an unmarked intersection. The mileage showing on my bike computer wasn't quite right to be the turn I was looking for, but a construction detour in Chelsea and my detour into Waterloo had me a fair amount ahead of the mileage on the cue sheet. Maybe I had miscalculated. I was in completely unfamiliar territory so I pulled out some old maps from helluva ride and tried to figure out if I was still on them. While I was trying to decide which way to go another cyclist pedaled up and asked if I needed help. Her name is Dawn and she rescued me.

Dawn took a look at the cue sheet, pointed me in the right direction and offered to tag along for a bit. So I rode and chatted with Dawn for the next hour or so. When we reached the border of Jackson County she turned back and headed for home. I rode on into Ingham County toward Onondaga.

Onondaga is a teeny tiny little rural town about a dozen miles south of Lansing. The cue sheet recommended stopping here for food, rest, and refills. There was a nice little gas station/convenience store with picnic tables outside. I had a little lunch and a lot of water and Gatorade and I visited with another group of cyclists stopping for a snack. They'll be on the same dalmac route that I'll be on next week. Perhaps I'll see them there.

The Onondaga stop was just shy of the half-way point if I wanted to make a full century. So I got back on my bike and pedaled on up the road until my bike computer read 50.5 miles. The extra half mile was just to be sure. Better that I arrive back in Dexter with 101 miles than 99 miles because really wanted that century and I knew when I got back within sight of my car I'd be all done no matter what the mileage.

I passed a working oil well on my way up the road... Thought that was kinda cool. I didn't know we had those in Michigan. I reached the border between Ingham and Eaton Counties just as my bike computer reached 50.5 miles. So I turned around and headed back without entering Eaton. Three counties is enough for one day. The way back seemed shorter, though I had less company. I never really realized how pretty Michigan is until I started biking. This ride covered some very nice territory. The roads were more familiar on the way back and a gentle wind was helping me along so I rode a little easier and took more time to look around and enjoy the scenery.

I stopped again at Waterloo and went down by the lake this time. There were lots of families playing in the water and sitting on the beach and eating ice cream and generally enjoying the lovely weather. I hadn't planned on staying longer than it took to fill my water bottles and empty my bladder. But, with 75 miles down, I was getting tired and needed a little stretch and a short rest.

The last 25 miles were the most familiar and seemed to fly by. I had thought I might stop in Chelsea, ten miles from my destination, but when I got there I still had a full bottle left and was anxious to finish up. So I soldiered on.

As I rode the last stretch into Dexter I glanced down at my bike computer and relieved to see I wouldn't need to add any extra laps around town to reach the century mark. I was sore and exhausted and it felt wonderful to get off the bike. I had a few aches and pains but nothing serious. It was nothing like the time when my hand went numb on a century a couple years ago and I couldn't open a jar for two months. Or the time when I got saddles sores so bad on another century that I rode the last 5 miles without touching my poor tush to the saddle and couldn't wear underwear for a week. Or the time when I arrived home so dehydrated that I had a headache for two days. Yes, I think I've finally got this century thing figured out. My knees didn't even hurt the next day!

Not five minutes after I arrived in Dexter, two of the fast guys pulled in. They had done a full 130 miles. They must have set a blistering pace and they both looked at least as exhausted as I felt.

In case you're wondering, my ride time for 100.6 miles was almost exactly 7 hours. That's an average of 14.3 mph. The whole ride, with rest stops, took 8 hours. The 130 mile guys probably spent a little less time resting and probably averaged between 17 and 18 mph. That, in my opinion, is WICKED fast for that long of a ride. Someday maybe I'll be that strong! In the mean time, I'm pretty proud of my 100.6 miles.

The 2008 Hugos, part II (response to comments)

2008-08-14T16:15:00.000-04:00

Wow! I've apparently attracted some attention with my Hugo post. Check out the comments on the previous post.

First, Mary Robinette Kowel has bunches of free fiction online here. Also, catching up a little on her blog after posting my Hugo rundown, I see she just sold a story to Subterranean Press. I, too, love Subterranean Press. Their books are treasures, both because they tend to choose wonderful stories and because they print and bind them with top notch materials and include the most beautiful art work. A Sub Press book is a tactile and visual pleasure as well as a good read. I'm looking forward to reading both Mary's online work and her Sub Press work. (Wow, a Hugo winner commented on my blog! That is so cool!)

I also got a comment from Nadine. I'm not sure who she is, but it sounds like she either knows Michael Chabon professionally or she's a knowledgeable fan. She indirectly pointed out that my rant was a bit harsh. She's right. I'm not sore about Michael Chabon, in particular, publishing SF under a mainstream imprint. To be quite honest The Yiddish Policeman's Union caught my eye even before it landed on the Hugo nominations list. I haven't read it yet simply because I'm a somewhat slow reader (especially during bicycling season) and my to-be-read pile is taking over my house.

Here's the problem: I can't decide if it's in the best interest of the science-fiction/fantasy community to hand a Hugo to a book printed under a mainstream imprint. On the one hand, the Hugo is and always has been a genre award. Is it a good idea to award Hugos to books that aren't publicly considered SF when there's so much excellent SF out there? On the other hand, this sort of thing might attract new readers and writers to the genre. By poking our heads out in the mainstream world and saying "hey, that mainstream novel is actually SF and we really liked it," we might make the literary world aware that a great deal of SF is literary, relevant, well written, accessible, diverse, and worth reading.

Did we award a non-SF work an SF award? Or did we recognize an outstanding SF story wrapped in a mainstream package?

Nadine's comments about alternate history are worth addressing here also. Alternate history has been a popular SF element for quite some time. PK Dick's The Man in the High Castle comes instantly to mind and is probably the most classic strait up example. Mary Gentle's Book of Ash series includes some fantasy elements as well as alternate history. The Axis of Time series by John Birmingham is a recently popular SF alternate history of WWII. I haven't read any Harry Turtledove, but he's known for writing fantasy alternate histories. I've read a ton of Tim Powers. Much of his stuff is considered secret history which I would consider the fraternal twin to alternate history.

I'm not particularly well read when it comes to modern mainstream fiction. If alternate history actually is a fairly common mainstream element, I'm not aware of it. Also, if the alternate history element in The Yiddish Policeman's Union doesn't make it SF, what does? Because if there's no science fiction or fantasy elements, it may very well be an excellent novel, but it shouldn't have been eligible for a Hugo. I don't care how amazing a book is, I think we want to exercise some care about what we set out there as the best sci-fi/fantasy novel of a given year. Anyhow, I'd better go read it before I get myself into any more trouble here.

To be perfectly honest, most of the angst in my rant comes from my brief experience with McCarthy's The Road. You see, when The Road first hit the shelves I was told I must go read this book. "It's SF, you'll love it," I was told. Oprah had just endorsed the book. Oprah's endorsement tends to be the mark of the beast in my mind. I just plain don't like the same books Oprah likes. The novels she endorses tend to be chock full of loneliness, misery, and woe. The Road is no exception. I stood in the middle of the bookstore and popped that book open to the middle (as I often do when I want to sample the flavor of a book) and started reading. I barely got through two pages before realizing that if I didn't set it down right away I was going to send it flying into into the far wall of the store. If mainstream readers think this is a good example of sci-fi... oh sweet lord save us my genre is doomed.

Look, Oprah, if you want to read loneliness, misery, and woe, go ahead, read The Road. If you want to read a well written, literary, post apocalyptic novel go check the SF shelves for A Canticle for Leibowitz by Miller. That's my favorite of the many post apocalyptic novels I've read. The post apocalypse is a super popular old school SF theme. It's been done a zillion times. Don't go thinking The Road is something new and different, because as far as I can tell, it's a miserable example of a well worn theme. It just got stacked on a different shelf.

So my angst about The Road got mixed up with my mixed feelings and reservations about handing a Hugo to a main stream novel that is of unclear sf-ness.

Directly, I apologize for calling Chabon a jerk. That was totally out of line. I'm sorry. I'm sure he's a very nice person and I'm impressed to learn from Nadine that he's a member of the SFWA. Also I don't find any fault with his inability to attend WorldCon. I'm even fairly sure I'll like his book when I read it. While I remain skeptical, I promise to withhold final judgment regarding the book's Hugo worthiness until after I've read it. It's now firmly on my winter reading list and I plan to report back here.

2008 Hugo Awards

2008-08-13T22:45:00.001-04:00

The 2008 Hugo results were announced last weekend. If you're not a Science Fiction fan or a follower of literary awards in general, then you probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

Science Fiction has two major awards, the Nebula and the Hugo. Nebula winners are chosen by the Science Fiction Writers Association (SFWA). The voters are professional writers so the winning works tend to be more literary and often more edgy or groundbreaking. The Hugo winners, on the other hand, are ostensibly chosen by the fans. The Hugo voting and awarding both happen every year at the World Science Fiction Convention. Attendees and anyone that wishes to pay for a supporting membership to the convention are permitted to cast a Hugo ballot.

Here's a rundown of this year's Hugo winners:

Best Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins; Fourth Estate)
Best Novella: “All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis (Asimov’s Dec. 2007; Subterranean Press)
Best Novelette: “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang (Subterranean Press; F&SF Sept. 2007)
Best Short Story: “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s June 2007)
Best Related Book: Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher (Oxford University Press)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Stardust Written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn, Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman Illustrated by Charles Vess Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Paramount Pictures)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Doctor Who “Blink” Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Hettie Macdonald (BBC)
Best Editor, Long Form: David G. Hartwell
Best Editor, Short Form: Gordon Van Gelder
Best Professional Artist: Stephan Martiniere
Best Semiprozine: Locus
Best Fanzine: File 770
Best Fan Writer: John Scalzi
Best Fan Artist: Brad Foster
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Mary Robinette Kowal

Starting with the novella (I'll come back to the novel at the end):

Connie Willis is my all time favorite. I love her. If I ever met her I would go all gaga-fan-girl and drool on her shoes and beg her to sign everything I own including my arm. I own at least one copy of every novel she's ever published, including some of the early ones that are hard to find. She is brilliant and funny and engaging and witty and... you get the picture. I could go on and on. I won't. I will tell you "All Seated on the Ground" is good, but not my favorite of her works. I believe it's filler while she works on a rumored massive novel set during the blitz in London that we've all been waiting for forever now. She's been publishing these little novellas every year for the past several years. None of them are bad (we are talking about the goddess of humorous science fiction here, after all, she's not capable of "bad"). But even the best of her novellas can't touch her novels. I'm really craving that next novel. These little novellas are lovely and enjoyable but it's like a little nibble of a snack when what you really want is a four course meal. I want that blitz novel.

On to the Novelette:

I haven't read “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” but I've heard good things. I'll have to track it down. Answer me this, though: What the heck is a novelette? I understand that there's a word-count definition available here (SFWA says a work between 7,500 and 17,500 words) but that, in my opinion, is a silly way to categorize literary works.

The difference between a novel and a short story is clear in the structure. Generally a short story has a single major beat to the plot and no more than one or two developed characters. Often all the characters are simple sketches or stereotypes and none are actually developed. A short story usually contains a single major idea -- a theme that can be summed up in a single sentence.

A Novel generally has a plot line with several beats usually accompanied by subplots and tangents and played out by one or more well developed major characters, who grow and change (or pointedly don't) as a result of the plot. A novel can easily contain several complex themes.

If a short story is a single at bat, then a novel might be a whole season of play or even the entire life's story of the batter.

Given those definitions based on literary elements rather than word count, I'm satisfied with the concept of a novella as something in between. For example, "All Seated on the Ground" has a plot with several beats, but a single theme and only one somewhat well developed character (the narrator).

So, can someone please differentiate a novelette for me without using word count? If it can't be differentiated without word count, why the heck does it deserve it's own award category?

The Short Story:

Ahhhh! E. Bear. Prolific, brilliant, literary, challenging, wonderful Bear. I can plow through a Connie Willis novel in 2 or 3 days. A novel of the same word count written by Elizabeth Bear might take me a month. She's a challenge to read because her work is layer upon layer packed full of ideas and allusions and complex, fascinating, often abused, and usually broken characters. Bear expects her readers to be intelligent, attentive, and well read. And I love her for it even if some of her stuff does fly right over my head.

I read "Tideline" in Asimov's when it was first published last summer. I didn't actually like it the first time I read it. I re-read it a couple months ago and walked away with a completely different opinion. It's fantastic. For some odd reason, the second read made me think of "Puff the Magic Dragon". In any case, it's a good story. Go read it for yourself and tell me what you think.

Bear better make some space on her mantle for all the awards she's going to win over the next few years. The woman is talented. And prolific, did I mention prolific?

The rest. Gonna skip a few categories here and just briefly comment on others:

Drama, Long form: Stardust by Neil Gaiman is a fantastically amazing brilliant and wonderful book. It's a fairytale in the spirit of the brothers Grimm -- dark and chilling and magical and heartwarming all at the same time. The movie was... eh.. pretty good. It sort of rounded off the edges, and the edges were the best part. But we're grading on a curve here and I suppose Stardust the movie was slightly better than the Golden Compass movie (also a far far better book than movie), and the rest of the nominees weren't even in the same league. So there you have it. Ok movie, worth renting. If you're a reader, go read the book instead.

Drama, Short form: Umm... I have a confession. I really don't get the fascination with Dr Who. I've tried watching it, I just can't get into it. Maybe, in the shadow of Farscape and Firefly (best SF TV shows EVER!) I'm expecting too much from my SF TV?

Locus, semiprozine? Locus pretty much is the journal of the professional SF world, so far as I know. Also, no fiction in Locus. huh. I guess I don't grok that category. ("grok": That word would likely be found in the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, winner of best related book Hugo, which I just added to my amazon wishlist.)

Hey! Scalzi got a Hugo! For best fan writer? Umm.. hey guys? News flash: Scalzi is a professional published author and his blog, The Whatever, while wildly popular and quite fun to read, is a promotional tool. Shouldn't best fan writer go to someone writing fan-fic? Oh well, Scalzi deserves a Hugo. And this one will have to do until we hand him one for best novel or the Hugo folks add a category for best SF blog/podcast. Which, really, they should do right away because blogs and podcasts are contributing to the SF genre in a major way these days.

Best new writer, Mary Robinette Kowal... umm... where's the work? 'cause really I wanna read it and I can't find it. I've read and very much enjoyed her blog. I've listened to her read a few different stories and fell head over heels in love with her voice. Seriously, she could read the telephone book out loud and I'd enjoy listening. She's very active in the SF community but I honestly can't find her stories and I really want to read them.

Ok, going back to best novel:

I apologize in advance for my rant. I'm just a wee bit miffed about this one. Why? Oh why? Why in the world? Why on god's green earth would SF fans vote for some jerk that won't even allow his work to be filed in the SF section of the bookstore? I don't care how good his novel is, I'm quite hesitant to put my hard earned book money into the hands of some fool that writes SF but is too darn good to admit he's an SF author. What is wrong with you people? You're promoting this author/publisher/agent that thinks you're just a bunch of useless geeks with no literary taste!

All right, all right. Maybe Chabon himself doesn't think he's too good for SF-fandom but his publisher and his agent must. And that's just as bad. The Audrey Niffeneggers (Time Traveler's Wife), the Cormac McCarthys (that post-apocalyptic rip-off dung-heap called The Road), and the Micheal Chabon's of the world can all go piss up a flagpole. They want to use the tools of SF (time travel, post-apocalypse, alternate history) without being directly compared to other writers in the genre. They don't want to be considered genre authors. By denying that their work is SF they further and promote the idea that SF cannot be literary or relevant, that it does not speak about values and concepts and the ways in which we choose to live our lives.

I have news for you fools that think you're too good for the SF shelves.

You are too good to sit alongside Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, a book that shows us the dangers of mass media and the cautions us not to shut out concepts and ideas that diverge from the popular.

Your novels too important to rub shoulders with Orwell's 1984, or Huxley's Brave New World, or Zamyatin's We. Distopias all, without which we would not have the concepts or a healthy fear of Big Brother, groupthink, or soma.

And don't forget Asimov's Foundation about fate and free will. Or Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness about gender politics.

How 'bout Frank Herbert's Dune? Among it's other epic themes, it's about winning the hearts and minds of a religious desert people who control a vital economic resource -- that couldn't possibly be relevant today!

Then there's Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark about an autistic man. This book raises critical moral and ethical questions about our advancing medical skills and technology.

Oh, and you certainly wouldn't want your work to be seen near Peter Watts's Blindsight, a deeply chilling and utterly brilliant novel about the nature and utility of self consciousness.

Your novel is literature and these are science fiction, and never the two shall meet! I wonder, Michael Chabon and Harper Collins, will you stamp "Hugo award Winner" on the next printing of this book? Or "by the Hugo award winning author" on your next release? Will you now embrace SF, after initially shunning it, now that the SF community has recognized you as one of our own and embraced you? Maybe, just maybe, you'll discover that we're not all geeky Star Trek obsessed adolescent boys.

Will I eventually read The Yiddish Policeman's Union? Yes, most likely I will. I've made a point in the last several years of reading all the past Hugo award winners and reading many of the past nominees. And, there's a flip side to my rant here... Perhaps by recognizing a main stream novel with a major SF award we will make the non-SF reading community aware that SF can be, and often is literary and well worth reading. Maybe a few literary snobs out there read this book before we handed it a Hugo and will now think "Hey, I read that, I liked it. It's SF? huh. Maybe there's other SF out there worth reading." And that would be a victory for SF.

So maybe there's a silver lining, but I'm still grouchy about all these folks that write SF but are squeamish about being labeled as SF writers.

There you have it, the 2008 Hugos and my opinions.. and my rants . Check out the Denvention Hugo nomination page to see a list of all this year's nominees. Most of the shorter works are available online, linked from that Denvention page. And if you prefer to give them a listen, escape pod podcasted four of the five short story nominees including Bear's "Tideline".

If this post bored you to tears, I promise there's more biking content coming soon, and probably other stuff too... and if you enjoyed this, well, there's more SF commentary in the works as well. I'm gonna try to shorten things up around here and post a little more often. I don't make any promises, though.

A Baby Shower

2008-08-06T15:02:00.001-04:00

More biking and knitting and maybe even a little bit about my fiction obsession to come. Today, a baby shower.

A week and a half ago we had a baby shower for Baby K. Sorry it took me so long to post about it. It took a while to sort through all the pictures. First a picture of Baby K himself:

Hope Mom and Dad don't mind me posting that. As you can see, there's very little doubt about this baby's gender!

Here's my favorite picture of Mom and Dad:

And my favorite picture of Big Sis:

Isn't that just the cutest smile you've ever seen?

(Ok, some folks might think it's strange that we're having a baby shower when this is Mom's second baby. Allow me to explain. Big Sis is Dad's step daughter and Dad's family and friends didn't want to miss out on all the baby shower fun so we insisted on throwing a shower. There, not so strange, after all.)

There were lots of guests. I've got pictures of only a few.

Here's my mom sitting with Grandma K and the baby's Dad.

Here's one of the baby's Grandmas sitting with her sisters:

Here's a few old friends and neighbors:

And more friends. That's baby's other Grandma on the right:

And the food was absolutely amazing. I wish I had taken pictures of the food, but I was too busy eating it. There was a lovely appetizer plate with steamed asparagus and little melon balls and fancy crackers and this super delish savory cheese cake bite with roasted red pepper. Then there was the main dish with super yummy salad greens and berries and an amazing vinaigrette dressing, a wonderful little crab cake, and a sandwich wrap. For dessert we had cream puffs and fruit flan. My mouth is watering just remembering all that wonderful food!

Then we all had great fun watching Mom and Dad and Big Sis open presents:

They got all kinds of goodies for the little one: a whole bunch of books and lots of cute little outfits, adorable toys, a high chair and a car seat and a play mat, and all sorts of brown and blue bedding and decoration for the baby's room.

Mom and Big Sis share a laugh while Dad tries on baby's new panda bear hat (can you see the little ears?).

We all had great fun and I even had fun cleaning up. After the tables and chairs were all stacked in the garage I got to chase Big Sis around the empty living room and tie her pigtails together and find her ticklish spots. I think Big Sis is gonna love having a little brother. I hope I get a chance to babysit!

If you want to see a few more pictures, or you want to download the full size files, you can find them here: http://www.lunar.net/~sara/pictures/kaye-baby-shower-7-27-2008/

Rocky the Rescued Racoon

2008-07-31T15:44:00.002-04:00

I haven't had much inspiration for the blog lately (except for a super fun baby shower last weekend which I will be posting about after I sort through the zillions of photos) so I'm extra pleased about my eventful Wednesday evening bike ride.

Every Wednesday evening for the past couple summers, if the weather is pleasant and my knees aren't complaining too loudly I ride the AABTS club ride. It's 25 miles and it's kinda fast. This summer the ride leaders and most of the other riders have been leaving me in the dust. So it's been more of a push-my-limits fitness ride and less of a social ride. But this week was a little different. This week I managed to catch up with Courtney at about the half way point. She was taking it easy. I've ridden with her before. She's quite capable of leaving me in the dust. Her husband, Cameron, is quite capable of riding circles around me... very large fast circles. Courtney and Cameron are new to the club this year and they're super nice folks.

When Courtney and I crested a small hill and saw her husband standing on the side of the road we figured he must have gotten a flat. He's had some very very bad luck with flats lately. This time both his tires were fully inflated. Turns out he was in the middle of a wildlife rescue. This little guy was trying to cross the road:

With no mama raccoons in sight Cameron couldn't figure out which side of the road to leave this poor fella on. Each time Cameron tried to set him down, the little guy would cry and try to follow.

Courtney and I rode on expecting Cameron to get it all sorted and catch up with us shortly. Forty-five minutes later our route returned us to an intersection about two miles from where we'd left Cameron and the baby raccoon. And there they were, sitting in the grass outside the convenience store. Rather than leaving little Rocky the Raccoon to certain death on the side of the road, Cameron had called the humane society.

I have mixed feelings about raccoons. I admire them for their cleverness, but also find them a bit frightening, seeing as how they are wild animals and all. Several years ago, while Buster and I were camping, a raccoon made himself a fine lunch by figuring out how to unlock our tote of dry foods. Later when I was alone in the campsite a raccoon, likely the same one returning for an evening snack, tried to sneak up on me and nearly succeeded. His little paw-hand was inches away from my box of crackers when I spotted him and chased him off. He retreated to the very edge of the campfire light and proceeded to stalk me and my crackers until Buster returned. Outnumbered, he finally sulked off into the woods.

So I know from personal experience that raccoons are pretty smart, but they can also be very pesky and more than a little mean. And I can't imagine it'd be possible to domesticate them. I figured the humane society would put down the poor little guy that Cameron so kindly rescued. I suppose that would be a better fate for him than getting run over by a car or starving to death... but not much better.

Courtney and I were still there outside the convenience store with Cameron and little Rocky when the humane society guy arrived. No, they were not going to put him down unless he had distemper. Sadly, he had some symptoms -- he appeared malnourished and lethargic, and there was a little bit of discharge from one of his eyes. But he didn't show the typical neurological signs so maybe he's not sick, just hungry. The humane society guy figured that momma raccoon probably got hit by a car and this little guy had been on his own without momma to feed him for several days.

Turns out there are state licensed rehabilitation folks for wild animals. I've seen folks that do this on a TV program called Michigan Out of Doors that Buster likes to watch. They rehabilitate sick animals and reintroduce them into the wild. The animals that can't survive on their own in the wild, like the eagle with the amputated wing they had on the TV show, stay with the rehab folks and travel around the state to educate the public and promote the rehab efforts. I don't know if it's the same rehab folks that I saw on TV, but the humane society guy was taking rocky to some rehab folks.

Little Rocky may never know how lucky he is that Cameron, with a big heart and a love of animals, happened to be riding by just then. We're all hoping that little Rocky the Rescued Raccoon gets the food and care he needs in the animal rehab orphanage and grows up clever and strong so he can steal lots of breakfast cereal from locked food totes and terrorize many a lone cracker-eating camper.

More Thrust Less Drag, 6 wk Update

2008-07-25T16:28:00.001-04:00

I try to be cheery and upbeat around here but life isn't always cheery and upbeat. Truth be told, I'm a bit frustrated with my training and weight loss program. I've been exercising a ton, putting 75 miles or more on my bicycle each week, playing some softball, and hitting the gym on rainy days. I've also been counting calories using the spark pages nutrition tracker. It's been nearly six weeks since I officially started this project, and except for that typical week-one drop (probably water) I haven't lost a single pound.

I'm not perfect with the calorie counting. I've missed a few days of tracking and I've gone over the calorie goal a few days. The calorie goal is set by plugging in how many calories you expect to burn that week through exercise. I regularly burn a lot more calories than I've plugged in. I figure this should cover my slip ups with the tracking.

Maybe I need to try to be more diligent about my tracking, but I don't think I'm overeating. It's possible that I'm not eating enough, but that also seems unlikely. Some folks have suggested that, since I ramped up my exercise a bit, I'm building muscle to replace the fat I've lost. I'm sure that accounts for some of it but I've been working at this for 6 weeks. By now I should be seeing movement on the scale. Maybe I need to mix it up, eat different things. Or maybe I need to do more cross training or weight lifting. But taking time away from biking while the weather is good and DALMAC is on the horizon just doesn't appeal.

On the "more thrust" side of the equation, I seem to be building endurance, and that's good because that's what I really need for DALMAC. I don't, however, seem to be getting any faster. I suppose I don't really need to get any faster, but it sure would be nice to not be left behind on the Wednesday night club rides. This is mildly frustrating but I'm not too worried about it. I rode HARD last Wednesday. I couldn't keep up with the others but I pushed and pushed anyhow. I expected to feel wrung out when I finished, but I didn't. I felt pretty good. I think the speed will come if I can drop some weight. And there in lies the real frustration.

This has pushed me to do something I haven't done in a very very long time. I made an appointment with a doctor. I see the dentist, optometrist, and the dreaded girly doctor regularly, but I haven't seen a general practice physician in... heck, I don't know how long. I'm seeing one next Friday.

I honestly don't think she's going to find anything wrong with me or that she'll have anything to tell me that I haven't already though of. And if she offers weight loss drugs I will most likely turn them down flat. I do not believe in weight loss drugs, they tend to be unhealthy and dangerous, and they don't tend to work particularly well unless combined with.. say... cocaine. And cocaine is right out since the goal here is to be a healthy person not a skinny corpse.

So, I fully suspect that next Friday my new doctor will confirm that I'm surprisingly healthy given my weight and my family history. And I suspect she'll tell me to keep doing pretty much what I'm doing. Maybe, just maybe, she'll have some new insight, some advice, some key bit of information I've been missing. Maybe she'll spot a flaw in my plan, or maybe she'll send me to a nutritionist. In the mean time, I'll march on, tracking calories and exercising hard and often. Maybe I just need to keep doing what I've been doing and not give up. At least I'm not gaining!

A Neighborhood Wedding

2008-07-21T21:06:00.011-04:00

One of the Neighbors got married this weekend. I grew up in a really wonderful neighborhood. The subdivision was built in the early 70s and most of the folks moving in were young couples starting families. With so many people in the same stage of life and so many little kids running around it was nearly inevitable that we'd form a close knit community. Our little corner became especially close. The K's lived right next door. I've talked about them before. The H's lived on the other side of the K's and the C's lived across the street. Everyone except my parents has moved out of the neighborhood, but we've all stayed close friends. We gather together for the kids' graduation parties (all done with these) and the occasional Christmas party and weddings.

This weekend Kara C married a very lucky boy named Craig. I don't know Craig very well but he seems like a pretty nice guy. Kara was a stunningly beautiful bride.

I used to babysit for Kara and her brother, Chris. Kara was the sweetest little girl and Chris was a natural leader and they were both just as smart as could be. Not much has changed.

The wedding was at a country club here in Ann Arbor. The rain on Saturday pushed the ceremony into the ballroom but it didn't dampen our spirits. The K's and the H's and the R's (that's my family) all sat together in the back and we all had a wonderful time.

All the H's were there:

Kelly H was a bride's maid. She looked really pretty in that sage dress. Mr and Mrs H are renewing their vows in August. Sadly, I won't be able to make it. I'll be riding DALMAC .

Most of the Neighbor kids are married now and many have kids of their own (third generation Neighbors). Here's Kelly H and her brother, Chris H with his wife and their second son, the newest Neighbor.
And here's Justin H and his wife. They have two lovely girls.

Here's Kenn K and his lovely wife.

They have a darling little girl and are expecting a baby boy in a few short weeks. Sorry this picture is a little blurry.

And here's Buster and me.
We don't have any kids, yet, and neither does my brother. That means my parents are the only first generation neighbors to not yet be grandparents. I think this makes my Mom green with envy. Don't worry, Mom, you'll be a grandma someday.

Here's a few pictures of the first generation neighbors. Here's the dads with our lovely bride.

That's Mr H, then Kara (of course), my Dad, and Mr K.

And here's the Moms.
That's Mrs C (can you see the resemblance to Kara?), Mrs K, my mom, and Mrs H.

And one more second generation Neighbor, the brother of the bride! That's Kara's brother Chris on the left. He and Justin H presenting a slider to the camera. Apparently no party is complete without sliders.

Those sliders looked pretty good at the time... But I think that was probably the wine talking!

It was a lovely wedding and a wonderful party. I'm so very happy for Kara and I wish her and Craig lots of love and laughter, and many many happy years together. I hope he always remembers how lucky he is. Welcome to the Neighborhood, Craig!

One Helluva Ride! 2008

2008-07-14T17:30:00.001-04:00

The gods were not smiling on One Helluva Ride this year. Bad weather and a chemical spill conspired to overshadow the amazing work of the OHR organizers and volunteers.

I got up at the crack of dawn and drove out to the Chelsea fairgrounds hoping I could get my 100 mile ride in before the bad weather hit. There were probably two or three hundred cars already in the parking area when I arrived. The threat of bad weather sure didn't keep too many people away!

I was all checked in and on my bicycle pulling out of the fairgrounds just before 7:30am. Less than a mile into the route, still in Chelsea, we needed to make a left at a fairly busy intersection with a "smart" left turn light. When I'm on a bicycle "smart" lights are one of my pet peeves. What's one to do when the traffic signals never change in your favor? The only thing we could do was run the light. Some riders were more considerate about it than others. Kudos to the riders that politely yielded to motorists before running the red. Next year maybe we can ask the Chelsea police if they wouldn't mind posting an officer at this intersection to help us out.

I actually feel a bit whiny mentioning that intersection because the number of police and sag along the route was absolutely wonderful. There were friendly faces at nearly all the busier intersections. I do a fair number of these tours and OHR has more police and sag support than any other ride I've done. And every year it seems to get even better.

You'd think all this police presence would remind motorists to slow down, be patient, and give cyclists plenty of room. But the morning was not without incident. On the west side of Dexter I saw a cyclist was being loaded into an ambulance. She was conscious and on her feet, so I think she'll be ok. On the east side of Dexter I rode past a rider holding a handkerchief to his face. He told me he'd been clipped by a car and he and his friend had already called for assistance. There was a cop at the intersection not a mile behind us. I sure hope someone got a license plate number!

The rest of the first leg of the ride went quite well. The sun was still peeking out below the clouds. The air was heavy and we all knew the rain was coming, but not quite yet. Several miles north of Dexter we turned west onto Darwin Rd and headed toward Hell, MI. Maybe I'm a complete dork, or maybe I just like to poke fun at the Creationists, but I sure do get a kick out of the fact that Darwin is the road to Hell.

While riding the hills of Hell I happened upon Paulie. I met Paulie back in May on the DCC's Metro Grand Spring Tour. On the MGST he was with a couple other riders that rode at about the same pace I do. This time he was with a girl I hadn't met before and I had a hard time keeping up. When we reached the first rest stop (28 miles in) I quickly tucked all stuff I wanted to keep dry into ziplock bags (the rain was definitely coming), grabbed a banana, filled my water bottles with gatorade, and said goodbye to Paulie. I didn't want to waste any time as I was still hoping to get the full 100 in before the weather got nasty. I figured Paulie and his friend would catch up with me before lunch. Sadly, I didn't see them again.

At around 40 miles a couple gentlemen passed me slowly enough to chat a bit. The clouds were starting to look ominous and we all agreed we were likely to get wet. I boldly proclaimed that I didn't mind getting a little wet, I just didn't want hail or lightening. Literally two minutes later I got my wish. Ten minutes later it was raining hard enough to hurt, I was soaked to the bone, and the whole thing stopped being fun. The rain finally let up then stopped all together just a few minutes before I pulled into the lunch stop at Portage Lake in Waterloo State Recreation Area.

I called Buster (in case you're new around here, that's what I call my husband) while I was eating my peanut butter and banana sandwich with a side of yummy pasta salad. He said the weather forecast was not looking too good. When I'd checked the forecast that morning the winds were expected to kick up in the afternoon with the worst of the storms hitting around 4pm. Armed with a dismal forecast but no immediate signs of bad weather I forged ahead thinking I might still be able to make the 100 miles but giving myself permission to take the shorter route if the weather looked bad when I reached the split.

The 100 mile route splits from the 79 mile route right near the Race Rd exit of I-94. The 100 mile route heads west a mile or two on Ann Arbor Rd then heads south to Napoleon before turning back north to Grass Lake, while the shorter route turns East along the service drive for a bit before taking a more direct route to Grass Lake.

As I rode south on Race Rd approaching I-94 I discovered a big knot of traffic. There was a cop directing traffic and an OHR volunteer stationed near the corner to inform us that the 100 mile loop was closed due to a chemical spill just a mile or so west of us. Everyone, motorists and cyclists alike, were being directed East along the service drive. While I was disappointed that riders would not be allowed to ride the longer loop (I helped paint the markings along that loop), I was a bit relieved to have the decision made for me. I would take the 79 mile route the rest of the way (at this point my knees, legs, and sore tush were all quite grateful).

The rest stop in Grass Lake is outside a very nifty old train station. There was a barber shop quartet here this year to serenade the riders. They were pretty gosh darn good. I rested, stretched, ate cookies and bananas, refilled my bottles, and discussed the virtues of a clean shower, a dry towel, and a cold beer with some like minded women. Then I headed out to complete the ride.

At this point the wind really picked up. Luckily it was out of the south so we had a good tail wind for several miles until we turned east for the final leg of the ride back into Chelsea. There were friendly volunteers and plenty of watermelon to greet riders returning to the fairgrounds.

I was dead tired so I skipped the watermelon and headed strait home for that nice clean shower and dry towel I'd been dreaming about for the last 16 miles. A handful of ibuprofen, a nice long nap, and copious amounts of Thai food later I felt human again. Many thanks to the bossman for bringing the Thai food!

The more I think about this year's ride the more proud I am to have been part of the group that made it happen. The weather and the chemical spill were bummers, but everything that could be controlled was nearly perfect. The route was well planned and well marked with both signs and street markings (I helped with a section of the street painting). The maps and cue sheets were flawless. The rest stops and lunch stops were well spaced, fully stocked with good food and beverages, and run by hardworking friendly folks. The sags were copious and responsive and the police were reassuringly ubiquitous. And the t-shirts are really classy. I don't think I could possibly be more impressed or more proud of the folks that made all this happen.

I am more than a little disappointed that I have yet to complete a century this year. I might head down to Findlay, Ohio in September for the Hancock Horizontal Hundred. I know that at least a couple other aabts members will be there and I'm still holding out hope that Mary's knee will stop being so cranky and let her back on her bicycle by then. But I'd really like to have a century under my belt this summer before I ride DALMAC at the end of August so I might just have to map one out myself and do my very first unsupported century. It's a rather daunting thought... We'll see if I can work up the courage to give it a shot.

Same Roads, Same Rights, Same Rules, Part 1

2008-07-11T13:50:00.003-04:00

Recently, a staff member of the Boston Globe by the name of Bella English published a blog entry entitled "If only drivers shared the road, cyclists would be safer". It stirred up a bit of controversy. I mostly, but not entirely, agree with Ms English. It's a familiar rant to most road bikers and it goes something like this:

We bikers are all angelic. We hug trees and ride for charity. We obey all the rules of the road all the time. We are polite to automobiles and we stay to the right and always riding single file. You automobile drivers are evil vile and nasty people. You are stupid and angry. Our safety is you're responsibility and you are falling down on the job.

Ok, that's a little extreme. Ms English didn't go that far but she went farther than I like. Her column made me scrunch up my nose a little thinking "no, that's not quite right". As of today there are over 400 comments to her post. It's the comments contradicting Ms English that really got my blood boiling.

Let me start by telling you what Ms English did and did not get right. She starts by painting a very rosy picture of cyclists much like the tongue in cheek rant above. Sorry, that's sadly not the case. I'm a very cautious rider and I try to be as polite as possible to auto traffic. But I cannot claim to obey all the traffic laws all the time. I admit:

I blow stop signs... slowly and with a careful eye out for cross traffic, pedestrians, and other cyclists. Clipping out and coming to a full stop on bicycle is kinda a pain. I always give proper right-of-way, but I don't often come to a full stop.
And I blow red lights. Honestly, only one red light. The left turn signal at Zeeb and Dexter is a smart light and my bike won't trigger it, so I blow it carefully after yielding to traffic.
I don't always stay to the right. Remember that stretch of potholes I mentioned in my biking post back in May? Those aren't the only or even the worst potholes around here. I will ride in the left half of the lane or even on the yellow line (when there's no oncoming traffic) to avoid potholes. Potholes can do a fair amount of damage to both a bicycle and a cyclist.
I don't always ride single file. Sometimes, on group rides, I'll get chatting with another rider and we'll be riding side by side so we don't have to shout at one another. I listen for traffic approaching behind us so we can form up if there's a car coming but sometimes I don't hear the car until it's too late. If you pass me in a car while I'm doing this, glance in your rear view mirror. There's a good chance you'll see me wince and say "Sorry!!".
I don't always signal. I know the hand signals for left, right, and stop and I try to use them whenever my intentions may not be crystal clear to anyone else on the road. Sometimes, when the road conditions are poor or I need both brakes, I just don't feel safe taking my left hand off the bar in order to signal.

So, I'm a reasonably well behaved cyclist but I'm no angel. Most of the cyclists I see on the road are a lot like me. I've seen other riders that are not quite so well behaved. I've seen riders that refuse to form up so cars can pass more easily. I've seen riders without helmets or with ipod earbuds stuck in their ears. I've seen riders blow through intersections when they should have stopped or yielded. I've seen incredibly rude riders fly through quiet neighborhoods shouting at each other and nearly running over dogs and pedestrians. I've seen riders blatantly ignore the rules of the road cutting in and out of traffic, on and off of sidewalks, creating dangerous situations for themselves, pedestrians, and motorists. I've also seen riders stopped and ticketed by police officers -- Good job, Mr. Police Man!

We cyclists are not angelic. And some of us are, I'm terribly sorry and embarrassed to say, downright rude, obnoxious, and unsafe. But those arrogant turds are the minority. Most of us actually do try to share the road politely, safely, and legally.

On the auto side of the argument, Ms English states, "I divide dangerous drivers into two categories: angry or stupid." (Note we're only talking about the drivers that cause trouble for bikers, not the many polite, knowledgeable, safe drivers.) Angry or stupid? Anger or frustration do not necessarily lead to dangerous behavior. And stupidity is not the same as ignorance. Perhaps I'm just picking on semantics here, but I think "belligerent" and "ignorant" work better than "angry" and "stupid".

Belligerent drivers are the worst. But I don't think I really need to explain this one much. These are the folks that throw things (lit cigarettes, McDonald's bags, drink cups full of ice, random trash, dirty diapers) out their windows at bikers. These are the folks that try to run bikers off the road. These are the folks that lay on their horn or shout nasty things as they pass. These are the folks that get behind the wheel when they've had a few too many. Bullies, a$$holes, whatever you call them, they're intentionally creating dangerous situations and we can only hope they land in jail or earn themselves a posthumous Darwin award. Thankfully there really aren't that many of these dip-twiddles around here. Apparently they're all moving to Boston.

Ignorant drivers are less dangerous but far far more plentiful. There are only a few things you need to know to safely share the road with cyclists. It amazes me that this stuff doesn't seem to be mentioned in drivers education classes. I would love to see a greater effort on the part of cyclists' organizations to educate motorists. From my personal experience, here's what I think all motorists should know:

Six feet. That's about half a lane. That's how much room a standard size car or motorcycle should give a cyclist when passing. More is always better, but six feet is enough. And remember, oncoming cyclists need at least half a lane, too. Unless your car is very small it's probably best to wait for ALL oncoming traffic, including cyclists, to clear before passing.
Ten or more feet. Most of a lane. That's the minimum amount of space an oversize vehicle (van, suv, full size pickup) or anything pulling a trailer should give a bike. Trailers are often wider than the vehicles that are pulling them. I can't even count the number of times I've been scared silly by a trailer passing far too close.
Horns are startling! Even when you just tweet them. There's really no need. Unless you're driving a quiet little hybrid on the electrics, I can probably hear you coming without you hittin' the horn.
Cyclists' hand signals are the same as drivers' hand signals. You learned this one in driver's ed. Here's a refresher: left hand strait out = left turn; left hand up, elbow bent = right turn (some cyclists point with their right hand); left hand down, elbow bent or strait = slowing or stopping. You may also see cyclists pointing at various places on the road, or at branches hanging over the road, or at pedestrians or slower cyclists ahead. They're pointing out hazards to other cyclists that may too close behind them (drafting) to see what's coming. As you approach or pass cyclists you may hear them shout to riders ahead. They're usually saying "car back!" to warn the other cyclists to form up and be cautious because a car is trying to pass.
Motorists, please use your signals to let cyclists know what you're doing! Be predictable so we can stay out of your way. I nearly got into an accident the other day with a motorist trying to turn left without a signal -- I was trying to make a left and merge in behind him, but he was unexpectedly slowing to turn onto the street I was coming from. I ended up turning 180 back onto the street I came from from. He yelled something nasty at me as he passed, but I wouldn't have been in his way if he'd used his signal.
Don't be alarmed or annoyed when cyclists pull into the stream of traffic at an intersection. That's the safest place for us to be. Cyclists should be given their turn at a four way stop just like a motorist. Cyclists should take a position in the left half of the lane or in the right half of a left turn lane when turning left.
By law cyclists are supposed to keep right or stay in a bike lane if there is one. However, this rule does not apply when a cyclist is turning left or avoiding hazards. Have you seen Michigan roads lately? Cyclists in my neck of the woods spend a lot of time avoiding hazards. Expect it.
Yield the right-of-way to a cyclist just as you would another vehicle.
Put away the cell phone and don't drive if you've been drinking. There's nothing more likely to kill a cyclist than a distracted or, worse yet, inebriated driver.

If you, as a motorist, remember these things. If cyclists also behave themselves, the roads will be a lot safer and more pleasant for all of us. Ms. English closes her blog post with this:

"What both bikers and drivers need to do is to understand that neither one owns the road, that both sides must share it in order to ensure everyone's safety. In Rodney King's immortal words: 'Why can't we all just get along?'"

I can't argue with that!

I'm already getting rather long winded here and I haven't even addressed any of the comments to the Boston Globe blog post. I'll save that for later.

In the mean time, If you happen to live in Michigan between Ann Arbor and Jackson within about 15 miles north or south of I94, be on the lookout for me and well over a thousand other cyclists on the roads tomorrow. Every year on the second Saturday in July the Ann Arbor Bicycle Touring Society puts on One Helluva Ride. Last year there were 1730 riders. The century (100 mile) route, which I'll be riding, starts at the Chelsea fair grounds and makes a big loop through Dexter, Hell, Gregory, Stockbridge, Munith, Portage Lake State Park (where we have lunch), Napoleon, Grass Lake, Sylvan, and back into Chelsea. Come out and wave, or better yet, get on your bikes and ride!

Lace: a four letter word

2008-07-09T16:30:00.000-04:00

I am knitting lace. I'm not entirely sure that this is a wise thing to do.

My mother-in-law recently moved from Michigan to Florida. The last two Christmases I've given her nice warm store bought cashmere scarves. Now that she's migrated to a warmer climate a warm scarf wouldn't be of much use. I want to make something for her this year so I've been keeping an eye out for a nice elegant light weight wrap pattern. When I saw the Seascape pattern in this summer's issue of knitty, I instantly thought of my mother-in-law and ran out to buy yarn so I could give it a try right away.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

My sweater, you may recall, had vine lace pattern panels on the front, but that was different. That was all done in bulky weight yarn. Lace in lace weight yarn is a whole different story. This stuff is hardly thicker than sewing thread and it likes to tangle and snag on things. I tried feeding the ball from the center -- that was a complete disaster! I had to put the ball in a nice smooth high sided heavy bowl and feed from the outside of the ball.

The yarn is a bit fussy, but it's also quite pretty. I found the yarn at my local yarn shop. It's "Daphne" color 07 by Elegant Yarns. The website shows a lot more colors in "07" than my ball seems to have. Mine looks like it's mostly going to stick close to this purple and green you can see in the photos. It's 100% Merino and there are, I kid you not, 875 yards in a single 50g ball. I shouldn't have any trouble finishing this whole project with one ball of yarn.

My yarn shop had a couple balls of this stuff in a gorgeous flame orange color also. If I can get through this project and if it turns out nice (those are rather big "if"s at the moment) I'll have to go buy a ball of the orange.

I discovered quite quickly that this isn't a knit-while-you-watch-tv kind of project. It requires some serious concentration. This is the first project I've attempted that requires so much mental effort. There's a LOT of counting and keeping track and I've already had to compensate for a couple minor mistakes that were too difficult to fix properly without starting completely over.

Right now I'm using bamboo needles. I think I might need to get myself a #4 addi turbo lace needle and switch to that. The points on the bamboo needles are a bit too dull. I'm having to fiddle to get the points into the stitches and that's making the whole thing take twice as long as it would otherwise.

Also, it's nearly impossible to see how the project is going to turn out as I'm knitting because this will most definitely require blocking to give it proper shape. This is the picture from knitty:

And here's what mine looks like so far:

I've finished the end bit and the wavy pattern is just starting to emerge. I'm glad I started this so early. I expect it will take months to finish. And I won't know if this is something my mother-in-law will like until I get it finished and blocked... If I actually do manage to finish it.

Prior to this project I was a pretty monogamous knitter. I'd finish whatever I was working on before starting something new. That's no longer the case. I need my tv knitting. I haven't taken any photos of my other works-in-progress so I'll save those for later. For now, wish me luck conquering the lace.

Zingerman's cin-ful cinnamon rolls

2008-07-08T00:42:00.001-04:00

If you ever visit Ann Arbor you really should stop in at Zingerman's. Start with the Deli, but be aware, Zingerman's is much much more than a local deli with top notch meats and cheeses, freshly baked traditional artisan breads, and the best sandwiches in town. They also have a coffeeshop, a bakehouse, a creamery, a roadhouse, a mail order business, a bake school, and a reputation. It's a very good reputation. Zingerman's uses only the best all natural ingredients from all over the world, they cut no corners and spare no expense, and they have a very strong commitment to traditional methods and traditional ingredients. Their food is expensive and it's definitely not low calorie. But you get what you pay for on both those fronts. I haven't tasted anything from Zingerman's that wasn't absolutely delicious.

For mother's day, my brother and his wife got my mom a Zingerman's gift certificate and suggested that she use it to take one of the bake classes. Mom chose the cin-ful cinnamon rolls class (not at all surprising -- Mom has always been a cinnamon roll fan) and I decided to join her. The class was this past Thursday and it was fantastic.

Here's Mom outside the Bake school.

She looks pretty good in that apron! Neither one of us are likely to get passionate about baking anytime soon, but we both had a good time and now we know how to make a very special treat when we get the urge.

I won't give you the recipe for Zingerman's cin-ful cinnamon rolls. I'm a little shocked that they hand it out to folks taking the class (of course, how ever would they teach the class without giving out the recipe?). I will however tell you the process and a few of the things I learned in class. There are 5 steps to making these delectable cinnamon rolls:

Make a poolish and let it rise.
Make the sweet dough and chill it.
Form the cinnamon rolls and let them rise.
Bake the cinnamon rolls. (This is when things start smelling heavenly)
Frost and devour the cinnamon rolls.

Did I forget the making the frosting part? We didn't do that in class.

We did the steps out of order so we could fit all the steps into the 4 hour class.

First we made a poolish. I don't have any pictures of that. A poolish (also known as a pre-ferment) is a starter made of flour, liquid, and yeast. In this case the liquid is milk. For bread it would generally be water. The poolish gives the yeast a head start. Sourdough starter is very similar to a poolish, but sourdough starter uses natural wild yeast while a poolish uses domestic baker's yeast. Bread poolish is usually liquidy, but this sweet dough poolish is firm.

We had to wait for the poolish to rise before we could do step 2 (making the dough), so we moved on to step 3 (forming the cinnamon rolls) with some already mixed and chilled sweet dough.

This is Shelby. He taught the class. A long time ago, before I met Buster, he and Shelby worked together at the bakehouse. That's a mirror over Shelby's table so we can see what he's doing.

Shelby is holding the chilled sweet dough. First he rolled out the sweet dough into a big rectangle.
Then he sprinkled it with yummy filling. That's a mixture of Korintje cinnamon (high quality Indonesian Cassia) and Muscovado brown sugar.

I was surprised to learn that Zingerman's uses Cassia rather than true Cinnamon (capital "C"). The vast majority of cinnamon (lower case "c") sold in the US is Cassia. Cassia and Cinnamon come from similar plants, but Cassia bark has a stronger flavor and a more woody texture. Check out the wikipedia entries I linked above to learn more. I don't know why Zingerman's chose Cassia over true Cinnamon, but Shelby said they did a lot of taste testing and Korintje is the best of all the cinnamons they tried.

Did you know that most of the brown sugar you buy in the supermarket is actually refined white sugar with molasses added back? Muscovado sugar (and most organic brown sugars) haven't had the molasses removed in the first place. Less refining means a more natural product and a better flavor.

Here Shelby is cutting the cinnamon rolls into several different shapes and placing them on a parchment lined baking pan. He was very fond of saying "Don't worry! It's still going to taste great!".

We were given pre-made chilled batches of sweet dough, the ingredients for the filling, and all the tools we needed to roll out and shape our own cinnamon rolls.

Then all our cinnamon rolls went into the proofer.
A proofer is simply a warm humidity controlled box that makes the dough ferment (rise) faster than it would at room temperature. You don't need to use one, it just shortens the rise time. I used one of these way back in my Pizza Hut days to proof the pan pizza dough. So there was no magic here for me.

While our cinnamon rolls rose, we took a few minutes to goof off.

Look! I'm a Hobart! ... Hey, how did buster get in there? He didn't take a baking class! He already knows all this stuff!

Back in class, our poolishes were ready and it was time to mix the sweet dough. First we creamed together the sugar, salt, and butter. A European style cultured butter is best for baking because it has a slightly higher fat content than your typical grocery store butter. Fat may not look so good on your hips but it tastes mighty fine and it makes dough bake up tender and flaky. Zingerman's uses Plugra butter. You can buy it at Trader Joe's.

Then we added eggs and, once they were integrated, we tore up our poolish and added it.

Shelby has just added his poolish. If you look closely you can see the doughy lumps in the egg-y mixture. Integrating the poolish by hand was a challenge. Next time I think I'll use the KitchenAid. Once the poolish was integrated we added the rest of the flour.

We used King Arthur all purpose flour. This flour has a lot of protein (11.7%) for an all purpose flour. Flours can range in protein content from 5 to 15%. Cake flour is at the low end, 5% to 8%. Low protein flour yields a dough with very little structure (a batter) which bakes into fluffy crumb. A higher protein flour, like bread flour (12%-13%), yields a much more structured dough that can be shaped and forms a chewy crumb. To get a structured dough with a tender crumb for our cinnamon rolls we use a higher protein flour -- either King Arthur all purpose flour or bread flour. The eggs and the high protein flour gives the dough structure while the sugar and the butter tenderize the dough so the crumb isn't chewy. If you use a lower protein flour (like Gold Medal all purpose flour at 10.5% protein) you'll likely end up with a puddle of dough instead of a nicely formed cinnamon roll.

While we finished mixing and wrapping up our dough the room filled with the sweet scent of cinnamon-y goodness. The cinnamon rolls were baking!

Shelby is frosting his batch of cinnamon rolls so we can all have a taste.
It's a cream cheese frosting made with cream cheese from Zingerman's creamery *drool*. I love cream cheese frosting and.. ya know those cream cheese commercials with the angels eating that store brand cream cheese? That's false advertising, folks. If angels were gong to eat cream cheese they wouldn't bother with that flavorless paste -- they'd eat Zingerman's cream cheese.

The cinnamon rolls would have been wonderful plain. With this stuff on top they were positively heavenly.

I brought home a dozen cinnamon rolls with frosting on the side, along with a batch of sweet dough ready to make a dozen more.

I gave a few of the cinnamon rolls to the bossman, and buster and I ate the rest in about 3 days. The sweet dough is waiting in the fridge to be baked up into another batch. I originally thought I'd freeze it and make it up in a month or so, but it's calling my name. I might need to do some baking this weekend.

The class was tons of fun. Like most things at Zingerman's, it was on the pricey side but worth it in the end. I learned not just how to make these beauties, but all about the ingredients. I learned about flour and yeast and brown sugar and butter and about how all these things interact and why. I honestly don't know if I'll make a whole lot of cinnamon rolls at home. I don't think my waist line can handle it! But the class was wonderful and I think I might just have to take another.

Happy 4th of July!

2008-07-04T11:47:00.003-04:00

Happy BBQ and fun and fireworks.

Happy free speech and happy free elections.
Happy freedom of religion.
Happy free enterprise.

Happy baseball, mom, and apple pie.
Happy wide open spaces, happy amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty.
Happy big cities and little towns, great lakes and flowing rivers.

Happy home of the free and the brave.
Happy 4th of July.

Power's Out

2008-07-03T14:35:00.003-04:00

A huge storm rolled through yesterday evening taking down trees, blowing lawn furniture to Timbuktu, and knocking out our power in a serious way. We've been down since about 7:30pm yesterday (cooking dinner in the dark was an adventure). According to DTE, we might be back up by midnight tonight, maybe... if we're lucky. It's a stinker.

When I was a kid, power outages were all flashlights and candles and adventures. Now they're worry over spoiling food, messed up routines, no Internet, no A/C, no TV, and no light to knit or read. The flashlights and candles are still kinda fun, though.

This morning Buster fetched a block of dry ice for the freezer and a block of water ice for the fridge, just like a very old fashioned ice box. Hopefully that will keep everything until we get power back.

Currently I'm sitting in a cafe eating BiBimBap and drinking a skim latte with the bossman (who is reading a sports magazine -- there's not much work to do today anyhow). All my work email and access is being held hostage on my home desktop computer by the power outage. So no work for me -- yipee! (No Internet surfing either, once I leave the cafe -- bummer!)

I was going to tell you about the lace knitting project today, but all my photos are also being held hostage by the power outage. So that will have to wait.

Just in case I'm not back by tomorrow, Happy 4th of July, everyone!

ETA: Power came back just before midnight July 3. A tree limb fell on a transformer in the neighbor's back yard. We were dark for about 28 hours. Almost everything in the fridge and freezer survived. Buster and I are very happy to have our fridge, lights, Internet, and TV all back up and running. I'm especially happy to have the coffee pot back!

Tires and tubes and spokes and tape

2008-07-01T14:55:00.000-04:00

My bicycle recently turned over 5500 miles. I am proud to claim responsibility for every single last one of those miles, up hills and down them, into the wind and with it. However, I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I haven't really kept up with all the routine maintenance like I should.

A few weeks ago my brother-in-law helped me with a few things. We (he) swapped out the chain and the cassette (that the set of gears on the back), repacked the bearings (there are all these little ball bearings in the center of the wheels that sometimes need to be removed, cleaned, put back, and loaded up with fresh grease), and adjusted the fit a little (my knees are pleased). He mentioned that I might want some new tires and new handlebar tape. I decided to wait until later.

Later is now. Last week I wore through the last little bit of cork tape south of the right hand brake hood and it began to unravel. And, Saturday, as I was checking my tire pressure, I noticed just how very worn my tires actually were. The unraveling tape looks shabby but isn't that big a deal. The state of the tires, on the other hand, had me worried. Worn tires lead to flat tires.

There are, in my estimation, four quick ways to ruin a fine day of riding:

Crash.
Get run off the road by an ignorant dillweed.
Encounter truly nasty weather.
Get a flat.

Number 4 is probably the most frequent, though the local population of ignorant dillweeds does seem to be on the rise. Seriously, though, getting a flat is a ride killer. A bicycle flat is almost as big a pain as an automobile flat. Smart cyclists carry at least one spare tube, tire levers, a frame pump or CO2 cartridge, and a dollar bill*. So it's all fixable, but changing a tube while sitting in a drainage ditch surrounded by a swarm of hungry mosquitoes has got to be the very definition of NO FUN.

Luckily, it's been a while since I've had to do that (knock on wood). I rode Saturday on the worn tires and probably could have gone another month without incident. But I wasn't going to take the risk. Before riding yesterday I ran to my LBS (that's "local bike shop" for you non-cyclists out there) and picked up some supplies.

Swapping out bike tires sounds easy, and the LBS guys make it look easy. But it's not. I've got the broken nails, gashed knuckles, and sore hands to prove it.

When I put the rear wheel back on the bike and gave it a spin, it wobbled. That's no good. It took me quite a while to figure out that the wheel was seated right and the wheel itself was out of true (meaning that it wasn't a nice flat circle like it should be). Eep! That's usually bad news! You need fancy tools and more know-how than I have to true a wheel.

I discovered a loose spoke and imagined the worst. But a quick IM chat with a far away biking buddy set my mind at ease. The nipple (that's the little thingy that connects the spoke to the wheel rim) is threaded all backwards. No wonder nothing was catching when I tried to tighten things up. Thank goodness for my far away biking buddy! I tightened up the spoke and tuned it like a guitar -- you can pluck the spokes and tighten or loosen them to make them all sound the same (another tip from the far away biking buddy). All fixed.

Somehow, when I was putting the back wheel back on I must have jostled the rear derailleur (would someone please tell me why we spell it like that?). The drive train is now skipping in one of the gears I use a lot. I'll have to get the bike back up on the work stand and see if I can fix that before I ride tomorrow.

The unraveling bar tape can wait. My brother-in-law said he'd help me with that later this week. I'm really lucky to have such helpful people around!

I've spent a fair amount of time and money tuning up my bicycle this summer. I generally prefer riding over wrenching but bicycles need regular maintenance. If I want a bike in good repair I either have to take a bit of time and do it myself between rides or I have to spend twice the money and leave the bike with my LBS for a week. With plenty of friendly help I'm discovering that I don't really mind the wrenching and doing it myself actually leaves me more time to ride. My LBS is offering free bicycle maintenance classes every other Wednesday evening this summer. I think I'm gonna sign up for one.

---

* Note: A dollar bill won't buy much but it should be part of every cyclist's flat tire kit. Dollars are pretty durable little pieces of paper. If you happen to cut open your tire (popping the tube is much more common but big punctures and cuts do happen) you fold the dollar bill into fourths and put it between the new tube and the cut in the tire. This protects the tube from road grit and keeps it from ballooning out of the cut in your tire. You won't be able to inflate your tube to full pressure but you should be able to fill it enough that you can ride home. I've used this trick. It works.

Knitting for Baby K

2008-06-27T16:40:00.000-04:00

Lots of my friends are having babies this year. One of Buster's buddies had a beautiful little baby girl in May. Some friends of mine from my days in Seattle are expecting a little one in September. And KK and MK are expecting a baby boy in August. While I'm overjoyed for all the mommies and daddies, I'm especially excited about KK and MK.

KK grew up next door to me and our families remain the closest of friends. I remember playing "statues" with KK and his sister in their back yard, and building little villages in the sandbox and playing war with KK's army men. When I was a high school freshman KK was a senior and he drove me to school everyday in his super cool '48 Chevy. He was always nice to me and never once made me feel like I was imposing. I was a dorky little freshman -- I had to be cramping his style, but he never let on. Our families have Christmas dinner together every year. My brother and I don't have any first cousins. KK and his sister are the closest thing we've got. We don't share a family tree, but we are family nonetheless.

KK and MK got married a little over a year ago. I've met several of the girls KK has dated over the years. Not one of them can hold a candle to MK. First, she's gorgeous. I mean, look at her! Drop. Dead. Gorgeous. And she's fun, and silly, and bold, and genuine, and super sweet. She's exactly what a great guy like KK deserves.

Around Christmas time we learned that Baby K was on the way!

When I learned how to knit (early this spring) I immediately decided that I wanted to knit something for Baby K. I wasn't very confident in my knitting skills and I didn't want to take on anything that might be too complicated or that I wouldn't be able to finish in time. So I settled on a hat and booties.

I picked up Simple Knits for Cherished Babies from my local yarn shop, along with 6 balls of yarn in 3 different colors -- one color for each of the three babies that were on the way.

I saved the one for MK and KK for last so I would get lots of practice first (also because their baby will be the last of the 3 to be born and babies don't need hats and booties before they're born). The beanie and booties I chose are fairly quick to make and I knocked out the first two sets in a few weeks. I've been working on Baby K's set a few rows at a time for a month or so. I set it aside to work on my sweater and the socks, and I finally finished it up yesterday.

If you're looking for simple, elegant things to knit for babies, this book is excellent. It's full of lovely softly lit photos and well written instructions. The beanie pattern called for worsted weight yarn but I wanted it to match the booties so I used the same dk weight yarn for both, used appropriate needles, and worked the large size. Looks like it came out pretty close to the measurements for the newborn size.

If you want to see another sample from this book, head over to Shazam in the Kitchen and check out the cardigan Mary made.

After seeing Travel Bear model Mary's baby knits, Gray Bear got jealous and asked if he, too could model knitted baby clothes. Gray Bear, I think you have a thing or two to learn about modeling...

"Hey, are you sure these are supposed to be booties? They make much better gloves!"

I know MK occasionally reads this blog so I've spoiled her surprise. But there's a whole month before the baby shower. And if this lace project I've taken on (coming soon to a blog near you) doesn't take over my whole world I might find enough time to make something else for Baby K.

Play Ball!

2008-06-25T18:30:00.002-04:00

Last night was softball night. I keep score because, when they do ask me to play, I'm most definitely the worst player on the team. They're really a good team. And, frankly, I stink. When I was little I played t-ball. The coach (my dad) would send me out to play right field and I'd wander out there and have a seat. Sometimes I'd pick flowers. If a ball came my way, I'd duck. I haven't really improved much since then. But I have learned most of the rules and I understand a fair amount of strategy now. So I keep score and Buster plays shortstop.

Buster also hits Bombs.

"That Ball is... Waaay Back!!"

Often Mr and Mrs B come play on our team. That's Mrs B up to bat and Mr B on first. They don't play every week because it's a bit of a drive for them. Buster and Mr B have been buddies since they were both knee high to a grasshopper. Buster has a lot of really amazing friends and these two are top of the pack. I really enjoy spending time with Mr and Mrs B and with their two bright and energetic boys.

Seven there is one of our pitchers. She and her husband have been playing softball with Buster for many years. Her husband is the team manager. They're super nice folks and they often join us for dinner after the games. Would you believe Seven's a grandmother?

This is Seven's grandson. He's three years old. I think he's a switch hitter. We're gonna be adding him to the roster any day now.

Softball night is always loads of fun. We won both games of our double header and we had a huge crowd for dinner at Knights. Next week we once again face the only team that's managed to beat us this season. We like a good challenge!

More Socks!

2008-06-24T00:13:00.008-04:00

Another pair of socks complete. I knitted these both at the same time on two circular needles. It was a bit of a challenge to begin with and I was very glad that I'd done a pair one at a time first. I pretty much got the hang of it after a couple dozen rows. It's just a matter of figuring out how to find your place if you get confused and keeping your two feeds of yarn from twisting up too much. Also, you gotta remember to drop the yarn when you move to the other sock. D'oh!

They're so bright and cheerful! I had to try them on even though they're not for me. I made these for marvelous Mary over at Shazam in the Kitchen. If you haven't checked out her yummy food blog yet, you really should. She makes the most amazing cupcakes and lots of other good stuff, too.

I wonder if she wants the leftover yarn back. Since these are shorty socks, I might have just enough left to make a second pair.

I need to block them, then pack them up and send them to her. I hope she has as much fun wearing them as I had making them.

I just cast on a new project. Wait until you see it. Oh my! I may have bit of more than I can chew this time. It's lace... eep!
...

In other news, I'm one week into the More Thrust, Less Drag project. I'm down 4.6 lbs. Ok, that's cheating a little since I changed scales and I changed the time of day of my weigh in. Nonetheless, there's some progress there.
...

And one more thing, as it is now the wee hours of the 24th of June. Twenty-nine years ago today I ceased being an only child. Happy Birthday, little brother!! In case I haven't said so recently, you rock.

OH Boy, Oh Boy! I got a New Toy!

2008-06-22T18:31:00.005-04:00

The mail lady brought my new toy yesterday.

Oh! My! Gaud! It is sooo coo-ul!!!

The pictures are very crisp and pretty. It makes all sorts of fancy high tech beepy noises. The battery lasts forever. And I no longer have to wait for Mr Sunshine to take nice photos -- low light is no problem for this little puppy. I might not ever need the flash! It is not, however, perfect. It cannot read my mind so I'm going to have to learn how to tell it where I would like it to focus.

I wanted a picture of the bar with some out of focus stuff in front. Instead I got a very nice photo of Buster's soda. No problem. You actually can set the focal length on this one manually, I just need to figure that feature out, along with the zillion other fancy features. Also, 13.6 mega pixels is some serious overkill. Buster says they should stop it with the mega pixel wars and concentrate on the what-cha-call-it (the bit that converts the image to a file -- I can't remember the acronym). I think he's right. And finally, the gosh derned thing doesn't come with a memory stick. There's about 15MB of internal memory, but that doesn't go very far, even when you tell it to take the smallest possible photos. I'm going to need a memory stick right away!

Anyhow, not long after the camera arrived yesterday, Buster and I decided that we better finish off the garden. So I put the camera down and planted some potatoes.

We now have 4 varieties of potatoes planted in 3 nice neat rows. We've got Charlottes (the row on the left), Yukon Golds (front half of the middle row), Huckleberries (back half of the middle row and a couple more in the very back of the right row), and Purple Majesties (most of the right row). Except for the Golds we haven't grown any of these before. I wish we had more room!

After we finished with the garden, Buster went fishing and I spent the afternoon running errands. Then we went out to dinner with the wacky Korean (he's a good friend and also my boss). I took my new toy to dinner with us.

We went to the Blue Nile for Ethiopian food. It was very tasty, as usual, but not so good for my diet. You use yummy flat bread to scoop up the various lentils, veggies, and meats from a shared platter with endless refills. It's all fairly healthy stuff, but portion control is near impossible.

I don't feel too bad about it, though. I got up this morning and went for a 33 mile bike ride, burning nearly 2,000 calories. I think that probably took care of last night's overindulgence!

After my bike ride I got back to playing with my new toy. I present to you Alexander Snuggles, the wise and aged pussy cat, resting on his heated bed after enjoying a fine lunch of tuna and shrimp in sauce. (no, he's not spoiled rotten. can you smell the sarcasm in that one?)

Alex wasn't really diggin' the photo shoot today. Oh well. Maybe next time.

More Thrust, Less Drag

2008-06-19T16:12:00.002-04:00

Project More Thrust, Less Drag has begun.

Yes, this photo is stolen. I purchased prints so I feel entitled to the electronic rights. I made no effort to remove the watermark and I cropped it. It was taken by Greg Sadler Photography. They shot photos at the Tour de Cure and are selling prints online (proceeds go to the ADA). Their pictures are really nice, even when the subject looks like an overstuffed sausages on a bicycle.

Yes, I confess, that's me. I honestly didn't realize that I look like such a lard butt on my bicycle. Ick! That was taken at the finish line of the Tour de Cure. It was a hard day so please ignore my poor form (by that I mean the shoulders that are crawling up into my ears and the elbows pointing sideways instead of turned back and relaxed).

Now, I've known for quite some time that my "got married and quit smoking" weight gain wasn't particularly healthy or attractive. And I can definitely feel it when I'm trying to pedal those extra pounds up a hill. But it really hit home when I saw this picture. I'm not just a little chubby here, folks. This is downright disturbing. A small part of me is actually a little bit proud because I don't know anyone that's anywhere near my size that can ride as fast or as far as I can, but still, it's disturbing. This photo is the last straw. Something must be done.

You see, I worked really hard to lose a lot of weight several years ago. I got my lazy tush off the couch, I swam, I biked, I joined a gym, and I did Weight Watchers. At one point I had lost a full 100 pounds. My lifestyle had done a 180. Through most of my 20s I was a grumpy, sarcastic, overfed couch potato. I worked too many hours, smoked too many cigarettes, and ate way too many nacho cheese combos. One fine day in May of 2003 I decided that enough was enough and I turned the corner. Over the next year I discovered that I kinda liked exercise, especially bicycling, healthy food can taste really good, my life and my job are NOT the same thing, and it really is possible for me to lose weight. I became healthy, happy, and, for the first time in my life, I really liked myself.

Weight Watchers (henceforth known as "WW") was a huge part of this. See, I love to eat. I love little snacks. And I love to sit down at a meal and try a little bit of everything and have seconds of my favorites. I love going to Morgan & York (if they're not the best cheese mongers in the US then their right up there near the top) and tasting a dozen different cheeses and bringing home a decadent snack to share with Buster. I don't mind cooking and I like to try my hand at new recipes and taste as I go. From cheesy poofs to grilled asparagus, from sushi to prime rib, I just love food. If I don't pay careful attention to what I'm eating, no matter how much I exercise, I will gain weight.

WW held me accountable for everything I ate. It's really a very good program. You track what you eat using a "points" system. The number of points for a given food is based on its calories, fat (bad), and fiber (good). I did WW for so long that you can hand me any nutritional label and I can calculate the WW points in my head in a few short seconds. I can also give you a fair points estimate for most food items without a nutritional label. WW really worked for me, but somewhere along the line I just plain burned out. Buster and I got engaged and my commitment to WW started slipping. Then we got married and a few months later I quit smoking and decided to give WW a break while I recovered. I never really got back on track. I tried a few times, spent the money, went to the meetings, kept the points journal for a few days, then I'd fall off again. I backslid, bad. I've managed to gain back over half the weight I worked so hard to lose.

Other than simple burnout (after three years, can you blame me?), I had only one real problem with WW. It wasn't designed for people that do intense exercise. Road biking isn't for slouches. I wear a heart rate monitor when I ride so I know that I routinely burn well over a thousand calories on a weekday evening ride. WW would give me 12 extra points on a day when I burned 1200 calories. 12 points represents somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 food calories. That system works when you're burning fewer than four or five hundred calories a day, but 1200? That's too much deficit. WW also wants you to eat those extra calories all on the same day you burn them. If I rode hard and took the next day off I would get very hungry on the off day because my body is still recovering.

So, when I saw that sausage photo above and knew that biking alone wasn't going to peel off those excess pounds or make me ready for DALMAC (Lansing to Mackinaw on a bicycle, 5 days, 340 miles, at the end of August) I decided that project "More Thrust, Less Drag" must begin. I'm a geek remember? And I studied aerospace engineering in school so thrust and drag are painfully familiar concepts to me. I need to get stronger - more thrust, and weigh less - less drag.

I knew that WW wasn't going to do it for me this time around. A friend of mine signed up on SparkPeople not too long ago and she told me a little about it. So I decided to sign up and see what they have to offer. It's part social networking site (think facebook or myspace), part fitness and nutrition site. I've mostly been ignoring the social networking part and using the food and exercise trackers. It's actually pretty similar to WW.

Similarities:

both are more "lifestyle changes" than "diets"
you have to record everything you eat
there are no off-limits foods
both strongly encourage exercise
both have online message boards, recipes, motivational articles, etc.

Differences

WW uses points. Spark tracks calories along with fat, carbs, and protein (these are by default, other values, like fiber, sodium, and calcium can also be tracked).
WW gives "activity points" for exercise. Spark asks you to enter a goal for calories burned in a week, then spreads extra calories over the whole week to cover your needs.
WW can be done on paper or online. Spark has to be done online.
WW encourages you to go to weekly support meetings (but also has an online only option). Spark has no meetings available.
WW strongly encourages a weekly weigh in. Spark tracks weight and measurements, but doesn't suggest how often these should be measured (at least not that I've seen so far). [ETA: Found it. Spark wants weekly weigh ins also but they're less stringent about it.]
WW costs money. Spark is free (their site is full of ads but it's not overwhelming).

I just started a few days ago and, so far, I like Spark. It gets around my WW burnout without sacrificing the things I know work for me. It tracks meaningful nutritional stats and I really like the way it handles exercise calories. I don't know if I'm going to miss the WW meetings. I met a very dear friend going to those meetings and, for a while, they helped me stay motivated. I'm also not sure how I feel about being tied to the computer for tracking. I don't mind it so far and I think it's all gonna work out.

My short term goal is to ride every mile of DALMAC -- no sag wagon for me! The photo on the right represents my long term goal. That's me on a beautiful natural beach in the Bahamas in February of 2005. That was my first vacation with Buster. We spent most of the vacation fishing and I loved every minute of it. When I get back to that size I think I'm going to ask Buster if we can go back to that place. They say you're supposed to reward yourself for reaching a fitness or weight loss goal. I think another vacation in a remote part of the Bahamas would be a perfect reward! I'll keep you posted on my progress.

It's a Cyclamen!

2008-06-17T17:14:00.005-04:00

Many thanks to Peggy for letting me know in comments to the previous post that this is a cyclamen. (By the way, Peggy, I love the mailbox!)

With a little help from my friends google and wikipedia, I have learned that these guys live in dry forest soil. They like bright but indirect sunlight and cool to moderate temperatures. And they don't like too much water.

This page claims that it's a challenge to get them to bloom more than once and that they don't live very long, just 2 to 3 months. But Mary informs me that she had one for quite some time and it bloomed over and over without much trouble. Her questionable watering habits ("whoops, this guy's getting parched!") might not be good for some plants, but probably helped this one along.

I think I must have watered this guy too much. I'm going to let him dry out a bit and see how he does.

Thanks, all!

Name That Plant!

2008-06-17T12:37:00.003-04:00

Can anyone tell me what this houseplant is? My mom got it as a table prize at a bridal shower. The bride is a beautiful young lady that I babysat for many years ago. I sadly couldn't attend her shower because it was the same day as the Tour de Cure. Mom brought the plant to me because I have a nice sunny window in my kitchen and plants tend to be very happy and healthy living there.

This pretty little plant has rubbery stems and thick heart shaped leaves and delicate pink flowers that curl over like a shy little girl staring at her toes.

Sadly, though, I think this shy little plant is in trouble.

It's leaves are turning yellow and it's flowers are getting wilty. Can anyone identify the plant? Or maybe even identify the problem? I'm not much of a green thumb so any help or advice you might have for me, dear readers, would be much appreciated.

Caveat Emptor

2008-06-16T20:34:00.004-04:00

On the flip side, your customer service can make ya or break ya.

Last week I decided that I really really badly need to replace the digital camera I've been using. It's probably 10 years old and I'm just not satisfied with the pictures it's taking. Buster and I discussed it and figured we could afford to spend a few bucks on shiny new digital point-and-shoot. So I logged into our very useful account on consumerreports.org and did my homework. I decided that I would really like a Sony Cyber-shot DSC W300 (Consumer Reports rated the W200 but it's been discontinued in favor of the W300). The Consumer Reports page has a button that takes you to Yahoo! Shopper to search for the best deal. And thus began the saga that left me fuming mad and without a shiny new camera.

The best price was from a place called WildDigital (no link, this is buyer beware, not an ad!). I looked over their site and figured they were probably legit. I've had many good experiences supporting mom&pop Internet operations, though I usually use a mediator like eBay or Amazon. I wasn't particularly worried that I'd never heard of them, and they take American Express -- amex has fantastic fraud protection and dispute handling, not to mention stellar customer service.

I placed my order and got my automatic confirmation email last Wednesday. On Thursday morning I received an email from Orders@wilddigital.com telling me that they'd like to confirm my billing address and to please call their 800 number and connect to a given extension. They hadn't shipped my camera yet. That was a stinker but it's in the name of security. I can jump through their hoop and wait an extra day for my camera. No biggie.

I called the 800 number right away in hopes that maybe my camera would ship that day... meepmeep meep. Why is an 800 number busy?? I tried 3 or 4 times over the next couple hours with the same result. There must be something wrong with their phones, I figured. So I gave up on the phone and tried replying to orders@wilddigital.com. It bounced. That's silly but not unheard of. I poked around their site and found support@wilddigital.com, guaranteed to respond in one business day. Ok, that sounds good. I emailed them with my order number and asked them if there was another way to confirm my order because it seems there's something wrong with their phones. In the mean time I continued trying the 800 number and I even tried the direct dial sales number listed on their site. meep meep meep.

Friday: No response to the email and no change in the phones. They were testing my patience. Friday afternoon the phone finally rang through! Only to provide a recording saying they closed at 2pm on Fridays. The email from Orders said they closed at 5pm on Fridays. Clearly they're having some trouble getting their act together!

Monday: By Monday afternoon there was still no response to the email and the phones were still meep meep meep-ing. My patience was all worn out. I'm the customer here and I want some service, darn it! I sent a second email to support asking them to please cancel my order as I was unhappy with the customer service. I also sent a query to amex asking them if they could block any charges WildDigital might try to make to my card.

7:30 Monday evening I'm wandering around Bed Bath & Beyond, stinky and hungry having just come from spin class but determined to purchase a new bathroom scale (fill you in on that later). My cell phone rang with a very strange caller ID: 1 800 000 0005. When I answered, there was no one on the other end. After several "hello?"s with no response I hung up. Half a second later it rang again, same caller ID. I'm terribly busy trying to choose a fru fru body fat % measuring bathroom scale, here, I don't need no stinkin' telemarketers! talk-end. Third time. Heck with it...

truncated, paraphrased conversation follows:

me: pause hello?

WildDigital sales dude with a definite grump on: I'm from Wild Digital. Why did you hang up on me?

me: uh, because you have funky caller ID and I couldn't hear anything.

sales dork: I'm calling about your order.

me (nice tone, buddy, gonna make lots of sales talking to people like that): Yeah, I wanted to cancel that order.

sales dweeb: Did you already buy another camera?

me (what business is it of yours?): I'd rather not discuss that.

sales dipstick: Well, I was gonna upgrade you to free 3-day shipping. Now you wanna cancel?

me (3-day shipping, woohoo, overnight and an apology might have gotten me but your tone and 3-day? not a prayer!): I've been trying to call you for 3 business days.

sales nimrod: Our phones were out today.

me (ok, be calm, talk nice, explain the problem): I couldn't get through on Thursday or Friday either. I even tried emailing your support alias and I didn't get a response.

sales dip-twinkle: Sales doesn't see that email.

me (The right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. Why am I not surprised?): I'd just like to have the order canceled, please.

sales dillweed: I was going to throw in free 3-day shipping. Have you bought the camera yet?

me: I've already asked my credit card to deny your charge. I'd like to cancel the order.

sales dip-twit: fine, whatever. *click*

I bit my tongue to avoid saying nasty R-rated things to the empty phone while standing in front of the fru fru bathroom scale display at Bed Bath & Beyond.

When I got home there was a very polite form letter from Orders@wilddigital.com confirming my cancellation. Heh! At least their automated stuff is polite!

Customer service is a big big deal! I can't figure out how that poor sales dim-bulb makes a living talking like that to customers. Did they not know their phones were busted for three full business days? Wasn't there anyone bothering to monitor email to support? How hard is it to be polite to a customer on the phone for a few minutes? Poor. Really poor.

I'll get my shiny new camera, but not from them!

half a garden

2008-06-15T14:58:00.004-04:00

The phrase "a little too little a little too late" springs to mind...

We're a little late getting started with our garden this year. Frankly, Buster and I aren't very good at the whole garden thing. Neither of us did much gardening growing up. There's a nice garden plot in our back yard, but I pretty much ignored it first few years I owned the house. When Buster moved in he not only performed an amazing transformation on the lawn, he also convinced me that it might be fun to have a real garden instead of a weed patch with a few perennial herbs left from the previous owner.

This year we're getting a very very late start. We've both been quite busy with work and fishing trips and bike rides and softball and various other things. Buster borrowed the neighbors tiller and turned over the garden patch a couple weeks ago, then he left for a week of carp fishing and I got busy with work and thoughts of the garden didn't cross my mind. We finally realized this past week that it was time to pooh or get off the pot. Weed patch or late garden? Last chance.

Yesterday we ran out to our favorite gardening store, Downtown Home and Garden. They usually have purple seed potatoes. Potatoes are pretty much our staple garden crop, especially the purple ones because they're so hard to find in the store. Sadly, this year, we were too late for purple potatoes. In fact, we were too late for almost everything at Downtown Home and Garden. We had to go to another gardening store for plants and Buster ordered potatoes online. So, until the potatoes arrive next week, we have half a garden.

We have, on the left, horseradish that we stared the first year we planted the garden. We harvested the two in front last fall but they popped right back up again this spring. If ever we decided to eradicate the horseradish I think we would have a very difficult time of it. In the back, there are two mounds, one for zucchini and one for summer squash. We're starting these from seed and crossing our fingers. Next to the horseradish we've got bell peppers (Buster didn't want these but I insisted) and jalapeño peppers. And in the cages are tomatoes, one regular tomato and two cages of cherry tomatoes. We've been trying to jury rig something to hold up tomato plants for two years now and finally we broke down and bought the cages. We also have a few herbs awaiting a nice pot. I wanted to put the herbs in the garden but Buster was afraid they'd take over and now that we have everything else planted I'm worried we won't have enough room for our potatoes as it is. So I shall pot the herbs in a great big pot that I can bring indoors in the winter.

Our neighbor has an amazing garden. He's the one that convinced us we should get straw for mulch to keep the weeds down. He's also shared extra plants with us in years past and we gave him extra potatoes two years ago. I don't think he ever planted potatoes before that. Here's his lovely garden:

I took this from my backyard and you probably can't see much through the play set, but it's all green and growing in nice neat rows and the tomatoes have big sturdy cages and it just puts us to shame. I have a terrible case of garden envy!

Grow, baby pepper plant, grow! We have a lot of catching up to do!

Sara's Silly Socks

2008-06-10T16:11:00.005-04:00

I have long harbored a secret love of slightly outrageous socks. Not too bright, not too flamboyant, but patterned or stripey or with cute little things on them. I have a pair of light blue socks with lions, elephants, zebras, and giraffes on them. I have a pair of biking socks with smiley faces on the left side of each ankle and not-so-smiley faces with the tongue sticking out on the right side (good day/bad day socks). I have another pair of biking socks with a bunch of different color daisies on them. And I have lots of stripey socks in different colors. I wear mundane clothing most of the time but I like my socks to be a little bit more exciting.

So, when I decided to try knitting socks, I knew I'd probably be bored with solid color sock yarn but the multicolor pre-patterned sock yarn sounded like fun!

As you can see I've got 1.5 socks so far. One sock isn't exactly useful. It brings to mind wee Willy Winky running through the town. Except I think he had two socks and only one shoe.

Oh well. Soon I shall have two whole socks.

Knitting socks on two circular needles isn't particularly difficult. You start with a bit of ribbing, then switch to stockinette stitch round and round until you reach the heal flap where you you've got a knit, slip, knit - purl across thing going on, then you turn the heal and pick up the gusset and knit around with some decreases until you're back to the number of stitches you started with. Then knit around until it's long enough and decrease a bit for the toes and use a fancy stitch to sew it closed. Whew!

With the right directions it's really not as hard as it might sound. I'm using a book called Knitting Circles Around Socks (Knit two at a time on circular needles). I decided to knit one sock at a time for my first effort since I've never knitted socks before. The biggest difficulty is making sure the second sock is the same as the first. That won't be a problem when I move on to knitting two socks at once, though I suspect I might run into trouble keeping all the yarn and needles sorted.

I'll let you know how that goes. I've got the yarn all lined up for the next few pair.

The super colorful stuff is for Magnificent Mary (from Shazam in the Kitchen). As soon as I finish my second sock, I'll move on to Mary's socks and try working two at once. I don't usually like to knit for someone else when I'm trying new things but I figure, if it doesn't work out I'll buy some new yarn and make her something fancy to make up for it. The two less colorful skeins are for me.

After I bought those Mary showed me an ad for this stuff:

It's called Regia Galaxy color yarn and I must have it. There are a dozen different colors and they're all swirly and swoopy and named "Jupiter" something-or-other. Jupiter is my favorite planet. They must have known. I wonder if any of their yarn includes the great red spot! (Yes, I have a favorite planet. Yes, I understand this makes me a huge dork. I'm ok with that. Don't look so embarrassed, little brother. You live far away. This does not reflect on you.)

One day I will tire of socks. And when I do, I will have to find something to knit for these two gorgeous girls.

These faerie princesses belong to Buster's brother and are thusly my nieces. I took this picture the other day in the neighbor's yard on our way to DQ for dessert. This really has nothing to do with knitting socks, I just wanted to share with you this picture of my wonderful and super duper awesome nieces.

Success! Pain! Victory! The Tour de Cure, 2008

2008-06-09T11:14:00.009-04:00

The Tour de Cure is a once a year cycling event to raise money for the American Diabetes Association. This year's Tour de Cure was held yesterday in Brighton, MI and it was my most difficult Tour yet. Some of it was the new route, most of it was the weather.

I set an ambitious fund raising goal and thanks to some very generous, wonderful, and amazing people I was able to bring in just over $500 for the ADA this year. Huge thanks to everyone that sponsored me. You all rock! Success!

Registration started at 7am. I hauled my carcass out of bed before 6 to get some breakfast, pack up my bike and gear and get to Island Lake State Recreation Area by 7. If you know me you know that I find 6am to be an ungodly wicked and horrible hour for any human being to be pulled from a peaceful slumber, especially on the weekend. It was an act of sheer will combined with love for my cause and my bicycle that got me to registration on time.

That photo was taken after the lines had died down. The start time for "50 and 70 mile" riders was 7:30am. There were a lot of "50 and 70 mile" riders this year. I put that in quotes because the "50 mile" route was only 48 miles and the "70 mile" route was just shy of 63 miles. This discrepancy was noted on my comment card along with a note that the ride is getting too big for a group start.
The group start meant long lines at registration and a peloton at the start of the ride. A peloton (big bunch of riders all packed together) might look fun on tv, but it's actually super scary and dangerous, especially when you're sharing the road with cars and most of the riders have very little experience with cooperative riding.

Having aired my complaints, I must tell you, the volunteers and organizers really did a wonderful job. The route was challenging (which is usually a good thing if the weather isn't terribly hot, muggy, and windy -- something they certainly couldn't have predicted) , the rest stops were well spaced and well stocked, and the volunteers were friendly and helpful and all around wonderful.

The ride began with several miles of rolling hills through Kensington Metropark.

A pretty way to start the day. It was still under 80°F and the wind hadn't kicked up yet but the big rain storms Saturday night left the air heavy and wet.

Kent Lake (above) is the main attraction at Kensington Metropark. It's very pretty in the morning.

After Kensington we headed up past the GM proving grounds, then north and west to Highland State Recreation Area. Then we turned south toward Proud Lake and west, back again to the proving grounds. And then we headed further south returning to Island Lake where an out-and-back in the park brought us to 63 miles and the finish line.

As the day wore on the temperature and humidity climbed and so did the wind speed. It seemed like every corner we turned pointed us uphill or into the wind. I think I drank my weight in gatorade and my brain still felt like a fried egg before we finished. Pain!

We hit this rest stop near the proving grounds twice: once at 17 miles and again at 40 miles. By the second stop here I was sore and feeling dehydrated, though I was drinking water and gatorade by the gallon. And I was pretty sure I'd suffered sunscreen failure -- luckily I was wrong on that front and ended up with nothing more than a darker tan and a pink nose.

There were an unusual number of flat tires on this ride. The gentleman I ended up riding most of the ride with got one (his first flat tire ever), and we passed probably ten other riders changing flats. I wonder if weather was to blame? Or little bit of extra sand and gravel on the roads from Saturday night's rain? Somehow I escaped a flat this time, but I harbor no illusions about my tire luck. I've had not a single flat all last year or so far this season. I'm seriously overdue.

The last rest stop on the tour was at about 58 miles. A volunteer there insisted that we take off our helmets and handed us cold wet paper towels. Ahhh! Yes, the brain definitely felt like an overcooked egg at that point, but the little bit of cooling helped and it felt great to wash the salt off my face and neck. Somehow this, along with more cold gatorade, gave me enough strength to make it the last 5 miles to the finish.

When I finally reached the finish (Victory!!) I stashed my bike and made a beeline for food. Carrabba's Italian Grill provided lunch. They have this chicken and mushroom masala stuff that is super duper amazingly yummy. I think it would still be tasty even if I hadn't just burned 4000 calories (I'm not exaggerating -- that's what my heart rate monitor actually reported) riding a bicycle 63 miles uphill and into the steamy wind.

I headed home for some ibuprofen and a shower. A solid ten minutes under cold spray and I was finally able to stop imagining that my brain aught to be served up with toast and bacon. For the rest of the day I napped and watched tv and knitted socks (there's a blog post about those coming soon) and drank tons of water and ate every healthy thing in my fridge and pantry, and a few not so healthy things, too.

The wind, high temperatures, and humidity joined forces with a hilly route to make this the single most difficult ride I've done since I started road biking. Thanks again to the wonderful people that sponsored me. I'm very proud to have completed such an enormously challenging ride and I'm equally proud to have friends and family that made it possible for me to bring the ADA over $500.

I woke up still sore this morning but I'm feeling better and better as the day goes on. I think I have some work to do before I'm ready for DALMAC (5 days, 338 miles) at the end of August. Hopefully the weather will be more kind!

Piece o' Truck and Peonies

2008-06-06T11:56:00.008-04:00

Buster is off at carp camp for a week and my poor little Ford Escort is in the shop. It's a good little car, but at 93,000 miles you just expect there to be a few problems. Luckily we have a good mechanic and he's taking good care of her. But it's gonna take a few bucks (bye-bye, remaining Bush money!) and a few more days. In the mean time I get to drive Buster's "Piece o' Truck". Now, I wouldn't want Buster to be upset with me about that one so I need to tell you, I did not decided to call it that, our mechanic did.

The interior smells like stale cigar smoke and the driver's seat is so worn there's hardly any stuffing left. Honestly, though, the piece o' truck isn't so bad. Thirty minutes with a vacuum, Fantastic, and healthy dose of Fabreeze has improved the interior. And this puppy runs like a charm despite approaching 150,000 miles. Good mechanic, remember. And it's kinda fun to drive. I know that must sound strange, but it's a stick and, boy, do I miss driving a stick! I can't help but feel right at home when I roll down all the windows and crank the twangiest country I can find on the radio. Baby, I got a pick-'em-up truck and friends in low places! All I'm missin' is a cowboy hat and some boots! If it wasn't for the cruddy millage (compared to my escort) and the astronomical price of gas these days, I might be perfectly happy driving the truck for a while.

On a totally different topic, as I was taking a picture of the piece o' truck, I decided I should treat y'all to the gorgeous peonies in bloom along our driveway.

They're so bright and cheerful! How lucky I am to have such pretty flowers great me as I pull up the drive!

Can you see the baby grasshopper? The little guy is much easier to see in the full size version, but that's just too big to put up here.

P.S. Don't forget! My Tour de Cure ride is this Sunday. You know you wanna sponsor me! There's a link right there in the side bar.

This is Hockey Town!!

2008-06-05T21:39:00.006-04:00

Red Wings Rock!

and that's all I have to say about that.

Visiting Mary and NASA

2008-06-03T13:20:00.005-04:00

After the Race for the Cure on Saturday I drove down to Nowhere, Ohio (no, silly, that's not actually the name of the town) where my marvelous friend Mary from Shazam in the Kitchen lives (you should check out her blog, those lavender cocoa cupcakes with blueberry frosting are to die for!). Nowhere, Ohio isn't terribly far from Sandusky. Sandusky is probably best known as the home to that restful, relaxing, romantic vacation spot where Buster and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary:

Yeah. Buster and I aren't so much for the romantic retreats. We spent an entire weekend at Cedar Point, America's Roller Coast. It was Great! (I snarfed that photo from the Cedar Point web site)

Anyway, I wasn't planning on talking about that. I wanted to tell you about something else in Sandusky. Yes, there are actually things in Sandusky other than chain restaurants, hotels, water parks, resorts, and touristy businesses meant to suck money from the pockets of Amazement Park visitors. Sandusky happens to be home to NASA's Plum Brook Station and this year happens to be NASA's 50th anniversary (NASA was born on October 1, 1958) and Plum Brook Station happened to have an open house this past weekend in celebration.

Now, I'm not ashamed to tell you that I'm a geek. Most people assume this means that I'm a computer geek because I make the Internet go for a living. Actually my true geeky passion is space. Space science, space travel, the history of space exploration, space fiction... I'm no expert in any of that stuff, I just like it. So Mary took me to the Plum Brook Station Open House.

Plum Brook is a 6400 acre facility located just south of Sandusky. Once upon a time it was known as Plum Brook Ordinance Works, and until the end of WWII, TNT was produced there. The igloos once used to store TNT are still there. NASA uses them to store broken office furniture, paperwork, and old testing rigs. Here's a picture of an ordinance igloo:

This photo came from a document about the Plum Brook reactor facility and the history of Plum Brook station. It's here: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4533/Plum%20Brook%20Complete.pdf.

There was more vegetation around the igloos we drove past.

The tour drove us past the cryogenic test complex where they test super cold stuff. Actually they're testing components and insulation and whatnot involved with cryogenic rocket propellant like LOx (liquid oxygen) and LH2 (liquid hydrogen). There are two parts to the cryogenic test complex. It's made up of the cryogenic propellant tank facility (K-site) and the cryogenics components laboratory (CCL). Click on the links to read about them.

We also drove past the Hypersonic Tunnel Facility (HTF) where they test rocket nozzles at Mach 5, 6 and 7 (that's really super fast -- a passenger jet usually doesn't get above Mach 0.8). If you have some background in this stuff, check out the link. Otherwise, maybe don't bother. NASA's not exactly giving a layman's explanation on this one.

The tour bus took us past this tower, as well:

(snarfed this photo from the NASA images database)

This photo is pretty old. The tower is no longer in use as a testing facility and it's fallen into a little disrepair. It used to be the E-Site missile stand. I think they used to shake payloads and missiles simulating launch conditions (I can't find info online about this -- just the picture, and I could be remembering wrong). Now the Ohio department of natural resources uses this tower to study the turkey vultures that have claimed it as their home.

We actually got off the Bus and checked out a few facilities too. The first bus stop was "B Control", a control center that I assume monitors and controls tests happening in B-2 (I'll talk about that next). The control room itself wasn't particularly exciting. There were screens up on the wall and a dozen or so workstations for the operators. In another room they had a couple 3-D demo things going on for visitors. One was a short 3-D movie talking about Mars and the Mars Rover. The other was a cool visualization of all the satellites circling the earth. There were all the geosynchronous satellites in a big ring high above the equator, and there was a dense cloud of LEO (low earth orbit) satellites. And this strange group in eccentric orbits sometimes close to the earth, sometimes far away. I had to ask what these were. The guy in charge said those were Russian satellites and they had funny orbits because Russia is so far north and those orbits kept them in a useful position above Russia for the longest period of time. Nifty!

Next we stopped at the B-2 facility, also known as the Spacecraft Propulsion Research Facility. This is, pretty much, a big pit where they test full-scale upper-stage launch vehicles. Here's a picture of a Delta III rocket stage being lowered into the testing chamber:

(photo snarfed from NASA's image database)

The testing chamber is pretty impressive when you're standing next to it.

We also got to walk through the Space Power Facility. There are actually two parts to this. The fist part we walked through is under construction and will become a vibro-acoustic testing chamber where they shake stuff and subject it to really loud noises, kinda like the vibration and noise of a rocket launch. The other part is the worlds largest space environment simulation chamber. They can seal it up and bring it down to vacuum pressures and also simulate the extreme heat and cold of space. Here's a picture of the skylab shroud in this testing facility:

(this photo and the next one also snarfed from NASA's image database)

We walked right through that room. They tested the mars rover airbags in there, too:

We exited the test chamber into the Assembly area where they get things ready for testing. They had all sorts of displays for visitors set up here.

Oh, I almost forgot. In addition to all these cool space-stuff testing facilities, old TNT bunkers, and the O-DNR turkey vulture stuff, Plum Brook also boasts a Bald Eagle's nest. There's a picture here.

So, my dear readers, next time you're riding the Raptor at Cedar Point in Sandusky, remember, just a few miles south of you there are real raptors, and real rockets, too.

Thanks, Mary, for taking me to NASA. You rock!

Race for the Cure

2008-06-02T15:43:00.011-04:00

On Saturday, May 31, 2008, Detroit raced for the cure.

We gathered in front of Comerica Park.

And lined up in front of the Fox Theater, some in front to race and many behind to walk.

We were given a beautiful scarf to remind us that we are warriors in a difficult battle.

We wore our pink with pride, on our backs...

...and on our heads.

We stood along side friends and family.

And we walked with purpose.

We walked so our children might live in a world without breast cancer.

"if you want to destroy my sweater, pull this string as I walk away..."

2008-05-29T14:37:00.011-04:00

All done!

ok, almost all done. I still have to sew on the pockets and the buttons. And for some reason I've got Weezer stuck in my brain.. ouch!

If you recall when I originally posted about the sweater I thought I might like some vintage minty green shell or mother of pearl buttons. The big box craft store had a huge sale last weekend and all their buttons were half off so I bought a whole bunch, half of which I will probably never use.

I found some green shell buttons similar to what I'd imagined:

Hmm, no, not quite right. A little too boring and a little too shiny. Maybe if they'd been just a touch bigger and had a little ridge around the edge... but these just don't work.

I also found these buttons:

If only I could get my silly camera to focus on them! They're quite lovely and my blurry picture does not do them justice. They're just barely big enough, the patina and the color go perfectly with the yarn and, the detail gives them texture and pop. These buttons rock! I just gotta sew them on.

So, I learned a few things while knitting this sweater:

Small mistakes aren't that hard to hide, especially in a piece like this, so long as you keep your stitch count right and don't do something really fugly.
Those cheep plastic stitch markers suck. They constantly feel like they're going to break, they don't slide nicely over the needles, and they feel just plain wrong in your hands. Cotton scrap yarn works much better (cotton so it doesn't shed contrasting fibers on your work).
Short circular needles have short needle parts. Short needle parts can be awkward.
Ah hah! I'm a texture/feel-it girl. The way the whole thing feels and moves in my hands makes a huge difference in how much I enjoy knitting it. I know this seems like a no-brainer, but I usually think of myself as a process girl. For knitting, it seems, the feel is super important. The process is important, too, but it plays second fiddle. This explains my early distaste for inexpensive aluminum needles and my instantaneous aversion to those nasty plastic stitch markers.
When it comes to finishing a nice warm sweater like this, motivation plummets when temperatures rise. Duh! Or maybe it's just that I enjoy the knitting part a whole heck of a lot more than the finishing work, even when the finishing is minimal. Also, Duh.
There were errors in this pattern. *GASP* The Horror! Ok, no big deal. I've got the mad math skillz. Or at least enough math skills to sort out stitch count errors and the like. I was actually surprised that the errors and occasional vague instructions didn't cause me any real difficulty. Maybe I'm better at this than I thought!

So, sweater's done. Or, at least the knitting part is done. That's one knitting challenge down and many more to go. Time to move on to socks!

Actually, I moved on to socks last night. Hey, nice lady from the Whitmore Lake Yarn Co? Ya know that addi TURBO circular needle you talked me into buying when I thought I wanted a bamboo one? Wow! This is truly fantastically amazing. I love it. I want more. Thank you!

... If you want to destroy my sweater (wa wa)
pull this string as I walk away.
Watch me unravel, I'll soon be naked
lying on the floor, lying on the floor..
I've come undone...

(ugh! that song is a brain worm! help!!)

Get on your bikes and ride!

2008-05-27T12:56:00.009-04:00

This is s my bicycle. She's a very nice bicycle and I like her very much. Today my bicycle and I have a mission. Buster is taking his new boat and a couple of his fishing buddies down the Huron river and we need to "spot cars" for him. This means that we will ride to Hudson Mills Metropark, where they put in this morning, and drive the van and trailer to Dexter-Huron Metropark so it's waiting for them when they arrive there. These two parks are both along one of my usual bike routes. I brought my camera along so I can share some of the sights with you.

About 3 miles from home as we ride along Huron River Drive, we cross the river for the first time just west of Wagner Rd.
It's extra pretty here today looking downstream off the bridge. You probably can't tell from the picture but the river is clean and clear and absolutely gorgeous today.

Another mile down the road we come to one of my favorite places, the East Delhi Bridge. Buster and I got married at the park here and had our picture taken on this very bridge:

This bridge was built by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton, Ohio in the late 1800s. It is now on the books as the center of a historic district (I'm not ntirely sure what other historic sites are in this area -- I'll have to look into it and get back to you). In 2005 the county decided that the bridge could no longer safely handle automobile traffic so they closed it. You can still bike or walk over it but it's closed to motorized traffic. Washtenaw County considered tearing the bridge down and replacing it with something safe and modern and boring but the community rallied to save this beautiful iron truss bridge. According to this website, the bridge will be rehabilitated and probably reopened to traffic sometime this year.

Along with being a really nifty old iron truss bridge, it's also a great place to watch people run the Delhi Rapids:

The rapids are right downstream of Skip's Canoe where you can rent heavy aluminum canoes for a day trip down the river. Skip gets pretty cranky if you run these rapids in one of his canoes.

Upriver a bit more I ride by this house:

I have no clue who lives here, but their front yard makes me smile every time I ride by. It's always in bloom from early spring to late fall. Today it's those blurry orange flowers. In another month or so those day lilies in the foreground will be flowering and something else will pop up in the other part of the yard to replace the orange flowers. This yard is always a happy riot of color.

Ahh, what an idyllic stretch of dappled road:

You may be asking, "you mean 'dappled shade', not 'dappled road', right?"

Sadly, no. Take another look. That is indeed dappled, bumpy, miserable, road -- Yuck!

And this isn't even the worst of it -- the most sinister potholes are hiding in that shade waiting to eat up any poor innocent bicycle tire that ventures too near. But don't worry. The west bound lanes are fairly clear in comparison and I ride a different road heading back east. For bikers in this area, this hive of scum and villainy is on east bound Huron River Drive between Dexter-Huron Metropark and Zeeb road. To avoid it, take Joy road between Mast to Zeeb. Washtenaw County road commission says they plan to vanquish this nest of vile potholes this year. Take with thee my tax money and go forth to slay the evil potholes, I beg of thee!

(sorry, guess I got a little punchy there!)

Just a few short miles left before I reach Buster's van. Check out this nifty car for sale!

I wonder if that antique gas pump offers antique prices!

I'm past the half way point of my ride now and I'm starting to get a little hungry. I wonder if the folks selling that car have any cookies.

Here we are at "Rapids view" near the north end of Hudson Mills Metropark.
You can't see them in the picture, but there are lots and lots of people here BBQ'ing and enjoying the holiday weekend. I wonder if any of them have any cookies they want to share.

And look! Here's Buster's van. Hope I remembered to bring the keys. Maybe Buster left me some cookies in the van.

Darn, no cookies here. By the way, this is Buster's dream car. Normally someone's dream car is some sporty little thing or some big fancy luxury car. Not Buster! His dream car is this lovely Aerostar with a fishing rod rack mounted under the roof and an extra pair of waders in the back.

Once the van and trailer are safely parked at Dexter-Huron Metropark, I head back out on my bike for the hilly part of my ride (if any part of a ride in this part of Michigan can rightfully be called hilly). Along Joy Road right at the top of a nice little hill where I'm normally a bit winded, the sweet smell of a sheep farm permeates the air:

Hey Mrs. Sheep, you got any cookies? no? Too baa-ad.

Oh look! Little baby lambs! mmm... lamb chops... lamb stew... leg o' lamb. Aren't they cute? Such tasty things should not be so adorable! It's just wrong!

Just a few miles to go. Check out this big red barn.

I like barns. I wonder if anyone's home over there. Maybe they've got cookies.

Another few miles and I'm back where I started. I don't have any pictures from my arrival back home. My camera battery died. But I found a cookie!

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

What's Next??

2008-05-24T13:13:00.006-04:00

I always feel a little lost, a little confused and unfocused and scattered, and even a bit overwhelmed when I am between books. My to-be-read shelf is overburdened to say the least. Actually, it's three shelves and two large stacks of paperbacks at this point -- eep! I'm not exactly sure what would happen to me if I finished a book and there was not another one readily available. I don't want to find out so I keep lots of insurance.

Of course, lots of insurance also means lots of choices. I have a hard time when there are too many choices. I'm frozen like a deer in headlights. If I don't choose I will not be able to vanquish this feeling that something fundamental is missing from my life. But choosing is committing my reading time for the next several days, perhaps as much as a month, to one bit of fiction. For I am (mostly) a monogamous reader. What am I in the mood for? What sort of fiction will satisfy me this week? Do I crave something challenging, thought provoking, and dense? Or something light, entertaining, and quick? Do I want dark and gritty? Or bright and hopeful? Fantasy or Science Fiction or something else? So many choices! I've narrowed it down to the stack pictured above. From the bottom up:

The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers. I love, LOVE, Tim Powers. I discovered him many years ago and I carefully ration his work. I do not want to run out of Tim Powers. His work is savory and full of texture. It's gritty and dark and ironic. His secret histories are my favorites. I'm not entirely sure what this book is about, but it's Tim, it will be tasty.
Axis by Robert Charles Wilson. I really liked Spin. Apparently lots of other folks did too -- It won the 2006 Hugo. Axis is the sequel.
Empire of Ivory is the 4th book in the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. I've read the first three. These are set in the Napoleonic era and the style is similar to nautical fiction. Only, there be dragons. And the dragons are really nifty! I'm not entirely sure what prompted me to pick up the first book. Perhaps it was all the hype. Anyhow, these books are tons of fun.
War for the Oaks is apparently Emma Bull's best known work. I recently read Territory and, oh boy, is it ever good! Territory is a secret history of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday. Blew my socks off! I was drawn to Emma Bull because of Shadow Unit. If you have not checked out Shadow Unit yet, you are missing out bigtime.
Maelstrom by Peter Watts is the sequel to Starfish. Peter Watts won my undying allegiance with Blindsight. That book will twist your brain around in painful and disturbing ways and you will like it, nay, love it! And you will beg for more.
Whiskey and Water is Elizabeth Bear's second Promethean Age novel. I discovered Bear a little over a year ago and have since devoured all of her novels. I have this and Companion to Wolves left before I'm caught up with her current published works. She's so prolific that I don't worry about catching up (like I do with Tim Powers). Bear is my hero. Her fiction all has a minimum of eighteen layers with subtext and allusion. It tends to be dense and challenging and the more effort you put into it the more enjoyable it is. I'm anxious to get through this book because I'm really looking forward to the next two Promethean Age books set in Elizabethan times. I suppose I could read the next ones without reading this one first since the Elizabethan ones are prequels, but I get kinda twitchy when I read things out of published order.

Decisions Decisions!!

At least I know what I'm knitting next:
I'm going to learn to knit socks! This will be a nice change from The Sweater which is now only a few days from completion. I picked up Knitting Circles Around Socks at the Whitmore Lake Yarn Co when my super awesome friend Mary (who writes Shazam in the Kitchen -- a very fun food blog) happened to be in town. The people there were very nice and recommended this book for learning to knit socks two at a time on circular needles. Unfortunately I bought only one skein of sock yarn so I'll only be able to knit one sock at a time (I could work both ends of the skein, but then the pattern that the yarn makes would go opposite ways on the socks and that might be weird). I think I could learn with two at a time but for the sake of the socks I will take it slow and do them one at a time.

Now that I've spent half the day indoors writing about books and knitting, it's time to get out in this gorgeous weather and put a few miles on my bicycle! I rode 20 miles yesterday with the local bike club and I hoping to get in 25 or 30 solo miles today. Tomorrow will likely be a few more bicycle miles and a nice long walk to prepare for this next weekend.

Frostbitten

2008-05-24T11:49:00.003-04:00

I just finished reading Frostbite by Richelle Mead. I mentioned earlier this week that YA urban fantasy/paranormal romance isn't really my favorite genre, but I go out of my way to read Richelle. I picked up her first book because (a) she's a friend from my Seattle days, and (b) she kindly sent me a signed ARC. I keep reading Richelle because she's fantastic!

Any author that builds complete, three dimensional, interesting, and flawed characters has a very good chance at hooking me no matter the genre. Richelle's got some serious skills in the character building department. Frostbite is the second of Richelle's Vampire Academ y series. In this book, the focus tightens a bit more on Rose, the narrator. There's plenty of action and adventure, but the real heart of the story is Rose coming of age.

I recommend this book for adults and teens alike. There's a bit more sexual content than I'm used to seeing in YA books. But, really, I've only read a handful of other recently published YA books and I understand, the times, they are a changin'.

Richelle has at least three more books coming out this year. Check out her website for more info.

A message from the Big Red Dog

2008-05-22T14:14:00.007-04:00

Hello, my name is Ginger. Sara tells me that my Momma and Poppa are her Momma and Poppa, too. I don't know if I believe her. I am a happy dog. I love my Poppa and my Momma very much especially when I can hop up in the lazyboy and sit on Poppa's lap. I don't sit on Momma's lap. I'm too big. I might squish her. I am a Michigan fan just like my Momma and Poppa. Go Blue! See:

Every once in a while my Momma and Poppa take me to a puppy spa. They tell me that I need to get a haircut for summer and the puppy spa will make me pretty. They took me there on Tuesday:

I don't feel pretty. In fact, I feel silly. And cold. Please, Poppa, please free me from these awful red bows. For goodness sake, Poppa, these bows are buckeye colored!! And this silly yellow bandanna has to go. If I must wear bandanna, may I please have the maize and blue one? Maybe Sara will knit a scarf for me. I know summer officially starts this weekend, but we live in Michigan! It's still cold here and I'm naked! *pout*

Oh Look! Cat Treats! Yum! Gotta go!

too much distraction!

2008-05-21T13:10:00.005-04:00

I'm working. Ok, I'm supposed to be working but I'm very distracted. Can you blame me? This is the view from my office window. Yes, that's two cop cars blocking my little street having a conference. What are those police men doing there?? My best guess? Something is going on with the Naughty Neighbors. But what? They are not not naughty in an interesting way. They are naughty in a noisy unneighborly way. They have loud mean scary dogs that like to dig under their 8 ft privacy fence and chase the other neighbors' kids. They often leave said dogs in the backyard all night long no matter how loudly the poor puppies protest. Their spawn likes to toss his garbage from atop his lovely jungle gym right over the giant fence. Said spawn also likes to hotrod his 4 wheeler up and down our street -- noisy, illegal, and dangerous.

I'm anxious for Buster to get home so he can go visit with the Nifty Neighbors on the other side. They always have the scoop on the Naughty Neighbors (Mrs. Nifty Neighbor is a police dispatcher).

I'm in full nosy neighbor mode. Think of the desperate housewife peeking through the bushes, watching, judging, whatever drama is unfolding because every single thing that happens in her neighborhood is most certainly her business. Privacy, pshaw!

But I'm not peeking through the bushes! I'm sitting in my office and I'm trying to work! Too much distraction!

the sweater!

2008-05-20T15:29:00.000-04:00

I mentioned yesterday that knitting is one of my mini-obsessions. Truth be told, I just learned to knit a couple months ago. My mommy taught me. I may be all grown up, but I'm finding that there's still plenty to learn from my mommy and daddy. So I've knitted a few things since Mom taught me how to cast on and knit and purl. I've made some baby stuff for friends, and a couple hats for Buster, and a pair of mittens for Mom, and I've even made an adorable little teddy bear. I decided a few weeks ago that I needed something a little more ambitious and a little more useful, mostly just to prove I could do it. So I'm knitting a sweater. This sweater:

I really like the ribbing at the waist and the whole thing just looks so comfy! The pattern was purchased from www.sweaterbabe.com and I'm using lion brand chunky wool-ease in walnut. I'm about a third of the way done:

There's a story behind the yarn. My husband uses this very same yarn for a fly he ties for fishing. When I started knitting he suggested I make him a hat for him out of this yarn.

(Same hat different lighting) It's such pretty yarn with red and green and yellow highlights. When I found this sweater pattern I knew I wanted this yarn. Now I have to find some nifty buttons... I'm thinking vintage looking, pearly with a hint of minty green, about the size of a quarter... We'll see what I actually come up with.

The sweater should take another couple weeks, perhaps. I think I'm nearly done with the slow parts. I should finish it just in time for the summer weather to kick in. After that I'm tackling socks! That should be exciting, wish me luck!

Time to get ready for Buster's softball doubleheader! Go Arch Rivals!

hello world!

2008-05-19T15:49:00.000-04:00

Ok ok ok! I'm blogging. There's the bandwagon, and here's me hopping on.... late, as usual!

So what the heck should I talk about? Most of my blogging friends blog about cooking or about their kids. I'm currently kid free and I'm not all that creative in the kitchen. Most of the blogs I read regularly are about writing science fiction and fantasy. I don't write sff, I read it.

I have no singular great obsession to blog. I have lots of little ones: reading sff, bicycling, knitting, food & weight loss, and my household which currently consists of a husband and a kitty. I don't have any special inspiration at the moment so, quick survey time:

What am I reading? Frostbite by Richelle Mead. Richelle is a friend of mine so I'm a little biased. I read her stuff more because it's her than because I'm into the genre. She writes paranormal romance and YA. Frostbite is the second in her Vampire Academy YA series. Truth is, Richelle is super talented and, despite the fact that paranormal romance isn't really my thing, I love her books. Her style reminds me a bit of Janet Evanovich (another author I go outside of my preferred genre for) -- fast read, highly entertaining, hard to put down, and especially well suited for reading at the gym.

How's the biking going? no riding today. It's sunny, but it's 57°F and windy and I'm feeling wussy (also, I think I'm getting a cold - bleh). I'll hit the elliptical at the gym instead. Also, on the biking front, I'm riding the American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure on June 8 -- sponsor me, pretty please!

What am I knitting? I'm working on a top down cardigan. I'm about a third of the way through and it's going surprisingly quickly. pictures later :)

Am I gettin' skinny? The scale is not my friend today.

How are Buster and Alex? Buster, my husband (who's name is not Buster), bought a boat for fishing season and spent the weekend picking up his trailer and assembling his new boat. Now he can add boat trips to his fly fishing guide service.

Alex, the much loved and very aged kitty, got a bath the other day. He's much less stinky and he seems happier for it.

Blog entries are much more exciting with photos so here's a really bad phone-camera-photo of my dearest boys: