Fall Adopt-a-Street debut.
It rains in Seattle
For the New Mexio expatriots…
I had the good fortune to be in New Mexico in late September. I had even better fortune when it turned out it was still chile roasting season.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, if you don’t get misty thinking about 55 gal drums cut, with wire mesh sides, and butane, ignore this post.
Fruit Basket Chile Roasting
for the hardcore among us. I’m sorry smell-o-video is unavailable.
Joan of Arc may have been good
But I bet she never vacuumed 7 full-length screens, inside and out, and the little weird hidden vent space under the fridge.
Write your senators and representatives
Do you have an opinion about giving 700 billion dollars to the companies in current financial crisis? Write your U.S. senators and representatives.
It takes two minutes. Here’s the email I sent my WA State Congress Critters today…
I urge you to fight against the bailout plan. It’s rash and the Administration hasn’t had time to work out the details, so once again the Congress would be handing the administration a blank check.
Please. How many times does this Administration have to manipulate legislators and the people into making bad decisions based on too little information?
Yes, this is a serious problem, and it will be ugly no matter what we do. Let us, for once, take a reasoned approach. Panic will not help.
How could any U.S. citizen not have an opinion?
Recycling used water filter cartridges
I have PUR water filter pitcher that uses filter cartridges. Having just changed one, today I looked for some way to recycle or reuse the filters. I was surprised to learn there is no way. At least not in the U.S. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.)
I gather Brita in the UK recycles, but not in US, and PUR doesn’t at all.
It’s a bit hypocritical since they tout the environmental benefit of using filtration instead of bottle water. It does save on bottles, but look at the filter sometime. Those suckers have a lot of thick plastic plus charcoal, which, AFAIK, could be recovered and never should be put in a landfill.
So, I urge you to write to the companies that manufacture your filters and demand a recycling program. If printer ink cartridges can be recycled (mine come with a postage paid return envelope), then surely water filter cartridges can be also.
Take Back the Filter campaign to have Brita recycle in the U.S.
Demonizing the opponent, ignore the argument
I’m evil. Okay, that’s not news. I’m just evil again. Why? It’s the Seattle bag fee thing again. Since I’m opposed to the bag fee I’ve learned I’m lazy, selfish, and in league with the Chemical Companies, which we all know are evil.
Well, I am lazy. And…I have moments of being selfish. I also believe in better living through chemistry, but none of that has anything to do with the Seattle bag fee.
One sign of a bad or weak argument is whether the position or the character of the person presenting the facts are being attacked. A recent, egregious example of this is the Swift Boat attack on John Kerry.
Let’s look at the spin in the Georgetown blog that the Chemical Companies are “behind this.” Note that there isn’t anything in the “outing”of the chemical companies that actually gets at the substance of opposing the fee. Many mysterious and dastardly motives are being insinuated, which is awfully sneaky. As sneaky as Chemical Company backers are supposed to be, ain’t it?
The other big flaw in this, at least as far as I see it, is that it is the makers of the bags (the evil chemical companies) who’ve made the bags ever lighter while keeping the same strength over the past 20 years. IOW, they’ve been actively working to decrease the space plastic grocery bags take up in landfill while the rest of us were happily gorging ourselves on materialism.
The flip side of “yeah, but just look at who is on the other side!” is another sign of a weak argument. That is laying claim to being a Good Guy…or better yet, a Mom. Even good people can have crappy ideas. Being wrong, but nice, is still being wrong.
The moms and Georgetown (both entities I like a whole lot as a rule) may not even be wrong here…there’s room for reasonable people to disagree, but what interests me is this. For all the time proponents have put into sniping, bullying, and insulting opponents, they don’t seem to have any time left over to read any citations or discuss any of the facts in opposition to the cited goals.
The impetus behind the bag fee is that it will be a step towards zero waste. Fair enough. That’s the proposition (it’s why I liked the idea at first). Now I’d like to see some facts to back that up. So far all of them I’ve seen have been refuted (which is why I had to change my mind).
There’s plenty of ranting on the part of opponents, but the burden is on the group that has managed to institute a fee on all of us that will do little if anything to help the city towards zero-waste.
Baby *(@%^ Surprise, take 3
Knitting has all the drama, comedy, pathos, and slapstick of a Greek or Shakespearean play. There is the eager, nay giddy, excitement of that new yarn unspoiled as yet by too much familiarity. There is drama when checking the stitch count in a challenging piece of lace. When the pattern begins to emerge there is joy. When a stitch is missed in a complicated pattern, despair threatens our best intentions to stay off the sauce. And yet, our stoical, better selves emerge to remove the needles and frog. And frog again. When at last, exhausted (both us and the yarn), the last stitch is bound off the tragic cartharsis of an olympian struggle overwhelms. Struggling up from the couch, there is only left weaving in ends and blocking. But first, a martini or three!
Such is my life with St. Elizabeth Zimmerman’s blessed (as in cursed to all eternity) Baby Surprise Jacket. (I’m sorry. I really love Kim, but I’m starting to hope that R* is a laggard. You’ll just have bear up, Kim, and keep him company til I’m ready for him. Ben won’t mind if you’re a teensy bit grumpy.)
From "Costa Rica: a Web Travel Review feature by Philip Greenspun"
Yes, I’ve frogged for the second time, and restarted for the third this…this…torture called the Baby Surprise Jacket. Got to the critical 90 stitches junction and had too many. Stitches. Not wanting to fudge and decrease somewhere randomly, I ripped back a dozen rows. Ripping out a dozen rows of 100+- stitches is my version of a hair shirt for f(#)@_ing up in the first place.
This pattern is NOT that hard. It’s just knitting a square in garter stitch, except for two, only two, places one has to pay attention, and I couldn’t even manage that. Sheesh.
When after ripping out a dozen rows I’d only found one of the mistakes, I stopped to consider my sanity and choice of post-programming relaxation. Maybe I should take up jackhammering? At least it would be exercise. Sadly, I’m stubborn and not always in really effective directions, so I knew I’d try again. There are too many pictures attesting to the fact the damn thing is really possible to knit.
I also ripped it all out because something had been nagging at me from the beginning. I hated the cast on edge. It was going to look horrible, both as a finished edge and in a seam, which it needed to be. I’m so used to casting on a larger needle for sox that I did the same for this piece of…darling…baby gear. Boy, oh, boy was that a mistake. So, I restarted using a cable cast-on and with the project’s needle size.
I also took the advice from NewfieMom on Ravelry about using SL2tog as if to knit, knit 1, psso instead, and that’s working well. So far. But we’ve been here before.
The only thing I wish I was doing differently was to slip the first stitch of each row, as suggested on KnittingHelp.Com (a fantastic resource, btw). It makes a neater edge, and it’s easier to pick up stitches. But no way I’m gonna frog it again.
Isn’t there something about third times?
Baby Surprise
2008.08.21 42 rows! Haven’t had the nerve to count stitches. I should be at 90. I’ll find out tonight. I think I miscalculated the yardage and will need more skeins. We’ll see.
2008.08.19 Better! Up to row 22. Whew. Finally figured out what I was doing to mess up stitch count. When checking the just finished row, I’d mistake a slipped stitch I forgot to pass over as just an un-knit stitch (which I also do every so often). So, would knit it an go one. That would end up giving me an extra stitch I wouldn’t catch til I was really confused. Half the time I think I can’t start making progress on a pattern til I figure out what I’m inclined to do wrong in it so I know how to fix mistakes.
2008.08.15: And frogged again! Dammit. Had dropped two stitches in the first 3 rows. I know how to rip down and pick up stitches, but not when it’s down to the cast on. Can’t wrap my head around that.
2008.08.14: Frogged again. Grrr.
2008.08.13: Frogged and restarted. I wanted to knit Panda Man’s version, but got a bit confused flipping between the original pattern, the very helpful pattern notes, and the stockinette instructions. Decided retreat was the better part of valor, or at least sanity, and have started over to knit the original garter stitch version. So far so good.
Aug. 12. Started.
Re: Jelli yarn…Like the color, like that it’s washable, like the price. Not too crazy about the texture, and it seems to unravel very easily.
This just in…
Fresh from the spambox: “Chinese Police Arrest, Beat Up, Olympic Panda.”
I’m shocked. Who knew there were panda bears in the Olympics?
Tree climbing, leaf eating Olympic biatholan competitor
