Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Finally--Pictures!!!

And finally-- evidence of knitting progress!!!We have finished wee sockies.
We have completed Heartbreakingly Cute Baby Kimono. (It's been blocked since the picture).

We have completed Chuppah square, and in-progress Heartbreakingly cute that will have pictures soon. (Don't want to get all carried away, now)

This weekend was another great one. It drizzled on Friday, and a bit as well on Saturday, but it didn’t bother the VT football team. It was a really terrific VT Hokies football game on Saturday (a well-fought game against worthy opponents Cincinnatti).

I visited my Blacksburg LYS-away-from-My Real Home LYS,. It's Mosaics, run by Gina. If you happen to be in Blacksburg, it's behind 5 Guys across from University Mall. I picked up some Debbie Bliss denim and cotton cashmere for – what else—Heartbreakingly Cute Kimonos, as well as some Online on-sale ribbonyarn with little fuzzy things that I’m knitting into –guess what--? Heartbreakingly Cute Kimonos. (Well heck—my coworkers are popping them out like crazy!)

They have some pretty cool bags—see?

In other knitting progress-or lack thereof- I spent quite awhile working on Fibonacci- and I think I'm going to frog it and start over on larger needles. I started knitting way too tightly, and although I got the recommended gauge, it's just basically a stockinette t-shirt. When I picked it up again, I knit for rows and rows, and the progress on the tiny needles is laughable. The fabric is very dense, and I think it'll be too warm-- if it ever gets finished at this rate. So, I think we're gonna start over on this one. Sigh.

New, Random Topic:
Here's something The Daughter pointed out the Kroger.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it seem strange to name dog food "Old Yeller?"

As I recall, it didn't end well.







Travelling I-81 is always an event.

If I'm "Passenger-ing" as I always do when The Husband accompanies me, there's time for knitting, napping, reading or just watching the beautiful mountains and trying to avoid experiencing the traffic.

We've come upon accidents several times, but Sunday took the cake. A van in front of us was pushed off the left side of the road by a semi. By the grace of God, they didn't roll over.

We were trying to slow down, pull over and help, when we noticed that the semi had no such plans. The dude just kept on truckin'!!! We were aghast. That's just WRONG.

So-- as I called in the accident to the State Police, my husband pulled in behind the truck, which by now had gone into the right lane. (We saw that others were stopping to help, and we figured they needed to get this guy.)

The trucker at this point was being the perfect little citizen-- observing the speed limit and behaving himself. We relayed the license info to the dispatcher who plugged us in to the local coordinator. They took the info and our phone number and that was that. Or so we thought.

We were a bit annoyed that there didn't seem to be much action from the troopers. We gave them good info, after all. We did a little bit of passing, so I could get more info from the side of the cab, just in case. And I took pictures. This is one in my rear-view mirror.

At one point we stayed behind a camping trailer for about 10 miles going 50 in a 65 zone, and Mr. Trucker Sir was behind us that entire time, until he finally pulled around us. I got pictures of the side of the cab, which I will not share, as I value my life.

As we were driving, we were just amazed at what a fine citizen he continued to be-- and we were a bit concerned as well. (Didn't want his little trucker buddies deciding that we needed a visit to the median strip.)

We stayed several cars behind the truck, not because we particularly wanted to, but because we happened to be travelling in the same direction, and if the troopers were gonna get him, we wanted to watch.

Nothing.

Well, about 70 miles up the road (and bear in mind, we're approaching West Virginia by this time) I got a call from the State Police dispatcher, asking if she can pass my phone number on to yet another center. Heck yes!!!

Deputy Dawgs in Hot Pursuit

The latest dispatcher asked if we still had the truck in sight, and told me that a trooper would be coming up behind us. She got a description of our car, our location and speed, and further details we'd gleaned. I was giving her the play-by-play, just like on Cops. All of a sudden, Mr. Trucker Sir signalled and pulled off at an exit. I asked the dispatcher what we should do, and we were told to follow him.

You want us to what??? We were now right behind him.

Can you spell adrenaline?

He went into a truck stop. We were told to keep following him and keep an eye on the truck. Holy cow!!! There were a lot of trucks, and he drove behind them. The Husband kept an eye on the other side of the truckstop so he could see if the guy left.

The trooper finally arrived. The truck had tucked himself in amongst all the rest of the trucks, and it took us awhile to help the trooper find it.

Long story short (too late, I know)and skipping a lot of detail, we identified the truck, the trooper got the guy, we made a statement, and headed home. The people he hit were physically ok, although very shaken up. The trucker said he didn't know he hit them. (!) Right.

Just a thought: We travel I-81 a lot. So do The Offspring. I've always known it's dangerous, but I have a new perspective on The Knights of the Road. Some are wonderful and courteous. But the bottom line is that they all have to get their stuff to where they're going, they're bigger than you, and you just plain have to pray hard and hope to stay out of their way.


On the last leg of the way home, we saw this.

Be careful out there.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Groan--With a Capital G

I have a very nice posting prepared.

It even has pictures.

Lots of pictures.

I can't get The Blogger to let me download the pictures to the blog.

Not even one.

Since the initial theme of the posting is that I finally have pictures, I can't really post it without the pictures.

I will try again tonight. This has taken entirely too much of my time already today.

That is all.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

I''ve Been Waiting..

To post until I had some pictures worth sharing. But I figured I'd better get some words on the screen, or it might be more weeks before I post. Bad form.

First, go visit
Erin and wish her some sunshine and cheer. I'm apparently not the only one who has been in the dumps by our dreary weather. I actually started getting up early enough to sit in front of the "anti-SADD" lamp for a couple of hours. Does it work? Don't know yet-- I'll let you know after I've done it for a couple of weeks.

No such problems today, though.

It's sunny and beautiful out, here in Blacksburg. And what a nice time we had with our time in the sun. See? 36-0. It's a good thing (at least if you're a Hokie). The ride down yesterday was pretty gloomy, and punctuated with at least one Virginia State Police car about every 3 miles or so. It was quite amazing. I've never seen so many.

Knitting-wise, I've unearthed Fibonacci. I started the critter about a year and a half ago, and put it aside for a couple of reasons. The first was that the entire thing is stockinette stitch, and I was going nuts. The second was that it is knit sideways from the sleeve, and when I joined the neckhole, I discovered that it was several inches short of where it needed to be, and I got ticked off. The third was that I decided to "throw" rather than using the continental knitting technique that is more comfortable for me. I ended up knitting it quite tightly, and my hands were getting rather crampy.

So, when I re-started, I decided to do the rest of it continental, and hope that it'll all come out even in the blocking. I also went down from 6's to 3's, and the stitches look pretty much the same. Interesting, huh?

I finished the Wee Sockies and the Baby Kimono. The Kimono is done and blocked, and needs about 10 total inches of sewing up for finishing. So when do you think THAT'LL happen?

Now if I can just remember to get some batteries for my camera....