kmkat and her kneedles

OMG, a post about knitting.

I just finished a hat for the new baby girl of one of Smokey's co-workers. He had asked me to knit a baby gift for them, then later said they asked for a pink hat. Easy peasey!

I knew I wanted a hat that tied under the chin because babies have a hard time keeping their hats on. Then the weather got cold and I decided that ear flaps with strings were the way to go. After searching Ravelry (yay, Ravelry!) I decided on this baby chullo (photo stolen from Ravelry):

Isn't that just the cutest picture? Even though I am not big on babies, I want to snorgle that one.

So I got myself some pink and some white DK superwash merino -- because I wasn't sure if one skein would be enough and the store only had one skein of the pink -- and set out. But before I even cast on, I began to wonder whether anyone besides me would see a chullo as appropriate for a baby girl. So I punted and designed my own hat, based on the chullo and other stocking caps and beanies I have made.

The result:

 

Yes, the ear flaps are a little too close together. I suspect the baby will end up wearing the hat *backwards* like this, with the jogs in the so-called jogless stripes in front:

 

Darn. I tried to frog one of the finished earflaps so I could re-position it, but I had buried the end so well into the i-cord that I couldn't find it.

A closeup of the Fabulous Fibonacci stripes, which I started a little too late:

 

Yarn: Ecco DK superwash merino, 32 grams/70 yards of pink and 14 grams/20 yards of white. The yarn comes in 50 gram skeins.
Gauge: 26 st / 4 inches. If your gauge were 24 st / 4 inches -- which is what I was shooting for -- the hat would probably be the correct 16" size (see below).
Size: The model I used -- an ostrich egg -- is about 15" around. According the text with the baby chullo hat, the average newborn head is 16". I think the hat will easily stretch to accomodate that extra inch if necessary.
Needles: Susan Bates US#2 (2.75mm) circ, Magic Loop; Crystal Palace #2 dpns for the earflaps and the i-cord, just because that was easier than wrangling a 40" circ on the itty bitty parts.
Pattern: my own design! If anyone is interested I can write it up without the stupid mistakes I made.

* * * * *

Now I am off to a three-day land conservation conference in Appleton, Wisconsin. If you know who lives near there, you will know who I am meeting for dinner and knitting tonight. Catch ya on the flip side!

Google trends.

Warning: this is the geekiest post I have done. Proceed at your own risk.

Have you used Google trends? #2 son showed it to me last weekend, and we had a most excellent good time looking at trends. It measures the number of Google searches for whatever term you ask about. It also tracks what language was used and where the searcher's ISP was located, both by country and by city, and the number of news articles on the search subject.

Of course, my first search was for "knitting" (blue line), which I combined with a search for "crochet" (red line):

Sadly, a slight downward trend overall, but with happily predictable upswings in early winter/right before Christmas.

I did some more handwork searches. Needlepoint:

.

Crossstitch (the results were similar for cross stitch and crosstitch):

Downward trends everywhere I looked. I tried to think of a craft that might be in its ascendancy. How about quilting?

Nope.

Let's get out of the handwork category and look at other topics..

"Terrorism" and "terrorist":

That spike in mid-2005 was the coordinated terrorist attack on the London transit system.

"Economy":

I would call that an uptick rather than a trend, but it is too early to say for sure.

Okay, then we got a little silly.

"Christmas" and "Santa Claus", fairly predictable but still the downward trend:

How about "Xmas", for the typing-challenged?

That one spikes higher than correctly-spelled "Christmas". Weird.

This trend, for "taxes", I found a bit predictable:

 

People are searching in early February, when they get their 1099s and W-2s and first start thinking about taxes, and in mid-April, when personal income taxes are due. The news coverage about taxes seems to be on an upward trend in 2007 and 2008, however, perhaps because of the election.

What was particularly interesting to me about the "taxes" trend was that the #1 city for these searches was Minneapolis, MN. Why is that? No idea.

Now I started thinking really, really hard, trying to think of something that might have an upward trend in searches. My only restriction was that it had to be something that existed and had a sufficient volume of searches in the entire 2004-2008 period so that it could have been tracked throughout; thus, Wii and Palin were out.

Hmmm. Let's see. How about these? Yes!!

 

Distinct upward trends for both Apple and Blackberry, vs. distinct downward trend for Microsoft.

We tried "solar energy", "wind energy", "hybrid car", and "energy", but didn't see any definite upward trends. "E85" had some big spikes and a bit of an up trend. Here are some that may be on a up trend, albeit a slow one:

This one surprised me a little:

 

Searches on "cooking" had predictable spikes at Thanksgiving and Christmas every year, but with a definite upward trend since the real-estate market tanked last year and people started thinking about how to economize. That graph led us to the most spectacular upward trend we found, one which, surprisingly, seems to have started its big surge at the beginning of 2007 -- months before the housing market tubed:

* * * * *

Matthew wants me to show you what viral marketing looks like. So I will.

"Cheerleader toss" (hover your mouse over that link before you click on it to see the YouTube video):

"Whopper" (for one day late in 2007, Burger King stopped serving the Whopper, just to get some word-of-mouth going -- that's the essence of viral marketing):

(/geekiness)

Manic Monday, a public service announcement, feline follies, and a wee rant.

I have not done Manic Monday questions before, but I wanted to give the answers to the first and last ones.

What is the most expensive meal you've ever eaten? After I passed the CPA exam my husband took me to celebrate at the Wine Cellar, an expensive little nook of a restaurant attached to the Rosewood Room, a larger, also posh, restaurant that was part of the Northstar Inn in downtown Minneapolis. I remember we had giant stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer, but I don't remember details of the rest of the meal. Total was ~$75 for 2. In 1982. We splurged!

What is the fastest speed you've ever traveled in a car? I hesitate to admit this, but I let my kids talk me in going 90 once. They loved to say, "Go 90, Mom! Go 90!" So one day I did.

What is the highest building you've ever been to the top floor of? A former boss and I had drinks with a colleague in the Windows on the World bar at the top of the World Trade Center in about 1982. Unfortunately the weather was cloudy, but the clouds parted briefly at one point to allow us to see the lights of New Jersey. It was like being in an airplane.

* * * * *

When kitties are napping peacefully in the sunshine...



they find it annoying in the extreme when someone calls, Wake up, kitties! Smile for the camera!



If looks could kill...

Wake them at your peril. That's all I'm sayin'...

* * * * *

Last week it was pretty cold here, but one stoopid kitty-kat aka Hannibal decided that he really, really, really needed to go outside. Duh. Not too much later, this was the scene outside my office window.

 

 

Meanwhile, everyone inside was warm and toasty.

And surly.

 

* * * * *

Note that the electronic weather station shows sunrise and sunset times for Green Bay. There is a list of cities in the instruction booklet from which to choose the one closest to your location. The choices in Wisconsin were the aforementioned Green Bay (229 miles east of us) and La Crosse (134 miles south). No Milwaukee, no Madison, let alone anything in northwest Wisconsin. So I checked Minnesota; the selections there were Duluth and... International Falls? So what are the Twin Cities, chopped liver? /rant 

Thank FSM for the innertubes.

So. I am sitting at my computer on Sunday morning, reading blogs, and the phone rings. I answer.

Caller: This is Constituent and I live in your district and I go to church in Nearby Village and [mumble mumble] flags [mumble mumble] Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day [mumble mumble].

The Kat™: I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand your question.

Caller: (explains that according to his calendar, today is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day)

Caller: (demanding now) I want to know why the flags are not flying at half mast!? I was in Nearby Village and the flag was flying at full mast! Why is the flag flying at full mast? Why isn't it at half mast? Today is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day!

The Kat™: Well, I knew that today was Pearl Harbor Day, but I hadn't thought about the flags.

The Kat™: Hmmm. I'm sitting at my computer right now, let's go on the internet and see what we can find.

(types "pearl harbor flags half mast" in the Google search box, clicks on first link, "When to fly the flag at half mast")

The Kat™: (reading, and breathing mental sigh of relief) "Sunday, December 7, is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.  On this day flags on all Federal buildings will be displayed at half staff from sun up to sun down." (Thinks to herself, Whew!) So it sounds like flags on federal buildings are required to be flown at half mast. I don't think we have any Federal buildings here except the post offices. Of course, that doesn't mean that others couldn't be flown at half mast, but it is not required.

Caller: (mollified) Huh. Oh. Well, I was just wondering because I saw it on the calendar.

The Kat™ : Are you a World War II veteran, sir?

Caller:  No, a veteran, but not of World War II.

The Kat™ : Well, thank you for calling. Good-bye.

Caller: Good-bye.

I love being an elected official.

Mutterings and Netgranny.com.

First of all, this week's unconscious mutterings:

1. Love affair :: to remember
2. Bubble :: gum pink
3. Pimple :: ouch
4. Knocks :: wood
5. Persistent :: achiever
6. Infected :: pimple
7. Yay! :: hurrah!
8. Repaint :: barn
9. Daily :: vitamin
10. Quickly! :: now!

* * * * *

Netgranny.com, the brainchild of a Swiss fashion house, is just the thing if you want hand-knitted socks but can't or don't want to knit them yourselves.

At the site you click on the granny of your choice and choose your socks; she will knit them for you for €28.50, about $35 at today's exchange rate.

The website is pretty lame -- parts of it are only in German, and the English is... interesting. ("Click on the socks and order, pay with kredit card.") I couldn't find any socks to click on, so who knows what they look like. Given the lameness of the site, I sort of doubt if the grannies are still in business. Novel concept, though...

Get your cute right here.

* * * * *

 

 

This last one looks a little too much like a barbecue grill for me...

Photos from guerilla-innovation.com; videos found at modernpooch.com.

I rock. Or, I am teh awesome. Your choice.

I was one very busy Kat™ yesterday. I did three loads of laundry, emptied all the wastebaskets, and vacuumed the entire main floor of the house.

So what? you say. I do all that before breakfast. What makes you so special?

I did it all from the throne of... my wheelchair.

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

One week from today I will officially be allowed to put full weight on the ankle, but I am getting impatient. As long as I can walk -- carefully, for only a few steps -- without significant pain, I figure it is okay. What's a week between friends? Yesterday I actually walked from my car into the library and back. It is a distance of perhaps thirty feet, and I walked very gingerly and slowly... but triumphantly. Thus, in preparation for Not Being An Invalid, yesterday I vowed to be productive. Smokey has been working in Minneapolis for a week, and I think I was also getting a little bored. The house had not been vacuumed since sometime before September 16, so you can imagine how much it needed it. Bear has been blowing her coat, too, so there is an ample amount of dog hair floating about. Not as much tonight as there was this morning, though :-)

I am attempting to be faithful in doing the physical therapy exercises, too. In fact, that was one stimulus to vacuum -- it was too revolting to get down onto the floor. Some of them are sooooooo boring. If I could find my iPod earbuds I could at least do them to music. Excuses, excuses.

Taylor Mali: for the teachers.

As the bumper sticker says, If you can read, thank a teacher.

I'm a [morphine] nerd.

Hey, guess what? I found my morphine pump pics. I took them with my phone, that's why they were not there in iPhoto when I looked for them and why the quality is so poor. Here is the pump with my finger on the trigger:

and here is a close-up of the screen:

IIRC, when I felt the need for pain medication I could press the button for a 1 mg dose, then the pump was locked out for ten minutes. Research has shown that patients demand less pain medication AND report feeling more comfortable, i.e., feel less pain, when they have one of these pumps. A win-win proposition.

Except when the staff do not know how to set them up. The nursing staff at this hospital knew how to do that, probably because they have been using these pumps for well over a decade, but when I had a C-section for #2 son in 1989 they were still pretty new. My night nurse at the time didn't know how to make it work, and she spent AN HOUR -- after  I had already asked for pain meds -- trying to get it to work. Argh.

* * * * *

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Science/Math Nerd   (Absolute Insane Laughter as you pour toxic chemicals into a foaming tub of death!) Well, maybe you aren't this extreme, but you're in league with the crazy scientists/mathematicians of today. Very few people have the talent for math and science, and it is something takes a lot of brains as well. Thank whosever God you worship, or don't worship, so thank no deity whatsoever in your case, for you people! Most of us would have died off without your help.
Literature Nerd
Drama Nerd
Social Nerd
Musician
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Well. How about that? Thanks to Heather for the link.

Happy b'day, big guy!

On this day in 1984, someone was born.

He grew...

and grew, in spite of certain dietary irregularities ...

Eventually he started school.

  

Occasionally he hung with his little brother, preferably with an afghan and a cat.

 

He was never a jock, but he did like physical activity.

The years passed, he graduated from high school,

went to college, was arrested (once),

 

made the dean's list every semester, and studied in South Africa.

 

He graduated.

and started medical school.

 

Happy 24th, Big Guy!

A day for the birds.

Happy (lucky!) penguin:

Things you never knew about chickens: