Mixed messages

In Friday's Denver Post (10/17/2008) on page 2A at the top of the page is a blurb and 2 photos about a fellow in Uniontown, PA who at a 20 pound cheeseburger. It took him 4 1/2 hours to complete this task. Is this a good thing? Something to be proud of? Apparently so since he is shown in the "after" photo smiling and holding up his empty plate. Directly below these photos however, is a story about a study done by Oregon Research Institute researchers that says "Slim people have higher food 'yum'" - essentially saying a study was conducted that suggested some people don't get the dopamine "hit" other get when they eat a tasty treat (like a milkshake) so they could be overeating to compensate (i.e., get a dopamine hit). This seems like a case of mixed messages to me. First, we are told eating a 20 pound cheeseburger is a triumph worthy of printing photos in the paper. Then we see a story about researchers trying to find reasons why people are obese. Ummmmm, maybe it's because we promote this amazing feet of craming 20 pounds of meat in your face? No, I'm sure that's not it.

This reminds me of public service ad I saw on television once that was encouraging kids to leave the house and tell an adult if one of their friends was playing with a real gun. It was highlighting the tragedy that happens all too often when kids find their parent's gun in the house and accidentally shoot a sibling or a friend while playing. Immediately after this public service ad a commercial for a video game that involved shooting the "bad guy" came on and I think the tag line was something like "shoot 'em dead".

Talk about mixed messages.

Not knitting, but...

I just have to share this listing my sister found on Craig's List (or as my dad calls it "Greg's list"). Check out the mermaid table for sale. I have a couple of thoughts about this:
1. If you bought it for your home in Florida, why didn't you sell it there? Why did you bring it all the way to Colorado and then try to sell it?
2. You paid how much?!?!??!?!? And you are asking how much?!?!?!?
3. I keep getting images of having a party and someone gets drunk and starts making out with the table. Party guests will come up to you and say "dude, someone is making out with your table again".
4. When the drunk person passes out under the table and wakes up in the morning to stare into that frightening, bronze mermaid face I can only imagine the horrified screams that will ensue.

I thought I should put the pictures here since the link will eventually not work.

The meaning of time

On Saturday I had to take my car in for a routine oil change. When we bought the car 2 years ago we purchased the lifetime oil change option. This is a good thing since I've noticed the price of the oil change has gone up each time I take it in over the last 2 years. The downside is we have to take it to one place, Burt Automotive. It's not a bad place mind you, in fact, the staff there are quite nice. The problem is they are always very apologetic about any wait time there may be on your car repair. Here's what always happens: I walk in, they say can I help you, and I say I'm here for an oil change. They look all dejected and say "It's going to be about an hour and a half". That's fine, I tell them (because, of course, I've got my knitting with me). They kind of look at me as if they don't quite believe me and then take my information. I feel kind of sorry for them because they must get yelled at a lot over time issues.

While I was there this Saturday (5/31) several people walked in and they got the same speech "it's going to be about an hour and a half" and those people got irritated and left. I'm thinking, hey, an hour and a half where I am forced to just sit here? Okay! Sign me up! Here I am!

When they called my name after a mere 50 minutes I said "I thought you guys said an hour and a half". The poor guy looked like he was going to cry and started stammering something about how the time can vary depending on the work, etc. I interrupted him to say I was only joking! Whew, when I think my job is frustrating I just think about these poor guys dealing with people yelling at them about time. Maybe someone should set up a yarn shop in the store and people can learn how to knit.

Oh yeah, I got half of one sleeve done on this little Berroco sweater. I probably could have got the whole sleeve done if it would have taken a full hour and a half.

Camp memories

A lot of campers have been reminiscing about our super fun camp experience lately. I've listed to podcasts, read blogs, read Ravelry posts, etc. and now I'm feeling a little homesick (or would it be campsick?). I still need to get my pictures edited and posted on Flickr but I did come across the little video (apologies for the poor sound quality) so I uploaded it on YouTube and you can check it out here:

The new (and ever so true lyrics) were written by the super talented Stephen from hizKNITS If you can't hear the audio on my video very well, you can check out the lyrics on his blog.
One of my favorite parts is the bartender who runs by at the end!

And here's a quick shot of the audience (after the song was sung - I can't video AND take pictures with one camera)


How long until next year?!?!?!?!?

Alpaca Sunday

I decided to go to the Great Western Alpaca Show that was in town over the weekend.

Aren't they such cute little guys? (ok, some aren't so little).

I saw furry alpacas, small alpacas, and.......






NAKED alpacas! These poor little guys just got sheared. Actually, it was pretty warm in there so they might have been happier to be in the buff. Aren't their eyes HUGE when they don't have all that wool around them?

There were alpacas everywhere! Even performing alpacas.


Well, these guys were being judged but there were other alpacas who were running obstacle courses and doing crazy alpaca tricks for their young owners. Kind of like a 4-H event.

I also learned that there are two different kinds of alpacas: Huacayas and Suris. Here are the Suris. (The Huacayas are the ones in the above pictures)


Then I decided I needed to learn more about the alpacas. Here's a good website with some FAQs about alpacas.

I keep trying to talk my husband into buying one but he thinks that's a bad idea. I think if I had an alpaca think of what I would save in yarn! I could make my own. Just a thought.

Guilty Pleasures Ravelry Swap

I love doing swaps on Ravlery. This time I signed up for the Guilty Pleasures/Good Karma swap. I got my package yesterday and wow - what a treat!

First let me say what an incredible wrapping job Pippin67 did! Even my husband was impressed. Not only did she do one big package but she also individually wrapped the goodies inside.

And what fantastic contents! I love, love, love the misti alpaca she found! I hadn't even see that color before! And the sea silk - I'm in heaven! Yummy chocolate, teas, fabulous addis, some eucalan (which I haven't tried yet) and some awesome Cherry Tree Hill Suri Lace (made from Suri Alpacas which I didn't even know existed until I saw some today at the Alpaca Show - but that's another post).
Thank you so much wonderful swap buddy.

Yarn Retirement Account (401Y)

I've been trying to get my stash (as well as my knitting paraphernalia) organized and cataloged so I can see (or at least know) what I have. This flurry of organization came about when I returned from the bookstore clutching a new knitting book (Knitting circles around Socks by Antje Gillingham) only to find that I already had it. I've had this same realization with knitting needles but usually it's because I've got a project on one pair of the needles in the size I need for a new project and rather than move that project onto stitch holders or scrap yarn (or finish that project first - a novel idea) I just buy new needles in the duplicate size. This seems to work well but eventually I finish both projects and am left with two needles of the same size. So with the help of Ravelry I decided to start getting things listed. No easy (or quick) task, I assure you. The first step in this process was getting all the knitting items into the same room.

You'd be surprised how many places I had yarn, books and needles stashed around the house. As I was moving everything up to the spare room (I hope we don't have any house guests for awhile) I started pondering what made me think that a house with multiple stairs was a good idea. Once I got everything (or what I think is everything) up there, I started with the magazines. My fears were confirmed when I found that I had three duplicate magazines in the stack.

OK, three isn't a lot but still, it's a sign of a problem that needed to be nipped in the bud so I felt pretty good about lugging all that crap, I mean fabulous knitting items, upstairs. Then I did find another duplicate book. How does this happen? This cataloging of books and magazines took longer than I thought so I didn't really get into the actual yarn stash yet but I did have a realization. It's not that I'm accumulating yarn, I'm actually making deposits into my yarn retirement account, my YRA 401Y if you will. Think about it -- if I buy yarn now until I retire then I'll have a fabulous "nest egg" and I won't have to spend my actual retirement account money on yarn. (Some of you might say I will probably still make yarn purchases after I retire - you can point out your plot holes elsewhere). I think this is a fine rationale and I'm sticking to it as I continue to make deposits into my YRA. I suggest you do the same.

Then I did find another duplicate book. How does this happen? This cataloging of books and magazines took longer than I thought so I didn't really get into the actual yarn stash yet but I did have a realization. It's not that I'm accumulating yarn, I'm actually making deposits into my yarn retirement account, my YRA 401Y if you will. Think about it -- if I buy yarn now until I retire then I'll have a fabulous "nest egg" and I won't have to spend my actual retirement account money on yarn. (Some of you might say I will probably still make yarn purchases after I retire - you can point out your plot holes elsewhere). I think this is a fine rationale and I'm sticking to it as I continue to make deposits into my YRA. I suggest you do the same.

Quick update from Sock Camp

I'm here at Camp Crows Feet and having loads of fun. Wish you were here.

This was the first night (Monday) when we came into the Discovery House. The camp counselors and sockateers were standing guard over the shop - we couldn't make any
purchases until later. Recognize anyone of the guards?



As you can see here, when they did open the store people went wild!





We all love our yarn.










This is Joan - doesn't the yarn frame her face well?





More to follow... Stay tuned...

Flashback blogging

Well it appears that finding time to blog is just as difficult as finding time to work on my dissertation. So I'll be doing blog posts in a bit of a flashback manner (similar to the flashbacks in Lost but not quite as cryptic).

So, I'll start with a recent flashback - my evening at the Tattered Cover in Highlands Ranch waiting for and then listening to Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I got the the store around 4pm and there were already 20+ people in line. I'm not sure if the staff at TC were surprised by this but they seemed accommodating as they started to snake the queue around the various areas in the store. By the time line numbers were handed out at 6:30pm there was a lot of folks in line (all working on their various knitting projects, of course). I was working on my fan kimono from Vicki Square's "Knit Kimono" book. I found a woman later who was working on the Komon pattern from the same book - Fabulous! After I got my line number (26!) I put my bag down on a chair in the 5th row and headed outside and around the corner to String. I hadn't been to this shop yet and it was quite lovely with all the yarn arranged by color. The owner was giving us all a discount for the event and she even gave away yarn in a raffle before Stephanie talked!

At 7:30 I was back in my chair (and I didn't buy any yarn at the store-I know that's a shock). The TC employee introduced Stephanie.

Stephanie's talk was quite funny (as usual). After she was done, I got in line to get my book signed. I probably shouldn't have tried to keep working on my kimono while standing in line but I did and of course I fudged up a couple of rows (I think I've got them fixed now). When I finally I got up to have my book signed all the witty things I had thought to say all escaped me. But I babbled something about going to sock camp next week where I would see her and she mentioned that she had head about the pre-camp yarn crawl and thought that sounded interesting. And then I tried to take a picture of her and snapped it while she was talking. Sorry Stephanie.

Overall I think it was a very enjoyable evening and I was able to get out of there by 9:20 or so. I don't know how long it took for everyone to get their books signed but judging from the size of the crowd I would imagine it was quite a while.

By the way, I'm in one of Stephanie's pictures on her blog about the event. I'm in the second picture, fifth row back on the inside aisle. My tiny head is peaking out as I'm knitting and smiling. I was sitting next to two lovely ladies (of course I forgot their names) who had made the trip from Wyoming! Knitters are always up for road trips.

Speaking of trips, in my next post I'll give you the scoop on the six yarn stores I visited during my recent trip to NYC. And then if I'm feeling really ambitious, I'll post about my trip to the Great American Knit out at the Mall of America in February. So much to post, so little time...

Look ma, I'm blogging!

Well it's finally happened. I've tried to resist as long as I could but honestly, it seems like everyone I know is blogging and I just couldn't resist any longer. I have funny stuff to say too, darn it. Besides, if Josh can post videos on YouTube I should have some kind of cyber outlet!

I'm heading out to NYC tonight on a red eye. Yikes! What was I thinking? A friend of mine says red eyes always seem like a good idea until that night. I think she may be right. While the main purpose of my trip is to attend a conference, I have already mapped out an exciting yarn crawl adventure. I found at least 21 LYS (local yarn shops) in Manhattan (and those were just the ones I took the time to mark on the map)! I'll be sure to post about it when I return.

But for now, I submit this entry as my initial foray into the land of blogs. Enjoy.