There’s Nothing To See Here. Move Along.

Actually, there’s a pretty good amount of stuff going on here. But I can’t show you much of it. Two super sekrit knitting projects and a basement full of stuff I can’t show you. So you get to see an updated Big Thaw picture

Pardon the crappy photo. It was raining outside and this was the best non-flash photo I could figure out.

I stayed up way too late last night getting the collar finished. The armholes look gigantic, but then I remember that the saddle sits on top of the shoulder and they’ll tighten up once I arrive on Sleeve Island.

Very quick knit, and if you have your knitting radar turned on to make sure the stitch motif down the front is correct, you’ll be cooking with gas in no time.

No socks or other “travel knitting” on the needles at the moment. I have one more pair of gift socks to knit, but I haven’t decided what I want to knit and with what yarn, so that will wait for a little while.

In other news, starting today the photo quality on this here bloggity blog may go down for a while. Back in May, I did something supremely stupid and damaged my beloved Nikon D90.



I've been living with the cracked screen all summer because I didn't want to be without my camera, but now it's time to get it fixed. It’s headed off to the repair shop today. Here’s hoping it’s not gone too long.

Ketchup

Did I mention the big scandal at the July 4th celebrations up here? The Women's Club sells donuts, pop and hot dogs beginning at 9 am. Remembe,r the bulk of the population up here is from Pittsburgh. Someone bought ketchup for the hot dogs that wasn't Heinz! Oh, the scandal! ;-)

I've been lax in sunset-posting the last few days. Here are the highlights.

Thursday

Pretty boring. Very little cloud-wise

Friday:

This is kind of orange, but I liked it with the silhouettes of the kayakers and swimmers


Better colors

Yesterday was a better sunset, It was a very calm day and we had some cloud cover in the afternoon that resulted in good cloud colors at sunset.

Today, we woke up to rain, which turned torrential. We had a little bit of sun in the afternoon, but then it was impossible to miss the next storm making its way in to shore.

By the time "sunset" came around it was raining again. We're headed home mid-day tomorrow, so it'll be a while before the next batch of sunset photos. Hope you've enjoyed!

Out and About

I still owe you a finished object post. I'll get to that!

It’s been a bit busy around here. I’ll get to the rest of what’s going on, but today? Mom convinced me to go downtown. Around lunchtime.

Here’s a brief recap of my day with more Pittsburgh details (for those of you who live here) as described to a co-worker who has never been here. Photos included because they’re fun. I over-shot a little today. Oh well. ;-)

• Take the "T" downtown (trolley/subway. 100x easier than driving downtown)

• Exit to the street at Steel Plaza, near the start of the parade route, and about 4 blocks from where I'm meeting mom (we were meeting in the lobby at One Oxford Center)

• Walk three of those blocks, essentially to the courthouse, at which point I realize I’m not going to be able to cross Grant Street. Anywhere.

• Run into a gameday co-worker who was not part of the group this year

• Call mom to tell her I can’t cross Grant. She starts to offer to cross to meet me, then realizes if I can’t cross Grant, she won’t be able to cross Grant either. She suggests I take an outbound T to First Ave. I remind her that then I’ll still have the same problem, except then I won’t be able to cross the Boulevard of the Allies.

• Walk back to Steel Plaza T stop. Get back on an "inbound" T headed for the Point. Joke with people in business suits about how completely insane it is that there’s a grand total of ONE way to cross Grant Street today, and that’s taking the T from Steel Plaza to Wood Street.

• Exit Wood Street station

• Walk a few blocks uphill and several towards the Mon to get to One Oxford.

• Meet up with mom at about 11:50 for a theoretical noon start to parade

• Observe crazy people in trees

• Observe more crazy people who are climbing traffic lights

• Listen to mom laugh/point out the above sign every single time it’s visible. Hooters was advertising in this manner as well.

• Stand four-deep on the barricades, where I can hardly see anything

• Realize the parade is finally starting when The Worst Mascot In All Of Sports comes bouncing down the street

• See Coach Tomlin walking down Grant Street in front of the car carrying his family

• Get several shots of my boss, taking photos of the crowd from the back of one of the trucks. I'm totally sending him one.

* Get a couple decent shots of players.

Ben

Troy

• Laugh at/with fellow parade-goers who are discussing whether or not they'll get in trouble for taking a 2-hr lunch

• Have lunch with my mom

• Be very happy we have seats when an Idiot on the T on the way home breaks a door on the T car. Sit at South Hills Junction for 30 minutes

• Realize that probably 50K people are now wondering why *none* of the trolleys are moving. At. All.



Can I please eviscerate whoever thought this “SixBurgh” thing was a good idea? KTHXBAI

Blog Silence

It’s been a crappy week work-wise. Had about 15,000 words to write for the wonderful full-time gig. Blech, but at least that particular flavor of suck is done until next year.

It’s hard to write for the blog when you’re required to write that much for work. I have a finished project to blog. Perhaps I’ll get to that over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the other excitement around her has been some significant winter storms. On Wednesday, we were hit with a lovely “Winter Mix” overnight, then snow on top of that during the day. The Hubster stayed home from work, which turned out to be a good thing, since the storm got worse during evening rush.

Of course, that slush under the snow turned to ice, and he got stuck trying to leave for work on Thursday. By the time the big ball of fire in the sky was out long enough to help, he wound up not going in for a second straight day.

Today, we got 5” of powder. Yes, I measured. No, I don’t have pics with a ruler, ‘cause the aforementioned work suckage prevented me from going outside for more than a minute or two during daylight hours. The worst of the storm came in while I was on a conference call this morning. I shot about 80 frames today.

I made a photoset of my photos from the storm. The mosaic is below. You can click to the photoset from any of the links at the bottom of the set. Enjoy.


1. DSC_0013.jpg, 2. DSC_0012.jpg, 3. DSC_J2801.jpg, 4. DSC_0065.jpg, 5. DSC_0042.jpg, 6. Jan28winter.jpg, 7. DSC_0007.jpg, 8. DSC_J2807.jpg, 9. DSC_0018.jpg, 10. DSC_0052.jpg, 11. DSC_J2901.jpg, 12. DSC_0035.jpg, 13. DSC_0046.jpg, 14. DSC_0008.jpg, 15. DSC_0015.jpg, 16. DSC_0040.jpg, 17. DSC_0021.jpg, 18. DSC_0001.jpg, 19. DSC_0060.jpg, 20. 365_Jan30.jpg

More Winter Photos

I went to bed last night knowing that I’d be waking up to a winter wonderland. All the trees were coated with snow. The wind hadn’t really started yet and the sky was a perfect rich shade of blue.


The above trees live in SuperNeighbor’s yard.

Speaking of SuperNeighbor (to those of you new to the blog, SuperNeighbor lives across the street and has literally known me my entire life. He’s SuperNeighbor since he’s always more than happy to help with any fix-it issues.), I was telling Cristi about my favorite snow-moving tool yesterday. It’s a simple 3’x4’ piece of plywood. And yet? She insisted she needed action shots.

Since SuperNeighbor was out shoveling his driveway this morning while I was snapping away, I asked if he’d consent to having a few “action shots” taken. He agreed!

Using the “wide side,” which is great for a light snow or short distances

Using the “short side,” which is mostly what I used today. Oh, and that's where the Hubster parks when we know it's gonna snow. I park at the top of our driveway.

There ya go, Cristi. Ask and you shall receive!

Oh yeah. MY driveway …

Bottom of the driveway just after I started shoveling (shoveling tool on the far right of the frame. Yes, I have my own piece of plywood, provided by SuperNeighbor!)

Bottom of the driveway by the time I finished the top. No salt used, just the great big bright star in the sky.

Top of the driveway.

Yes, it’s essentially two stories up to get to the street. This is why I take driveway shoveling very seriously. If you drive on this thing un-plowed, it can turn to a sheet of ice in minutes. Not good.

And finally, my Flickr 365 photo for today

My poor California mouse has no idea what to do with all this snow!

Yes, that’s a Sorcerers Apprentice antenna ball. He used to have stars and moons on his hat, but since my antenna hits the garage door every time I go in or out of the garage, they’ve all fallen off. I have spares, but don’t want to put ‘em into action when I know for sure they’ll get thrashed right away.

Winter!

Yep. My winter storm seems to have finally arrived! I headed outside to shovel the front walk and use the camera for a while this afternoon.

My favorite puppy was outside. Sydney LOVES snow and goes bonkers running around her yard and dipping her whole face in the most convenient layer of snow.

Hmmm ... What can I tackle next?

Snow feels SO good on my nose!

Can I grab her gloves before she notices?

It probably started to snow a little before lunch and the first plow didn’t make it to our neighborhood until about 7 p.m.


I love how the snow makes everything look

Yeah, I know Santa is still up. It takes two adult humans and a ladder to get him down. We have yet to reach that confluence when it’s not late or raining/snowing/sleeting.

I really need to take the time to figure out how to use the non-automatic features on my camera, but I liked this shot of our streetlamp with the neighbor’s house in the background


And the one I took well after dark


Here’s hoping you didn’t have to drive on un-plowed roads tonight. I was perfectly happy to hear that my 6:30 meeting in Sewickley was canceled, so I could play with the puppy, talk to my neighbor and do only minimal shoveling. The car is parked at the top of the driveway (Hubster parks in SuperNeighbor's driveway across the street. Where it's flat. But I can put off clearing the driveway for a little while (at least until it stops snowing!), which is nice.

Hello, Winter!

Weirdy Pants put up an I-hate-winter post tonight. I’m still the goofy person looking forward to our first real snow of the winter. Yeah, the lack of daylight leading up to my dad’s birthday was starting to get to me, but I feel the increased daylight already, so I’m good.

I’ve been doing a pretty good job of buckling down and getting into a work routine now that I’m back from my nearly two-week vacation. During my lunchbreak today, I was looking out the window of our TV room and the world looked like it was just washed out. It’s the lack of color that bothers me more than the cold or anything else about winter.

Neighbor’s non-green lawns and house(s) as seen from the warmth of my TV room.

Shortly after taking this picture, I snuck outside to retrieve today’s mail, came back inside and then started to head back upstairs to finish out my workday.

When I hit the turn on the stairs, a little voice in my head said “Hey! Stupid! You saw something cool outside! Go take some pictures!”

So I did.


Obviously, we haven’t taken down our holiday decorations yet.

I knew I was having focus problems with the new camera, even though I was switching between manual and auto focus and I wasn’t as careful as I should have been about making sure I was taking my time and making good pictures. Hey, it was cold outside and I just threw on shoes, grabbed the camera and headed out. But I still got one I really liked.


Hurricane Knitters tomorrow (Wednesday). 7 p.m., Waterworks Mall Barnes & Noble. Come and join us!

Elephants, Tigers and Bears! Oh My!

When I took my first photography class in high school, we took a field trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo. That was about 20 years ago (yeek!) and I still have some matted photos from that trip.

So what did I really want to do when I got a schweet new camera for Christmas? Go to the Zoo!

Fortunately, the Pittsburgh Zoo is open 362 days a year and the weather on Monday was pretty darn good. So I went to the zoo! And shot over 200 photos! Here are a very few of my favorites, and a slightly larger Flickr photoset is online.

Tigers snoozing in the sun

Bears hibernating

Cute baby elephants!

This really freaked out one of the (human) moms near me
“NO, I WILL NOT take a picture of THAT!”

And as for the Zoo's baby leopard (born in May, he's the first exhibit as you walk in)?

Yeah, I’m cute…

… Just don’t mess with my Pooh Bear!