Birthday!

It's my birthday today!

The photos are ones that Malaia took at a fairly recent air show, and they're there because I just like them.

I couldn't get her to answer me about this, but they look like the Blue Angels to me.

Steve just put up an entry on FaceBook that says:

Off to the air show, then a swell party.

I asked about the show, and he said:

51st annual Chicago Air and Water Show, with the Thunderbirds, Lima Lima, Golden Knights, and assorted other team and single displays by civilian and military fliers. It included a flyby of the USAF Heritage Flight, a P-51, A-10, F-15 and an F-16. All were "loud and proud". Sorry, no pix.

This is part of the reason that I felt compelled to put up photos of planes, even though they're not the Thunderbirds.

On the subject of birthdays, I really got a haul this year. The computer I've been saving up forever to buy is finally bought, shipped, and has arrived. I now have to configure it to utilize the internet, and then add software for the things I want it to do. John called me and told me about a pile of software that I need to install immediately to avoid viruses, etc. It sounded all very complicated. I need to get him to write down the list of what has to be installed.

Before I can do that, though, I needed to get an internet connection for it, and I looked to T-Mobile to provide it. They currently have two deals to do that. One is a USB dongle that connects your computer to a 3G cell phone line. It's an elegant solution, but the monthly charge is a bit pricey, and there's a limit on how much use for each month.

The other one is a really great deal. Start-up costs include about $40 for a combination converter for a phone, wifi, and T-Mobile hot spot that plugs into your existing broadband connection, plus a $35 installation fee. Monthly fee is $10. For that you get an unlimited connection for a landline phone inside the US. If I'd wanted to call overseas, I could add $5 additional. Also, unlimited wifi and/or hotspot.

I had been planning for a while to get the $10 a month unlimited phone service for a while. The new hardware also includes wifi at no extra cost, and since I'm about to set up the computer right now, it seemed the perfect time.

Of course, that also means that I need an actual phone. Holly chipped in $22 of the total price to buy me a really nice phone, rather than the cheapest one from WalMart that didn't have all the features I wanted. The one I got has everything I could possibly want in a phone: volume control on the ringer, with several different ringer sounds that I can really hear, and that won't sound like the phone on a TV show; volume control on the handset; it's cordless; 50 name/number phonebook (this is what I need to program); and I can plug in the headset I already have!

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I got this far in my post, and Lynn called to wish me a happy birthday. I told her all about my new phone and gave here the number and her cell phone battery ran out, so she called me on the new phone! My first call on the new phone was my sister, to wish me a happy birthday! How cool is that?

She also had some news that was a little less happy. She's been diagnosed with a macular hole in her eye, and had surgery for it on Wednesday. She's off from work for a while, and at home recuperating. If everything goes the way we hope, she'll have all her vision back in about 6 months. As of right now, she can't see out of her right eye. So far, everything seems to be going perfectly. I'm glad that it's fixable, and that it looks at this point that she'll be OK, but I feel bad for her that she had to go through it. At this point, it's a major nuisance, but that's so much better than losing the vision in that eye. It would drive me crazy, though, if I had to go through it, so I feel really feel bad for her.

I told her that from time to time I feel sorry for myself that I'm losing my hearing (especially since I really believe that I don't need to, but that doctors don't care or feel I'm worth bothering about), but then I think that if I had a choice between losing my hearing or vision, I'd definitely want to keep my vision. Lynn said I need to get another eye exam soon, and I'll have to investigate that, and plan to do it in September.

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There will be two episodes of Merlin on tonight, and if I'm not mistaken, these will be the end of the season for the series.

Also, The Chronicles of Narnia will be on tonight on ABC Family. Naturally, with two good things, they'll be on at the same time (at least for part of the shows).

I hope you're having as much fun as I'm having!

It's Wednesday

Well, that's the most exciting thing I can think of to say about today.

I planned to go to WalMart today to do my monthly shopping, but got busy getting ready and doing stuff, and still haven't gone, so I don't think it's going to happen today. If I get there tomorrow, I may not post. If I turn on the computer, I'll be lost, like today.

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Last night, I tried to use my bluetooth headset with my phone, and the phone thinks it doesn't exist. The headset is  at least two years old, and I'm assuming it has just quit bluetoothing. It's been not connecting and randomly disconnecting for a while. This was one of the things that distracted me today. 

I got on the internet to find myself a new headset. I'm suddenly discovering that my phone is almost useless without it. I need to call Comcast and ask them some questions, and it's a real pain because you get an automatic answering system that says "If you are calling about cable TV, press 1; if you are calling about high speed internet, press 2...." and whatever you press, it takes you to another menu. So you have to put the phone to your ear, then flip the top back and press a button, then whip it back to your ear, etc. It's a real pain!

I like my G1 a lot, but they were careful not to make any buttons/ports on the outside of the phone. There's a rocker button for volume, a button for taking photos, a port to charge it, buttons to answer or turn off the phone, etc., but there's no place to fasten a wrist strap and no place to plug in a corded headset. 

Actually, that's not really true. They include a headset with earbuds that plugs into the USB recharging port. Unfortunately, I don't think it has a microphone, and earbuds never work for me, anyway. 

I put them in my ears, and after a very few minutes, my ear spits them out. At velocity. 

I don't know why. 

I see other people use them, but they never work for me. I have to sit there and hold them in to hear. Which kind of defeats the purpose.

This caused no end of hilarity for one of my former co-workers, Lee, who derived endless amusement from encouraging me to try them one more time and then falling off her chair laughing when they came flying out a moment later.

So, anyway, I finally ordered a headset from Amazon, and you can see it here. Out of all the headset reviews I read, this headset had almost every review start off by saying how LOUD the headset is. It has also been out for about four years, so the price has come down drastically, and it has a lanyard so you can wear it around your neck. Actually, my old one does, too, and I never used it, so I don't know why I'm excited about that.

While I was at it, I ordered a copy of Mathemagics, too. I got both for less than I expected to pay for the headset alone.

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There are no regularly scheduled programs on tonight, It's a very boring night on TV! We'll have to wait until next month to see anything fun on Wednesday evening unless a network airs a good movie.

Hey, I just checked, and there are a couple of good movies on tonight!

Hope you're having more fun than I am!

Quiet Sunday

It's been a quiet day. I found some great skies to photograph for a project I'm doing that I can't talk about at the moment, and I've been knitting away on the poncho I'm making.

This is the same blue tweed I used for the mobius hood, which is nearly finished, by the way. I just need to darn in some ends, and tweak it a bit. I think it may look better around my shoulders with some gentle blocking, and I might like either a button and button loop or some ties. Maybe not. But I need to try it on and fiddle with it to make it look it's best.  And there's not much time to do that, so I should get busy on it.

But I've been having so much fun with the poncho, which is a tried-and-true pattern for me, which means it doesn't need all that adjusting for fit. I know what to do, and I know how it will fit.

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Yesterday, Holly and I went out and had fun.

We stopped at Lowes and got new keys. Holly got a front door key that is black with pink rhinestone hearts on it. I copied my apartment key and gave her the copy. The guy who copied my key said I couldn't get any pretty blanks for it, just plain silver. There was a short discussion about the pros and cons of coating the handle with enamel and then adding designs.

Then we went and Holly got a brand new G1 phone from T-Mobile. It's black, like her other one, and they put her old phone number in it, and she left with a working duplicate of her old phone, complete with all phone numbers and information. It may have cost a lot to replace, but the rest of the trauma is significantly missing. As soon as you start up the G1, it asks you a few simple questions to identify you, and then loads all your information on the phone. It takes less than five minutes.

We each had coupons for 50% off on one item from AC Moore, so we went to check it out. Unfortunately, they didn't have anything that they had before that I wanted, and they also had nothing new that either of us wanted. They had more of the sock yarn that I got last time, but I have enough projects to work on that I didn't want to get more yarn like that at the moment. We both walked out with nothing.

We went to dinner at Carrabba's, and I discovered (thanks to my phone) that there is one almost right around the corner from me. I really had no idea that it was there. The phone not only told me where the restaurant was, but also gave me a map of how to get there from where I was, and it kept offering me a menu! I really love my G1!

In short, we had our usual good time.

I hope you've been having a great weekend!

The Big News Today Is Steve Canyon!

John has a new post up on his Steve Canyon blog. He put it up in between instructions for changes/improvements on the volume 2 front and back covers. 

This has been a nonstop marathon of intense work for him for a while now. I had an intermission from the cover work  because he was trying to fit his schedule into a match with a long list of other people who added information about the making of the Steve Canyon episodes. I was shoved aside while all that was happening.

Today, I woke up, checked my email, and before I finished reading it all, an email from John came in with information about the changes he wanted on the cover. I've been working on it ever since.

So, at this point, it looks like the outside front and back covers are done. We have one disk label that he likes, and two versions of the second disk label which he's going to decide between.

That leaves the inside covers to do. The inside back cover is just a list of the episodes on the disks along with the names of the guest stars and the people doing the extras on that episode. So, I'll have to format the text once John writes/compiles it, but there won't be a lot to do on that, and what there will be will all be stuff that's either right or wrong.

It's the inside front cover that's the part I'm working on now. John doesn't want me to comment on what I'm doing before it's done, so I'll quit talking about it now.

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Today, I tracked down information on my bluetooth headset on the internet, and read the instructions again. I discovered that I remembered most of what you need to do to get it to sync with a phone, but not all. So, I gave it another try, and it synched with my phone like a dream!

I'm also finding that the things I didn't like about my phone were all things that I just hadn't learned to do yet. And they're all things that are as easy to do as the Sidekick, just a bit different.

And there are so many things about it that I'm just tickled with. I love being able to click on maps, and have it show me an aerial view of where I am. When I'm at home, it shows a satellite view of my apartment building, and it even shows where I am in the building. If I had been standing in front of the building when the satellite took the photo, you'd be able to see me. The satellite view has arrows drawn in on Old Bridge Road that show the direction of traffic, but there's a little one-way drive in the complex I live in that doesn't have arrows drawn because you can clearly see the arrows drawn on the pavement of the street!

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I'm almost to the toe of the second sock I'm making out of the yarn I bought at JoAnn Fabrics during my local store's grand opening celebration (which was really more of a Look!-We've-Moved! celebration).

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I had intended to watch the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy today on TNT, but that was before I discovered that today was going to be Steve Canyon day. Since there isn't enough time to watch the whole thing left in the rest of today, it looks like Steve won.

I hope you're having a great weekend!

Last Day of the Month

Don't have much time to write, but thought you might like a photo of my new phone.

Have fun with what little is left of February!

Still Hangin' in There

The earache hung on for all of Wednesday, got a bit better yesterday and is back again today.

But I did get out and get my new phone.

The old one was doing fun things like: a half hour after I ended a call, it would make a little alert noise and inform me that it had just ended the call. That's happened five or six times. And it leaves me wondering if I used up 2.5 to 3 hours of minutes that I didn't actually use. I don't know.

So, I got a new T-Mobile G1. It's got some wonderful features that make it easier to use than my old Sidekick 3, but some features that leave me wishing for the Sidekick. I was able to transfer all my phone numbers to the contact list on Google, and it uploaded them to the G1 in about a second after the service was connected and I'd switched the SIM card to the new phone. 

It also uploaded my calendar from Google, which means that almost all the work of setting up a new phone was done before I even started. And the good thing about the calendar is that it opens to the month view every time (because I set it to do that), unlike my Sidekick which would give me a note that said "No upcoming events in the next 7 days" instead of letting me see a calendar.

Switching the SIM card was not as easy as it might have been. You need to apply an excessive amount of force to remove the back the first time, which you need to do to switch the card. I called Holly to see how to remove it, and she assured me that I was doing the right thing, I just needed to be a bit more assertive.

It has some great features, though.

It can pinpoint where you are and give you directions from your present location to any address you care to type in. Well, it does if you're in a 3G area. They put in a 3G network in DC, and continued it out into the suburbs to just about 3 miles short of where I live. It still works fine as a phone, and does very well with the internet, but I know from using Holly's phone that it does even better on a 3G network. Once it knows where you are, it can give you a local map or a satellite photo of the place you are, which can be useful if you're looking for a place that's nearby and can't figure out how to get there.

It has a free application that will let you take a photo of a barcode on an item in a store, and tell you how much it is, plus let you know the prices of the same item in nearby stores and online.

I downloaded a free application that will let me record a sound and make it into a ringtone. I can't wait to make my phone sound like the middlewatch from The Middleman! If you liked that link, search for "Middleman" on YouTube.

One of the things I don't like about it is that I can't pair it with my bluetooth headset. Holly's had hers now for at least 4 months, and she still can't get her bluetooth headset to communicate with it. She said it found and started talking to her computer almost instantly, but there's nothing the two of them can do together. 

She'd much rather have it talk to the headset. 

So would I.  

The instructions in the manual (and online) just don't work. I'm going to have to call them and ask them how to do it.

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There's a new Ghost Whisperer on tonight, and, of course, a new Dollhouse. SciFi will be showing a rerun of Moonlight, always worth watching, as well as Battlestar Galactica.

TNT will be showing The Lord of the Rings trilogy over the weekend, starting tonight with The Fellowship of the Ring, followed tomorrow night by The Two Towers, and finishing Sunday evening with The Return of the King. If you're busy on Friday or Saturday evenings, you can catch the whole trilogy on Sunday, starting late in the morning.

Have a  great weekend!

Stitches Was a Blast!

What a trip!

I'll start from the beginning, and only cover Saturday because I have so many photos! You'll get more photos tomorrow.

Holly and I were severely delayed by traffic on Friday afternoon and evening. Lynn waited for us before having dinner, and was starving. Sorry, Lynn!

But we had delicious food and, best of all, great company for dinner. Holly just got a new G1 phone, and showed it off to both of us. She handed it to me when I got in the car, and made me get it to give her directions to the hotel (with some stiff help from Lynn, who said that we really wanted to drive to the parking garage, not the hotel). The garage entrance was on the other side of the building, and with so many one-way streets, it involved some driving to get there.

I got to show off the new set of Options needles that Holly bought me for my birthday, too.

We went back to our suite, which was really a small apartment, complete with kitchen! A great place to stay! We watched some TV and talked a bit, and generally had a good time.

Saturday morning, we had breakfast, and caught the water taxi.


This was just so much fun, and a wonderful way to see the inner harbor!

Here are some photos of Holly and Lynn on the water taxi:





And here is a photo of one of  the sights we saw and took photos of:

Blogger is being stingy with letting me upload photos, so there will be more later.

When we arrived at Stitches Marketplace, we sat and watched the fashion show witch was just beginning, and then wandered the market and saw the sights. Wow! So many neat things to buy. I could've spent $1,000 there, if I'd had it.

There were so many places that had great shawl pins (penannulars), I would have loved to buy several. And I finally got to see and feel some Malabrigo yarn up close. I'm in love! I loved all their yarns, but couldn't walk away from the silky merino. More on that coming up.

As it was, my loot was much more modest. I lost my ugly pink counter, and replaced it from the Mannings. 

Holly bought some square single point wooden needles last year at Stitches and some at the Sheep and Wool Festival, and reported that she liked them. I don't really seem to like wooden needles, and all the ones I'd seen were in larger sizes than I usually knit with. Although the square shape intrigued me, and I wanted to try them, the wood and size discouraged me. At Stitches, I saw some small, square, metal, sock needles, and thought about buying them, but thought it was a shame that they didn't have them in circular needles. Well, a few shops later, I found them in circular needles! I bought a pair of size three needles in the 24 inch length. They have a copper finish, and the cables are absolutely floppy! I haven't tried them yet. The points don't look like they're a sharp as I usually like, but I'm reserving judgement until I try them.


And I just couldn't resist the silky wool. The color is called London Sky, and is not quite as bright as the photo makes it look on my screen. It's a softer color, a bit grayer and more lavender than it looks on the screen. I have several ideas for what I might want to make with it, and haven't decided yet.

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I'll leave Sunday during the day for tomorrow, but I finally finished all the art for volume one of the Complete Steve Canyon on TV DVD last night, and got it all sent off to John.

I expect to start on volume two real soon, now, but for just a few breaths, it's done and caught up. John is getting the last little bit of the extras finished, and will be scrambling to get it all to the printer, but as soon as he gets a moment to catch his breath, he'll be putting up a post with more information. Check for it at the above link later.

This is so exciting!

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There will be the usual four hours of Lost on the SciFi Channel tonight, and Chuck, Heroes and My Own Worst Enemy on NBC tonight.

Have a great day!

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PS-- John just called and said we forgot something on the cover. It's not over!