Finished Cowl

I finished the cowl yesterday as I hoped. It is now blocking on the bedroom floor, where it will remain damp for days, because it is not very dry here. But because I'm actually blocking for shape I just have to suck it up and walk around it for a few more days.

This is not a terribly flattering picture of it, but a) it is a knitted tube, what do you expect? and b) it is wet so the colors aren't quite accurate, and c) it will be bunched up when worn around the neck because no person's neck is actually that long, so glamor isn't really the highest priority. Oh, and d) I fixed that little pokey-out bit on the lower left after I took the picture.

Edit to add: updated photo with texture detail, showing the actual color of the yarn when dry. (Much nicer, don't you think?)

Does Pasta Really Need All That Water?

Maybe not, says Harold McGee in the New York Times: How Much Water Does Pasta Really Need?

As someone who is living with a non-kitchen and has been reduced to making pasta in an electric skillet on more than one occasion, I am glad to see someone investigating this matter of blasphemy. I agree that the extra stirring is key. And that short pasta shapes are easier to keep from sticking or tangling.

Via Not Martha.

Mundane Hallucinations

One day, not long ago, I was tidying the kitchen area (calling the area where I cook in this cottage a "kitchen" is generous to the extreme), and I encountered a box grater, of the sort usually used for shredding cheese. "Odd!" I thought to myself, "I did not think I had one of these anymore, and have been grating my cheese on a tiny micro-plane! This may come in handy later."

Today, I would like to grate some cheese. Can I find this mystical box grater? Of course not. Did I imagine having it in the first place? Possibly. Did I spend 15 minutes looking for it anyway? Yes.

In other, more productive news, I am one row away from finishing my first cowl - I am hoping to get it blocking and take some photographs today. Then I have to come up with another project to take with me to jury duty for the next couple of weeks.

Recycled Soda Bottle Box

This is a beautiful, functional example of re-use at work: recycled box by Zitta Schnitt.

In fact, I think I'll add a tag for recycle, to cover both recycle and re-use examples. My mind seems to be bending that way lately, even to the point of subscribing to two different eco-friendly Twitter streams. I guess my use of that tool is evolving somewhat!

Garden Progress Report

New pictures are up of the garden - I actually took these right when I got back from the conference, but it took a while to get them uploaded. Here's a quick preview:


Something is eating the bejezus out of the kale, most likely earwigs. So far I am resisting Dad's offer to put out poison. I'd love for this to be a completely organic process. Besides, kale is pretty robust, and if this keeps them away from the other veggies, it's probably a worthy sacrifice. The peas are going like crazy, we already need to tie up new string. And the lavender bush outside my back door is covered in flowers.

More SXSW bits

My plan for today is sorting and filing some very very old paperwork while listening to some of the SXSW Interactive podcasts for panels that I missed. Should be a very constructive way to multitask.

Speaking of SXSW, artist Mike Rohde has posted the "sketch notes" he put together at the conference this year - you can find them on his Flickr. I am quite interested in these, because back when I took notes by hand in undergrad, I used to format them in a similar sort of way, bolding important concepts and organizing things in sections or bubbles. Unfortunately, my handwriting was not nearly so attractive or tidy as Mike's, and no one else would have found them legible, much less interesting.

Reflections on SXSW Interactive 2009

I took, no exaggeration, 44 pages of notes from the panels at SXSW Interactive conference in Austin this year. This was in large part due to the high quality and relevance of the sessions I was able to attend. This was one of the best SXSWi for me so far, from a panel perspective. From a social perspective, it's hard for a conference that has grown so much to have the same ease and opportunity for making personal connections as it once did; especially for those like me who are more comfortable in a small group than in a massive crowd. But the opportunities are still there if you made the effort to look for them.

It is the energy I was able to catch from the conference this year that was the very best thing about it. A lot of people there were struggling with the same issues I am - to wit, how to stay motivated and proactive when the economic and regulatory climates seem so dire. However, I came away refreshed, hopeful, invigorated. I have some new projects in the planning stages, some of which you'll see evidence of here on the blog very soon.

Highlights of the conference included several panels dealing with audience management and crowd sourcing, a full day of panels surrounding issues of copyright and fair use, and two extremely helpful panels about changing jobs in the current economy. Overall, I thought the panels were well selected and scheduled; in the past there have been several time slots where I wanted to be in four places at once and others where I was interested in nothing; this year there was only one session slot in which I found myself free, and I used it to visit the trade show floor.

In addition, I saw a number of great folks I usually only see once a year in Austin, and as usual, met some great new people who turn out to live practically in my backyard. SXSW Interactive 2009 was a great conference for me, and I feel lucky to have been able to attend.

And if anyone has insomnia or a vast amount of time on their hands, I'd be happy to share my panel notes. Just shoot me an email.