This weekend has been awful. I don't really know why except that it has been and I have made it that way. I think I should probably put it down to hormones and the stress of being by myself all the time but it's just been a horrible weekend and I don't know what to do to put myself right. Last night and this evening I don't seem to have been able to get a grip on myself.
I guess in part the particular upset this weekend is down to my knitting - but that in itself is just part of being here. The only people I see here socially are through knitting and so I guess I spend more time knitting than I do at home and so when it all goes wrong it all feels somehow more important. Yesterday morning I made a mistake on the clapotis, which I had been enjoying knitting because it was so incredibly easy and mindless. Having tried to put a lifeline in and twisted a few stitches, I took the thing into Knit One in Squirrel Hill (not Natural Stitches this time because I feel like everytime I go in I need help), the lady there was sort of helpful and said to bring it back tomorrow when they had a knitting group in and there was sure to be someone who would 'take me under their wing'. I dutifully went back with the thing today and didn't seem to get any real help but was encouraged to rip the whole thing back and start over.
I did. I really wish I hadn't, it totally didn't need that. So now I have no clapotis and I'm too stressed and teary to start the damned thing over again and not have it go wrong (I've tried twice).
I wish this wasn't so important to me, but I think I have been using knitting to keep me distracted and so now I can't do that right I just seem to be completely lost. I gave up completely after the last failed restart and just bawled on my bed for a bit. Sometimes crying helps take the edge off things - I don't think today is one of those days.
Sunday, 31 May 2009
Saturday, 30 May 2009
Disaster!
A good word to describe last night's dinner.
Last weekend I bought some handmade burgers from whole foods and froze them. Big, thick burgers with real meat in them. I pulled one out of the freezer on Wednesday night with the plan to have it for Thursday's dinner.
Thursday became Friday when it turned out there was a lunchtime talk on Thursday (the sandwiches I'd brought would never have been eaten otherwise - we always go out to lunch on Friday so I couldn't just carry them over). So... Friday dinner.
I have no grill, so decided to fry the burger and press it on a paper towel to remove the grease before putting it in my burger bun. I figured that just before it was done, I thought I'd drop an egg in the pan and have that too. Got to a point where it looked pretty cooked around all the outsides so I gave it another few minutes for safety then grabbed an egg and gave it another few whilst the egg cooked. All done, I assembled the burger - looking good!
Er, no. Sadly as soon as I bit into the burger it wasn't really as cooked as well as it should be in the middle. Removed the burger from the burger and threw it back in the pan. Turned the heat back on and up a few marks for good measure and then sad down and ate the fried egg sandwich.
Went back, checked on the burger, all was good. It seemed to be cooking nicely, so I picked up the knitting I had been doing earlier and progressed some on that. Turned at the end of the row, had a think about the cooking and decided that I'd go and see how cooked it was at the end of the next one...
About a third of the way through the 'next one' I thought I could smell burning. Now my knitting chair is all of two metres from the oven (max) with no doorways in between and this smell was pretty faint but being the concerned Saffy that I am, I thought I'd check it out straight away. What did I find?
My burger had indeed burnt on the bottom side. About a 2mm layer of charred meat covered the base of the burger - not so good. But that was not all! It turned out, that the spatular I had left in the ban for the purpose of turning the burger had melted a bit. Tiny bit of the handle was stuck to the edge of the pan and a somewhat larger chunk of the spatular itself covered the base of the pan. Ooops!
Having turned the heat off, I sliced off the bottom of the burger and threw it in the bin. Ate the rest in a new burger bun with the salad - a small section of it was still vaguely pink - it didn't taste of tefal but probably should have done :)
Maybe for the other burger I shall try oven cooking?
Last weekend I bought some handmade burgers from whole foods and froze them. Big, thick burgers with real meat in them. I pulled one out of the freezer on Wednesday night with the plan to have it for Thursday's dinner.
Thursday became Friday when it turned out there was a lunchtime talk on Thursday (the sandwiches I'd brought would never have been eaten otherwise - we always go out to lunch on Friday so I couldn't just carry them over). So... Friday dinner.
I have no grill, so decided to fry the burger and press it on a paper towel to remove the grease before putting it in my burger bun. I figured that just before it was done, I thought I'd drop an egg in the pan and have that too. Got to a point where it looked pretty cooked around all the outsides so I gave it another few minutes for safety then grabbed an egg and gave it another few whilst the egg cooked. All done, I assembled the burger - looking good!
Er, no. Sadly as soon as I bit into the burger it wasn't really as cooked as well as it should be in the middle. Removed the burger from the burger and threw it back in the pan. Turned the heat back on and up a few marks for good measure and then sad down and ate the fried egg sandwich.
Went back, checked on the burger, all was good. It seemed to be cooking nicely, so I picked up the knitting I had been doing earlier and progressed some on that. Turned at the end of the row, had a think about the cooking and decided that I'd go and see how cooked it was at the end of the next one...
About a third of the way through the 'next one' I thought I could smell burning. Now my knitting chair is all of two metres from the oven (max) with no doorways in between and this smell was pretty faint but being the concerned Saffy that I am, I thought I'd check it out straight away. What did I find?
My burger had indeed burnt on the bottom side. About a 2mm layer of charred meat covered the base of the burger - not so good. But that was not all! It turned out, that the spatular I had left in the ban for the purpose of turning the burger had melted a bit. Tiny bit of the handle was stuck to the edge of the pan and a somewhat larger chunk of the spatular itself covered the base of the pan. Ooops!
Having turned the heat off, I sliced off the bottom of the burger and threw it in the bin. Ate the rest in a new burger bun with the salad - a small section of it was still vaguely pink - it didn't taste of tefal but probably should have done :)
Maybe for the other burger I shall try oven cooking?
Friday, 29 May 2009
Early to Bed... Mostly
With everyone in the UK safely in bed by around 8pm Pittsburgh time, it's been really nice to just go to bed when I'm tired, without any distractions (noone to say 'Oh, but my routing algorithm nearly works, looklooklook'). And mostly, I've been in bed, ready to sleep, not later that 10:30pm. Except on two occasions - one tonight, and one some weeks ago - what was I doing on those occasions? Watching YouTube.
Why??? The last time was Legally Blonde the musical - I spotted it in someone's Facebook status and over the course of the evening sat down and watched the whole thing (in 18 parts). Was it any good? It got better as the show progressed certainly, I actually thought it was kind of sweet. And given I didn't think much to the film at all - this was definitely much better. I've actually put the CD on my Amazon wishlist (is this something I should be confessing to? I'm not sure).
So what was I watching tonight? Britain's Got Talent. Again prompted by Facebook status messages, this time lots of them, all talking about Holly Steele. Started out watching Holly's audition, and then went back to the start of the playlist her video was in and seemed to be watching a selection of highlights from the episodes. I'm up to episode six so far and will save the rest for another day. Here's my favourite:
Oh my!
Why??? The last time was Legally Blonde the musical - I spotted it in someone's Facebook status and over the course of the evening sat down and watched the whole thing (in 18 parts). Was it any good? It got better as the show progressed certainly, I actually thought it was kind of sweet. And given I didn't think much to the film at all - this was definitely much better. I've actually put the CD on my Amazon wishlist (is this something I should be confessing to? I'm not sure).
So what was I watching tonight? Britain's Got Talent. Again prompted by Facebook status messages, this time lots of them, all talking about Holly Steele. Started out watching Holly's audition, and then went back to the start of the playlist her video was in and seemed to be watching a selection of highlights from the episodes. I'm up to episode six so far and will save the rest for another day. Here's my favourite:
Oh my!
Monday, 25 May 2009
All in the Balance
I spotted this cache today when looking for things local to the area in which I planned to spend the day (I visited the Cathedral of Learning - more later). Remembered it when I got back in the evening and thought I'd attempt to solve it.
The first parts were reasonably easy once I remembered what the involved. I'm pretty confident in my S, K and F.
The next part, I continue to struggle with. I've got as far as:
I know that 1 mole of nicotine is 162.26g and 1 mole of O2 is 32 grams.
I think then that:
Update - Writing this just made me notice a mistake I made right at the end. I just solved it (@22:42)!! (Well, I have an answer that passes the verification).
I'll carry on now...
So I need to balance that with the appropriate ratio of oxygen. The number I have on a scrap of paper here is:
...but I think I've now just doubled that to get the answer? Hmmm... not sure how confident I am in my final answer now :) All these numbers on my paper make for a confused Saffy.
Using the fact that 1 mole = 32g. I can calculate that the above number of moles (doubled) times 32 gives me the weight of O2 in grams. Convert that to milligrams and lose the decimal places to get a three digit number for the cache coordinates:
Anyone care to check my chemistry/maths? It's a long time since I've done anything like this! A good challenge - did I actually once know how to do this stuff?
The first parts were reasonably easy once I remembered what the involved. I'm pretty confident in my S, K and F.
The next part, I continue to struggle with. I've got as far as:
I know that 1 mole of nicotine is 162.26g and 1 mole of O2 is 32 grams.
I think then that:
Update - Writing this just made me notice a mistake I made right at the end. I just solved it (@22:42)!! (Well, I have an answer that passes the verification).
I'll carry on now...
So I need to balance that with the appropriate ratio of oxygen. The number I have on a scrap of paper here is:
...but I think I've now just doubled that to get the answer? Hmmm... not sure how confident I am in my final answer now :) All these numbers on my paper make for a confused Saffy.
Using the fact that 1 mole = 32g. I can calculate that the above number of moles (doubled) times 32 gives me the weight of O2 in grams. Convert that to milligrams and lose the decimal places to get a three digit number for the cache coordinates:
Anyone care to check my chemistry/maths? It's a long time since I've done anything like this! A good challenge - did I actually once know how to do this stuff?
Sunday, 24 May 2009
McShadyside
This guy just sits by the sidewalk on Shady Ave. Cute :)
Found him on my way back from an evening walk in Mellon Park looking for a geocache with the same title as this post. Sadly, the log at the cache was full - nice find though.
Found him on my way back from an evening walk in Mellon Park looking for a geocache with the same title as this post. Sadly, the log at the cache was full - nice find though.
Thursday, 21 May 2009
More Hugin
Did a bit more work on my Hugin script yesterday so thought I'd take some slightly better pictures to test it. The images aren't quite taken from the same place but they're as close as I can manage by myself.
And there it is - my desk!
So, what changes did I make the the script since last time?
Well:
Not sure about anything else, because I can't quite remember what I had put into the script last time I posted. It prunes the control points now which it probably didn't do before.
And there it is - my desk!
So, what changes did I make the the script since last time?
Well:
- It now takes n images - previously it took two
- It attempts to find the hFOV in the first photos EXIF data - previously an arbitrary value of 30 was assumed (it'll still fallback to this value if nothing is found)
Not sure about anything else, because I can't quite remember what I had put into the script last time I posted. It prunes the control points now which it probably didn't do before.
More knitting
Bit of a knit-tastic week :)
Having decided to frequent Natural Stitches as much a possible. Monday and Tuesday were my first yarn buying adventures. Over the weekend I spent some time checking out scarves on Ravelry, determined to find something sufficiently summery in the hope that I might finish it before I leave. And so, I settled upon this. Pattern chosen, and so on Monday I explored as much of the yarn at Natural Stitches as I could possibly take in and settled upon Kraemer's "Sterling Silk and Silver" (63% Superwash Merino, 20% Silk, 15% Nylon and 2% Silver) in Heavenly Blue. I was also really keen on the Imperial Blues but they seemed a little less summer. I'll have to find something else to do with this yarn before I buy some in that colourway :)
Starting the scarf was a bit painful. I think I must have cast on this project eight times before my fingers got the hang of it and I stopped making stupid mistakes. As of this morning I've completed sixteen rows.
But that's not all... nope! When browsing the 40% off section of Natural Stitches, I spotted Kollage's "Delicious", some hanks in a really nice turquoise blue and some in a turquoise/pink multiway. So, when I got home I logged into Ravelry and had a look to see what people had done with this stuff. Variety of things, but by far the most appealing was the ever-popular Clapotis. Tuesday evening came, and I found myself 7 hanks of the pink/turquoise colourway, named"Shock".
I'm still really tempted to buy the plain turquoise though... so many pretty yarns, not nearly enough time to knit them.
I think I've settled on 6mm needles for the Clapotis - so might cast that on tonight? Maybe.
Having decided to frequent Natural Stitches as much a possible. Monday and Tuesday were my first yarn buying adventures. Over the weekend I spent some time checking out scarves on Ravelry, determined to find something sufficiently summery in the hope that I might finish it before I leave. And so, I settled upon this. Pattern chosen, and so on Monday I explored as much of the yarn at Natural Stitches as I could possibly take in and settled upon Kraemer's "Sterling Silk and Silver" (63% Superwash Merino, 20% Silk, 15% Nylon and 2% Silver) in Heavenly Blue. I was also really keen on the Imperial Blues but they seemed a little less summer. I'll have to find something else to do with this yarn before I buy some in that colourway :)
Starting the scarf was a bit painful. I think I must have cast on this project eight times before my fingers got the hang of it and I stopped making stupid mistakes. As of this morning I've completed sixteen rows.
But that's not all... nope! When browsing the 40% off section of Natural Stitches, I spotted Kollage's "Delicious", some hanks in a really nice turquoise blue and some in a turquoise/pink multiway. So, when I got home I logged into Ravelry and had a look to see what people had done with this stuff. Variety of things, but by far the most appealing was the ever-popular Clapotis. Tuesday evening came, and I found myself 7 hanks of the pink/turquoise colourway, named"Shock".
I'm still really tempted to buy the plain turquoise though... so many pretty yarns, not nearly enough time to knit them.
I think I've settled on 6mm needles for the Clapotis - so might cast that on tonight? Maybe.
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