KnitBot

And so endeth the month (of blogging daily). 

There was a post for each day in November 2008 (even if the timestamps
sometimes pushed an entry into the next day!).
I found it an interesting experiment.  It was definitely
challenging to come up with something
for each and every day.  Some days were particularly challenging
– when there’d been nothing [...]

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Beach:

Beach glass:

Wikipedia gets it right in observing that beach glass is a strange
phenomenon — an odd case where something more valuable is created from
man-made litter.  “Beach glass” is remnants of (usually coloured)
glass articles that have been broken and distributed in the sea,
carried and tumbled by time and tide, to the point where it is
smoothed, etched, [...]

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Faced with the question of “what are the top kitchen appliances you
would bring to an island”, I can tell you I include “slow cooker” on my
list.
This week’s culinary challenge was to prepare a reasonable Thanksgiving
dinner in a kitchen that has virtually no staples (can’t reasonably
keep liquids between visits — they’ll freeze) and an incomplete
battery of [...]

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Today we recognize that we have much for which to give thanks, not the
least of which is captured in the views from our driveway — that it is
our driveway, that we’re here to enjoy the island, that the weather was
so stupendous that it was impossible not to smile :-)

Today we particularly enjoyed the service here [...]

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We had a pretty good blow last night/this morning, on Grand
Manan.  Winds were sustained at 50km/h, with gusts up to
70km/h.  A night to appreciate a well-insulated house!
It was windy enough that the ferry didn’t run last evening or this
morning, until the 11:30am departure from Grand Manan.   A
good day to plan to be going nowhere.

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Same socks,too.

Not used to seeing this place with snow.  Was a little stormytoday. Much happier to have been on the ferry yesterday, rather than today –might have had a roughride.

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Dashing home from a week of meetings, sliding in by 7pm, time to
unpack, do laundry, repack and take care of some work deliverables, so
that at 6am I’m on my way to our favourite place on Grand
Manan.
We transited Halifax, which is still digging out from 30cm (a foot) of
snow.
      

And clambered onto the Beechcraft
18-seater for the flight [...]

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Things seem a little quiet around here to me — do they seem a little
quiet to you?  Yeah.  Something to do with being busy in
meetings all day/evening every day for the last 10 days.  I think
it was a productive trip; I think the meetings moved stuff forward,
which is a win.  But there’s something about constant
concentration [...]

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I coined a new word today — “ultitasking”.  As in:  theULTImate in multiTASKING.  It has to do with doing a number ofapparently-divergent tasks simultaneously and achieving some coherentand successful outcome.
Consider it “ultitasking” if you are leading a meeting whilesimultaneously handling several instant message chats and updating apresentation (for the same meeting.
Or, carrying out a discussion [...]

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Exhibit A:  FromCuteOverload

Exhibit B:  DowntownMinneapolis

No, really — any questions? ;-)

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Well, after about 4 weeks of meetings and travel, I have a new pair of
socks.  I guess I must not knit very quickly — to take so many
weeks to produce a pair.  But, I’m on to the next pair already.
These are done in White
Birch Fiber Arts sock yarn, knit toe-up  with Cat Bordhi’s
Riverbed sole increases [...]

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I
mentioned that this burst of blogging is somewhat inspired by the
(writer’s block busting) activity of NaNoWriMo.
It turns out that I am hardly alone in this aspiration.  Someone
else has coined the NaBloPoMo
term for national blog posting month — blogging every day this
month.  That certainly captures the spirit of what I’ve been
trying this month, although I am [...]

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The other day, with some new laceweight yarn in hand, I was browsing
for patterns for shrugs.  (I could make a lace stole, but I think
it would be nice to have a colourful shrug to wear over a sleeveless
dress, as an alternative to having to balance drapey fabric all
evening).   More specifically, I was browsing through the
patterns [...]

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I recently got one of my suitcases back from the authorized repair shop
– it cost $50 to have a wheel replaced and a zipper pull-tab
re-installed.    Although the luggage was hardly cheap,
that’s still a significant fraction of the original capital cost, and
it makes me wonder whether the original purchase was good
value.   If the luggage is going [...]

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Some words of wisdom you might have occasion to take advantage
of…  if you are hanging around in the home turf of these guys

these are not the proper
footwear

unless you really like to share your shoes with lots of this

If the depth has been lost in the digital photograph, let me assure you
there’s a good half cup [...]

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I recently installed NoScript as an
add-on to Firefox.  I observed the Firefox application randomly
running my CPU up to 80% usage and holding, and I was pointed at
scripts as a likely culprit.  Indeed — as soon as I started
blocking web page scripts, my Firefox process CPU consumption dropped
below 5%. 
Of course, this also means that I’ve [...]

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As I was writing the
entry about my current sweater design effort, I surprised myself by
reaching the tentative conclusion that I should rip the whole thing
back (frog it) and do something more compelling with the lovely
yarn.   I really had not thought about that before sitting
down and writing out the text.  It was an interesting revelation
that had [...]

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There were multiple announcements today of home mortgage bailouts in
the US - from
Citibank to its customers, as well as US Federal bailout plans via
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
The Citibank plan offers the possibility of reviewing the principal of
the loan as one possible parameter to adjust in aiming to bring the
mortgage payments of a principal residence [...]

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