A Curious Statistical Anomaly

A bit late as usual but here’s the October coffee cup. This month I chose a sunflower cup. Somehow, even though I found this cup on sale around June or July, it just seems to shout FALL to me. The leaves around here are starting to turn (well some of them are). The temps are going down into the 50s at night and not higher than 70s during the warm days. The garden is still putting out green tomatoes and some lettuce. But, I know it’s the beginning of the end of summer here.

We brought our Meyer Lemon Tree in off the deck for the winter. He was already not particularly liking the cooler night time temps. He dropped a bunch of leaves in protest. So, now he sits on the rug in front of the sliding glass doors and seems to be all perky and happy. (Okay, so I anthropomorphise my plants — scientific studies have shown that plants like to be talked to and giving them gender and names — this one is Meyer, variety and name, I never said I was original — makes it easier to talk to them.)

This month is going to be very busy. Next weekend, Hyperion and I will be at Bouchercon which is a mystery convention. I’ve never been before so it should be lots of fun. We’re going to be covering the convention for Gumshoe Review. Our usual method is to blog about the convention daily with some photos. Then we do a major upload of photographs to the Gumshoe Review Flickr account, and a general overview of the convention for Gumshoe with a pointer to the daily, more detail blog reports.

We’ll also be attending Capclave. Capclave is the science fiction convention sponsored by WSFA (Washington Science Fiction Association) — tagline is: where reading is not extinct (hence the dodo mascot). Hyperion and I are members of WSFA and have been attending for a few years now. We’ll be covering this convention for SFRevu — with the same method of daily blog articles and the full blown report in SFRevu. Check out the convention website and if you’re in the area please come to the convention. The guests of honor this year are James Morrow and Michael Dirda. It’s small about 300-400 people. The ratio of writers, publishers, reviews, and SF professionals to fans is fairly high. There’s some really interesting program items. There are also some workshops that, if you are an aspiring or beginning writer, you’ll find very helpful. There’s no extra charge over the membership fee for the workshops. So, if you’re in the area drop in and check it out.

Okay, finally the new external disk drive arrived.  Thankfully, it got here before everything blew up.  When it arrived I had only 1 GB of space left — everything was sooooo slow I was growing moss on my mouse.  But, once I got it plugged in and moved all the photos and electronic books to the external, I had 21 GB free and things were moving much faster (except for the expected slow down because I have some virus checking done every time I open files.  So, I’m happier and now I should be back on track with the blog and photos.

This months coffee cup is a Starbucks Blue Mug.  It was in all the Starbucks this summer but seems to be pretty thin on the ground when I was in Starbucks shops during the last few weeks.  I checked their website and they have a brown mug but not this blue one.  Luckily, I picked this one up this summer and saved it for September.  It’s perfect for hot chocolate, tea, coffee, or any warm drink.  I love the heft and feel of it.  The slight curve to the lip is really nice.  It’s very reminiscent of the old white mugs you used to get in diner — not that there’s that many old diners around anymore.  It has modern lines but with the comfortable feel and psychological comfort of the old diner mugs.  Also, it’s big enough so I don’t have to make repeated trips to the coffee machine when I’m working and holds heat fairly well — as well as any uninsulated cup anyway.  I like it.

Next, I said I was going to post a picture of my organized pantry area.  Last time I posted a picture, the shelves were nearly empty and everything was piled on my living room floor.  Well, now it’s all back in the pantry area including a lot of stuff that didn’t fit before.  Having the baskets helped because you can pile/load more into them than you can when lining things up on the shelves.  I also put things in the baskets by type so all the mixes, sweeteners, baking stuff, etc. are in one basket, all the soup and soup related stuff is in another, one is all spices, and another (on the floor) is all drinks, whether powder or bottle.  So now the hallway is navigable when going back to do the wash or to the bathroom, which is around the corner and out of sight (and is currently another new project but stalled as I try to figure out just how far I want to go with it — at first I thought just paint but now…I’m thinking, and that’s always dangerous.)

I’m thinking a curtain over the pantry might help disguise it and make the hallway (visible to anyone from the living room, the kitchen, and the dining room) look nicer.  But then you have to move it out of the way every time you want something there, and the number of times that would get done could make for a very dirty curtain very quickly unless it was a dark color and that would make the area too dark.  What do you think?

I’d decided to learn to knit socks on circulars so I could knit both socks at the same time.  I got a couple of books out of the library and looked online for some tutorials and finally cast on some yarn and started a pair of winter socks for wearing around the house when it gets cold instead of shoes.  Well, truthfully, I hardly ever wear shoes in the house anyway, but in winter my feet get cold, so nice warm socks are a must.

Anyway, it said in most sources to use a 40 inch needle, so that’s what I used, but I’m thinking of switching for a 60 inch if I don’t get the hang of moving the socks about when I change sides pretty soon.  Maybe just putting a marker between the edges so it’s easier to find when the circular gets sucked into the sock and I don’t have an end loop left when I finish the second sock before I turn to come back on the other side.  Otherwise, it’s not so hard once you get used to it.  The fact that I’m making both socks at the same time is wonderful, especially since I don’t have a pattern and these are sort of ad hoc — so now I can do the same thing to both socks without having to remember way back to when I did it on the first one (so far the whole note taking thing isn’t working out too well).

Once I finish increasing to the even knitting for the foot, I plan to do a tighter knit on the sole of the foot — I’m thinking knit on one row and knit 1, slip 1 on the other row — sort of what you do for the heel flap but for the entire bottom of the foot.  Hey, it’s worth a try to see how it comes out.  What I love about knitting is the wonderful way you always can have do overs when something goes wrong.

Speaking of things that need a do-over, the following is a political rant (I’m still upset) so move along if you’re avoiding such rants …. Really, I’m Democrat with extreme Liberal tendencies, so bail now if you offend easily.

I’m still in a snit over the political candidates for both parties.   This country can’t afford another term with a Republican in charge.  Especially, a Republican whose economic and foreign policies are nearly indistinguishable from the guy who got us into the mess we’re in in the first place.  And especially not with a Republican with a totally unqualified Veep who, based on her answers to the simplest of questions, just confirms my suspicions of her inability to do the job.  Heck, I’m more qualified than her and no one asked me to be Vice President.  I saw a YouTube video for an ad for Michael Palin for President — unfortunately he can’t run because he’s British, but they make a good case in a tongue and cheek way that he’d still be better.

I just want to vote FOR a president at some point in my life instead of voting against the lesser evil.  I’ve heard some people plan to vote Republican just because they figure if the country hits bottom people might finally wake up but just think of all the people who have to suffer first.  Why not try to do your best to help your country.   Look what fear has done to us over the last 8 years.  This just has to stop.  We need our Constitution and our Bill of Rights restored.  We need the checks and balances that our founding fathers put in place in the beginning of this nation restored so that we can move forward into the future and not backward into darkness.

[Hyperion here:] And it would be nice to have a V.P. that was capable of understanding elementary school level science.

Not much to say.  The zines went live yesterday.  So if you go to SFRevu or Gumshoe Review, you’ll find the new September issues are now up and live.  This month SFRevu has an interview with Joe Abercrombie, the author of The Last Argument of Kings. In Gumshoe, we’ve got an interview with Sheila Lowe, author of Written in Blood.  If you enjoy science fiction and fantasy or mystery, check them out.

In other news, my harddrive is full and I can’t download my photos to get them uploaded to my site.  I’ve ordered an external harddrive but it hasn’t gotten here yet so I’m feeling bereft of photos.  As soon as I get it and get connected, I’ll get up a photo of my September coffee cup, my new sock project, and the totally finished and organized pantry shelves.  Bet you can hardly wait on that one.

Meanwhile, I’m working on the final few items to finish up a website project.  Ran into a few wrinkles, but when don’t you, when designing and setting up a website for someone else.  But, it’s coming along nicely and I hope to finish it before too much longer.

I’ve also bookmarked some interesting articles on science topics that I hope to turn into blog posts as soon as I get a chance to read the articles and then look for the original source material and check some collateral material as well.  Then there’s my TBR (To Be Read) pile to starting getting whittled down for the October issue of the zines.

Moles and Trolls.  Work, work, work, work, work….

Busy as bees all weekend.  There’s the zines to get out and Ern (the senior partner in the zines) had his birthday party at our house.  So, with 16 people coming for a BBQ dinner, Hyperion and I really had to clean the house and the yard.  Ern came out a couple of times to help with the yard work.  Remember the tree that fell over.  Well, it really needed the brush cut and then the limbs that we could cut with our chainsaw cut and stacked or piled to be split later. The guys made a great start on it  I’ll try to post a picture tomorrow to add to this post.

The party went off smoothly.  I believe everyone, including the birthday guy, had a great time.  Only 12 of us but it was a congenial group and the company and conversation was varied, interesting, and far ranging with subjects from maps, the Civil War (or war of Northern Aggression), genealogy, science, technology, peak oil, wind generation, fusion reactors, dirigibles,  books, movies, poetry, and family stories.  It was an amazing evening.

To top it off, a big  spider was on the deck and had spun a web from the humming bird feeder stand to the deck rail to a plant stake.  It had just finished the spokes of the web and the inner most circle when we noticed it.  We sort of stood around in a group watching the spider build this amazingly fragile web.  I’d never seen a spider build one before and thought it would take a lot longer.  In just a few minutes the circles extended out to the edges.  Then she began to add more spokes.  We gave up watching but after seeing people off, Hyperion and I stopped to check and see if we could photograph it in the dark (no luck, even with a flash).  But the web was finished and had already captured at least three victims.

I’m truly fascinated by nature and its creatures.  I’d never seen a web built from beginning to end and the first capture of food for the builder.  She obviously chose her spot well.  I’m hoping in the morning to again try to get a photo — hoping for better luck in daylight.

It’s been a busy month and we’re quickly approaching the end; and that means getting the publications up and ready to go live on September 1st. “What publications,” you ask?  Why SFRevu and Gumshoe Review.

Time usually seems to compress near the end of the month, but it seems like I had even less time than usual this month.  Well, I did go to the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver.  We drove and that add an extra 5 days to the trip.   We had a heck of a great time and brought the laptops and wireless card.  Then coming home to over a weeks worth of snail mail — that took up a lot of time.  Then there was the server crash that our ISP had.  Followed by a loss of data from our database of reviews and books when we found — or discovered accidentally — a bug in the interface software to the database (not our homegrown interface but another package) .  That meant contacting reviewers and others and checking shelves to make sure we recovered everything that we lost from that three days between the restored backup and the day we got them restored.  Whee — that was so much fun.

But it did make me think that somehow the month shrunk when I wasn’t looking.  Luckily, other than a few days of feeling like a wet noodle (and about as aware of my surrounding) this has been a productive month. Just think what I could have done if I’d really had all the days rather than only about half of them to devote to what I was supposed to do.  We will get the zines up on time and there’s going to be some great content but I can’t help thinking I could have done more.  Three days left and about ten days of work to do in them and one of those three days has been commandeered for another  purpose — which will be lots of fun but will take away from being able to tick items off my To Do list.

I keep wondering how other people budget time.  Do you get stressed out when  life and planning come up against chaos and the unexpected?  Does opting for fun in the face of a towering mountain of work seem like a cop out or a self-destructive impulse to failure?  I mean I could have turned down the fun but you can’t live for work alone now can you?

Life goes on and I had an acupuncture appointment today.  So, you see, I’m all set for stress and the push to the finish line of getting the zines up on the 1st.  And before you ask, I did finish the socks I was working on, I’ll get a picture up next month and I’ve got to start another pair of socks as soon as I figure out the number of stitches to fit on my feet versus the number needed for the pattern I want to use (more on that later too).

The last week has been a bit of a strain.  Not that anything really awful has happened.  There’s been the usual stress of gearing up for the publication of all the zines on September 1st.  Just the usual stuff of pinging all the reviewers and seeing where we stand.  Not to bad except I realized that the questions for the author interview for one of the zines never got sent — will do that tomorrow but it may be too late.

Then there was  a major code update.  Somehow, it shouldn’t have happened, but the update lost us a chunk of data from the database. Then the host servers crashed the next morning so it took longer than usual for the restore.  Then when the restore was in place, well all the work of at least two days was gone and had to be redone.  I think, as of today, that most of that has been recovered and put back in place.

Don’t you just love how computers make our lives so much more organized, in touch with others, and streamlined and then if there’s a glitch… Well, nothing can even come close to screwing up like a computer and its bits and bytes.  But now that we’re back to where we were several days ago — things are looking pretty good.

Meanwhile, while all the computer problems and stressors were going on there was the usual household stuff to do.  I’m trying to get things a bit more organized — boxed, labeled, gathered for tossing or giving away, or storing.  I’ve been pulling out the books that we don’t want to keep in our personal library and making a pile to put on Amazon for sale.  I need the bookshelf space for the book we have acquired lately and want to keep or haven’t read yet.  You’d think with all the books I review, Hyperion reviews, and that we read (from the library), that we’d never buy books.  You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.  We buy lots of books — mostly for research, reference, or just because they look like fun and the library doesn’t have it.

I also picked up some new yarn for socks today.  It’s a stretchy sock yarn in a pretty variegated  purple, yellow, pink, rosy color scheme.  Once I finish the pair I’m making now (just got the toe to do), I’ll start a pair with this yarn and using the circular needle technique to knit two socks at once.  Just need to figure out how I want them to look and find a pattern to use.

I’ve actually managed to spin four of the last eight days.  Not as much as I should but at least I’m keeping my hand (and feet) in.  I’m beginning to feel more comfortable.  I’m trying really hard to over-spin so I don’t lose so much twist when I ply.   I’m still working on using up the green top that I was working on for the Tour de Fleece.  I almost have half a spool full.  Maybe by the end of the month I’ll be plying it and setting the twist for this second skein.  It’s still a lace/sock weight yarn (with 3-ply Navaho plying).

What I have to snap out of is the funk that I seem to be in.  Everyday, it seems like I’m wading waist deep in water.  Everything just seems to take more effort.  I’m not letting it stop me.  I even walked down to the mailbox twice in the last week — I know I should be doing it every day.  But, I’m making a real effort to not give up and that’s got to count for something.  I guess what it counts for is that I keep going and eventually I will find it easier and easier to just keep going.  Maybe I should just buy more spoons, but I’m hoping to “snap out of it”.  So, since I love her work and the puzzle is so bright and cheery — I thought I’d share.  It is available through Amazon (isn’t everything).

Still expect a post only when you see one.  My schedule is a bit uneven just now.

The problem with going to a convention or taking a vacation is that life just keeps on going while you’re gone. So, when you get back you don’t start fresh, you start about one thousand feet back from the starting line.

When we got back from Denver, we returned the car and picked up our mail. The mail came in two of those big white US Postal Service bins. That was in addition to the two trash cans filled with packages that UPS and FedEx delivered while we were gone. Then last night our neighbor dropped by with two bags of mail that they had received for us.

So, the upshot is that it’s taken me three days to find the top of my desk (which is the dining room table until the office area is done….not looking like it’s coming anytime soon) so we’ve been eating in the living room off trays. Today, I found the surface of the table. Yes, I achieved success in finding spots of the table. Hyperion can now sit on his side and see me without having to stand up to peer over books, mail, and other paper debris. I’m truly psyched by this.

If I can keep going on this schedule of working ten to eleven hours I day, I may finish off — clearing the full table. However, now that I can actually find some of it. I need to now switch gears to work on a project that I need to get done in the next week since I got the last piece of information that I need (sort of, I still need a few biographical paragraphs but basically the core information is now all available).

What does that mean? It means that I may be sporadic in my posting to this blog over the coming week. But after that I should be back on schedule. There has got to be a way to expand days so that you have extra time when you need it. Coffee does help keep me going and somewhat staves off brain-collapse but what I really need is a full day of work and then some extra time to unwind and just do what I want to refresh the mental circuitry. But I didn’t have that when I worked full time and I certainly don’t seem to have it now that I’m freelance. Why is that when you work for yourself you work even harder than when you worked for someone else — it’s not like I’m going to fire me if I take a break. It’s got to be one of those weird New Englander work ethic things that just crops up when you least expect it (same way I always have to have some project going or I can’t just sit and watch TV or a movie — somehow that feels like I’m a slacker). Hmmmm. I’m going to have to think about this some more.

It’s time for a report from the cat.  It’s been a long day, and it’s not quite over yet.  This post is being written on the road … literally, we’re doing about 65 miles per hour, and we’re passing though eastern Pittsburgh.  We’re such geeks!  Anyway, we got up this morning, did bills, laundry, errands, cleaning, packing, etc.  Then  we went and got the new rental car.  While we’re there they ask us if we’d like a compact SUV instead, for no additional charge.  We asked them what the mileage was on it.   They looked blank, then looked in the computer, and smiled and told us: 18 miles per gallon.  We said in unison “No way!”.  Sure our own car has a slipping transmission, but it’s full sized AND we get 28 miles to the gallon (which I thought was pretty bad for a road trip to Denver).  So we got a Chrysler Sebring instead.  Not as good mileage as we would have liked, but still better than either the SUV they wanted to give us, or our own car.

Next stop was the dealership, which was suppose to call us two hours before with a time-to-completion estimate on  our car.  But, as usual, they still hadn’t managed to let us know anything.  While we were there, we dropped off the loaner rental car, since we had the new one and didn’t need two.  Then we popped into service to ask in person.  Nobody knew anything.   But when they checked the bay, our car wasn’t there, and it had been earlier.  So they assumed it had been finished and taken out for a test drive.  Lacking critical, need-to-know information, we sat in the waiting room for a half hour until they came to find us and let us know that the car was indeed finally ready.  We went out to pay the bill, and found they had charged us for the rental car, which they swore they weren’t going to do.  At least they the decency to look embarrassed and took the charge off.    But I’m still rather miffed that I had to find it first.

Now with car in hand, we headed back home and finished packing up all the food.  Gayle, of course, had to dither over what knitting projects to bring.  She is such a girl!  In case you’re interested, that’s three sock projects and one sweater.  Plus just a soupcon of fleece to spin with a drop spindle (which she’s now gotten good enough at that she doesn’t drop it anymore).

Okay, finally the car is packed, I’ve run back inside twice for the things we forgot but remembered before we got out of the driveway (we remembered something else, but we were 10 miles away, and I was not going back!).   Next stop was the bank for spend’en cash, and then Starbucks for a caffeine fix.  And finally we were on our way.  Of course that put us on the highway during rush hour traffic.  Fortunately, most of the HOV lanes around here are for two people, which if you stretch your imagination to include me, qualifies us.  So we were a bit delayed, but not as bad as the poor schmucks sitting all alone in their bourgoise-mobiles in the three-lane, glacially creeping, parking lot.

Late Breaking News:  We just crossed the border into Ohio!  Yeah us!!!!

Ooops, Later Breaking News: Never mind.  We misinterpreted a sign.  It would seem that the elusive Ohio  border is still about an hour away.  Sigh!

Late Late Breaking News:  We just crossed into Ohio!  For real this time.  Seriously!  You couldn’t miss the sign.  It was big enough to have it’s own weather system!

Question:  You’re on the freeway, driving down between little hillocks, only slightly raised, not even taller than the car, and sloping away from the road.   And the road is plastered with signs warning “Beware of falling rocks”.  What’s the deal here?  Asteroid strikes?  Avenging Angels?  Hill Giants?  Tired and slightly off-kiltered minds want to know.

Not much else to talk about.  We’re glad that Starbucks is omnipresent, and so therefore is caffeine.  I’m a strict adherent to the old adage: Better living through chemistry.  But only caffeine.  I may be a radical, but I’m a tame, boring one.

We’re looking for Highway 80 heading west.  That’s our ending goal for the day.  Once we find that, we’ll look for cheap accommodations and call it a night.   Back tomorrow, same cat time, same cat channel!

 On the road again!  I can’t wait to get on the road again!  Although the wind make my fur stand up on end!  I still can’t wait to get on the road again!