My manic week-before-Pennsic sewing marathon yielded 4 new tunics, 1 new skirt. Well, I still have a bit of finishing to do on one of the tunics - the trim around the neck is getting sewn on by hand. (What am I thinking? I’m thinking at least some of the hand-woven trim on the tunic should be hand-sewn. It just looks better. And I’m very grouchy about this. It really looks stunningly better… almost better enough to pull out the stitching on the trim at the bottom of the tunic. Grumble.)
I mentioned that I had to buy a new iron, right? The hand-me-down iron (which Molly and Ted gave me when they moved back to Boston) has disappeared somewhere. So, off to Best Buy I scurried! Actually, the Fop wanted to go anyway, so I tagged along.
There, on the small appliance shelves, at the far end, there was a beam of light illuminating the best of the best, the goddess of irons, the Rowenta. Everyone I know with a Rowenta has raved and I’ve never actually spent money on an iron so I disregarded the rest of the brands and examined the Rowentas. I admit, I could only bring myself to purchase the lowest model available (which was still $50). For an unworthy ironer like me, the lowest model is still amazing. The Iron Goddess Rowenta has come into my home and does my ironing for me! Seriously, this iron is so amazing it’s like I’m not even doing it myself. (I wonder how much better the $100 model really is!!!) I am filled with wonderment at this Goddess.
So I spent the rest of the week remembering how to sew with the Goddess of Irons. The Goddess really is quite good at this game. This is the first time I’ve really appreciated what an asset an iron can be while sewing. This is the first time the iron was good enough to save me tons of time. I love the Goddess Rowenta. She rocks my world and irons my fabric. (Oh, and also blows our circuits but mostly because there’s too much on this one circuit…)
Oh, and I’m on VACATION!!!
I packed up everything today… garb, food, stuff, shoes… the Fop had been collecting the gear and staging in the living room all week. He loaded everything into the trailer and Durango. Okay, I helped a little but not much. We are packed save a very short list of last-minute things such as pillows, camera bag, fruit and the pile of sewing that I finished late today. I should add water bottles. And, I should sleep.
I decided to sew for Pennsic. I made this decision Monday. Monday night, I ventured out to the horrible, giant JoAnn’s Fabrics and bought some cotton. Tuesday, I washed and pressed it. (More about the goddess of irons later…) Yesterday I cut out 4 tunics and a zillion-gore skirt. One tunic is contstructed (except for trim) and the skirt has 4 seams left to sew… of course, one is the hem. I may be crazy and not even close to packed, but I haven’t done any sewing in a couple years so this is kind of fun. I should contemplate packing.
Work is crazy. I’m trying to build a project schedule for a massive suite of projects. Hence while I’m taking a break to shake the craziness out of my head. The first half of the week involved chasing people to prep their program for a big status meeting. Fun, in some ways, but not relaxing for any of us. I’m very happy to be coming up on vacation. And it sounds like I will actually be able to take the vacation properly this year! No checking in daily!
So, in car news, my dad has learned that there’s 1 bolt that holds on the knock sensor and that it’s fairly accessible at the back of the engine. It is actually cheaper for me to fly my father, his tools and a part (which he can get wholesale) down from Maine to Philadelphia than it is to pay my mechanic to do this work. I find this obnoxious. And I’m seriously considering it. I also wonder if I could just buy the right tools and do it myself. Fixing this would make further car-buying procrastination totally viable.
More things are blooming out on the porch, including yet another plant that I’ve had for years but never seen bloom. (And it’s a serious bloom… I need to take a photo of it later.) My african violet is blossoming gleefully as well. One of my once-tiny oyster plants (Rhoeo spathacea I think) has also decided to take off and bloom. I need to do a little planting and rearranging before we leave to make the plants easier for M to water while we’re gone. But now, back to work on the Schedule of Doom.
Driving with the “Check Engine” light on is hard. If only I hadn’t dusted the dash, I wouldn’t be able to see it glaring at me quite so reproachfully.
I love my car. A lot. It’s a lovely green, 1998 Subaru Imprezza hatchback named The Green Hornet. I bought it in January of 1998 hoping to get 10 years out of it. The Hornet is a great car. It might just happen…
Over the past 9 1/2 years I have maintained it fairly faithfully. The Green Hornet has had regular fresh new tires, clean oil and filters not to mention some cosmetic work when it needed it. I have paid extra for service at the dealer over the years and more recently we became quite loyal to our local Goodyear place despite passing several other totally feasible shops on the way there not to mention the 3 within easy walking distance of the house. The Hornet recently got all new filters and a starter and the tires are pretty new as well.
Before I left for Connecticut last week[1], the dreaded Check Engine light on the dash came on. Since I recently cleaned my car for the first time in years (no hyperbole in this case) so Jon and K could toddle down to D.C., the light was quite clear and bright. I took it to my shop today to get the code read[2]. The code came out as a bad knock sensor.
For the uninitiated, a knock sensor monitors engine vibrations (aka knocking) and aids in engine performance. (And prevents potential engine damage.) The sensor communicates to the onboard computer so that the timing can be adjusted for optimal fuel economy, reduced emissions and best performance.[3]
In short, in order to pass the emissions part of the state inspection, I would need to replace the sensor to the tune of over $300. But wait! I don’t need to pass the emissions test. The advantage to my loyalty to my current shop is that I learned today that the reason my car didn’t require emissions testing last inspection was that I drove it less than 5000 miles between stickers. I’ll be under 5000 again this year unless I get wanderlust and drive 2000 miles between now and the end of September. (Working from home has a lot of advantages… like filling up my gas tank about every 6 weeks.)
So, while one of my goals is to save the planet and I do love my car, I think I’m going to take a pass on replacing the knock sensor at this time. The plastic packaging on the new sensor is more than enough to cancel out any excess emissions my car might have between now and next Spring. This is a hard choice to have made because it means I’m starting to admit it might not be worth it to put more money into my car. This also means I’m now saving up for a new car. Luckily, I’ve already narrowed my choices with years of window shopping. I suspect I will be insufferable when it comes to making a final decision though.[4]
Then again, maybe I can get 11 years out of my wonderful Green Hornet…
[1] Hey! I went up north for work last week! It was exciting, productive and kind of fun in a twisted work-a-holic way. I should go more often. Seriously.
[2] Reason #4520 to move back to New England: my brother has a code reader and could have saved me the charge today. Or I could get my own reader and save everyone down here from having to pay just to find out what the stupid code says.
[3] This all has to do with combustion and pistons and all that yummy engine stuff. I could explain more, but you get the gist.
[4] There will be much waffling and probably tears. You have been warned.
I have a lot of plants, many of them trees of various sizes (including the big, 6 foot Norfolk Pine my mother rescued from my piano teacher when it was a wee tree 20+ years ago). When I lived in the partially submerged condo, indoor gardening was a challenge. I used painter’s lamps with grow bulbs to keep my plants happy. Now that we have a fabulous sun porch, I have tried not to go too wild with plants. Really. Well, at least until this year’s flower show when I came home with a bunch of small trees and plants. (As always, you can click on the thumbnails of the photos below to get the bigger versions.)
Last month one of my plants did something I didn’t know it could do: it blossomed! darwins_fox turned me on to the awesome purple passion vine and gave me a cutting from her plant way back when. The vine was a little more finicky than my plants at the time, so it didn’t survive. A couple years ago when Sarah and Don came down to Philly, I bought a new little purple passion vine in a 3″ pot. Like almost everything living on my porch, it has flourished and grown and is now living in a much bigger pot and is quite a plant. (And I learned through trial and error that this plant really likes good drainage for its pot.) And then… there were flowers. They’re bizarre little flowers - just a tuft of yellow on a long bud until it goes to seed in a big puff of white wispies. Very cool.
In other indoor gardening news and in the category statements that sound like euphemisms but really aren’t:
My pomegranate tree has a large fruit. (It’s really a dwarf pomegranate tree.)
My kumquat is in bloom.
Oh and both my crown of thrones plants are still flowering. The older one has been flowering non-stop for 3.5 years.
As always, I have potting and repotting to do. It’s time to start saturating the plants with water more often than usual so that they’re less picky about watering while we’re at Pennsic. I need to pick up more seed for kitty grass too.
China executes Food and Drug Chief: After a series of very serious issues and big scandals attached to Chinese exports, China make a bold move. Of course, China is so behind in food and drug oversight that this execution won’t fix the safety problems. I guess the hope is that it will serve as a warning/inspiration to the oversight agency and the industries in the spotlight lately.
Schtickers: Fun, removeable wallpaper for the outside of your laptop! If you’re totally awesome, creative and patient, you can end up with a gorgeous laptop like this one.
Apple Evolution: My current desktop image and a beautifully composed image of Apple products through the years.
Ngorongoro Conservation Area: Thanks to the Travel Channel, this is my first “dream adventure” in a long time. And I really desperately want to go - there’s a lot to see in that area of Africa!
Explosives, light and cameras, oh my! I’ve posted a set of my fireworks pics from last week. These are all from the Upper Darby display on the 1st. We saw fireworks on the 4th but it was raining so I didn’t pull out the camera. I’m definitely going to take my tripod next year! Fritz has some awesome fireworks shots up as well (they’re up over here too). You can never have too many fabulous fireworks photos to distract you, right? Most of Fritz’s photographs actually look like fireworks and are totally amazing. (And they are exactly what convinced me that I need to take my tripod next year!)
Several of my photos look odd and funky - vaguely like sci-fi sky vistas from a far-away planet. That’s part of the fun though - seeing how the random shots come out and how even the ones that aren’t strictly “good” make your imagination wander much like your imagination gets going during the display itself. There’s something about fireworks that just inspires glee in my heart. I think I mentioned that I had my screen saver using the fireworks photos. Seeing them drifting across the screen when I glance over at the Mac while working is fun.
Visitors for the new guest room! Jon and Kirsten arrived last week on the 4th proper and we settled them into to the freshly painted guest room! The baby animals are gone and the walls all have fresh sheetrock and are a lovely blue!! (Before/beige and after/blue pictures! Remarkably the rug still kinda works.) This also means the walls are smooth and mostly flat! Very exciting for our rather unique house. The contractors have another week or so until they finish up the master bath and patch the ceiling and paint in the dining room. The celery-hay color got old and I need it to go away! We picked a sagey green for the walls and will be keeping the trim white. It’ll be nice to get an even coat of paint on the walls. I might even put up curtains after this! (Don’t hold your breath!)
Excursions while Jon and Kirsten were here included Independence Mall, the Liberty Bell, Monk’s, the Japan House (the koi have grown) and a vain attempt to see the Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute. Alas I had not grasped that the tickets had times attached to them and we didn’t have quite enough time to wait for the next available slot. And probably the week of the 4th isn’t the best time to be trying to see the big sights in Philly… But at least it wasn’t as hot as last time they visited us!
Weather = too hot This week is as hot as the last time Jon and Kirsten came to visit. It’s 100° F out there and the heat is staying through Wednesday. The National Weather service has had a heat advisory in effect since yesterday. In short, it’s bloody hot.
I’m missing the WebCT reunion tonight, which is kind of a bummer but I really couldn’t justify a trip to Boston with how work is going this month. Next week I’ll be in Connecticut for meetings and stuff - if only they hadn’t been rescheduled! (Originally they were scheduled for this week so I would have been up in the area for the reunion…)
June Stats!
Oh hey, I’ve been meaning to post these too…
Fireworks are Fun.
It’s also quite fun to set your screen saver to pull images from the folder of fireworks photos. I get to have mini-fireworks displays on my computer now! Okay, so they’re rather static, but they’re fun! I think we have a plan for more fireworks tomorrow too. YAY!
Particular Politicians are pussies.
Paris Hilton apparently has more balls than George Bush and Scooter Libby because she can handle a few days in jail. Scooter Libby lies under oath and undermines the principals our justice system is based on, and his sentence gets commuted? Give me a break.
Somen Saha Sings
One of the crew from WebCT, one of the crazy crew, was a brilliantly smart and smart-assed DBA named Somen Saha. Somen was destined for bigger things than simply saving the world with Oracle databases. He headed back to India last year to become a star. That’s right, Somen now saves the world as a pop star. That’s one of his music videos below. Of course, his provile on LinkedIn still says he’s some sort of fluffy-techy thing. ;) Really, being a pop star suits him very well. The rest of the album, titled “One Way”, sounds entertaining too and I may have to buy it. I hope his career takes off and he comes here on a world tour!!!
Hurray for fireworks! Both Drexel Hill and Upper Darby did their fireworks displays last night. Philadelphia appears to have done theirs on Saturday. We went to the Upper Darby ones and they were pretty entertaining. While I appreciate the desire to have a holiday weekend event like fireworks on an actual weekend, I’m a bit baffled too. Both the town (Drexel Hill) and the township (UD) did their displays on the same night, half an hour apart and almost within sight of each other. When we were walking down to the High School for the Upper Darby fireworks, we caught glimpses of the Drexel Hill display at the Middle School through the trees in the cememtery. What baffles me is why would they put on 2 displays so close together the same night? Why not do one on the weekend and one on the 4th? While, had I known, it would have amused me to go to both, it seems silly to jam it all into one night. Okay, yes, I’m greedy when it comes to fireworks. But but but… the kids would love 2 nights of fireworks too!!!
Once upon a time, in Vancouver, I spent several lovely nights sitting on the beach watching fireworks over English Bay. They are still by far the best fireworks displays I’ve ever seen, in part because they were set to music. The festival didn’t happen for a couple years, I heard, due to regulations regarding tobacco company advertising/sponsorship. The International Fireworks Festival is back now - this time sponsored by a bank instead of a tobacco company. The festival brings in 3 teams of pyrotechnics artists for spectacular 30-45 minute dispays. The finale nights are amazing because all three teams get to show off. Unfortunately, this year’s festival is the first week of Pennsic. Maybe next year I’ll splurge on a trip out for fireworks! Hopefully we’ll be able to find some on the 4th too!
Obviously, I brought the camera along last night. It was beautiful weather and we didn’t bother to go down into the crowds at the HS itself but instead hung out on the sidewalk across the street. The view was actually pretty good. There were some low fireworks we couldn’t see as well, but we could see most of the display over the school. It was worth it to avoid the massive crowd.
I took about 160 photos hoping for about a 10% return in good shots. I ended up with about 20% of the photos being good enough that I might share them but I can’t bring myself to delete any of the others. Even the horribly long exposures make for interesting photos. Some of them look like foreign starscapes from a scifi world. You can definitely tell that I didn’t bother with a tripod. But all things considered, I’m pretty happy with my first bunch of fireworks shots! And now, I want more fireworks!
