Science Monkey

Okay, I’ll admit it. This post is basically just filler, to keep my post-a-day streak intact. I’m tired and am feeling rather down, for no discernible reason. I just finished a fun gaming session with the Purple Poxers and don’t have any real reason to feel so cruddy, but there you go.

Today’s picture was taken a few weeks ago, at a friend’s birthday dinner. We bought her this great stuffed monster who apparently likes to eat sushi. Good taste, eh?

A funny thing happened on the way to get free ice cream this evening. The Saturn saw fit to die, or at least slip into a coma. Everybody’s okay and I got to have a fun (if embarrassing and frustrating) adventure with the totally awesome and resilient Shermi.

Today was Free Cone Day at Ben and Jerry’s and — as any of you who know me can attest — I loves me some ice cream, especially if it’s free. And as Emma is working tonight and Shermi was the one to tell me about the Free Cone Day, I thought it’d be fun to go get some ice cream with her. Yay! Ice cream! Hanging out with Shermi! Doubleplusgood!

At the appointed hour I hopped in the Saturn and headed off to campus to get her and then get some ice cream. As I mentioned yesterday, the Saturn had been overheating but I thought I fixed the problem by topping off the antifreeze. At least, it seemed that way when I drove to and from work earlier. But, um…yeah. It turns out, not so much. By the time I got to the ARB, the car was on the bad side of the temperature gauge. A few minutes later, after being stuck behind an ambulance pulling out of the ER bay (stupid ambulance!) the engine was smoking. Change of plans: take Shermi home and get the car home before it asplodes.

We made it as far as 16th and Archer, maybe a mile down the road. We got stuck at a red light and the temperature was still rising, so I cut the engine off. Clearly there wasn’t any coolant circulating, so my best hope was that I could stop adding additional heat from the running engine until we could get moving again. It seemed like a good plan until I couldn’t restart the car again. Whoops. I tried a couple of more times but it became obvious that the Saturn wasn’t starting on her own.

Fortunately I have AAA (thanks, Mom and Dad!), so I called for a tow, but wasn’t sure what to do about Shermi. I didn’t want her to have to walk home, but I didn’t want to force her to wait with me in a potentially dangerous situation. Happily, she decided to stay and chose to see the whole thing as an adventure. We called our respective significant others and proceeded to have a very funny few minutes where we said essentially the same thing to both of them at the same time, using slightly different wordings. Maybe it wasn’t actually that funny, but it amused me at the time when I was pretty desperate for some amusement.

So at this point we’re stuck in the left-hand lane in front of the light. For those of you who don’t know, this is a Y-shaped intersection (well, more of a lambda, actually) where SW 16th joins Archer Road. Archer Road, which is busy at all hours, and is immediately in front of the stop light, with traffic going the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. Amazingly, even though I had the hazard lights blinking, cars would still pull up behind us and honk and yell when the light changed and we didn’t move. There was one lady so obnoxious that Shermi made me get out and check that the hazard lights were actually flashing (and they were). She was so obnoxious, in fact, that we decided to try and push the car up onto the median to our left after she sped away. I pushed and Shermi both pushed and navigated and we almost got it, when a kind stranger hopped out of his car and helped us finish pushing. Hurray for kind strangers!

Up on the intersection, I felt a little safer. At the very least we were no longer in traffic, which made things far less stressful. We waited and chatted and waited some more, marveling at the fact that we didn’t see anybody that we knew driving by. Gainesville’s not that big of a town, after all, and we were stranded near where we both work. At one point I suggested that we make out to pass the time, but she wasn’t interested (n.b.: I wasn’t actually serious. It just seemed like the most inappropriate thing to say and I needed a laugh.).

Eventually the tow truck driver showed up (it was only about a half hour wait…not bad!) and took us both to our respective homes. Shermi’s apartment was nearby so we dropped her off, then we took the car back to the house where it can sit next to the truck. Tomorrow I’ll start figuring out what to do next. Hopefully the problem isn’t too significant, and we can get it repaired relatively easily. I fear that won’t be the case but I can remain hopeful. At the very least there’s clearly a coolant leak somewhere. I’m hopeful that I got the car turned off before the overheating did too much damage. We’ll see. We’ll see.

On a personal note, I’d like to say thank you to Shermi. You are seriously awesome and I’m so thankful that I’ve gotten to know you over the past few years. I’m proud to call you a friend. I’d tell you that I love you, but that might be getting too mushy, so I’ll just say thanks. And I’ll buy you an ice cream cone next time they’re free, but you’re driving.

Yesterday something kind of cool happened to me. As you may recall, I asked for suggestions for what to do with my single skein of Tilli Thomas P&S yarn. I got a cryptic response from one of my cool new knitter friends who suggested “YO K2Tog” and I knew what she meant! Well, I basically knew what she meant. I know how to translate that jargon and look up how to do those stitches. Heh. I did a little Googling and found this scarf that I think I’m going to try and make for Emma. Pretty, right? If it’s too hard (or I don’t like how it looks) I can always tear it up and try something else. Not literally tear it up, of course…the yarn is far too expensive for that.

To learn: yo, k2tog, seed stitch.

I finally hung up the poster we bought at the Spring Arts Festival. We bought a cheapie poster frame, but I think it looks pretty nice. I can’t do anything about the reflection from the flash, though, sadly.

Nothing else terribly exciting to report today. The Saturn overheated on my way in to work after therapy and it was all I could do to get it home before it asploded. I put some fresh coolant in and am crossing my fingers that it will be better tomorrow. We’ll see.

I also finished up my first dish cloth piece. I kind of borked the binding off at first, so it looks a little funky, but I don’t care. If it were perfect, how could I get better? I’m looking through my copy of Barbara Walker’s Treasury for the next pattern to learn.

6. Almost a week!

As I mentioned yesterday, we went to a Yarn Tasting last night which was totally awesome. It was at Hanks, of course, the coolest yarn shop in all of Gainesville (if not the southeast). There were about a dozen groovy knittas, and we were very honored to be among the chosen few. We each got a couple of mini-skeins of lovely silk yarn from Tilli Thomas, a pretty awesome-sounding company. I chose the white and red yarns in that picture above, but Emma was the big winner. She came away with Rock Star Mermaid, the multicolored ball in the middle of the picture. Very cool.

So the only minor, minor complaint that I have was that the red dye runs a bit. Look at my needles in that picture…see how red the points are, compared to the ends? It was all over my hands, too…I didn’t want to touch the white yarn, for fear of it getting stained. QQ more, eh?

We also bought a little more of the yarn. I bought a nice blue skein of the Pure and Simple (like the red) and Emma bought a skein of jade Plie (like the purple). I don’t know what I’m going to do with it yet, but I’ll figure out something. Any suggestions?

Just got back from a yarn tasting at our favorite local yarn store. Totally awesome. Thanks again, you guys, for inviting us! Pictures and linkage to come tomorrow. Now: dinner and sleep.

4.

I feel like a real Floridian today. Emma and I went out to an early dinner and I had an “early bird” special. Hee.

Counting these three sentences, I’m at three days in a row.

How awesome is it that this video appeared today, now that I’ve read Watchmen?

Thanks, Wil. You rule.

Day 2 of posting in a row. Does this count? Judge Mills Lane says, “I’ll allow it!”

Clearly this whole post-every-day thing isn’t working for me. Oh well. I’ll keep trying.

I have a confession to make to you, my geeky friends. Until this week, I had not read Alan Moore’s Watchmen. *hangs head in shame* I know. Somehow — and I’m not sure how this happened — I missed this classic of graphic novels. I am pleased to say that I have now corrected this error in my ways.

I bought a copy this weekend and spent the past two days reading it, and all I can say is Holy Freaking Crap. I read through it once and could hardly put it down. I need to go back and read it again, of course, but it was amazing. I can’t believe I’ve gone this long in my life without reading Watchmen. Wow…just, wow.

I’ve also got a couple of lovely internet videos to share, courtesy of my awesome friend Shermi:

Charlie the Unicorn
Charlie the Unicorn 2
Zero Wing Rhapsody

More later…

Dear Lorena,

Thank you so very much for sharing this video. I can’t believe that I hadn’t seen it before. My life may now be complete.

Craftily,

A.