A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Wow, normally it’s about a 3 hour trip from Brandywine, MD to Philadelphia, PA. However, when you add in a pit stop for a drink and bathroom break, a stop for gas, and a quick trip to Target to replace a need appliance (razor for him) it can add to the time. But not that much. We were running about 30 minutes late and should have gotten into the hotel at 9:30PM in time for my 10PM panel. Cutting it fine but doable. But we didn’t count on the traffic jam as we exited the highway. Evidently we were right next to a sports center parking area — at least that seems like a likely explanation since as soon as we cleared that intersection traffic cleared up. Next we had a problem find the last turn for the hotel because the street wasn’t marked — so, end result: Registration had closed. Information didn’t know where the Parlor rooms were located and had been trying to find out (not their fault since the rooms are in a bit of an obscure area). So, I was about 12 minutes late for the panel.

Western Genre Themes in Science Fiction. Panelist: Gayle Surrette, C.J. Henderson, Nathan Lilly (moderator), Eric Flint, James Daniel Ross. Description: Some have said that Space Opera was influenced by horse opera for good or ill. Where and how did themes from Westerns insinuate themselves into science fiction?

The audience was small but joined in the discussion avidly. Some of the points brought up were how the concept of a frontier might be a better definer of the genre than setting (West) and that space being a frontier would also fit the theme. The loner as hero. Often the hero was someone who was an outsider. There’s a bit of anti-authority, get the job done, to the hero. There was also a lot of discussion about defining the Western by culture or social setting. There was a lot of talk of movies and TV: High Noon/Outland, Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica (original one)/Wagon Train. Lots of talk about which was better Seven Samuri or The Magnificent Seven. Off topic, sort of, looking at some films from a new angle, for example: Star Wars as a Civil War reenactment. All in all I thought it was interesting to hear all the thoughts and various connections others drew between Westerns and Space Opera.

So, now we’re calling it a night. Should be ready for tomorrow with a good nights sleep. And hurrah, the room has a coffee pot and coffee.

Just a quick note before we start the 3 hours drive up to Philadelphia, PA, for PhilCon. It seems my blog is now popular enough to get Spam comments. So, I wanted to explicitly list my comment policy so no one gets hard feeling. First, I love comments — positive, negative, and neutral. Though to be frank, I don’t really like the negative ones but usually after I cool off I see that side of things and appreciate the feedback.

What I’m getting now is just “I like it”, “what a great site” (I wish), and this one that I can’t figure out, “My grandfather loves trains”. So, I’m moderating comments, all comments. You can write a comments without having to log in or do any of that but I’m moderating all comments. If a comment doesn’t add to the topic or discussion — I’ll probably just delete it after reading. That means all those me too posts will just get dropped as I’ll appreciate it, but it doesn’t add to the discussion. That makes it easier for me to delete all this Spam commentary without having to stop and evaluate every post.

Trains, mumble, mumble, I haven’t even had a post about trains on this blog.

We had a bit of excitement this morning. Just about 2 minutes after my husband left for work, I heard a big thump sound that was very reminiscent of the thump of the trees that came down during Hurricane Isabelle a few years back. The problem was that at 7am there’s not that much light and it was pouring out with a fairly stiff breeze.

About 30 minutes later, I looked out all the windows again and thought I saw a dark mass on the road below our driveway. So, buttoning up and bring my heavy leather work gloves, I set off down the drive. About 50 feet from the end of our driveway several branches had come down out of the trees. The trees here in Maryland are tall, I mean they’re really tall, most are taller than our 3 story house — just for reference. So when a branch comes down in a storm (and today’s storm was pitifully weak) they often shatter and break up. I cleared off a lot of the smaller branches and bits and pieces but some of them were 9 to 12 feet long and about 6 inches in diameter so there was no way I could move them off the road. I called my husband and explained the situation to warn him when he came home.

Now a bit of explanation, we live on 5 acres about a quarter mile from the main road. The road the branches came down on is a dirt farm road that connects the four houses on it to the main road. This dirt road doesn’t get plowed, doesn’t get garbage pick up and is usually one of the last fixed if/when we lose power. So, since the branches only meant that the people in our house and the one just a bit farther up couldn’t get home until the blockage was cleared. My husband was at work, and the neighbors usually left about the same time he did — so I assumed the neighbors were gone too. Me, I work from home.

Bit later I hear a car out front, look out, and see the neighbor’s car backing into our drive to turn around to head back to their house. Hmmm. This might be a problem since the HE neighbor always goes in earlier, this must mean the SHE is stuck. So, I’m dithering about walking up to her house because I think the two of us might be able to clear the blockage but then,  it’s also possible that she’ll just take a day off — so dither, dither. Then the car comes back down the road, and I hear the door slam and a chain saw.

Well, a chain saw — I wouldn’t have dared try starting ours; they scare the heck out of me. But, I bundle up again and head down to see if I can help. It turns out, HE had a late day today. She’d already left for work. So, he cut the chunks up, I moved the smaller ones, he got the bigger ones, and in about 5 minutes it’s all cleared up.

Hubby comes home expecting to have to chain saw his way home and clear for the neighbors to find it’s already been done. So, it was a nice neighborly day of mutual help and cooperation. I really love living in the country — even if the trees throw their branches at us. Now if I could solve the falling leaf problem…

Well, my favorite sweater in the whole wide world is going to be my favorite yarn scraps soon. I’ve mended, patched together, and sewed it so many times, and it’s still falling apart — so I can only wear it around the house. I love that sweater, it’s a dusty blue and oversized and comfy. But, it is over 12 years old and it’s (wait for it) — store bought — so I’m surprised it’s lasted this long.

Anyway, I finally realized that I need to make a replacement. So, I spent a good two days looking through all the knitting magazines that I had and then went on-line. I was down to about two choices, and then I found that Interweave Knits had one of them as an online sweater. This meant I wouldn’t have to photocopy the magazine pages and it had cables — I love cables and it was called Old Friend. How could I pass up a sweater that wants to be my Old Friend? So, I got started.

Finding the yarn was another adventure but I decided on a soft acrylic that I’ve been told stands up to repeated washing/drying and I figure this is going to be washed at least once a week (What can I say I have an eating/drinking problem — embarrassing I know, but I often get so involved in what I’m doing I miss my mouth). So, I’m saving my handspun for an equally beautiful sweater that will get some special care in the cleaning department.

Of course the first thing I had to do was set it up to be knit in the round up to the armholes. Then I’ll have to do the front and back separately. Then the plan is to do the sleeves top down from the armhole — but that’s going to require more figuring and maybe some changes in the cables so I might do them bottom up — unless someone has some good ideas on doing cables top-down to match a bottom up sweater cable.

Of course, today is probably the last day I can work on this because my son finally got me his measurements. He wants a hand knit sweater for Christmas. Only 44 knitting days left so I start that one tomorrow after I decide between the three patterns I picked out for him.

Since I’m on a panel on “Return of the Living Dead” at PhilCon this coming weekend, I decided I’d better finish listening to the audio CDs of World War Z by Max Brooks. I’m really impressed. The actors playing the parts are really good — they have the accents and verbal mannerisms down so that you actually belief what you are listening to — and it’s done in such a straight-forward manner that you sometimes can forget that this isn’t real. Basically, it’s survivors of the world wide zombie infestation talking about what it was like just before, during, and a bit after the war. It’s various personal stories told to a reporter making up a report on the outbreak and aftermath.

This is an abridgment of the book but each story we hear is supposed to be complete. Like his earlier work , The Zombie Survival Guide it takes the subject and treats it seriously. World War Z has stories from people who survived. Some of them are not nice people, some of them are, and some of them you’d wish had been left behind with the zombies because they sold people out. All in all, it’s well done and a good way to spend time if you have something else to do — I’m working on a sweater I’m knitting, so my ears are free to listen.

Well, I got my schedule for PhilCon. I’ll be on four panels this year.

Friday (Nov. 16th) 10pm: Western Genre Themes in Science FictionSaturday (Nov. 17th) 1pm The Victorian Age as a setting for (Non-Victorian) Science FictionSaturday (Nov 17th) 9pm Return of the Living Dead (I’m moderating this one)

Sunday (Nov 18th) 3pm Taking the Hugo Back from Harry Potter.

Looks like an interesting list of panels and I’m looking forward to being there. I just hope by Friday I can talk above a whisper (though today I am feeling a bit better). If you’re in the area check out PhilCon. Some great guests this year: Eric Flint — Principal Speaker; Sue Dawe — Artist Guest of Honor; Kevin Roche — Costuming Guest of Honor; Andrew Trembley — Costuming Guest of Honor; Voltaire — Special Music Guest.

Of course, I’ll be trying to post an overview of the con at the end of each day. If you’re at PhilCon, please stop and introduce yourself to anyone you see with the SFRevu name tags — several of us will be there.

Well, having laryngitis does limit some of the things you can do and the cold that goes with it sort of implies that one should stay inside and not do all the yard work that’s been piling up. So, it was time to finish up the first of the pair of Honeycomb socks. However, once I got one repeat of the honeycomb pattern I got a shock…

The problem resulted from a number of things. First, I’m using a much heavier yarn because these are socks to kick around the house and/or sleep with during the cold winter months. That means they need to be warm and loose. So, I’d had to adjust the pattern for fewer stitches which still gave me a sock that fit but loosely (not to cut off circulation when sleeping but snug enough not to come off during the night under blankets). Well, when I finished the heel and got to the start of the pattern it said to increase and that the honeycomb pattern was a 12 stitch repeat. Okay, says I, I’ll make sure I add enough to be a multiple of 12 and off I go.

I’m sure most if not all of you knitters are just shaking your heads in disbelief… You’re right. The pattern pulls in, as you can see in the photo, since there are too few stitches to accommodate the reduction in circumference caused by the pattern which causes the stitches to pull in as it makes the honeycombs. The top of the sock is now smaller in circumference than the sock body below it — too tight by far.

So, it was back to the pattern (written for regular sock yarn) — check the stitch count, check how many additional stitches were added for the honeycomb section and then doing some math (ratios do come in handy eventually). Once I frogged back to the beginning of the increase section and picked up the appropriate number of stitches things looked a lot better.

As you can see the honeycomb section no longer pulls in the top of the sock — giving it a textured look and flaring above the body of the sock. When I got to the next section, I chose to decrease some, but not all, of the stitches, letting it flare a bit because now it’s up the calf of the leg and the person these socks are destined for (currently not on the internet) likes to tuck the legs of her PJs into her sleep socks. So these should be perfect. Now I just have to remember what I did and start that second sock.

Unexpectedly, I learned that doing the honeycomb pattern on four needles is quite painful for my hands when trying to get the yarn tight on the joins. I think for this next sock, I’ll move to circulars for this section. Hopefully that should make it a lot easier to keep an even tension without straining my thumbs and fingers.

In another online group, we’ve been discussing wishes. There’s a lot of people who are all hyped on learning the steps to attract positive forces to grant your wishes. Personally, I make a wish on the turkey wishbone every year, on falling stars, and when blowing out the candles on my birthday cake (soon to be a single candle since shortly we’ll be able to cook the cake with the candle heat). Anyway, this discussion made me think about wishes and the granting thereof. Ever since I heard the Rolling Stone song, I always hear, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need” whenever I think of wishes (or prayers for that matter).

If you stop and think about it. Wishes are at the root of a lot of fairy tales and seldom do things turn out for the wisher or wishee. Sometimes it’s because the wish was not specific enough and other times it was because the person making the wish didn’t really know what it was they wanted. Even if you do know exactly what you want — your conscious and unconscious mind agree — would you really want that event/thing/whatever to be the result of a wish? People seldom appreciate things that they get free or too easily — that’s why there is often a nominal fee for service for things that would otherwise be given away. Don’t believe me. Well think about it, if someone came up to you and gave you a ‘free’ flashlight, I’ll wager the first thing you’d do is try to figure out what the catch was or what was wrong with it.

But going back to wishes…think about those rash wishes in the heat of anger or hurt. None of them should ever come true. I know that I’ll be eternally grateful that all of those anger-fed wishes dissipated like morning mist in sunshine. Then there’s the one to continue the wonderful time or good feeling forever — remember those. In the clear light of morning, would you really want eternal happiness? Really? Can there be happiness without sadness to let us know the difference? Most things come with polar opposites: health/sickness, love/hate, sunshine/rain…

Maybe wishes are just place holders to allow us to dream but not necessarily to get a free ride. Satisfaction and pride comes more from achieving what you want by working for it. Not that a bit of help along the way would be turned away — sometimes you need a helping hand. But once a job is done — doesn’t it feel good to know you did it? Would it feel as good if you just twitched your nose and the job was done with no effort at all?

Wishes should be the embodiment of good hopes and positive thoughts towards others. But, then perhaps I just need to think about this wishing business a bit more. Should wishes come true — always, never, sometimes?