Conference, Day 2

Yesterday was the second day of the ICE Conference.

But first, my dad made this for me. Anyone want to guess what this is?





Mystery object.












The conference was pretty interesting this year. I went to two sessions with David Pogue, the NY Times technology critic. He was entertaining and informative.

And I got some artsy photos of downtown Indy:












I liked the lines in this shot.











Reflections.









Old and new: the statehouse and the Simon building.








State capitol building.










Finally, two days of meetings and workshops allowed me to finish the eyelash scarf in record time. This despite the fellow educator who sat down beside me and said (trying to be funny) "Hey, you can't sew in here." My reply: "I'm not."

Sorry for the crummy lighting; the sun is hiding today.

Loud, Cold, and Not My Favorite Yarn

Loud
So, for Christmas I got a dock/stereo system for my iPod. Thank you, Uncle Alan! I love it; it's great for listening to tunes and audiobooks without the ear buds. However . . .

I was away in dreamland the other night when I was awakened about 11:30 by a loud female British voice from the living room. Somehow the thing had turned itself on and picked up in the middle of my audiobook.

The cat was on the bed with me, so I know she didn't touch it.

Spooky.

Cold
Today and tomorrow, I'm attending the I.C.E. conference at the Convention Center in Indy. I went to a really interesting workshop on using iPods (for the classroom, not just for fun).

ICE, ICE, baby.

This conference is appropriately named. I go to I.C.E. almost every year and almost every year it is freezing. Today was no exception: 2F (-16.6 C) for a low.
Fortunately there are "gerbil tubes" (skyways) connecting things.

Not my favorite yarn

A friend is paying me to knit a scarf for her aunt. I'm happy to do it, since I like her -- the friend; I don't know the aunt. Even though you can never charge enough for the time you put in to make knitting for pay worthwhile, I consider this more of a favor than a money-making enterprise. Anyway, she already had the yarn for the scarf she wanted and now I know why everyone gripes about using novelty yarns. It's a slick eyelash and boy, is it hard to see the stitches. Fortunately, it's a garter stitch and I'm halfway finished, so it's no big deal, but I don't see myself knitting a lot more of these.
Love the color and the finished effect, though.

At least the sun is out and it's warm inside! And two episodes of Chuck are on tonight (embrace your inner nerd). Couch potato time.

Brrrr

When I got up Sunday it was 0 degrees F (-17.7 C) with a wind chill of -18 F (-27.7 C). Now I know my Canadian readers won't be too impressed, but that's cold!

So, the perfect day to come home from church and watch the Bruins come within 45 seconds of a shutout. And knit, of course.

Final score: Boston 3, NY 1.

Other fiber fun from the past couple of weeks:

Setting the twist on some spun and plied BFL.


Felt-o-rama!

Sock in progress.

Winter is the time for books. Curl up on the couch with a good one. (Of course, I think summer's great for reading too, and spring and fall . . .)

Current reading: picked it up in Nova Scotia.

Recent reads:

• A Christmas Beginning by Anne Perry -- one of her characters from the Pitt mysteries appears here on the Welsh Isle of Anglesey.
• The Birth of Britain by Winston Churchill -- Churchill was definitely a "great men make great history" type of guy, and way into the accomplishments of England. I listened to it on audio and enjoyed it a lot -- one of my favorite time periods and places for history.
• Bodies of Water by J.S. Borthwick -- I liked this author's books The Student Body and The Down East Murders, but this one not so much. The main character was almost willfully ignorant of the bad guy, which readers could see a mile away.
• I'm currently listening to Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914. Guess I'm just in the mood for history lately.

Blah Day

It's one of those gloomy, blah, winter days. And I'm fighting off another round of sniffles and congestion.

No sunshine.

Lady Jane sure knows how to deal with days like this.

On the up side I've some FOs.

Baby hats for upcoming shower (for a girl).

And yesterday I finished spinning one of the Blue Face Leicester singles. One more huge bobbin of single to go, then I can ply.

Brown Blue-Faced goodness.

I'm going to go be a couch potato and knit some more.

"I'm still not sure about this thing!"

Stealth Knitting Revealed

Well, I started gift knitting over the summer, which was a good thing, given what my autumn turned out to be like. If you are interested in that stuff, you can go to my flickr photoset here and check out what was involved. The photos are completely lacking in creative arrangement, but most are clear and fairly accurate in color representation.

Gift knit bowl (felted).

My co-conspirator in spinning this past summer, Paula, has a son living in Beijing. She recently posted a link to his blog, which includes a very scary video of a Beijing bike ride, and also this post about his cute new humidifier. In the same vein, since my house has been so dry I've been generating sparks each time I touch metal or the cat, behold the penguin:

The vapor comes out his beak.

Lady Jane: "I'm not going near that!"

Well, there's this spinning wheel in my living room I haven't touched in months; I hope to make use of it today, and so have more fiber photos soon.

New Start

The least said about the last two months, the better.

They involved several ER visits, two hospital stays, dehydration, infection, blood clot, and general ickyness.

But, I'm better now and on the road to regaining my stamina (and motivation to blog). I go back to work on Monday after two weeks of providentially timed winter break.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Wish I were there . . . the high here yesterday was 14F and overnight the wind chill was below zero.