Catching Up

As you know, I've been having internet problems, which has been discouraging me from blogging as frequently. By the way, they're not over. There are so many things that could be wrong, and I've been working through them one by one, and haven't found a definitive fix yet. All that troubleshooting has been using up time that I could be blogging, too. Or doing other things.

So, I'm going to catch you up on all the stuff that's been happening. A lot of people have been commenting on a hat I made on another website, and I've referred them here, so there may be a lot more people reading this blog.

To them, I'd like to say "Hello!" and say again that I cover many topics in a typical post, and separate them with some asterisks, so if you're not interested in a topic, skip down to the next break.

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On Wednesday, Holly and I went over to the VA Hospital in DC, and picked up my new hearing aids. This sounds quick and simple, but wasn't. They had to be fitted, and I had to learn how to insert batteries, turn them on and off, clean them and take care of them, and use the bluetooth aspect. They can also be plugged in to things like my home phone so that I can make and get phone calls without having to hold the phone up to my ear.

I have a loop which uses bluetooth or can be plugged into something, but they didn't send the cord to connect it to something else that way. I bought a cord on Thursday, but the connector is big and chunky, and the jack in my phone is in a little dimple with a rubber cover, and I can't plug the cable in all the way because the end of the cable has that big, clunky plug, so I'll have to get something else.

First of all, they work so much better than the ones I had before! Some high sounds and sibilant sounds cause a tiny feedback squeal, but they make human speech so much more easy to understand. Part of this may be that I went through part of the learning curve with the earlier aids.

One of the neat things about these is the way they look. My old aids were skin-colored hard plastic, and if you happened to see them in my ear, looked more like a malignant growth.

The new ones look more like jewelry!

The aids themselves are a metallic navy blue, and are very pretty! They don't look as good in this photo as they do in real life. The connection between the aids and the earmolds, and the earmolds themselves is a translucent soft plastic.

Here's a photo of the earmolds in their soft, clear plastic. You can see a bit of how pretty the blue metallic finish is, just above the earmold.

Isn't that close up photo amazing? It's all thanks to the wonderful camera that my sister gave me for my birthday! Thanks, again, Lynn. I find the camera doing something wonderful that most cameras have trouble doing and it just amazes me almost every week.

The best part is that I can hear so much better, though. These are an amazing experience!

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And now, to the knitting content!

I put up a photo of the Mobius hat that I made for Kyle two Christmases ago on a knitting website connected with facebook, and I've been getting many comments on it.

Everyone wants the pattern, and I never wrote one out. I've decided that I'm going to do it, but since the original is in Wisconsin somewhere, and I don't have it to photograph, and I'll want more photos for the instructions, that I'm going to knit a new one and write up the instructions and report on my progress here.

Just so we're all on the same page, here's a photo of the hat I'm talking about.

I also did a simpler version of this hat for the daughter of a friend the same Christmas, and I think I made a similar one for Holly, too. I plan to write the directions for the simpler one as a different pattern, and I'll write a pattern for a scarf and cowl to go with each of them. Here's the other hat. Both had scarves, but I didn't take a photo of the scarf for the hat with the cable, so I'll have to make a new one in order to take photos and show the construction as I go.

This hat (unlike the other) has a cuff that's actually a true mobius strip. The one with the cable has a fake mobius.

I plan to have several lines of knitting patterns, and this second, easier, mobius hat will be part of my Screaming KnitFit patterns. These will be a group of patterns set up by a lazy knitter (me) to be really easy to knit. They'll have unconventional construction meant to minimize finishing (I don't like to have to sew things together), and, best of all, you'll be able to knit them using any weight yarn. Most of them will let you start knitting, and check a little while after starting for gauge. If it's good, you can just keep knitting. If not, you can consider it a gauge swatch and rip it out and start over again. And by gauge, I usually don't mean "16 stitches to 4 inches" I mean "Is it too stiff or too loose?" They will mostly let you ignore gauge and just start knitting, have minimal finishing, and will actually fit.

I chose the name because I used to love Screaming Yellow Zonkers, and loved the name even more. I also wanted to give the idea that these were easy knits that fit, and while I was in Basic Training, I had a barracks-mate who used to talk (all the time) about her mother having screaming knit fits, and I always thought that was an amusing way to express it.

I've already written three Screaming KnitFit patterns (although I didn't call them that then) that are available in printed form, but I plan to republish them as PDFs since I'm getting more and more requests for them. You can see the current printed patterns here. There's a listing for a Christmas stocking that I haven't taken down yet, and I'll write a pattern for that, too, soon.

The hat with the cable on the cuff will be one of my Unconventional Knits line. They'll be things that for one reason or another will actually need to be knitted in a particular weight yarn at a particular gauge. Sorry, guys. No getting around gauge swatches here!

They'll also be things that are knitted in a more conventional way, frequently with separate pieces knitted flat and sewn together, although this particular hat will need no sewing. When you're done knitting, you're done! That covers the "conventional" part of the name, but these will be special in some way, which is why I added the "un" at the beginning of conventional.

Stay tuned for more information!

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I went over to the library yesterday, and noticed that the ice on the lake is starting to break up. It looks like Spring may still be far off, but it's on it's way!

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There's a Burn Notice marathon on USA today! In honor of Valentine's Day (which is tomorrow, by the way, happy Valentine's Day!) they're calling it a Heart Burn marathon!

If you're into a Valentine frame of mind, there are a lot of that type of movie on today and tonight. Check your local listings.

Next Saturday, the original Being Human will be all new on BBC in America as part of their Supernatural Saturday.

I've got to go now, or this post will never get up on the internet.

I hope your weekend has been wonderful, and wish you a fabulous week!

An Exhausting, Really Neat Day!

Yesterday started really early for me. It might not be early for most people, but it was for me.

I was out at the bus stop at 8:30, after making a purchase and getting cash back at CVS so that I would have money for the bus and Metro.

The bus took me up to the Pentagon, where I got on the Metro and went to where I could get a bus to the audiology lab.

I had some time to wander around and get lunch and do some window shopping.

I had a long conversation with the audiologist, and she adjusted the hearing aids I have now, and they are so much better!

Although it sounds loud enough that I can hear it when somebody talks to me (with or without the aids), usually it sounds like a lot of random sounds with only an occasional word or phrase that I can identify. After the adjustments, I can understand almost everything that's said to me with only an occasional word that I can't get. And there's not much extraneous, distracting sound like there used to be!

The aids I have now are completely inadequate, though, and I'll be getting behind the ear aids because my hearing has gotten worse, and that's the only type that will correct the problem.

In addition to just the aids, they will have Bluetooth capability (as they said on The Big Bang Theory, "Everything's better with Bluetooth!"), and I'll be getting something called a "loop" which will convert my aids into the equivalent of earbuds!

I'll be able to hear music again!

And, as if all that wasn't enough, they asked me what color I want! Wow! I'll be getting Navy blue aids!

I'm so excited, I can't tell you!

And then I had to wait for the bus for an hour at the Pentagon, but I got to watch the planes taking off from National. I love to watch planes! It's not as much fun as flying them, but I take what I can get.

It was a long and exhausting day, but a lot of fun!

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Update on my previous discussion of ebook readers/tablet PCs: I may not have mentioned the Galaxy Tablet, which is available for the major cell phone companies. It's an ereader and a lot more. It has Bluetooth, and can be used as a phone, it has two cameras, one forward facing and one backward facing, so it can be used to take photos and email them or send them to another cell phone, or for teleconferencing! It's Android powered, like many of the phones and tablets out there, and there are already lots of apps for it! It costs a bit more, but has a lot more capability.

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While I'm on the subject of cool stuff that's available to give (or get) for Christmas, I got an email from some people who have been sending me info for a little while now. They have an amazing range of stuff, some of it relatively inexpensive, that would make fabulous Christmas gifts. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see how to enter for their iPad giveaway. This is the 32 gig model with wifi, which is a step up from most of the iPad giveaways out there. Entry to the giveaway is free, so give it a shot!

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Hope you're having a fabulous weekend!

Good News and Bad News

Suddenly, everything seems to be either good news or bad news.

The good news for yesterday and my health is that I did get to the VA Hospital and get my ears examined. The good news connected with that is that the nerve damage hearing loss is almost exactly the same as it was four years ago. In other words, it's not getting worse. The bad news is that the bone that has grown over my right ear two years ago is blocking most of the sound from getting to that ear.

The good news is that the doctor was able to fix the left hearing aid, and hike up the sound on the right one so that I can hear something in that ear. The bad news is that it's impossible to hike it up enough to really correct my hearing in the right ear. But at least I can hear something, and the left ear is corrected.

She said I have to have another talk with an ENT doctor about the possibility of an operation in that ear to remove the bone that's blocking the hearing in my right ear. The ENT I spoke to didn't recommend it, but I'd like to hear more before I completely rule it out. Also, if I do rule it out, I need a note from the doctor saying that I'm not getting an operation in order to be eligible to get replacement hearing aids that are more suited to my changed hearing.

If I don't get the operation, I will be eligible for different aids to cope with my changing hearing problems. That's good news. The bad news is that it will entail two visits to the VA Hospital to get them. I know that sounds like a minor problem, and I should be grateful. I am, but it took 4 hours of traveling in a car to get there and back yesterday. On public transportation, that's 8 to 12 hours of traveling per trip!

So, anyway, at the moment, I have hearing aids that mostly correct my hearing and are reasonably functional, and an appointment (for December 2) to see the doctor about new aids if I decide not to have the surgery. I hate the idea of surgery, but if it would really fix things, I'd prefer that. The doctor didn't seem to think it would be as successful as I hope, though, so I need to find out more.

The bad news about yesterday and my health is that I woke up with the gland under my right ear swollen (again!) and hurting, and my health slid downhill all day. It sprinkled rain all day yesterday, usually not so much that you really wanted to bother to put up an umbrella, but enough to make you damp and chilly all day.

By the end of the day, my ear hurt, I had a vague, nagging headache, my post-nasal drip was doing it's best to drown me, and I was exhausted! I went to sleep early.

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On the way home from the VA Hospital yesterday, I got a text message from Holly saying that she had someone who was interested in the car, and he was on the way out to see it! So, I showed the car to a very nice guy named Mike, who liked it and later met with Holly and paid for the car and got a set of keys. He came by today and picked up the other keys from me.

The good news is that Holly sold her car, and is now not as broke as she's been since getting the new car. The bad news is that I no longer have transportation. That's not so bad, though. At least I had the use of a car for a short while.

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Saturday is the Fall Fiber Fest! The good news about that is that it's the Fall Fiber Fest! The bad news is that it's been raining for two days, which is what caused the previous Fall Fiber Mud Festival. I've been to the Sheep and Wool Festival when it rains, but that's based on actual ground, real dirt. The FFF is based on something weird. It might be either clay, or quicksand or some combination of the two. That year, they weren't letting anything without four wheel drive off the road, and with good reason. My SUV nearly got stuck. And if you stopped moving for even a second, you could feel yourself start to sink! Everybody was covered in mud to their knees!

So, Holly, if you're reading this, much as I'd like to go to the FFF, I won't be very disappointed if you decide that you don't want to go. We could go pick up some graph paper and I'll graph out a heart border for your cowl if you want.

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This afternoon, Syfy is rebroadcasting the pilot episode of The Event at 4:00! The IMdB link is here, but that doesn't even begin to tell you what it's about!

It starts off as a standard thriller/action/adventure, following a guy who, little by little, uncovers a terrorist plot to kill the president by hijacking a plane and crashing it into him. At the last moment, when the plane is less than 50 feet away, the air glows and looks like a heat shimmer, the plane flies into it, and disappears! A woman watching it says "They did this!" and that's the end of the first episode.

Considering that the guy that finds all this out is trying to ask his girlfriend to marry him throughout the first episode, it really has everything: action, adventure, suspense, science fiction, and a romance! It's very fast-paced and seems to be shaping up to have a lot of plot twists! Don't miss it!

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Considering that most of the symptoms I developed yesterday aren't gone, and I had to get up early today, I think I'm going to take a nap.

Have a great evening with all the fun stuff that's coming up on TV tonight!

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Addition:

Here's some good news! There will be a new R2D2 phone out real soon now! Find out about it here! In case you don't want to spend a lot of money on a new phone, if you have an Android based phone, there will be a new Empire Strikes Back available soon, too!

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Another Addition:

If you're on Ravelry, you can get the most up-to-date reports on the ground quality of the Fall Fiber Fest site here.

A lot of people seem to be encouraged by the fact that it's expected to be sunny on the day of the festival. Well, it was sunny on the day of the muddy festival, too. The problem seems to happen when it's rained for a few days before the event, which is what's happening this year.

Tomorrow!

At this time tomorrow, I will be at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival! As any of you who read my blog last year this time, this is even better than Christmas for me! And this year, after expecting to not have any money at all to spend on it, I will have more than usual!

One of the major things I want to make sure to check out is the new Majacraft Serenity Wheel. It's being introduced at this year's festival! Here's the schedule, if you want to find out more about it. They haven't leaked any photos, and people who saw it at their spinning camp have been sworn to secrecy, but they have shown some of the yarn that has been spun on it. As you can see, if you click on the "yarn" link, it's been developed to spin art yarns and novelties, and I am going nuts with suspense about it! From what I can tell, all of the Majacraft wheels have the potential to spin art yarns, so I can't imagine what they've done to make it even better!

The other major thing I want to look for this year is kniting bags. I don't know why I've gotten on that kick this year, but for some unexplained reason, I have.

Which probably means that I'll find something wonderful that I've never seen before, and once I've seen it will realize that I can't live without it! That's the way it usually works.

Holly and I have also decided that we're going to take lots of photos this year. He camera just broke (actually, the battery in it broke), so I'm lending her my tiny, carry-it-all-the-time camera (which is older, and has a lower resolution) and I'm going to use my super-duper, fabulous camera. I want to replace my old camera with this:

It has a 4X optical zoom, and most cameras only have a 3X zoom. I like the zoom control, too. It's very responsive, and easy to zoom to right where you want it! It also takes the same memory card as the better camera I have. One of the reasons I like it is because it takes AA batteries. That makes it just a little more bulky, but much easier to deal with. You can buy rechargeable AA batteries (and I already have some, plus a recharger), but if you absolutely use up all your batteries, you can buy new ones anywhere. I once went to Pennsic with batteries in my camera, and took one photo, and the batteries died. The camp store had AA batteries for sale, but the camera took esoteric camera batteries that were not available within 100 miles. I know because I spent hours of my time there driving around looking for the right batteries instead of enjoying Pennsic! I took a grand total of one photo at Pennsic that year, and don't ever intend to repeat that!

So, all this is what I'm concentrating on, not some of the other, less happy parts of this post.

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When it comes to the less happy parts of the post, that happened yesterday.

I got to see the results of the CT scan yesterday. It was amazing, and also not really very good news.

The doctor explained (as was pretty self evident) that the lighter parts of the scan showed more thickness or density on the image of my head. He showed me my left ear, which is OK (aside from the fact that it can't really hear well). You could see my outer ear, and the structure inside. It looked just like one of those inner ear illustrations.

Then he showed me my left ear. You could see my outer ear, and then, right inside, there is a big white blob. The bone right inside my outer ear has gone berserk and just grown solid. No wonder I can't hear out of it!

He said that there's an operation they can do which is classified as an exploratory operation. He said they might or might not be able to fix it, but that no matter how the operation turns out, people with Paget's usually have the bone grow back even more aggressively, and wind up with an even worse problem than they started with. He didn't recommend the operation.

He also noted that some sinuses and other parts of the inside of my skull have warped and grown in odd directions.

In other words, it's a strange and twisted place inside my head. Actually, it was strange before I got Paget's, but that's a whole other story.

He said the same thing the other doctor said, which is that I really need to see someone who knows about Paget's and has treated it. He said a rheumatologist would be a good idea. He recommended that I call John's Hopkins and ask for a recommendation from them. He said that they would almost certainly know of a good doctor for me.

Paget's is rare enough that most doctors have never treated a case. I almost said that most doctors have never seen a case, but that's probably not true. I had probably at least 20 doctors comment on my alkaline phosphatase test (which indicated I have Paget's, although it can indicate other things) without having a clue what they were looking at. So, doctors actually see it, they just don't recognize or treat it!

The ENT doctor that I went to also doesn't do hearing aids, so I have to go do something about that myself. I'm thinking of going back to the VA Hospital in DC for that.

I may ask them about Paget's treatment. I won't take them up on it if they still have that same idiot doctor I saw about it before. He didn't seem to want to prescribe anything for me unless it would cause really BAD side effects, but he was happier about prescribing something that would be lethal.

I can't really do anything about this over the weekend, so I'm going to forget about it over the weekend and do something about it on Monday. It's depressing me, and I want to forget it and have fun this weekend.

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There will be a new Doctor Who on BBC in America on Saturday evening! Plus the usual schedule for tonight and the weekend. Enjoy! I'm too distracted by other things to really pay attention to all this, although I set my DVR to record everything I want to see.

I hope your weekend is as fun as mine is going to be!

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Oh, I nearly forgot! I saw this wonderful knitting pattern today, and wanted to pass it along!

And, while I'm thinking of it, I am looking for a copy of a knitting stitch called net stitch. I own a copy of one of the Walker stitch library books (it's the charted book, in the uncharted section in the back) that has it in, but can't find the book (it's around here somewhere), and I was hoping that somebody out there, reading my blog might have a clue where to look. I don't really want to spend money on another copy of a book that's that expensive, especially when I already own it, and I was wondering if it was published elsewhere. I haven't been able to find it on the internet.

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Addition:

I found a photo of the new Majacraft wheel! It doesn't show much, but at least it's a photo.

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Another Addition:

When I found the photo, I put it up there, but I just now really looked at it. It looks like it's double drive! and it looks like you can change the ratios between the flyer and bobbin! instead of having one long drive wheel to drive both the flyer and bobbin, there appears to be a separate drive band for each! I've never seen such a thing on a spinning wheel before! I had a Schacht Matchless wheel, so I've tried double drive and I like it. It helps you spin yarn that is much more consistent. But the possibilities of having the flyer and bobbin driven separately, with choice of ratios is mind boggling! I haven't even seen one in person, and I'm already amazed and impressed!

Snowed Under with Work

The world seems to want to make sure that I have good grasp of the meaning of the word Entropy.

The last definition of that is more what I mean in this context: "a doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration."

The world seems to be determined to keep messing things up for me, and usually on a financial basis. Well, sometimes on a health basis, or, as one of my current problems, something that broke, but is going to cost me a lot of time and effort (and probably some money) to fix. More about that later.

The IRS, in it's logical fashion, started taking money out of my monthly Social Security payment last year to satisfy a debt that was a bit over $500. They took over $300 out of my payments, and then decided that since they owed me enough to pay the rest, that  they'd stop doing that. But instead of applying it to my account, they sent it to me. So, now they say that it means that I owe them almost a thousand dollars.

I spent some time discussing it with them today. The outcome is not happy, but better than what they originally planned to do to me.

I've been trying to get in touch with the VA Hospital near here to get one of the hearing aids they gave me to use fixed, and probably return the other one due to almost total hearing loss in the other ear. The part of this that's really frustrating to me is that I'm pretty certain that the hearing in that ear could be improved tremendously, and possibly restored completely, but the last person I saw about it (an ear, nose and throat specialist at the VA Hospital) said that there was nothing wrong with my ear and then asked "So, why can't you hear?" Which was kind of the question that I came to him to answer.

I'm getting really tired of doctors asking me the very questions that I came to them to answer. 

But you can never get through to the hospital on the phone. You just get to leave a message and wait by the phone all day to have them call you back. It's frustrating.

Tomorrow I'm going to work on getting something done about my front teeth before I don't have them any more. Or maybe later today if I get a call back and am not worried about making a call and missing the call from the hospital.

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I also have two projects that need to be done.

One is the Christmas stocking commission. That's going well. I'm almost through the colorwork on the leg of the last stocking, which will leave some very easy knitting, and then some finishing work.

The other one is the cover for the second volume of the Steve Canyon DVDs. I have a lot to do on that. The cover photo was taken in color, but the only surviving copy of it is black and white. And while the scan of the photo is excellent, the photo itself is covered with dust, dirt, and scratches. 

So, there's a lot of restoration work before I can even apply the colors and make it into the background for the cover.

And I haven't even designed the inside cover yet. Not to mention that there has been no decision made yet about the photo for the back cover.

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Now on the happy news! The science fiction shows that were off for the holidays will be returning soon, except for those casualties of the networks.

On the 31st of January, G4 will be running a Heroes marathon, pretty much all day.

On the second of February, we hit the jackpot, at least as far as NBC is concerned. 

Chuck will be back with an opening episode in 3D! That means that you'll need special glasses to watch it and get the 3D effect. I can't find any information on the internet about where NBC expects you to get these glasses, though.

Heroes will be back the same night, too! You knew there was a reason why G4 would be running a marathon!

Medium will also be back the same evening.

Later, at a date I haven't been able to pin down at the moment, the long-awaited premier of Dollhouse is coming up for all you Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku fans.

Fast forwarding to March will bring us the premier of Castle! For all you Nathan Fillion fans, he'll be starring in it, and that's enough for me. But it looks like it has the potential to be a great series, too. Nathan will be playing the role of Rick Castle, a fictional famous author of crime and horror novels. Rick helps the police solve crimes.

In the more immediate future, the SciFi Channel will be running random episodes of Lost tonight. They've already caught up to the the premier of the show last week, and are just running through some highlights.

NBC will be showing the second half of The Last Templar at 9 tonight. It was listed for last night, but I didn't realize that it was a mini-series and that they weren't just showing the same movie again tonight. Woops!

And Wednesday night, of course, we have an episode of Lost from last week followed by a new one!

It's almost 5 pm, and the Hospital still hasn't called. I doubt that they'll be calling me back this late, so I guess I can stop carrying the phone around with me everywhere I go.

Have a great evening!