NYC

I made it to New York safely. There was absolutely no problem with the knitting needles through security. I turned the heel and completed a couple of inches on the heel during the wait and the flight. The worsted weight yarn and larger needles really makes it easy to make progress.

According to the guy at US Airways, I was scheduled on the 3.15 flight (he was telling me this at 3.30!) even though my e-ticket said I was on the 5.20 flight. Everything did work out though. I was able to get on the plane and everything went smoothly. The flight left late but we arrived early, go figure.

I met up with my cousin in LaGuardia. She and her boyfriend picked me up and we went to her appartment in Brooklyn. We hung out for a while at the appartment, met her roommate, her boyfriend and some of Carolyn's friends. Then we went out to a bar called the Alligator Lounge (?) where you get a free pizza with every drink. It was really good and just around the corner from Carolyn's appartment. As you can tell from the time of this posting, we were out for a while.

I think we are going to be going to see a play (Spamalot) on Sunday. Tomorrow is going to be full of a lot of touristy things. Definitely want to visit some yarn stores. (They think I am crazy.) I am hoping to meet up with Mike, Emily and Karen on Monday to go around the City. That reminds me, I need to plug in my phone tonight.

Finished Objects!

This is about to be a whole lot of pictures of FO.

shawls pre-blocking, click on the picture for a larger image
This is a picture of the forest canopy shawls on which I have been working. The dark green one is the "test" yarn that I used before making the same pattern in the light green mohair.

This is a close-up of the leaf pattern in the mohair. You would not believe how warm this thing is! The pattern will be much clearer once I block the things.

This is the purse I have been working on for Christmas/Thank you gift for my cousin. I am going to be staying with her for a couple of days before leaving for Austria. This picture is of the purse before felting. The handle and bottom of the bag are re-enforced by garter stitching them with two strands of yarn. The handle and the flap are beaded.

The second picture of the bag is it in the felted state. Surprise, surprise, it looks like the before picture! ;) The inside pocket has beads across the top so you can feel it easily. I realized as I was felting it that a black purse might not have been such a good idea. They are black holes anyway so this one will be a super black hole. Oh, well!

Testing Bloglines

So I am having fun figuring out my feeds for this blog and am testing to see if I have the settings correct. I'll see if it is right once I subscribe to my own blog in Bloglines. I suspect that this might be a very, very sad thing.

I am getting ready for my trip to Austria. I can't believe I leave on Friday for New York! Not having packed anything, I am starting to get a little nervous. I just need to make sure I have my camera, batteries, and knitting. :)

Quote of the Day

Steven Colbert talking about his being named as a sexy man with glasses. This quote came from the bottom of the article. "Note: Glasses can make ladies sexy as well, but only as they are taken off, followed by a slow-moation shake of head to let her hair down out of that librarian bun."

OK, not thrilled about the stereotype but the quote is funny.

Going crazy with the posts today

Have fun with this little quiz

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
North Central
The West
Boston
The Inland North
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

OK, the link to the website is deciding to be white and I don't want to wade through the XHML to find out why. Just click under the last box thingy to go to the link.

Right! Knitting
Almost forgot to talk about the knitting. I am almost finished with my gift purse. It is a black felted bag with beads on the bag flap and handle. I hope it will turn out really well. In order to make the bottom of the bag and the handle stronger, I used two strands of yarn together. Even before felting it feels like nothing could go through it. Can't wait to see it after felting. I swear, I will talk a picture of it!

I have darted off to another project: Very Tall Socks. They are very fun but I think I want to do them in a bigger needle size. Making them on #2s would take FOREVER. And, if I have a bigger needle size, those needles could be bamboo. Then I could take the bamboo on the plane to Austria. The only thing is, do I want to take all of that yarn? Hmmm. Might have to do some smaller socks with needles that I buy over there.

I am still working on the mohair shawl. I still love the yarn and the pattern is still (cross your fingers) going well but I have just gotten distracted by all of the other stuff.

Next Friday (ack, 6 days!) I am flying to New York to visit with my cousin before leaving for Austria on the 28th. My friends and I will be over there for 2 weeks and, boy, am I ready! Somehow the date crept up on me and suddenly I have so much to do before I leave. Definitely need to get the passport out of the bank vault. Have to get student discount card. Have to pack (ugh). Have to call the credit card company. Have to call the bank. *Pant, pant* Whew. Somehow it will all get done. Somehow.

Finally, Blogger!

I tried to get onto Blogger all day yesterday and it was doing something very odd.

I am going to be a huge library dork and talk all about the OCLC tour I went on yesterday. Someone from Kent State arranged to have a tour there. They had to drive down to Kent and I didn't because I live near Dublin. I've also taken a class at OCLC with the woman who gave the tour (I heart Nancy because I am basically her mini me.) We never got to have a tour there during class because it was held in the evenings when most of the people have already gone home.

Anyway, Nancy gave a brief talk about the history of OCLC and a little bit of what they do there. Then we went on the tour. We got to see the usability lab and talked to the man who runs it. One of my papers this month was about website usability so I definitely knew what he was talking about. The amount of cameras in that room was amazing.

Then we got to see where they manage/observe the 200+ servers. In a way, it kind of reminded me of a NASA control room, lots of monitors and projected images. If there is ever a problem with one of the servers no matter where it is located, they know about it in a couple of seconds and track down what is the problem. The people who work there work in 12 hour shifts (!) and the room is staffed 24/7, 365 days/year.

We took a tour of the OCLC library. (Talk about a special library.) They had a lot of periodicals and books available to the staff. The library is open round the clock, too, but it is not staffed around the clock. Any of the staff members can pick a book of the shelves and check it out themselves. They don't have any due dates because they figure it is easier to purchase a replacement.

The one building on the campus was built around the original hulking computer systems. It used to occupy 3 floors of the building. With the new technologies, they need a whole lot less space for the computers so now they rent out the space to other people. We were able to go to an observation room and look at the OCLC computers. It was kind of freaky all of the white space, computers and no one around.

We got to see where they print the catalog cards (yes, some libraries still use catalog cards). I think the noise of the ribbon printers would have driven me crazy very quickly if I worked there.

**Lunch Break** :)

We went to one of the other buildings and got to see where they do cataloging. The number of languages they can catalog in is staggering. They have specifically hired people with cataloging experience and who speak at least one other language. We met one of the Russian specialists.

Then we saw the foreign language collection. If a library discovers they have a need of a foreign language collection, they can call OCLC and will be sent a ready-made collection. All of the cataloging is already done and there are a variety of books in the collection. Amazing!

It was funny that, in all of the public areas, the grounds, and (most) work areas, the architecture and interior design was very nice. The hallways, however, made you think of an underground bunker. No joke. Kind of narrow, few doors, no windows and painted a beige-ish color. The places where the public can go (which isn't far without an escort) are simply amazing. The courtyard of the Kilgour Building is an atrium with a grove of live trees in it and plants all around the walls. They had white Christmas lights all around the tree trunks. Very pretty. It kind of reminded me of the Seattle Public Library plant beds which are inside the building.

It was a fun day all in all.

Jinxed!

I did jinx myself yesterday by saying I felt confident working with the mohair. Last night, I just did silly things with it. I had to rip it out a couple of times (talk about fun). Today, I just seem to have my counting off. Over lunch I got so frustrated with it that I had to stop. I think I will start (or continue) one of the other projects to give myself a break. Arrglyes anyone?

OOOOOOOOO, Pretty

Aren't these shawl pins georgeous? They were featured today on Scout's Swag and are in her store.

V-day

Did you remember to vote today? FINALLY the election adds will be over and Dogpile has a cute logo today. I don't know about the other states but Ohio has been lousy with the ads. If you watch TV, there is a little bit of show in the middle of lots of political spite. It doesn't matter what politics to which you subscribe, everybody is slamming everybody else. It amused me to no end that I could vote on Saturday. No lines, no hassle. Pretty simple process.

Knitting stuff (sort of)-- Java was featured on Romancing the Yarn. Isn't he cute? :) OK, real knitting stuff. I keep meaning to charge my camera batteries so I can take pictures of the stuff I have been doing recently. I felted a couple of purses in a denim-like blue wool. I like the way the one turned out but the other was waaaaaay too short and too wide. I cut it apart and am sewing it together again. The cat has decided the strap is her play toy and won't let me have it back. So that means the purse is going to have to be finished later. I am still working on finding a purse pattern that I like.

I finished the Forest Canopy shawl in my test yarn. (I wanted to do the shawl in mohair that I picked up from DeStash but wanted to learn how to lace with an easier yarn.) I am going to block it tomorrow and take a picture. I started on the same pattern with the mohair and I looooooooooooooooooooooooooooove it! :) The mohair is a light green almost like lime sherbet and looks perfect with the pattern. The green is just the right color for new spring leaves. I am very happy that I practiced the pattern first because I feel very confident now. Hopefully I haven't jinxed myself!

Sock news -- Well, nothing really. I found some more sock yarn that I love at my LYS, The Needling Yarn. I really like the colors of the Cherry Tree Hill yarns. This one is called "Peacock" and how perfect is that? :) Now I just have to find a pattern for this gorgeous stuff. Perhaps Pomatomus?

I am still working on the Lonesome Skein KAL but I only seem to be adding to the stash recently. Not enough time and too much wonderful yarn.

Well, off to school tonight to turn in the last paper of the semester! Yea!