Christmas Tonight

Such a lovely few days so far in the country. Despite all the snow and whatnot Friday, both my brother and I succeeded in getting here, if a little later than planned. We were lucky enough to miss the freezing rain on the weekend that got Toronto and other parts - not a hiccup on the part of our electricity, (and even if it had conked out, we've got a well and a wood stove, so it's not a big issue). The scenery is beautiful outside, even if you're not facing one of the bird-feeders with dozens of little finches and other birds bouncing around in a bird version of Brownian motion.

Mom and I got to a performance of Handel's Messiah by a local group on Saturday, which was really very good, and of course much more interesting when you know half the people singing, including a friend's mother who taught me to spin years ago.

Had a nice visit with a friend who came down yesterday - after she managed to get here. Due to a misunderstanding of road names, she got lost, and was delivered here by the postman. He pulled into the yard and honked like he does for parcels if you need to sign, then asks me if I'd heard about the merger between Canada Post and CAA...at which point I noticed the second car that had arrived and got the joke!

And today I got Skype set up on my computer, so we could have a chat with my sister and her boyfriend. They couldn't come for Christmas - they just bought a house in Whitehorse, and are saving up vacation days to visit in the spring when they come to move furniture back there - so this was the next best thing, opening presents and chatting together, seeing their house - we had a virtual tour, thanks to the power of laptops -  and showing them the new cat here.

Pity they aren't here to help us eat Christmas dinner, but I suppose we'll manage. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Hard and Soft

New computer - Yay! - is up and running. Dynascape is up, and I know it works, because I did my first assignment on it. All the little essentials like MS Office and Photoshop are installed too - and I did it all by myself. Very proud. Really rather sad to reflect, though, that the IT people at school are pretty much useless. Had completely off-track diagnoses from them, but between my classmates and a bit of reading and common sense, I got along fine despite that misdirection.

Finished spinning the beige cria while I waited for various things to upload and install, and polished off a pair of gloves while watching online videos for class (testing the kit quantities for my Andean pattern). But really, the fiber-y side hasn't been very active lately, and there are so many things I want to do! I'm having a craving to knit sweaters, especially after seeing Cora and Pull Me Over recently on Ravelry. (No! Bad! Must finish WIP sweater first!) And I want a chullo rather than a tam for some of the cold days.

What I have been doing instead of playing with the soft stuff is exactly the opposite - starting the 'Lego for Grownups' construction in class. Rather fun, actually. Our group is working on a water feature for the first couple weeks. There's a semi-circular basin, pieced together with pavers.

A pump insert fits inside.

Then a back wall goes up, which will be support for a little waterfall. Some of the pavers have to be split to fit, or have the edges roughened.

The water will fall into the basin, where all the plastic of the insert will be covered with pebbles. I think the waterfall may light up, also, when we're done. Pretty cool.

Computer Bad; Quilts Good; News Sad

Still playing 'Fight the Computer'. Now it turns out the download from school, which I thought was Windows 7, is only an update. This after 2 attempts at downloading and a visit to IT at school. Which means I still need to beg or borrow a disk from someone of a reasonably recent Windows OS (Vista or XP), install it and partition the drive, THEN update to Windows 7 before I can put in the program I need. Beginning to wonder if the hassle is worth it.

Right, so now I've got that off my chest, something more fun...I skipped the Weaving and Spinning Guild meeting the other week in favor of the Quilter's Guild. The program for the night was a trunk show by Elaine Quehl, and a traveling display of mini art quilts from SAQA, which stands for Studio Art Quilt Associates.

Elaine I had met a couple times before, through a mutual friend. She does hand-dyed fabric, and the most incredible, often botanically inspired, art quilts using her fabrics. Click the link. Check them out in the gallery. Wonderful use of color and form.

SAQA was completely new to me. I must admit I'm not really drawn to abstract art, but I do think their idea of a traveling show is pretty neat. A whole group of small quilted panels by all different people, each piece maybe a foot square and framed individually, and sent from place to place to show people what art quilting can be. I think someone said this particular group had Hong Kong on its itinerary, so they are really traveling around. A virtual look at the show can be found on the SAQA website, for anyone curious.

One other piece of news to share, rather sad. (Stop here if you wish). The parents are back to one dog, and down one chicken. Allie made it rather obvious that even after being there for several weeks, she couldn't be trusted with the other animals unless under supervision. Mom had already scolded her away from the chickens that day, and she was being good. The minute Mom went off to check on the laundry, though, Allie tore one of the chickens to pieces, then compounded the felony by trying to hide the evidence, asking for the body back when it was discovered, and terrorizing one of the cats into hiding in the woodpile all night (found the next morning, cold and hungry but unharmed). Add that to the fact that she was showing a bit of a tendency to snap at people over the holidays, when everyone was home, and Mom felt they had no real choice but to put her down. She said she cried all day about it, but they couldn't risk keeping her, and wouldn't have felt right about giving someone else a dog that might harm them or their animals, especially in a rural area. Best case, she'd have to be chained or confined all the time (and what kind of life is that?); worst case, someone would abandon her again, or put her down after another person or animal got hurt. So there was no real way to make that a happy ending, unfortunately. Sometimes it just doesn't work, hard as you try.

Alea Jacta Est

That's Latin for 'The die is cast'. Tradition states it's what Caesar said when he crossed the Rubicon river (which was the border into Italy - bringing his army into Italy was pretty much a declaration of war).

The phrase is, understandably, in my head. The die is cast, the Rubicon crossed - I went out and bought the new computer today. And I don't doubt I'll be fighting it for a few days. I got the basic set-up done at the store, but the Apple people didn't want to mess with the PC aspects. There's a whole set of steps I have to tackle now, which seem to be needed to get the thing into order so I can use the CADD software I need for school.

In fact, come to think of it, it's now a little less Caesar and a little more 'The house that Jack built' or 'For want of a nail...'. I need Dynascape CADD installed for school. To install Dynascape, I need Windows 7 installed, and I need to set up Bootcamp and partition my computer. I can download Windows from school - but I also need to download support software, and need to burn it all to a disk for installation. And guess who cleaned up a while back? I could find only 2 CD/DVD disks in the house, and the computer says it can't burn onto either. So I'm stalled out for lack of a disk, at the moment.

Monday I shall tackle the computer people at school, see if they have a disk of Windows, or buy a blank and try this again.

I think I can install some of my other stuff in the meantime - Adobe and Office. And I have plans for a felted computer case, but won't start it until I'm sure this is up and running what it should - the guy at the store said they have a good return policy, if this doesn't work out. Fingers crossed it does!

New Skills Week

I feel like this week has involved doing more new-to-me things than usual. Not big things, mind you, but still new.

Tuesday the bathroom sink blocked up. It had been running slow for a while, and I tried the whole baking soda/hot vinegar thing, but no real improvement. I unbent a coat hanger and went fishing, and brought up some gunk, but the sink was still blocked. So I bit the bullet and bought a drain auger, and went at it. 10 minutes of work yielded a running sink, a large amount of stuff that looked to be mostly composed of dirt and hair, and a good workout for the cat, who spent the time chasing the other end of the spring, which was wiggling around on the floor. The dirt I understand (I garden), but the hair is a puzzler, as I don't shave in the sink and the cat doesn't sit in the sink.

Tuesday also my computer, which was dying, gave up completely. Fortunately I never got around to getting rid of the last one, which still works. It's an ancient laptop (remember the ones that were over an inch thick and had their own briefcase?) but has most of what I need. Another first - I installed a program on it. I got to love the photo editor program on the newer computer, and I had the program CD from my father, so set that up and went happily back to work.

Wednesday's new thing was at least not due to anything breaking down. At spinning night, we were doing kind of a spindle testing night - bring your own and/or try others. One of the spindles was a Russian type, which is totally different from a drop spindle (no notch or disc, it looks more like a nostepinne), and runs more like a great wheel or a charkha in that you turn it with one hand and draft with the other, and the yarn spirals off the spindle tip. That took me a few minutes to get the hang of. It's cool, but slow (at least in my hands) compared to a regular drop spindle. I can see how it would help with a very delicate or short fiber, but I don't think I'll be switching anytime soon.