Science Monkey

Problem #1: I enjoy taking pictures. I wish I were a better photographer. To get better, I need to take more pictures and learn what works and what doesn’t.

Problem #2: I have been neglecting my poor blog something awful. I ought to post more.

Solution: Picture of the Day! Every day for as long as I can keep it up, I’m going to post a picture that I took that day. Since I’m posting it to the blog, it will probably be a picture of something going on in my life, but it might not be. Honestly, it will probably be a bunch of random stuff.

It’s been raining a lot the past few days and I’ve been amused by how happy the garden frogs look, sitting in the front yard birdbath. While I am enjoying the cool temperatures, the constant gloom and drizzling rain are not helping my mood. That said, we really do need the rain, so I’m not going to complain too loudly.

Pick a band/artist: TMBG

1. Are you male or female? Mr. Me

2. Describe yourself: Mammal

3. How do you feel about yourself? Piece of Dirt

4. Describe your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend: Don’t Let’s Start

5. Describe your current boy/girl situation: Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love

6. Describe your current location: Cowtown

7. Describe where you want to be: Drinking

8. Your best friend is: She’s an Angel

9. Your favorite color is: Purple Toupee

10. You know: Alienation’s for the Rich

11. What’s the weather like: Hot Cha

12. If your life was a television show what would it be called? Everything Right is Wrong Again

13. What is life to you? Whistling in the Dark

14. What is the best advice you have to give? Hide Away, Folk Family

15. If you could change your name what would you change it to? Meet James Ensor

16. What is your favorite season? Number Three

17. Do you have any siblings? Yeh, Yeh

My nerdiness knows no bounds, it seems. Within hours of my learning about this pattern, I had bought it and was trying to work out in my head how to make it fit my feet: Viper Pilots. Awesome-looking socks! Based on Battlestar Galactica! How could I resist?

I confessed my nerdiness to Sharon at the LYS on Sunday and — after being kind enough to not laugh in my face, when I showed her this way-over-my-head pattern — she helped me figure out how to try it. Most simply, I’m just going to use slightly bigger needles and sock yarn that’s towards the heavier end of the spectrum. Conveniently, I had already bought a skein of Saki from Prism in an appropriately great colorway, smoke. I’m still a bit apprehensive about the amount of yarn I need, so I think I’m going to lay in another skein for sock #2. It’s not that I think I’m going to use an entire skein of yarn for each sock, but I’m afraid that I’ll need more than half. The dye pattern may not quite match between the two skeins, but I don’t think I’ll notice between the socks.

Way back on St. Patrick’s day, I was chatting with my friend Shermi about Irish food and cooking, when she shared a bunch of awesome-looking Irish recipes, including one for Guinness-molasses bread that looked absolutely superb. It looked so nice, in fact, that I went to the store and bought self-rising flour and a six pack of Guinness, and made it that night.

Side note: Do you know how difficult it is to find Guinness on St. Patrick’s day? There was a gaping hole in the cold beer section of the store where the Guinness, Bass, and Harp usually live. It makes sense now, but it hadn’t even crossed my mind as a problem that evening.

At any rate, I managed to get the supplies laid in and made the first loaf, which was stupendous! Especially with the good Irish butter I picked up at the store. /drool

The bread was so good and so easy that I made another loaf to share with the knitters at the LYS. We took the bread in in the morning and when I stopped back in the afternoon for some reason or other, I felt like a rock star. Stitch’n'bitchers: “This bread is amazing! And look at the yarn that you bought! We love you!” Me: “Ack! They noticed me! Hide! Hide!”

That brings us to this week. Emma’s in Chattanooga on an interview, so it was requested that I bring another loaf of bread by the store, in an attempt to keep my occupied and away from playing on my computer all weekend. “No problem,” I thought, and baked up a loaf this (Sunday) morning. I decided to modify the recipe a little, and added about a quarter cup of steel-cut oats into the batter and sprinkled some instant, rolled oats on the top. It looked great when I took it out of the oven, other than some crumbs from the instant oats that didn’t adhere to the bread. As I was brushing the crumbs into the sink, disaster struck. The loaf of bread popped out of the pan and into the dirty bowl full of water that was soaking in the sink. Sigh. I grabbed a corner — which was delicious — but the rest got dumped out back for the birds.

The second round is in the oven now, making the house smell wonderful. The always awesome Lorena helped mitigate some of the disaster by providing Guinness, since I was out and you can’t buy booze in Alachua County until 1 or 2 PM on Sundays.

And there’s the timer. I’m going to pop the loaves out and then am on my way back to the yarn store. Hope to see you there!

My toes! They are covered! Although, I did find myself wishing my feet weren’t quite so big over the weekend. Just a little off the middle, eh?

Otherwise, I’m thrilled at how well the sock is coming along. Love, love, love this colorway.

Morning: A neighborhood bird watch, sighted on my walk to work.

Evening: Well-melted Sil-pat, that tried to burn the house down.

An overview of what I have on my needles (and what’s coming next), mostly to get my head wrapped around the big pile o’ paper bags from Hanks:

- Wallaby: I started this last summer on our Colorado vacation. It’s going to be a gift for a friend of ours who has two girls, and Emma and I joked at the time that I should aim the size for the older one. That way either the girls could share it/pass it down if I finished it quickly or, more likely, it’d be ready for the baby when she was big enough to wear it. It looks like the second one is more likely…I’m adding on the pouch on the front and am having a wicked hard time with it. It sounds like an easy plan: use a crochet needle to pull new loops of yarn through a low row, pick up those stitches, and make a pouch. I don’t know if it’s my motor skills or what, but I’m having a horrible time making this look decent. So, what to do? Keep fighting? Skip the pouch? Or rip back to the base of the pouch and try another way to kick it off? I’m leaning towards the third, but this project is at the bottom of the pack, and that makes me sad.
- Sarah’s Socks: These are the socks that I started way back when, when I took that sock class. I have one of the socks done and have completed the second sock through the heel flap and have picked up the stitches to do the gusset decrease. I don’t like how the picked up stitches look, though, so I need to back up a round or two and fix them. I haven’t yet found the joy in picking up stitches, so these are lower on the pile, which mostly makes me sad. As I’ve mentioned before, these are a gift for a dear friend, and I feel bad that I haven’t yet finished them for her. Soon, Sarah! I promise!
- 2009 Afghan: January Square: Done, essentially. I need to weave in the ends and block. I’m waiting until the second one is done so I can block them together, because I’m lazy. Yay!
- 2009 Afghan: February Square: This was going beautifully well for two of the seven repeats, and looking really nice, until I decided to try and knit, drink beer, and watch TV on the computer at the same time. Bad call. Well, perhaps the knitting was okay, but I didn’t write down where I was when I stopped and keep getting a different answer each time I count. Bother. I think I can back up a bit and save this, but it may be time to rip it wayyyyy back and start again.
- Purple Raven Widdershins: Just starting, as detailed yesterday, and rocking them. Or, perhaps they’re rocking me. At any rate, this is my current carry-it-around-everywhere project and am having a fun time with this project.
- Gator Speed Racer: This is my immediate next project. I bought some of the yarn and did the swatching back in the fall, but has been on hold since then. I have a Christmas project — ack!!! — that I still need to finish before I’m allowed to cast this one on. The remainder of the yarn is here in town and I’m ready to rock with it, as soon as I finish that needlepoint. I have a couple skeins of the blue wool at home and the rest is at the yarn store, ready for me to come ransom it as I have some free cash.

So, I think that’s it. I have a ton of sock yarn, somehow, that neither Emma nor I remember buying, and am looking forward to making a bunch of nice socks with it. Most of it is even boy-colored, so I can make a bunch of socks for myself this summer. I have a few other random skeins of yarn in the stash, too, waiting for projects. I have an awesome skein of Franklin’s Panopticon that I think is going to start a second Wallaby, once I figure out the technical problems of the first. This will, of course, need to be supplemented with more yarn, unless I make a really, really tiny sweater. I also have some cool handspun that I got for my birthday that is looking for a project. It’s part mohair, so it’d make some seriously itchy socks, so that idea’s out. Hopefully I’ll get inspired as I finish these other projects. Note to self: finish these other projects!

As you may recall, for my birthday last year I got a membership in one of the inaugural Hanks Yarn and Fiber sock clubs. And wayyyy back in October, I got my first skein of yarn, an unbelievably sexeh number called Purple Raven. Since that time, I have dorked around on a few projects and have faithfully carried the wee skeins in the bottom of my knitting back, just waiting until the time was right to start. Eventually, I realized that the time would never be “right,” so I dove in.

From the best little yarn shop in Gainesville, I got a pair of Addi turbo #2 needles and dove into the generic Widdershins toe-up pattern. Magic cast-on, indeed! I didn’t actually *swatch*, per se, but I did some measurements and took a few guesses about the gauge, and dove in. Yeah…the results? Not so nice. It was a remarkable combination of over- and underthinking that left me with a butt-ugly mess. The process, however, felt good. It just needed a little tweaking.

Back to the yarn store for a new pair of needles, because clearly that will solve everything! Addi turbo #0s, this time. The 00s and smaller needles are strangely appealing to me but at the same time I think I’ll snap them like twigs in my clumsy hands, so 0s. Excellent. So, what did we learn last time? We learned that we cast on way too many stitches, so let’s do significantly fewer this time. Gauge? Lolwut? This time, it actually works out reasonably well! The magic cast-on is awesome and the increases are…well, increasing, but it rapidly becomes obvious that I haven’t cast on enough stitches. My feet are not nearly pointy enough to fit into these putative socks. Rip it all back and start again! I do have a picture of the “end” result, though, from this attempt:

So, okay, let’s do some guesstimating. That was 20 stitches cast on and it was too small, so let’s try 40! Good planning, right? Cast on…knit…knit…increase…it’s okay, but…hmm. I think this is going to be too big, if you can believe it. And I *really* don’t like how those increases are looking. There’s a hole, because the way I know how to do increases is to grab the running yarn between stitches and use that to make a new loop. Ick. To the yarn store, quick! Help me, Obi Wan Haldechick! You’re my only hope!

After a quick lesson in alternative increases (and how to twist the stitches on the way I was doing it, so as to obscure the hole a little), I’m back for stab #4. This time I cast on 28 stitches (shut up! it’s a perfectly cromulent amount!) and am using the knit-into-the-front-and-back technique I have just learned to do the increases, and am very happy with how it’s going. It’s still too small, but I just realized that I’m doing twice as many increases as I thought I was, so I think this is going to end up close to correct. We’ll see. Worst case? Take five.

I know it’s been going around Facebook for a while now, and since I’ve been tagged eleventy-three times I guess I should participate. Plus, I don’t have any real content that I want to write about at the moment, so…

1. I’ve recently learned how to knit and really like it. I’m not great at it yet, but I find it relaxing. Productive fidgetting.
2. 32w44444444444444444444444444444444444444444422222222222222222222244444444. That was Rorschach’s entry, written as he tried to steal my piece of string cheese.
3. I feel like an impostor most of the time.
4. Although I proudly self-identify as a geek, I haven’t yet found my topic to really geek out over. For instance, I read Watchmen for the first time last year.
5. I’m really good at starting new projects and getting them to about two-thirds done, but I really stink at grinding out that last bit. I’d much rather think about the Next New Thing.
6. I am an Eagle Scout. Probably not a huge surprise.
7. I am really enjoying reconnecting with friends (and people I wasn’t even close with) from high school on Facebook. Five years ago, ten years ago, I would have sworn that I was done with most people from high school forever. Today? It’s kind of nice catching up. Something about shared miseries, hehe.
8. Sometimes I want to take up smoking, for the weight-loss benefits.
9. I once stole a door from my fraternity’s basement, then wasn’t believed when I admitted it. No, wait, that was Richard Feynman.
10. I just accepted a job working for a neuroscience lab who wants to move into cell and molecular biology. Ack! /panic
11. I wish I had more hobbies that I was good at. Current desires: learning to play the piano, being a better knitter, learning to spin (!), having a garden, brewing beer, pwning n00bs in PVP.
12. Over the past few months, I have watched seasons 1 through 3 of the US version of The Office and love it. I remember watching the first few episodes when it originally aired and hating it and am really impressed with how they’ve found their voice and improved. Can’t wait to get caught up with seasons 4 and 5 and whatever is airing now. Is that 5?
13. My gaming PC just died and my laptop has probably gone past its expected lifetime. Hmm. I want to replace the laptop with a MacBook, but what do I do with the gaming PC? Relatively inexpensive new MB/processor/video card? That’s probably worthwhile.
14. I need a haircut.
15. I keep thinking of things that amuse me to write when I’m away from my computer, then forgetting about them by the time I get back to my office.
16. I mindlessly tap, hum, and whistle constantly, much to my wife’s annoyance.
17. I really need to take a shower and get doing something productive today.
18. I’ve lived in Gainesville for almost my entire life. While I really like it, I would like to live in some different areas before we finally settle down.
19. I wish I were a better writer.
20. I’ve gotten in the habit of listening to Old Time Radio when I fall asleep at night. My mind seems to need a little bit of a distraction, or I have difficulty falling asleep. If I do manage to fall asleep without some noise, I tend to have bad dreams.
21. I remember bad memories more clearly than good ones. For instance, two of my earliest memories from school are being laughed at because I didn’t know where to put the tray in the cafeteria after lunch in kindergarten and having to write my name on the board in first grade because I was too loud. How petty, but still…
22. I’ve carried a Swiss Army knife or Leatherman in my pocket since tenth or eleventh grade. If I did that know, I’d probably be expelled. Hell, I probably could have been expelled then.
23. I like to cook and am good at following a recipe. I think there’s some sort of connection between science and cooking, but maybe that’s just how my brain works.
24. I’m out of good ideas to share.
25. While beer and bacon are delicious, I doubt that bacon-flavored beer would be very good.