But when I'm not working...

I've always had a love affair with the darkroom. I first started developing my own black and white in high school, under the guise of working for the school newspaper and yearbook. A guy I had a huge crush on taught me how to develop film and print photos using the enlarger, and I spent many happy hours in there, under the red light, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone. My first real job was doing shift-work in a large photo-processing plant the summer after my first year of college. Fun times.

I did a quick refresher black and white workshop last summer (whee! developing film on a warm August afternoon in the alley behind Queen Street in Toronto, the smell of drunk barf from the night before still lingering in the air... if you can develop film there, you can do it anywhere, I promise). I don't print my own, just develop the negs and scan them. Yay, technology! Progress! Maybe some day I'll play with doing my own colour film, but right now that's too fiddly for me.

When my long-time hobbyist photographer father-in-law heard that I was now developing my own black and white, he dug out and gave me a couple of his old film cameras (he went digital in the late 90s). They are wonderful things, and I love them. Here's a couple shots from the first few rolls I've run through his old Minolta Autocord II (all black and white are home-processed in Rodinol). I have another black and white roll from this camera drying right now, yay! (Upcoming post: the other adopted vintage camera, the 1946-47 Argus C3 Brick.)

There are two seasons in Toronto. "Cold" and "Patio Season"
(March 2012, Ilford HP5+ 400)

Shopping on Queen Street West
(March 2012, Ilford HP5+ 400)

Cherry Blossoms at U of T
(April 2012, Lomography CN400)

CN Tower in Redscale
(June 2012, Lomography Redscale
XR 50-200, shot@50iso)

Time zones are messing with me

So now that this conference is over, perhaps I can update the blog more regularly again. Perhaps I can even knit more regularly again. I have a couple sweaters that were put on hold in the sweaty, icky heatwave this summer, and this is now the right time to pull them out again and add those last sleeves.

I am in Texas. Right now I'm in Katy, Texas, but before this I was in San Antonio for several days for a conference. SA was fantastic. I told someone that it seems to have taken me 10 years of grad school to figure out how to enjoy a conference, but then, I always was a slow learner. Our hotel was right on the Riverwalk. That's a little bit of awesome, right there.

After waking up Wednesday morning in Toronto to FUCKING FROST on my car, it was fantastic when, 36 hours later, I was walking along the river in San Antonio barefoot - I skipped out of the conference briefly (lesson #1 in learning to enjoy a conference: leave the fucking conference once in a while) in search of cheap photocopies and Starbucks, and decided to go back to the hotel via the Riverwalk only to get completely turned around down there and THEN find that I'd worn the wrong shoes, hence the barefoot. While in SA, I had beef and guacamole in some form every day for three days. I would call that a win, wouldn't you?

I still have to double-check what time it is at any given moment. My computer and IPod were still on EST until yesterday, my phone was on Central, and then Daylight Savings time ended yesterday morning, so everything moved back yet another hour. I finally changed the computer and the IPod to Central yesterday, even though I'm going home today... it was just too confusing, and I don't want to miss my flight or some stupid-ass thing. A lot of clocks (like in my current hotel room) are not changed back to non-Daylight Savings yet. One must be careful.

The conference ended Saturday, and Sunday I rented a car and drove to Katy to meet up with a friend who I'd never met in person before! I love the innernets. Trish and I had fun - dinner and good conversation. We had a hard time finding the bathrooms in the restaurant, though. It was a "Baker Street"-Sherlock Holmes-themed pub, and the door to the restrooms was cleverly disguised as the end of a bookshelf. Trish has a pic, once I get it I'll post it. In honour of the pub, I went back to my hotel and caught the last half of an episode of "Sherlock" (seen it before, but whatever), and fell into blissful-full-belly-post-conference-I'm-on-vacation-tonight sleep. I'm still in bed, and haven't moved much since. Bliss.

I should get moving, though. Time to drive BACK to San Antonio to return the rental car and catch my flight home. Well, almost home - I flew out of Buffalo, NY because OMGLESSTHANHALFTHEPRICE. So once I get into Buffalo at 11pm, I have a 90 minute drive home to Toronto. But I'll have company. And there will be a stop at the duty-free.

No pics in this post, because I suck. I brought my camera, as I always do, but never pulled it out, as always happens. Yes, I went to the Alamo while I was in SA. It's still there. Comforting, yes? As for Relics of Americana: I saw a lock of Davy Crockett's hair in a locket, and my life is now more complete.

And now for a bit of honesty: I love Texas. That's right - this Yankee-Pennsylvanian-Canadian-Liberal has fallen just a little bit for Texas. I blame the gorgeous November weather, which Trish assures me is short-lived. And the guacamole.

Better living through technology

At last, Mother Nature, that Tease, has decided to let us have a real taste of spring. I wore sandals outside yesterday for the first time this year. "They" say it's going to be nice for at least the next several days, but I don't trust her, Mother Nature, that Bastion of Bitchiness. She's pulled this stuff before.

In the meantime, knitters work to clothe ourselves and our loved ones for all contingencies. For example:

The finished "Liesl de no Manos" cardigan:


Made with almost exactly three skeins of Malabrigo worsted, in the "Plena" colourway

I suspect I'll be making a couple more of these, as gifts. It was a relatively quick knit, too. But first, another one for myself, this time a concert-appropriate black version for over the sleeveless black concert dress. Here's a preview:


Fingering-weight spun wool-soysilk, to be knit together with a worsted-weight black to make another Liesl cardigan

I'll start a gauge swatch shortly.

Finally, the continuing progress on the "Hey, Lady!" Sweater:


No sleeves yet, but it's almost long enough.

I got far more done on it than I realized while visiting PA a couple weeks ago. Since I have such a short torso, the body is much closer to being done than I expected. I tried it on, and it's looking like a couple more inches of the lace pattern are all that's needed. Then it's the final couple inches of garter stitch, then sleeves.

In other news, I'd like to officially welcome the newest member of our household:

Oh no, I didn't...


Oh yes, I did.

An antique Canadian Production Wheel, bought from a lady in my concert band who is moving and downsizing. Purchased by her father in 1967 from an antique shop in Baie-St.-Paul, Quebec, it was kept in her parents' cottage and home, and following that, her home, as a decorative piece. They took great care of it, so although it hasn't been used as a working wheel in well over 40 years, it only requires a disassembly for a good cleaning and oiling, replacing the dowels that are missing on the wheel supports, and putting on a drive band.

Bandfriend Derryl and I had talked about this wheel last year. She mentioned she was planning to sell a bunch of things, including a wheel that had been in her family for decades. She wondered if I knew people who might be interested. She didn't even know if it worked, and she wanted to have it appraised, so I told her to let me know when she had an amount and I would put out feelers and drop by to see it. I promptly forgot about it until she mentioned a couple weeks ago at rehearsal that the appraiser had suggested CDN $200, if I was still interested, otherwise it would be put up for auction. Some phone calls and 24 hours later, my friend Jean and I (she's a wheel spinner who knows what to look for, so I was hoping she could come with me) went to look at it. Within five minutes, we knew the only real question was, "Will it fit into my car, or does it need to go in Jean's truck?"

It fit in the car. I called DH on the way home to warn him. He was... understandably surprised. Heck, I was surprised.

There's no maker's mark on it. It has been refinished in its past, and the mark was likely a simple stencil that was stripped off. However, thanks to the magic of the innernets and some wonderful research being done on these wheels by an online group, it has been tentatively identified as a Michel Cadorette wheel made in St Hyacinthe, Quebec, some time before 1929 (when Michel died), and likely before 1922, when his son Phillias took over the business. A woman in the online group has an exact twin of this wheel, with identical wood turnings, maker mark intact.

And so here it sits, in my kitchen. I'm pleased, if a little bewildered. Seriously, I wasn't planning to buy a wheel any time soon. I'm very happy with my large collection of drop spindles. I use them regularly and productively. Being of the belief that to really understand how things work, you have to start at the beginning, I've often considered a wheel something of an unnecessary technological luxury in my own "process" spinning. But there was no way I could walk away from this one. From her. She's a proud old lady who has stood the test of time, and she wants to be used, put back into production.

Also, she needs a name. Preferably something French Canadian - suggestions welcome. I'll learn to pronounce it properly, I promise.

The week after I brought her home, I showed pictures of the new girl to Lady S while we were chatting at the beginning of our weekly meeting - I figure it's just as well your supervisor knows exactly why you're distracted from work, no sense hiding it. Later in the meeting, my computer began to act up. I was charting something for Lady S and trying to print it, while Excel (that bastard) was crashing, taking Word (that farging arsebadger) with it, and with that the rest of the system. I cussed firmly and force-rebooted the whole dratted laptop.

"Just in case you ever wonder why I bought a spinning wheel," I said over my shoulder, "or why I have a loom, or a tendency to use two sticks to knot string into fabric a lot, this is why."

Lady S raised an eyebrow in question.

"In 40 years, this thing" - I waved jauntily with my middle finger toward the rebooting laptop - "will be junk. It won't work. I depend on it daily. I rarely leave home without it, and in a few years, it'll be a paperweight. But I'd put hard money down right now that in 40, or even 60 years, that 80-year-old spinning wheel in my kitchen will still be working."

She smiled. And she did not take me up on the bet.

If it were E.T. phoning home, I'd be more OK with it

I press a button near my ear. There's a little *bleep*, and a digital female voice says, "Say command."

"Call home," I reply.

"Did you say, 'Call home?' "

"Yes."

----------------------------------------------------------------

The province is introducing a law at the end of the month prohibiting the use of hand-held devices while driving. Cell phones. MP3 players. As of the end of the month, you have to be able to operate them hands-free if you're behind the wheel.

If only they could prohibit pedestrians from using the same distracting hand-held devices while crossing the street, we'd be all set. I had two separate potential my-fault-accidents walk out in front of me — without looking, against their signals and into the middle of downtown traffic — while talking on their phones this Friday afternoon. But I digress.

I get it, I really do, and I fully support the law. I don't use my cell phone in the car that much, but I'm certainly guilty of taking and making calls once in a while while driving, and it's a convenience that I'm not willing to give up. What that means, though, is that I'm being dragged kicking and screaming into a little more technology in my daily life than I am completely comfortable with.

I'm of that in-between generation. The internet started to become more widely used while I was an undergraduate in the early 90s, but the web didn't come about for several years after that. I was an early, if slightly reluctant, internet user, but it quickly became integral to how I communicated with friends. I could telnet into a MUSH and talk with them in real-time when I was on the other side of the ocean. Email was a necessity. When the WWW came in, I was in my early 20s, and I acclimated just fine. These days, I check my email compulsively and usually have my laptop nearby. I'm a Mac girl, through and through.

It took me longer to get a cell phone than an ISP. It seemed... too much connectivity. I finally broke down in 1998 after a car accident in Western PA, and we realized how much issue it would have been had we not had family right there with us to help out. Only a handful of people have the number, and to this day, my cell plan is the cheapest one I can get that includes voicemail. I do not have an IPhone or a Blackberry, it's just a basic cell phone. It has a camera, that's kind of cool, but whatever. I do not have data or text messaging. Honestly, I have three email addresses and I check them 50 bazillion times a day. I'm not hard to reach. I have to draw the line somewhere.

Which brings us to today, me sitting in a cafe with a bizarre-looking earpiece sticking out of my ear. I figured I'd try this hands-free cellphone thingy out when it's not critical, so we set it up and I went out to do some errands on a Sunday afternoon. I'll admit, the voice-dialing thing is neat. I knew the phone had the feature, I just never used it.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I was heading out the door, and realized that I look like one of those people that annoy the living shit out of me - earpiece sticking out of their ear, you never know when they might stop talking to you to take a phone call that you didn't hear coming. They talk loudly, and apparently to themselves, in the coffee shop or in the line instead of ordering or paying. I'm reminded of one of those stories where everyone is plugged into their technology all the time and it takes over their minds. I sighed.

"I look ridiculous."

DH stuck his head around the corner.

"Hey, just pretend you're like Uhura. 'Captain, you have a call...' "

I grinned. You know, I hadn't thought of it that way.

"Captain, Priority One message for you from Starfleet," I said in my best phone-professional voice.

"There you go!"

Sometimes, he really knows what to say to make me feel better. If Uhura can have that thing sticking out of her ear and still be awesome, I'm good, right?

----------------------------------------------------------------

"Did you say, 'Call home?' "

"Yes."

The line begins to ring on the other end, and my husband answers the phone.

"Starbase 5-8-0-0 here."

"Hi, honey."

"You broke the ship again, didn't you?"

I break into peals of laugher. I love that man.

Sometimes Lazy Days. Sometimes Not So Much.

I keep meaning to post, and then I realize I haven't taken the pictures, and then I put it off, and then suddenly it's a week later and I haven't posted. This has happened more than once. Bah.

See, I have this new camera. I mostly like it, except that the only documented way to get pictures off of it and on to the Mac appears to be through iPhoto, a program which I dislike, intensely and almost unreasonably, since it 1) forces me to upload everything currently on the camera, whether I want to at that moment or not (for instance: I only want to deal with two small pictures right now, not spend 30 minutes waiting for iPhoto to chug and churn to upload 7 GB of video), and 2) decides all on its own where to put files on my hard drive. Putting the pictures where I want them involves extra steps of digging through the hard drive to find the right directory and moving things around manually.

The whole process is unnecessarily complicated and drives me batty. I wish I could just plug the dratted thing in and have it show up as an external hard drive, like my old camera (ca. 2000, only takes 15 second videos, needs a new battery, but which I know like the back of my hand and love). All of this means I can no longer deal with pictures quite as efficiently as I'm used to, so it's become yet another thing to avoid. I suspect I have a solution though, which I will try out this week.

Bloody technology, thinking it knows what's best for me.

ANYhow.

It's been a mostly lazy couple of weeks. The sun is shining and it has been getting warmer each day. Dare I guess that it might be... spring? The magnolia tree seems to think so. It's now full of pink buds.

Some progress on no-longer-secret-project #3. The recipient knows about it, and has happily approved the yarn, colour scheme and pattern, so I think it's safe to say that this blanket will be for M. & C.'s Wiglet (i.e. baby), who, in fact, decided to make his grand arrival in Canada just over a week ago, after keeping parents and midwife on their toes for several days. But all are well, and he is as adorable as expected.


A big welcome to the week-old young Mr. R., aka Wiglet, who I met Friday.

I'm almost halfway done and speeding up a little, especially now that I've finalized the moon and star charts, weaving in ends as I go. In a strange way, I'm enjoying all the balls of yarn hanging from the back, which slowly but surely become tangled as I change colours. I carefully untangle them, knit a few more rows, and do it again. It's like a little dance between me and the yarn. A very pleasant, slow dance.

A couple Saturdays ago was spent in the back corner of my dusty basement with several SCA friends, sorting through a pile of canton common property, counting, consolidating, re-packing, tossing junk, and creating a photo-database of everything. There was wine and Dooley's and laughter along with the friends, which I think is the best way to spend an afternoon and evening. The inventory was well overdue. It was a big job, and in the end we completed what we set out to do, and felt like we accomplished a lot, which is the best outcome one can ask for, don't you think? Especially with wine.


Now taking up only 1/3 less space, and we know what's in every box.

Last weekend was spent making mini-heddle weaving kits using tongue depressors, sticks, glue and a Dremel. I've been wanting to try this out since seeing something similar last summer. Basically, it's the heddle portion of a rigid heddle loom. No frame. C-clamp each end of a not-too-long warp to something and weave away. Great for making narrow warp-faced bands, as you can see, and I think a little less troublesome (and less expensive) than an inkle loom or card weaving. A lot of patterns can be created using pickups. I demonstrated the technique to one of my local SCA cantons Monday evening.


A small strip of warp-faced weaving on the mini-heddle loom, and the current movie to feed the ongoing fixation.

Finally, with the impending spring, I will soon venture out into the gradually-greening backyard. The yellow tulips are long since open, and the magnolia tree is probably less than a week away from being in full bloom. I haven't raked all the dead leaves from last year, so much of the back yard remains a mushy mess. Stay tuned for an upcoming new installment of...

Weird Things We Find In Our Yard