Democracy in action

I'm hesitant to bring up politics these days (you know how fun that's been to talk about recently), but as a Wisconsinite I feel I'd be remiss not to share a bit about the protests going on in my fair city & state. If you haven't heard anything, a quick recap: 1) the WI governor proposed a bill ('Budget Repair Bill') that while helping fix the budget also needlessly stripped the state workers of the right to collective bargaining, 2) state workers got PISSED and congregated in the thousands in and around the capitol building to protest, 3) all Democratic representatives fled the state to block the vote--this is the point where it started getting national attention. We're currently in limbo--nobody is budging.




I'm not going to get into the debate here, but I will say it's been really amazing to see people come together over a something they really believe in regardless of what side they are on--as well as being polite and civil to those that disagree with them. This article exemplifies why I'm proud to live in Wisconsin. An excerpt:

"Wisconsonites are united, even in times like this, by many things, including a love of University of Wisconsin, Madison, athletics and the program's strutting mascot Bucky the Badger; a devotion to the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers NFL football team; and, of course, a love of beer, brought to the state by its German settlers and honed by brewers whose names are part of American history: Pabst, Schlitz, Miller and Blatz."

Here's a slideshow of the action compiled by Madison photographer Terry Talbot (who took wonderful photos at our wedding):



Last Sunday, 60,000 - 100,000 (depending on whose estimates you believe) gathered on the capitol square to make their voices heard. It made me feel hopeful to see people marching side-by-side sporting "Kill the Bill!" and "I support Walker" signs, sometimes spiritedly debating but not heckling each other--a rare sight in our nation's polarized political environment. My personal favorite sign was, "I disagree with Gov. Walker, but I'm pretty sure he's not Hitler". Keep it classy, Madison, I'm doing my part:

Scientists utlizing the awesomeness of the fiber arts

Dude, if I give these people some wool, could they make me a sheep car?



And while we're on the subject of nerdiness + fiber, there was a great story on NPR's Science Friday a few weeks ago about building a nano-yarn:

Micrographs of nanoparticle/nanotube yarns. Image © Science/AAAS.

You can listen to the podcast at the site, but the gist is that they're using nanotubes and nanoparticles that are functional in some way (conductive or catalytic, for example) and twisting them into fibers. The fibers could then be woven into textiles that are superconductive, energy storing, energy generating, etc. Sweet! So when is energy generating yarn going to be available in my local yarn shop?

Knitting neuroses

I think I've been subconsciously avoiding blog update-ification out of embarrassment. I keep coming up with excuses: "Oh, I have too much work to do." "It hasn't been that long." "Man, I really should probably tweeze my upper lip hairs instead." Here's why I've been avoiding you, my friends--the sock I showed off last post, the one that you had nothing but kind words about, has been pulled apart into its original yarn ball state. By me. On purpose.

Hear me out. Knitting neurosis #1: I get an idea in my head for what I want a piece to look like, inevitably can't find any patterns that suffice, and foolishly decide to just design my own. The socks were inspired by the kind of ski tracks that you often only see very early at a resort on a powder day, or in the backcountry: the powder 8. Two ski tracks crossing each other as perfect opposites.


In the backcountry at Whistler, BC a couple weekends ago. Love those smooth curves in the background (and on the skier, rawr).

So I've got these curves stuck in my mind. I wanted twisting lines to come down the sides of the sock leg, and then split off like skiers going in different directions at the ankle. Naturally, this is also the part I had the most trouble with. I re-worked the heel three or four times on the original iteration and still wasn't pleased with the results. It's difficult to tell from the original photo, but in trying to keep the pattern straightforward, it ended up looking plain funky. During a few boring work days after the completion of the first sock, I rewrote the leg-ankle section entirely.

And hence the conundrum. I'm ready to start on the second sock, but it's going to come out with a different look at the ankle, and actually be a different length in the leg. When I started obsessing about it, I even kind of wanted the toe section to be longer. I considered about asking you, dear reader, what you would do--but I think I was afraid it would be a resounding "Leave well enough alone you crazy asshole!" But here comes knitting neurosis #2: If something is wrong with a knitted piece, I'll obsess about it until the end of time. So I unraveled the sock in a frenzy before I could change my mind. I know. I know.

Which brings us full circle to where we left off last time: one sock completed. Here's the new, improved ankle section:


Lovingly longer leg section:


Expanded toe section:


Neurotic sigh of relief. They will match.

Belated blogging

Work keeps getting in the way of blogging--I need to get my priorities straight.

I realize I never mentioned where I was going when I got all bitchy about traveling. After taking a weekend avalanche safety course in WA state (which was ironically canceled halfway through due to extreme avalanche danger), I had to head to Las Vegas for work. Now, now, before you respond, "What do you mean, had to? Hel-lo, free trip to Vegas," hear me out--I was there by myself, for work. There's something disheartening about traveling for work when virtually everyone else on the plane is in Hawaiian shirts talking about how shitfaced they're going to get/how much they're going to win gambling/how they're going to see the Thunder Down Under:


One really can't engage in any of these activities solo without feeling a little trashy; a partner in crime is required, so to speak. Someone you can say, "Wow, I'm glad I'm not as big of a drunk/gambling addict/whore as she is."

Virtually everyone coming from the airport wanted a taxi--I ended up in a 45 minute line of partially shaded cattle runs as if we were at an amusement park:


No exhilarating rollercoaster at the end of this line, but there was a dirty car driven by a dude who drove like an ass and barely spoke English. Po-tay-to, po-ta-to.

But I can't complain about the weather. From WI winter to the upper 60's? Totally worth it:


Outside the lab - What's the heck is that bright yellow thing in the sky?

Even if these things kept flying overhead every 10 minutes or so bringing more tourists to taunt me with their revelry:


Perhaps best of all, I came home with one of these finished:


A sock! Made from a droolingly soft merino-possum blend. More on the formation of the sock, and the work on its partner, next time.

Puppy therapy

I know that I promised I wouldn't blather on about 'my dog is so cute blah blah blah' as if he were my child (actually, some people blathering about their children on their blogs is possibly less entertaining than a little dog talk--not you of course, if you happen to talk about your kids a lot. I'm sure yours are super interesting prodigies.) but this is too cool not to share.

He's been sans hardware and cone for a while now, but still rehabilitating; he's been going to physical therapy once a week (there are physical therapists for dogs--who knew?) It's pretty much like physical therapy for people, exercises and stretching, but recently he's been using the 'water treadmill':

Sammy's Water Treadmill from Eric Fahsl on Vimeo.

The idea is to give him extra resistance to walking, as well as making him buoyant to reduce impact. His therapist describes him as 'all business' on the treadmill. Deep in concentration!

Thanks to copilot for shooting and posting the video.

Travel Beefs

This post has spent a long time percolating in the ol' noggin, pondering whether this was just my usual load of hot air or legitimate issues. Bear with me friends. I know that the internet is usually a place for intelligent discourse and kindness, but, here we are.

Air travel can be a stressful experience in general (especially flying out of Wisconsin in the winter); I try to take a Zen approach so as not to exacerbate a potentially exhausting situation. But, there are certain issues that seem to consistently grind my gears. Trivial in the grand scheme of things, but when these things happen Every. Single. Flight. the cumulative irritation starts to make me sigh so heavily that I'm afraid one day my lungs will collapse and never reinflate.



A rundown of personal vitriol:

1) Don't crowd the gate if you're in a late boarding group. People, most airlines have a nifty little system where they split the tickets into groups, say, First, Priority, 1, 2, 3 and 4. If you're in boarding group 27, relax, take a seat, and get the fuck out of the way. Actually, this could apply to a lot of situations: waiting for a tram, waiting to exit the plane, waiting for baggage, etc. Calm down. It's not going to leave without you.

2) You are not special. If the TSA wants to search you, it's not personal. If the flight has been delayed, chewing out the gate agent isn't going to make it get there any faster. The staff is not there to answer to your every whim, even if you're a frequent flyer (trust me, I've tried).

3) This is a very new beef, perhaps technically a subset of You are not special. Just go through the goddamn body scanners. You're holding everyone up by wasting the time of an agent for a personal search. You're not getting a consequential dose of radiation (0.001 mREM...you're getting about 2.5 mREM on that transcontinental flight, if you want to worry about radiation). And about the other thing. Look. No one wants to look at your naked ass, but it's their job. Seriously. I know this comes as a shock.

4) Don't talk and giggle loudly during a late night flight. We're trying to sleep, a-holes!

5) Be nice to the flight attendants. They are not your personal slaves. Their prime function is passenger safety, and they're underpaid doing it. Don't chew them out because they're out of your personal favorite flavor of Faygo.

I know none of you are the offenders, but I needed to share. Really, the whole list could boil down to 'be nice and considerate'. Words I'm trying very hard to live by.

Edited to add: This is what happens when you BWG (Blog While Grumpy). It's nice to hear I'm not the only one who gets their panties in a twist about this stuff.

Putting the yay in hiatus!

I....don't really know what that means. I had a nice little break from perpetually sitting in front of a computer for work, so I decided to take a little blogging break as well. So, Merry Belated Christmas. I hope you found everything under the Christmas tree/menorah/Festivus pole that you yearned for. And had some togetherness, family, blah blah blah.

Virtually no one received knitting presents from me this year. I put it off waaaaay too long and last minute knitting is anti-fun. I think I've set a bad precedent in the last couple of years by giving people knit-wear, and now they expect it...sorry.

However, I did gift mommy dearest with this son-of-a-b:



It turned out fine, but I'm glad it's done. I probably spent more time screwing it up than actually knitting it correctly. And she totally hates the color. I can tell. Just give it to Goodwill already, geez (just kidding, Mom. You will hold onto that until the day you die and wear it when I come over even if you despise it. Because it was made with love, dammit).

A lovely friend received a hat (finished) and another lovely friend mittens (pathetically unfinished). I gave her the work in progress, which was basically a cuff, and then immediately took it back. Totally weak....sorry. I gave the former friend (boy that sounds bad, I mean that in the sense of former-latter) an unfinished knit gift last year, so I thought I should spread the love around.

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For many a New Years Eve, the copilot and I have been notoriously boring. Usually in the midst of a ski trip, it becomes clear how arbitrary the midnight celebration is - "Well, we live in the central time zone, but here we are in mountain time, no wait, pacific time...what time is it? Screw it, I'm going to bed."

What to do this year? It was the first time in five years we'd actually been home for NYE. Some co-workers were having a party, but ehhhhh...too much family related travel, and we just weren't feeling festive. But we both kinda wanted to see the new Tron movie...

Now let's get this strait. I have zero nostalgia for the original Tron, save a very random moment from the old Halloween 3-D episode of the Simpsons:

OOOOOOK, so I could only find the clip in Spanish. You get the idea, Homer compares the world he's stumbled into to Tron, and everyone denies they've ever seen the movie except for Chief Wiggum, who quickly backpedals when he realizes he's the only one.

But I was totally sucked in by the marketing. I mean, stuff blows up, and there's light-cycle racing, and Olivia Wilde looking all sexy...but, oh, the mediocre reviews. I was wary. I didn't want to be bored to death on this sacred holiday of the new year. So I took a big step...I let my knitting-freak-flag fly high. The new AC bag got packed with Mystery Wedding Project (which is clearly no longer a mystery but I can't quit calling it that), because who can't do garter stitch in the dark?

I knit on airplanes and trains all the time, but this was definitely the most random public knitting I've ever done. Let me tell you friends, it was awesome. I was entertained by the 'splosions and pretty colors, and when it got all talky-talky I could just knit away. I got a huge grin from a fellow movie-goer when he saw the knitting shenanigans. I highly recommend it! Err, maybe not if you're going to see Black Swan, though. Somebody might lose an eye.

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In other awesome news....I finished it!


The ridiculously poorly composed self-portrait. Silken Scabbard, with Touch Yarns Merino.

The sleeve issue solved: I took yarn from one sleeve, evened them out, then blocked the shit out of it. It seems to have worked. This is the first sweater I've made for myself that I LOVE. Big thanks to Vivianne for offering to try to round up some more yarn for me!

The key to this pattern was try it on, try it on, try it on some more. Armpit positioning was essential to place the neckline where I wanted it. I made the same sweater for my mom, and the neckline doesn't sit as well because she wasn't around for fittings. If you're interested in the details, check out the project page.