Apres Holliday Miscelleny

I hope everyone out there had a great Independence Day, and holiday weekend!

Holly and I went out on Saturday and had our usual good time. A little bit of yarn shopping (I got enough Red Heart Heart & Sole yarn to make 3 pair of socks in Faded Denim), the usual visit to WalMart for stock-up shopping, and then on to dinner at Ruby Tuesday where we had food that was so good I stuffed myself.

Here's a photo of the sock yarn. I'm taking a break from my other project and making at least one sock with this to see what it looks like.

The best part of the trip was the company and conversation. Holly and I have so much fun together!

On the fourth, I stayed home and watched TV most of the day, plus fireworks in the evening. I turned on the Capital Fourth on TV. I can't really see the fireworks on the Mall from here, but they came in sharp and clear with a great view on TV. And they backed it up with the 1812 Overture (complete with cannon) followed by lots of John Philip Sousa! While I was listening to the TV, I was watching the fireworks out the window. I could see the high displays from seven different shows. If the trees behind the apartment office hadn't grown about 20 feet in the last four years, I could've seen at least two more.

And yesterday, I got a call to do another playing board for the group of iPad games I've been doing the art for!

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I was also looking at stuff I want on Amazon, and looked around for a better price on a camera I've been looking at. I discovered to my surprise that the one I liked, (Canon Powershot A1100IS) has been discontinued by the manufacturer. So, if you're looking for a good point-and-shoot camera, this is a perfect time to buy this one! Most of the stores still have them in stock, but they know that they can't get any more and some stores will put them on clearance. When I was in WalMart, they had one on clearance for $119, but probably most WalMarts don't have them anymore.

This is the camera that Crazy Aunt Purl chose. She goes on about how bad she is at taking picutres, but she did OK two cameras ago. The last camera she had just didn't take good pictures, no matter how much anybody tried. But she loves this one, and can't seem to take a bad photo with it. The link shows what she thinks of the camera.

One of the nice things about it is that it has a viewfinder. When trying to take action shots, it's much easier for me to use a viewfinder. Not to mention that my sunglasses are polarized, so they black out the LED image and I have to take them off to take a photo. Which is a good way to miss lots of photos, and get more sun exposure for my retinas.

I haven't tried taking close ups with this particular camera, but I've seen photos that others have taken (see CAPs link), and this would be a good camera if you want something to take photos of tiny things to sell on ebay, Craig's List, Etsy or anywhere on the internet. It's also a good carry-around camera.

I always try to have one really good camera, and one that is small enough that I can carry it around everywhere. The really good camera takes fabulous pictures, but to be really good, it has to be bigger, so I never have it with me when I see something unexpectedly.

I have a tiny, tiny camera to carry around, but the rechargeable battery is dying. I'll have to get another battery soon, but I can get a whole new camera for about the same price. This camera isn't the smallest ever, but it's small enough that I'm willing to carry it. And it uses 2 AA batteries, so if you run out of batteries or have them die unexpectedly, there's always a drug store or gas station that has new batteries! I usually recharge mine, but it's a good safety net.

So, anyway, I got sucked into ebay. A few people are trying to sell them for somewhere between $150 and $200, but that seems excessive to me. I only bid $40 on the first one, and they seem to be going for more than that. I lost the bid on the second one, and now am bidding on a third one, which is blue like the one shown above, and I love that.

So, wish me good luck!

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There's currently a Warehouse 13 marathon on SyFy, which will end with the season premiere tonight! I can't wait!

I'm still waiting for the cables to connect my new TiVo, so it won't be recorded on the new TiVo (maybe later in the week), but on my old DVR, which will be gone soon. The TiVo people shipped out my new DVR without any cables! They sent them out on Friday, but they don't seem to have arrived yet.

This seems to be one of the first new shows of the summer season, but there will be more right away. Just in time for my new TiVo! I'll keep you up to date on what's coming up.

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I have gone off the deep end and changed my business to an LLC, so the bank made me close the old account and open a new one.

Which meant that I needed new checks, and since I don't have the right size checkbook cover, one of those, too,

While I was ordering the checkbook cover, I got one for my own checkbook. It's called shining stars, and that describes it perfectly.

I also felt it was the perfect checkbook cover for me!

Then I saw another one that I might love even more. This is the one I got for the business. It's called Celebrate Space. Both covers are from Bradford Exchange.

The business checks I got to go inside have four different sky photos, and I just love them! Here's a sample check:

The others a different, but similar. I think it looks businessy, but different and really cool. It makes me want to start writing checks!

Unfortunately, this is the real world, and they said it will take about two weeks to get the checks and checkbook covers. I suspect that the covers will actually take less time. I'm really jazzed!

I've also found some really neat stuff to sell, and I'm working on a website to sell it on. Some of my patterns will be converted to PDF format because I've had a lot of people asking about that. Wait until you see what I'll be featuring on my website!

I'll keep you all up to date about what's available! Whatever happens, it's going to be an adventure!

Have fun with Warehouse 13 tonight!

Happy Independence Day

Happy Independence Day!

I was really at a loss as to what to write for today, but I happened to catch Franklin's post at The Panopticon, and realized that he said everything, and much better than I could say it.

So, click the link, enjoy, and have the best ever Fourth of July!

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Addition:

I also really like John's post on the Steve Canyon on DVD blog! Check it out!

Red Alert! Red Alert!

It's been a whacked-out day so far today!

I had to be awake, dressed and downstairs by 8:30 for a blood test today. Some of the people who were to be tested had to fast from midnight last night, so they wanted to do the test early.

Getting up early is always a challenge for me because I worked night work for so long, and I've never been able to switch over to a daytime schedule. It's always been hard to wake me, and now that I have hearing problems, it's even worse.

At any rate, I made it down in time thanks to waking up because I felt so bad this morning.

When I was done, I came back upstairs, took some Ibuprofen with some crackers, and went back to sleep.

Since I was still very tired and started to feel better thanks to the medication, I then proceeded to sleep later than usual.

Once I actually woke up, John called with a question. I assured him I had an answer, but, as so often happens, the answer turned out to be "I don't know."

I asked him a question about hooking up my TiVo. I got the RF modulator that I needed, and now needed to get cables. I noticed there were no cables in the box. He said that I should call TiVo and get them sent to me by them. I didn't really want to bother them with it, but I checked to see what cables should have been included, and realized that they didn't send me the power cable for the box! Which, of course, means that I not only can't hook it up, I can't even plug it in!

So, naturally, I immediately panicked!

I called TiVo, and they're sending cables immediately!

I still have to buy cables, though. Just not as many.

Once this is all over, I should be able to watch DVDs again, though! I can't wait!

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My friend, Steve, sent me screen shots of the finished games that I did the art for, and they're beautiful! I need to win an iPad in one of the many giveaways I've entered for them so that I can buy the games and play them on my own iPad! When he says it's OK, I'll show you what the games I worked on look like.

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If you're a knitter, you have to read the latest post on The Panopticon! Whether you love or hate the Twilight series, you'll love Franklin's post about it! It's one of the funniest things I've seen in a while!

There are lots of things to do today and I have to get going. I hope you've been having a wonderful week!

Check It Out!

I really didn't have anything to say today, but I happened to check Twitter beforehand, and found a goldmine of subjects!

For instance: How to make an ugly Christmas sweater. Not that there aren't lots of ugly Christmas sweaters out there, but you can certainly make a plain sweater ugly with these instructions!

It strikes me that you could probably make an Alien sweater with the same instructions, too!

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I also found instructions to knit a reversible cable scarf! One of my pet peeves about knitting things like cables on scarves is that they only show on one side, and the other side is obviously the "wrong" side. I feel scarves are supposed to be presentable on both sides, and you can't talk me out of it!

There's a PDF with the instructions if you scroll down and look around a bit.

It's one of my fondest dreams to knit a reversible cable scarf, although this particular one isn't the solution I had in mind, and at some point, I'm going to make one that I really like.

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Locus has an article up which wonders why there isn't more knitting in science fiction and fantasy.

There actually is some knitting and other fiberarts in SF&F, but maybe there should be more.

There are three books by Piers Anthony about fiberarts, and he even gets it mostly right. The first one is With a Tangled Skein, about the fates, although the story is much more.

The cover is slightly cut off in the above photo, but it's so nice. The art was done by Michael Whelan, and it's one of his best! I've always loved the paintings he's done for covers of books, and this is one of my all time favorites! I wish I could find a poster of it!

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I also found a chart of colors that you can get on natural fiber yarn from dyeing with Kool Aid! This is a very valuable treasure for anyone like me, who is allergic to just about everything. I can safely dye my own yarn! Some of the colors are fabulous, and while they may not show you the precise shade you want, you can fudge shades between what is shown. I think it's such an important resource, that I put it in the sidebar as a permanent link.

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Almost everything I've listed here has been about fiberarts, but this one's different. It's about hypothyroidism.

There's a World Thyroid Register being created to help raise healthcare professionals' awareness of the problems faced by people with thyroid problems. If you have a thyroid problem and haven't been able to find treatment, or have been treated badly or just want to help the general cause, you might want to sign up.

Happy Tuesday!

Guess I'm Not Sweet... I Didn't Melt

The air conditioner isn't fixed, exactly, but things are much better, and I didn't melt.

Well, I kind of had a melt down from the allergies, but I'll survive.

Somebody did something intelligent. Although they didn't really get the new air conditioning unit installed over the weekend, they did get it delivered on Saturday, and managed to hook it up even though it was still sitting on a flat bed trailer outside the building. They completed the connections Sunday morning, and it's been sitting out there functioning ever since.

That's a photo of the unit sitting out in the parking lot from Sunday afternoon. I know it looks odd. I took it at an odd angle looking almost straight down on it from the 4th floor. But there are flexible pipes and cables running out of it that you can't see because they were cut out of the photo by the window frame.

I shut the windows and after two or three hours it got down to 80 degrees, and has been between that and about 75 degrees ever since. Very livable.

Unfortunately, with the windows being open for a while, and especially with the fan going in the window, it filled my apartment with grass pollen, particulates and other allergens, and I've been fighting with the allergies ever since. I could barely breathe yesterday! It's getting better, but it was so warm that I wasn't sleeping well, and allergies always make me sleepy, so most of what's left of the allergies is the sleepiness at this point.

So, I think I'm just going to take a nap and feel better.

Have a great week!

We're Having a Heat Wave...

Not only are we actually having a heat wave, but the air conditioning in my apartment building is out!

It's dead, Jim!

They have to completely replace it, and if everything goes perfectly, they should have it up and running late on Monday.

But then, when does anything ever go perfectly?

I'm hoping really hard for Monday though.

It was 80 degrees in here yesterday, and it's 85 today. That doesn't sound so bad, but it's uncomfortable.

They've been around four times to try to evacuate me! I had to sign a release saying that they had explained to me the dangers of dehydration and a whole list of other problems that I could have because of the heat, and that I still elected to stay.

All this would be reasonable except that we've had a week or more of 90 degree plus days almost every Spring and Fall without air conditioning since I've been here. It's gotten to 110 degrees in my apartment already, and the response I've gotten when I complain about it is "So? Open a window!" Those temperatures happen even with judicious opening of windows and the use of fans, though!

Every time I go to a doctor, they always say "Turn on the air conditioner and keep the windows closed!" As you might guess from all this, I have allergies to tree pollen (Spring), ragweed (Fall) and grass (most of the time). So each Spring and Fall, I have to choose between being slow roasted and having an allergic reaction that sets me up for being sick most of the year.

They said that if it gets too warm in here, the fire department may force an evacuation, and then I won't have any choice.

If the fire department does force an evacuation, I plan to make a note of the conditions and if (when) they're exceeded in the future, call them and either get the AC on or get evacuated!

In the meantime, I'm probably not going to be blogging much, so don't be surprised.

I hope you're having a weekend that's much cooler than mine!