Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

I hope you're celebrating in all the traditional ways!

I have a horrible, foreboding feeling that this may be the last year for a while that we're able to celebrate in peace. Hearing some of the things that representatives of our government are saying, it's making me scared that by this time next year, we may be fighting for our independence all over again. We're certainly not going to get any independence if our elected officials have their way. It makes me wonder why we elected them, and then I think back to George W vs. Al Gore, and realize we didn't elect them!

I always loved the United States. That's why I joined the Air Force. But this isn't the country I served, anymore. It's changed beyond all recognition.

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On to happier topics.

The Saint John's cross shawl is done in it's City Tweed DK incarnation. I'm currently knitting another one in Wool of the Andes sport weight yarn (it must be Solstice Heather, but I don't think I ordered that color). Anyway, it's a new denim blue, very pretty. I was looking for a lighter shade, but they didn't have a lighter heather blue. Anyway, I'll be at or near the middle of the cross before the day is over.

I still have to get the two scarves off to Knit Picks, but it's been so hot out, and going to the post office is an all-day trip, and I've stood in 100 degree (sometimes plus) weather in the sun for more than 2 hours too many times in the past (or below freezing, with lots of wind), waiting for a bus, to do anything buy dread going. I was considering trying to go to one of the other post offices, but I still have to take the bus to get to them, and if I go to the one that's closest to me, I can walk across the street to the yarn store and sit in the air conditioning for a while before I go back to fighting with the buses. Plus, there's something I want to buy there.

On the point of post office closeness, the one that's closest to me is furthest on the bus. The bus gives me a scenic tour of the county before it will take me anywhere I want to go. So, the post office I get to first on the bus isn't the closest one. And neither of the post offices or the Fed Ex office have places that it's convenient or even out of the sun to wait for the bus to get home.

But back to my local yarn shop, Yarn Cloud. They have a Namaste Buddy Case in eggplant, to match my Laguna bag.

Isn't it pretty? And convient to carry very small things, like tapestry needles. It has separate compartments and magnets built in to hold those needles, your scissors, and more. I've been wanting one for a while, and I can't wait.

The photo shows it with cosmetics in it, but it's great for tiny knitting things, too.

Since I don't have one yet, and wanted to show what it looks like, I went to the Namaste site, and discovered that they are adding a new color in their Oh, Snap bags! In August (just in time for my birthday), they're adding eggplant to the colors available!

Don't those look pretty? And useful? I have to check out the prices, but I really like them.

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Well, I have to get going if I want to do the stuff I need to do today!

Have a great Independence Day, a beautiful balance of the week and a fabulous weekend!

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

Google has been putting this up on their search page today:

I've been celebrating the holiday already this weekend!

Last night, nature put on it's own fireworks display for me. There was a thunderstorm that approached from the West. I watched it for more than a half hour before it got close enough to rain. The whole thing lasted more than an hour and put on a spectacular display!

I've also been eating cheese dogs and corn on the cob and other fun stuff this weekend along with a TiVo fest of all kinds of good things I've recorded! I plan to continue watching great TV, knitting, and having a great Summer style dinner!

I'll be watching fireworks live from the Washington Mall on TV, and live out my window tonight!

I hope you're having as much fun!

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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!

Coping

I had a whole other post in mind for today, but came across some information that I think everyone should have access to in these troubled economic times. As I've said before, I don't want to call this a recession because it's really a depression. If you don't believe me, read up on what happened during the Great Depression. We're currently missing the dust bowl, but that's the only major difference between what's happening now and the Great Depression.

Anyway, I found a whole website devoted to dealing with the current depression. It's called Recession Wire, and the particular post I started with was this one, about how to deal with being laid off. Some of the information seems to apply to people who have lost a job, and anyone else who needs some extra income. Check out the link for Discounts for the Unemployed. At the bottom of the list, "Government Money for Your New Career" seems like a winner, but only contains some very general information, with no starting point for where to look, and no links to more information. 

And I just found another one of their Just-Laid-Off Checklists. This particular one is less about concrete steps you can do to make some money, and more about how to deal with the emotional impact of a lay off or being fired. And believe me, this part is every bit as important as making more money.

Each of those posts has a list of related posts at the bottom of the page, so there's a lot of information there.

If you belong to a subscription service like Google Reader, it might be worthwhile to add them to your list of blogs to read.

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I don't know if I mentioned this on my blog, but there's a sweepstakes currently happening on Twitter, and today is the last day to enter (moved up from the 10th). The final prizes will be awarded tomorrow at 10 am Eastern Daylinght Savings Time (I think). They are/were giving away 10 MacBook Pros, one a day. But they made such problems for Twitter that they've decided to give all the remaining ones out tomorrow. So, if you have a Twitter account, check here for more information.

And while I'm on the topic of something for nothing, check out the Family Dollar 50 Days of Giveaways. It's possible to win a car or an extremely large screen TV as well as many more prizes. And if you enter and don't win, it makes a very sad sound.

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I ended up my weekend pretty late last night after having spent most of Sunday watching movies on TV and knitting. Unfortunately for the knitting part, I noticed late in the day that I'd dropped a stitch early in the day, and it had ruuuuunnnnn! I'm a big one for fixing mistakes like that, but this was such a disaster that I wound up frogging almost everything I did yesterday and starting over almost from scratch.

The movie watching was fun, though. I saw: Live Once, Die Twice; The Avengers; and Independence Day.

Live Once, Die Twice was a good thriller to watch once. Unlike some movies that I want to see over and over, it was pretty much finished when it was over, but it was an enjoyable one-time shot.

The Avengers tried hard, but it had a lot to live up to, and just didn't manage to succeed. In the New Avengers, Joanna Lumbly wasn't Diana Rigg, but she was good, and she had Patrick MacNee to work with. But neither of the stars made me care about them or like them very much. I enjoyed the supporting cast much more than the stars, Eileen Atkins as Alice, a machine gun toting little old lady agent was the hit of the movie. And Jim Broadbent made an excellent Mother. I was especially interested in him because he'll be playing Professor Slughorn in the new Half Blood Prince movie. 

I guess Independence Day doesn't really need a review because everyone must've seen it by now.

Off the topic of movies, but still in a science fiction theme, don't forget that Warehouse 13 will be premiering on what will become (tomorrow) the SyFy Channel. This premise has the capacity for total failure or completly fabulous. I'm hoping for fabulous. And I'm prepared for a slow start. SG-1 was OK when it started, but it took a little while before it really hit it's stride. So did Babylon 5, one of the best thing that's ever been on TV. Blakes 7, however hit the ground running!

Well, my DVR is full, and I need to catch up on the knitting I flubbed yesterday, so I'm going to run.

Have a great week!

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Addition:

I found this great article about a newly-found black hole that's different from all the others, and I thought you might enjoy it.

Fourth of July Aftermath

Well, the 4th is over, but it's still the holiday weekend, and I plan to enjoy it to the very end.

Holly and I went out, did a quick errand, and had dinner together, always lots of fun. She showed me a fun new app for the G1 phones, and now my phone makes a Star Trek communicator chirp when I get a text message, and also whoops and says "Incoming transmission" when I get a phone call.

We came back to my place for fireworks. We watched fireworks on the mall in DC on TV, and also watched them live out the window. 

For a rather extended time, the fireworks in DC were so constant that it looked like fire was just raining down on DC! I have seen more sophisticated displays (and seen them in DC), but this really outdid them for sheer volume. There was no time that the sky didn't have something exploding in it.

My window showed fireworks from about seven different displays in the local area, although the ground displays weren't really visible. We did catch the finale of a very close display, though, and before it was totally dark, there was a short batch of fireworks that someone set off in the commuter's parking lot next to the apartment building.

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Other than that, I call your attention to the fact that there are only 11 days until the Half Blood Prince movie opens. If you want to wear Harry Potter knits to the movie, you don't have much time left to knit/buy them!

I'm making this a short post because I want to enjoy the rest of the weekend (what's left of it) and get back to my HP knitting.

I hope you are all still having a great weekend!

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Fourth of July!

I hope you have a wonderful, happy, safe Fourth of July weekend!

I'm taking a little vacation from all my usual topics to get into the spirit of the holiday, and just explore some neat things.

First of all, use the internet to find the best professional fireworks in your area and go see them rather than trying to set off your own.

For those of you who are curious, check here to find out how fireworks work. If you persevere through the pages, there's a table and animated display that shows you what each different  type of firework is called. I think it's the chrysanthemums that I like best. 

You can also take a founding fathers quiz, if you really know where all the founding fathers resided, but this one is more frustrating than fun.

One of the neatest things I happened to find today was an article about sand castles. You really need to click on this and see some of the things people have made!

Here's one of the castles from the article that I particularly like, but some of the others are bigger or more impressive in other ways. Notice the fence and signs in the front of the castle. I suspect this is a lot bigger than it looks without other reference points. You really want to check them out.

Happy Independence Day weekend!