Water Wall Last week I was in Houston for a business conference. (Apologies to those of you who were subjected to my presentation. I understand I sustained 80 words a minute with hurricane gusts of up to 170. Yehaa! Nervousness. I hope you enjoyed the live demos. Also, my joke about including “the gratuitous store […]
Second roof estimate: optimistic Read More »
After an hour of happily doing knit-like things (see picture) on the plane ride home this afternoon, the 60-ish Croatian lady next to me gestured. Her husband, who spoke only a few words of English, translated enough for me to figure out she wanted to borrow my other set of needles and yarn. I offered
Two knits forward, one purl back Read More »
I’ve heard people recommend cedar shingle roofs because “they look beautiful.” Those people are on psychedelic mushrooms and/or haven’t owned one on a residential home. What they neglect to mention is cedar shakes are renowned for their ability to harbor moss, split, rot, attract crows and burn baby burn. On top of that, I understand
Rots, cracks and burns Read More »
I’d been experimenting with casting on. After getting thoroughly confused by the graphical depiction in the book, I went went back to the AoK video. It took a few tries, but I was soon casting on again. I continued to lesson two, the knit stitch. The added design elements were accomplished through proactive use of
Last night I stopped by a craft store to pick up some basics for learning to knit. Although I could have easily gotten carried away in the yarn section, I maintained surprising discipline, leaving with a functional list of items to get me started: three balls of worsted cotton yarn, bamboo needles, and a “how-to
Each stitch that the gnu could gnit Read More »
Last night I got my utility bill and Holy Moly, it’s more than double last month’s thanks to a colder-than-normal month and an increase in utility rates. (Hey, Fed, I found your inflation.) Anyway, there has been a lot of interest in my previous musings on the ongoing cost tradeoffs of gas versus electric dryers.
Gas versus Electric Dryer II Read More »
David called Thursday afternoon because once he had installed the disc brake, he realized the rack mount would interfere with the caliper. He worked on it Friday morning, adding a mini-extender. Though I didn’t relish driving into Seattle on a Friday afternoon, being off the bike for a whole week was making me jittery. Or
One of the persistent annoyances on my bike has been braking in wet weather, which we have a lot of these days. The rear brake is bolted just under the frame, right in the path of all the goopy muck being channeled by the rear fender. I’d been thinking about picking up a second, commuter