My Life, Illustrated

Big Weekend

2005-10-06T22:53:00.000-07:00

It's a big weekend upon us here at Casa Tres, as Pop is arriving on Amtrak from points East in the morning. Having been 6 1/2 years since his last visit, its interesting to look back at how my life has changed in that time. Don't worry, this isn't going to be one of those lame flashback sitcom episodes presented blog style [or is it bloggie-style?]; I'll spare you the details.

O.K., just one flashback. Back in 1999, I bought a potted cactus for my patio, for the barbeque I threw for all my friends in Pop's honor. It was about 18" tall, now it is over 6' tall with big branching arms!

We will go to the Getty, go shopping, hang out, drink old fashioneds, and eat lots of really good food.

If my old man knows anything, its how to have a good time, and a good time we shall have.

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Sock Update:

Sadly, the sock didn't fit the intended foot; too short through the length of the foot. I apparently started the toe too soon. I will finish the second sock before I rip the toe and lengthen. They say your first sock is an experiment. I'm taking it in stride. Photo next week.

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In Other News:

Since I don't have any knitting photos, I'll leave you with a couple views of the construction site a week ago, with the big red clouds in the sky from all the fires in the San Fernando Valley.

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Confession:

Pop isn't just coming to visit, he's coming for my birthday.

For some reason, this one isn't like the others. I'm having issues with my age. How lame is that? I know I should get over it and just get on with my life. And I do, at times, experience the pleasure of expertise that comes about from having been around the block a couple of times [especially when I'm around my students LOL]. I'm not even old, but there's something about moving past mid-30's and firmly into late 30's that has me worked up this year.

Enter, Pop: how great is it, that on the first birthday that I've ever freaked out about my age, my old man can show up and make me feel like the luckiest kid in the world?

How Not to Learn to Kitchener

2005-10-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

Suppose you have a sock, your first sock even, and you've been working on it for a few weeks [or a few months] and you are finally ready to graft together the toe. You've been putting it off because you've been really busy and distracted lately, and this is no longer mindless knitting. You need to sit down quietly, with a clear head, and really focus with your manual and that little tapestry needle, and learn this new technique with the funny name:

KITCHENER

That was exactly the situation I found myself in last night. So what did I do? I followed the above instructions exactly, almost. After some pizza and wine, I got comfy on the bed, poured myself another glass, got out my knitting and my copy of Ann Budd [God Bless Ann Budd!] and popped Mary Tyler Moore Season 1 into the DVD player.

O.K., so there were a few distractions in the room. Did I mention that there were two dogs also on the bed? I gave it my best shot. Its not a difficult technique, really. But you must pay attention, and you should be willing to back up and start over if you find that you have lost your place. Otherwise, your kitchener will turn out something like this:

Bad Kitchener!

But take heart! Life is just like a TV rerun, you can always start over again the next day, almost as if nothing ever happened. Even if you've already woven in the ends. Just think of Mary Richards, out there making it on her own.

You can do it!

Behold, I give you my kitchener:

Good Kitchener!

Arcadian Peafowl

2005-09-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

I had two big adventures worth blogging this week.

Monday, when I got to school, I was apparently running on too little sleep and/or coffee to remember that in the morning fog [both atmospheric and cranial] I had turned my lights on. They must have lasted for a couple of hours; I've left them on for the entire duration of my piano lesson before, and my truck started right up like no problem at all. Alas, this was not the case last Monday.

Cut to the end of the day, and there I was, feeling like a total retard, asking campus police for a jump. After a bit of waiting around, they came with a battery hookup thing on wheels, fired up my old '61 Ford, and off I went.

I wanted to go to the gym on my way home, but I was afraid to turn my truck off for fear that the battery wouldn't be charged that soon. Instead, I drove East on Colorado Boulevard, curious about what lay in the lands to the East of Pasadena, having never explored that area.

Things weren't looking as interesting as I'd hoped they might. There were a couple of nice-looking older buildings to see, but nothing worth looping back around the block to photograph. After about 15 minutes of blandness that hovered between newer, boring suburban looking buildings and older, boring looking buildings, just as the sun was starting to angle low in the sky, the red generator warning light lit up my dashboard.

O.K., architecture tour over. Turn the ship around and head for home, STAT! All this driving had taken me further from home than where I'd started at school, and if I had to call AAA there would surely have been that extra mileage charge for the tow. Plus, I really didn't want to deal with more waiting around for more roadside assistance.

Just then, the landscape made an abrupt change. Dingy roadside stucco gave way to tall lush trees. The road started winding along some sort of embankment on the left, with a really lovely neighborhood on the right. CITY OF ARCADIA said the sign. The road was two lanes each way, and because of the curves I didn't feel safe making a u-turn there. I made a right into the neighborhood, to find a place to turn around.

At the first intersection I came to, the road was wide and I came about, ready to head for home, when I stopped. There were birds in the road, but not just any birds. Big birds with funny crowns on their heads.

apparently the local teenagers have it in for someone on this street

Now, I live in Highland Park, which is almost like living in Mexico. I say this not having ever lived in Mexico myself, but as I sit here writing this, I hear my nieghbor's radio blairing out that bouncy Mexican music that sounds like polka, and most of the billboards and signs in store windows around here are en espanol, not english. Where am I going with this, you ask? Here's where: I'm used to seeing chickens wandering around, even ducks. There are several yards around here with fowl of various sorts, sometimes strutting in the front yard openly, occasionally only heard from behind a fence. Once I saw beautiful, exotic looking black chickens wandering in the road on a side street near a place I like to go for coffee. I find it charming, and consider it to be one of the best assets of my nieghbors from South of the border, that they have this fondness for their birds.

I had never seen free-range peacocks on a neighborhood street. Generator light or no, I had no choice but to whip out my camera.

I guess these people take their arcadian lifestyle pretty seriously.

I remember watching David Letterman once when he had the high school champion bird callers on the show. One of them was imitating the Peafowl. He asked them to explain what bird that was. They said the female was Pea Hen, the male was Pea Cock, and the baby was Pea Chick. Somehow that fact stuck in my brain. It's a good thing it stuck, because here I was, and I actually used that information. I'm not sure whether these are hens or cocks.

This was my drive home, West back down Colorado Boulevard, into the sunset.

I made it home, and didn't have to call auto club. Now that its the weekend, I'm sure glad to add 'charging the battery on my truck' to my list of chores. I was wondering what I would do with all my spare time this weekend.

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Knitting and Architecture

Wednesday and Thursday, I took my students on a field trip to the Schindler House in West Hollywood. Schindler came to Los Angeles from Vienna, by way of Chicago, where he worked for Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright sent him to L.A. to supervise construction of the Hollyhock House. Schindler decided to stay in L.A. and set up his own practice. He built his own house in 1922, where he lived and worked until his death in 1953. The genius of the house is hard to convey in pictures or a short blog entry. For further reading, I recommend Schindler House by Kathryn Smith.

Since I had 3 hours between classes and didn't want to go all the way home in between, I brought my sock to knit:

That's the sleeping basket on the roof.

It really pained me to have to sit in the bamboo grove behind the house and contemplate Schindler's contribution to architecture while knitting Koigu on #2 bamboo needles.

The sock poses in front of Schindler's studio-room.

And here is the sock as of this morning.

I made it past the instep decrease last night. I continued the 1x1 rib down the instep and stopped it when I finished the decrease. I ended the 1x1 rib with a row of purl stitches to give it a sharper edge, which I think worked. I need to go a little further down the foot to really be able to see it.

At this point I'm basically hell-bent on finishing this thing.

Socks Ahoy!

2005-09-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are picts of the socks in progress:

L to R: Trekking; Koigu

Trekking: Ready for heel flap.

Koigu: Turned the heel last night.

Did you get that?

I turned the heel last night!!!

And it worked!

Hooray!

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In other news:

I rode my motorcycle for the first time today.

This was a weekend for firsts!

I got the motorcycle almost two years ago as a semi-disassembled bunch of parts. It turns out that my neighbor Mark has almost the identical bike. It only took us a couple of weekends to get the thing running. So yesterday, I went out and got a final, crucial piece of equipment:

See Mom? I'm being careful!

Now that the thing was running, I knew that if I didn't take decisive action, it would sit around for another couple of years before I ever got around to licensing it [or myself] and actually using it. So, Mark motored us over to a nearby empty parking lot for some riding lessons. I had a ball. I will need some practice before taking my driving test, but its not hard to handle at all.

The bike is a 1971 BMW R60/5, modeled below by the MLI Spokesdogs, P + T.

I'm really looking forward to 50 miles per gallon.

Madness I Tell You [and Hats!]

2005-09-15T10:50:00.000-07:00

[skip to the end for knitting content]

I just came up for air and realized there was a blog needing some attention, not that there are any readers left at this point.

I have started my new job, teaching drawing at a local community college. Back in late June I reported on this as an upcoming big life change, which was an understatement.

The way the community college system is set up, teaching three classes is considered a full load for faculty. I don't know about other universities or school systems. Anyway, I was assigned to teach two sections of first-semester drawing class, and one section of second semester [for the students who started last semester or took last semester off, etc.] These three classes together are actually slightly more than a full-time assignment, and I am on what's called an overload schedule. Not overtime, mind you, but overload.

Well, they also had a third section of the first-semester class with no teacher and no ideas about who to hire. So, with the promise of an additional [but as-yet unspecified] amount of overload pay on top of my pre-existing overload, I agreed to take that class too, for a total of 4 classes with about 110 students. I have consequently been up to my eyeballs in class prep and field trip organizing.

Practicing piano? Oh, that thing I pass several times each morning and evening as I move around the house for a couple hours changing clothes and brushing my teeth? Hahahaha. Poor neglected piano.

Dogs? Poor P + T now have the excitement of Sandy the Dog Walker who stops by on Tuesday and Thursday when I'm at night class to feed them and take them around the block.

I even missed the big power outage the other day. I only barely heard about it on the news, but Crazy Aunt Purl has a great account of it here. Apparently the campus has backup power or gets their power from someone else, and/or doesn't bother telling faculty when stuff like this goes down.

In other news, I saw a plant bloom that I'd never seen before. You know those weird house plants called Mother-In-Law's Tongue? I'm plant-sitting some for my friend Dino, and low and behold, it bloomed:

At first I thought it was a weed. Then I realized it was attached to the rest of the plant.

Also, my little sister Allison has launched her website, amid much excitement and fanfare. Go check her out. Fabulous is an understatement with her.

Knitting News:

Well, there is some interesting stuff to report, and my special apologies to knitting readers for the extended absence.

Tune in towards the end of the weekend for pictures, I promise.

Trekking Sock #1 is about 25% done, I am about to start the heel flap.

Koigu Sock #1 is into the heel flap, maybe 30% done.

And, 2 [can you believe it?] new Local Yarn Shops have cropped up.

LYS #1 is That Knitting Store in Eagle Rock that opened recently, and is truly local to my house. Got the needles for Koigu Sock #1 there. Review to follow.

LYS #2 is Skein in Pasadena. Very good selection of sock yarn, including Trekking, but no Koigu. More details about this place to follow too. I want to visit the LYSs again before I publish my reviews.

Cheers for now; I'm off to class!

Summer Travels

2005-07-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

[I'm resisting a strong urge to rant but I really don't want to start off that way. So here are some fun and beautiful things instead:]

Hats I Knit on the Plane for my Nieces

You can read more about the family visit over at Emily's blog. There's a pic of me in action with needles in hand. After I dropped off the gift hats to the girls, followed by a spirited teaching of the card game "Go Fish" to my little 5-year old nephew [its clear that my avuncular mind powers and influence are taking hold BWA HA HA HA HA] it was time to get on with the real purpose of my trip:

The Rest of the Week in New York with Phideaux!

We had a glorious time, and it was especially fun due to the fact that Downtown Yarns is around the corner from his apartment.

I brought that thrift-store fantasia tweed yarn on the plane, and the freindly and helpful girl at DY helped me pick burgundy nature wool to go with it, which worked beautifully, shown in swatch below:

They have the Sweater Wizard computer program there, and she worked up a cardigan pattern for me for free! So, here is the WIP:

If I'm lucky, it might come off the needles in time for late winter.

Also on the needles:

I'm Goin' Trekking!

short socks in Trekking #100

I'm Back with Pictures

2005-06-28T07:26:00.000-07:00

Hi Friends!

I'm back with great news: I'm going to be teaching drawing full-time at a local city college starting in the fall.

Here's how it happened:

The beginning of the summer turned out to be extremely difficult and demanding on me, for a variety of reasons. Then, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. It wasn't the end of the tunnel after all, and it wasn't an oncoming train either. It was a guy with a flashlight, looking for something.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"I'm looking for someone to teach drawing to a bunch of kids at city college this fall. Know anyone who can do that?"

"Yep," I replied, "look no further, I'm your man."

And that was pretty much it.

Changes are afoot! This is a big step for me. I've taught before but never full-time.

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Meanwhile, I got to spend a recent afternoon driving around Chicago.

I made a pilgrimage stop at Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House on the South side of town.

If you think its hard to assemble a composite photo, try doing one of a Frank Lloyd Wright house! Not easy.

This one is a rough draft.

So I'm back. Sorry about the long absence.

Go Check This Out

2005-06-06T23:13:00.000-07:00

Everyone go look, Emily finished Mariah.

Of special and worthy note, she extended the cableing all the way around the hood, and its super fabulous.

She better bring it with when she comes a-visitin' later this month [hint, if you're reading this, Em.] It can definitely be cool enough in June in L.A. to wear a sweater out in the evening.

Hooray for Big Sis and finished objects. I wish I had one to post.

Bear with me, readers, as I blog vicariously.

I Passed My Exams!

2005-05-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

Back in April, I took my General Structures and Lateral Forces exams, working towards getting my architecture license.

Read all about it here.

Well, the letter finally came yesterday; I passed both!

Today, therefore, I am slightly feeling the effects of a fabulous celebration at Typhoon restaurant at the Santa Monica Airport last evening. Not really hung over, but a vague cloud floating around the front of my brain [thank the sake] and garlic infusion that seems to permeate my entire body. Mmmmmm, garlic.

Four more exams to go; I think I'll hold off on any more major exam-related celebrations until I finish them once-and-for-all and finally get the paper.

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Just for kicks, here's a pic of a shop window in Chinatown, in San Francisco from Thanksgiving weekend, 2003. Not much connection to my exams, but I hate to post without a picture of something.

Composite Photos from the Jobsite

2005-05-25T19:28:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of photos from the construction site, the day the steel stairs arrived from the shop and were craned off the truck.

I love it when the big heavy equipment shows up and performs superhuman feats!

Here's the flatbed truck with one stair of three, waiting its turn.
You can see one other stair in the background, dangling from the crane.

This shows where stair #2 will get bolted into place.

That day I was photographing like mad, just high on the excitement of it all.

Too bad every day isn't as much fun!

Architecture Lesson #1

2005-05-18T22:20:00.000-07:00

Let us take a break from the gripping Tales of Adventure in San Diego for a brief discussion in the history of architecture.

Consider the Pantheon in Rome, photographed here during my trip to Italy last summer:

The Pantheon was built by Emperor Hadrian, around 120 a.d. As it was converted into a catholic church sometime around 609 a.d., it survived antiquity intact. The marble interior is mostly the original Roman marble [except for the upper portion, which was re-done in the rennaisance, in an effort to improve it. Funny.] The huge bronze doors are believed to be the only ones in the world to have survived since antiquity. Almost all of the bronze from the ancient world was melted down in the aptly named Dark Ages for re-casting as weaponry.

The tremendous thing about the space itself is that the interior height of the dome is equal to the diameter of the great round chamber.

San Diego Part I

2005-05-12T22:46:00.000-07:00

Well, friends and readers, here is a brief Part I of the trip to San Diego to visit my cousin, Ed.

I pulled out of Los Angeles on the mid-afternoon Amtrak Surfliner.

I love taking the train; they have a bar and everything! Plus, you can knit the whole way while all those jerks on the freeway are stuck in their cars. I'm usually one of those jerks, so the train is a real treat.

Here's the 6th Street bridge over the L.A. River. Its one of my favorites of the old downtown bridges. I love the combination of steel and concrete. Most of them are just concrete. The steel arches are really elegant.

Downtown L.A. and the L.A. River as I leave behind the city I love and love to hate.

I took a lot of rapid-fire pictures of passing freight trains thinking I would paste them all together as an experimental abstract collage of colors and shapes. This is about a third of them.

The train at the Santa Fe Depot in downtown San Diego.

The Surfliner has an upper and lower level.

Santa Fe Depot is quite lovely inside. The tile work is especially nice. Don't you hate seeing those vulgar no smoking signs messing up that beautiful tile panel? That's a major pet peeve of mine: the endless government signs, posters, and billboards bombarding us constantly these days, all of them warnings or behavior-modification propaganda messages.

Makes you wonder how the human race survived the preceeding thousands of years when people were just expected to think for themselves. But, I digress.

More adventures to follow, including knitting content! Stay tuned . . .

Blue Hat I: Not My Best Knitting

2005-05-06T18:59:00.000-07:00

Since I can't seem to get it together with all the photos I wanted to blog from last weekend's trip to San Diego, I will just throw together a few shots of Todd and me modeling the blue and brown beanie that I finished on Friday night at Ed's. I still hope to get the photos up sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Later this summer you'll witness the transformation of that mess in the background!

I did accomplish some worthwhile goals with this hat. I finally figured out how to work a stripe in the round and then bring the old color up one row so the stripe doesn't stagger when you join it back together. That had puzzled me for a some time and I'm glad to have figured it out.

Look how hard I worked to get the decreases as uneven and random looking as possible!

Also, even though this is just crappy acrylic yarn [Patons' Canadiana, to be precise] and not my best knitting, I'm extremely happy to have knit myself a beanie with a good overall look and fit. I've hardly had the thing off my head all week! I have a drawer full of store-bought beanies, and I am very excited to gradually replace them with better, hand-knit versions.

At the last second I decided to add a 4th stripe.

I swear that stray blue stitch wasn't there the other day! Where'd that come from?

So emboldened was I from the success of my blue and brown acrylic hat, that I bought a skein of dark blue alpaca yarn at a shop in San Diego, along with some other goodies, for my next hat! Stay tuned for updates.

"Woof!"

Wanted: Flippy, Summery Pink Scarf

2005-05-04T13:32:00.000-07:00

My big sis Emily has the blahs, and writes, "Any suggestions for a pattern for flippy, summery, pink scarf would be appreciated"

Anyone have any ideas? Speak up, then!

Meanwhile, I'm trying to get a big post together on my adventures last weekend with my cousin, Ed, in San Diego. Stay tuned, I should have it up by tomorrow afternoon.

Hello, anyone?

2005-04-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Anyone know what these are?

I'm still trying to figure out this 'Hello' thing with Mark.

Its becoming clear that the technotard here is not the user having trouble figuring it out, but rather the person who came up with this software, who failed to include any more detailed instructions than "Use Hello to share pictures with your friends!"

Here's their instructions on how to use it to get pictures on your blog:

How do I get started?
If you're already a Blogger member, just download and run Hello. BloggerBot will automatically be added to your friends list, and you can log in and get started posting pictures right away.

Oh, I get it. I just download and run Hello, and get started posting pictures right away. That's as much detail as they offer.

In truth, its just a teensy bit more complicated than that, and there are no step-by-step instructions. Thanks to those who wrote in with tips. I honestly can't see how you figured those things out.

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I'm off to practice my piano.

I'm working on Beethoven:

Piano Sonata #8, first movement.

I'm learning the part with all the rapid-fire turns. Challenging, but fun

The Man With One Leg

2005-04-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

a short poem I wrote on the way to work this morning:

He's amazing to see, the man with one leg;

He's older than me, though I don't know his age.

As I sit, stuck in traffic, he whizzes right by -

on his bicycle! His bicycle! And I

Am amazed and inspired by this man with one leg,

in his safety-green vest and grey hair.

He'll be at work before me, and on with his day,

while I'm waiting for cars to move, going nowhere.

.

2005-04-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

Two questions for Hello Blogger users: 1. Is there any way around having to type in a caption before Publishing? 2. Is there any way to publish multiple photos with one click instead of publishing each photo individually?

2005-04-25T21:24:00.001-07:00

2005-04-25T21:24:00.000-07:00

hollyhock1

Thrift Store Score

2005-04-23T13:38:00.001-07:00

Lately, I have taken to stopping by my local St. Vincent de Paul thrift store on my way home from work on Thursday or Friday afternoons. I have those afternoons off under the present arrangement, and since work is a pressure cooker these days, its a fun little treat.

I think I have a similar relationship to my local St. Vincent's that some people have to Wal Mart. I'm talking about the people who don't like Wal Mart because they tend to drive smaller businesses out of business, but shop there anyway because they like the low prices. I don't personally have a problem with Wal Mart, being the lover of Capitalism that I am, but I do have a bit of a moral conflict with supporting the Papal [Evil] Empire. I'm not really sure that by shopping there I'm supporting the Evil Empire, but its hard to imagine that with a name starting with 'Saint' there isn't some kind of support going to Rome, even if indirectly.

This week, there was some good picking, even knitting related picking - read on!

First off, I found these cool oval restaurant china plates. They will be my new everyday dishes. [As if there were some other expensive dishes hiding in the cupboard for special occasions - HA!]

Oval Plates - They are big and heavy

Marked on the bottom - Tepco China

Also in the china dept., there were two cute round dinner plates to add to my fledgling cute round dinner plate collection. Both had a wheat motif, which reminds me of Grandma and Grandpa Dersch's fine china.

Cute Wheat Plate #1

Cute Wheat Plate #2

And finally, there was yarn! I've never noticed yarn there before, but they had some interesting stuff. The only thing that I liked and was of sufficient quantity to make anything with, was this:

1 oz. each of Unger Fantasia, 100% wool, made in Italy.

I saw it and thought it would make a cool 1x1 rib hat on #1 or #0 needles.

I don't usually just buy yarn on the spur of the moment, and I don't really have a stash of yarn to speak of. Since I learned to knit, it has been pretty much just buying yarn on a project-by-project basis. [o.k., except for a few balls of sugar n cream that I got on sale because I couldn't resist the colors.] I'm a little concerned about this purchase, because I feel like I have crossed some kind of line here, and I fear for the future of my closet space.

Test photo using Hello:

2005-04-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

A favorite site in the San Fernando Valley. The big giant clown sign always makes me smile!

Busted by the Clapotis Police

2005-04-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

I'm still shaking. This is one of those things you read about on other peoples' blogs; you never expect it's going to happen to you.

Last night [actually this morning around 2 a.m.] I was sleeping soundly, Todd was sleeping on the chair, Paul in bed with me. They both jumped up at the same time, they heard the footsteps before I did. Paul started growling and doing the 'agitated dog' thing, and they both barked and snarled when the sharp knock on the door echoed through my tiny apartment.

I opened the door and it was a well-dressed but tough looking guy in a suit and tie. He flashed some kind of badge but I couldn't see it very well; it was dark and I was a little bleary-eyed. "I'm the Deputy Inspector for the Knitters Blog Control and Monitoring District for this area."

"The what?" I'm not sure whether I said it or thought it.

"We understand you have been running a knit blog out of this address, is that correct?"

I paused. "Well, actually, the blog has a variety of content. Most recently, I blogged about my dog."

"But you do include knitting on the blog?"

"Yes"

"Our jurisdiction extends to any blog that contains knitting content. May I see your Clapotis?"

I'd heard about this sort of thing but didn't think it actually happened. It felt like a scene out of the movie 'Brazil.' "What exactly is the problem?" I asked.

"All knit bloggers are required to show proof of Clapotis. You know, its part of the new Blog Consumers' Bill of Rights of the Public Safety code. If someone's reading what you purport to be a knit blog, they have a right to know that you've actually made a Clapotis, and that you're not just some scam artist making up fake blog entries or something."

"But I could show you a Clapotis that might have been made by anyone"

"No you couldn't, sir." He said.

"But how does it have anything to do with Public Safety or whether or not I..."

He cut me off. "Sir, do you have a Clapotis for me, or am I going to have to write this up?"

My mind raced. What could I do? I've been making fun of people for knitting that thing [and its ridiculous name] for months now. Maybe I could pass off that burgundy and grey seed stitch scarf as a Clapotis. No, I gave that one to Phideaux. Damn. What about that black and grey scarf that Allison knit for me? That might work. It was kind of dark, maybe he wouldn't notice, or would decide to be lenient. "Just a minute, I'll get it" I said.

Finally, I found it in my closet. "Here it is." I draped it around my neck and kept my distance, trying to work the shadows to my advantage.

"Sir, I need to inspect the stitching."

I took it off and handed it to him. I held my breath. "This is just a regular scarf," he said.

"Look," I said, panicing, "I just made this really great sweater vest. Look how perfect the seams are. See how even the V came out on the neck? Doesn't that prove my skill?"

"Sorry," the inspector said, " I'm going to have to write this up. You have 30 days to present proof of Clapotis, or it looks like you'll face fines and jail time." Then he got out his pad and wrote me this ticket. I stood there, numb. He handed me the ticket. "Have a nice night." He said as he left.

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So now I'm really screwed. I have to knit that stupid Clapotis that I've been making fun of all over blogland. At least Mom's birthday is coming up and I can palm off the finished Clap on her.

Oh well. Gives me a good excuse to check out that new yarn shop in Pasadena this weekend.

Booby's Back!

2005-04-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

Shout it out loud:

PAUL THE DOG IS THE GREATEST DOG IN THE WORLD!

Paul Facts:

Breed: Pit Bull/Bassett Hound

Age: 3 1/2

Nicknames: Paul the Dog, Paul Baby, Mr. Booby

Likes: Chasing cats, catching mice, barking at mailman, sleeping on the bed.

Dislikes: Baths, shots, sharing the chair with younger brother Todd.

Favorite toy: Anything that causes humans or other dogs to give chase.

I had wanted a dog for a long time, but when I finally picked him out at the rescue shelter and got him home [and agonized and struggled and consulted a dog trainer and finally got him to stop peeing in the house] I came to realize that Dog really is Man's best friend.

I would do anything for that little guy.

My predictions of the veterinary emergency pretty much came true, except that it cost more than that. Oh well. I've wasted more hard earned cash on far less worthwhile exploits, and I'm just glad to have Mr. Booby back where he belongs.

And another thing: what was I thinking, saying that I would knit while I waited at the veterinary ER? First, there's Paul, hurt and on the leash but still curious about all the other animals and smells, then there's Todd, who is bigger than Paul, and younger and more puppy-like, [along for moral support, and because he has never been home all alone and I wouldn't trust him if I left him alone] and who's not hurt at all and is REALLY curious about all the other animals and smells. So I'm wrangling these two dogs and sitting there in this not unpleasant but still animal-smelling and animal-filled crowded waiting room, wishing that I could pull that brown and blue hat out of my bag, but knowing that it would end up in disaster if I tried it. Don't get me wrong, the two of them behaved themselves very well, all things considered. But knit? Forget it.

Anyone out there know of a really good dog sweater pattern?

Veterinary Emergency: Predictions

2005-04-17T15:56:00.000-07:00

Well, as I was about to head into my final mini-project to round out a fine Sunday's gardening, I looked up and dear sweet Paul was sitting up looking at me rather helplessly with his right front paw in the air, in the 'ouch it hurts' position.

So, I checked him out. I've seen the vet do this enough times to at least perform the preliminary visual evaluation myself. No thorns or broken glass or sharp objects in the paw, paw moves easily and no objections from the patient. Wrist allows free movement. Elbow - YIPE - Paul withdraws and turns away.

OK, its the elbow. Well, I can fix a lot of things, but dogs' elbows aren't on my list.

Off to the emergency clinic. I called and tried to get the woman to at least give me some idea of how long the wait is this afternoon. Of course, since a car wreck can come in the door any minute, she refuses to tell me. She won't even tell me how long the last person who came in the door would have to wait, even if no more patients came in the whole rest of the afternoon.

I predict that after the $75 emergency fee to see the doctor and a total bill of $250-300, I will walk out with x-rays that don't really show anything meaningful, doggie pain pills, and a diagnosis of 'sprained elbow'. Thats what they always say when they can't figure out what's really wrong. Once we left there with the diagnosis of 'sprained tail'. Can you believe that? Sprained Tail.

I'll keep you posted. At least I can knit while I wait.

PFO: Striped Sweater

2005-04-16T16:14:00.000-07:00

THIS IS MY FIRST SWEATER AND I AM PROUD OF IT!

- modeled by yours truly -

I figured it was enough to learn how to pick up and knit the neck and armhole edging, and how to sew up a seam, that I didn't need to add sleeves to the learning curve, yet.

Thus, the vest.

My genius little sister Al gave me a ball each of the colors in Lion Kool Wool for Christmas. [if she had it together with her website I would link to it here. Not that anyone's reading this, but what the heck. Let's all encourage her with that, ok?] I had started the sweater, and was almost all the way up the back, when I ran out of yarn. That was on the plane on my way home from our Christmas get-together at Emily's.

So, I had to order more yarn online, because no one anywhere remotely near me sells Kool Wool. You'd think you could walk into any Michael's or JoAnn Fabric and pick the stuff up, but no.

Anyway, it wasn't unitl I was on the plane again, coming back to L.A. from Grandpa Dersch's funeral about a month ago that I finished it. I walked onto the plane with an unfinished sweater vest, and walked off the plane wearing it.

Take Fountain

2005-04-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

The new Wedding Present album [after an 8-year break] is called Take Fountain. The story goes that Bette Davis was once asked by a reporter if she had any advice for aspiring actresses who hoped to someday make it to Hollywood. Her reply: "Take Fountain - it's quicker!" Its still good advice. Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevards are often jammed; at least Fountain moves you somewhat steadily across town.

So, when Phideaux and I set out for the Troubador, it was obvious what route to take.

We took Fountain.

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The Troubador is really intimate. The main floor is an open rectangular room with no seats, you just stand and/or dance around. The stage is about 2 1/2 feet above the main floor and runs along the long side of the room. There is a bar at the back with a little gallery above, with bench seats. We sat up there, front and center.

The opening act was called Crystal Skull, a 5-man band from Seattle. They were two guitars, bass, drums, and a guy alternating between keyboards, tambourine, and more drums. Think: Police meets Oingo Boingo. The guitars were clear, smooth, and almost staccatto at times; strong bass lines and drums. Overall, their musicianship was superb.

Then The Wedding Present came on and played a long, loud, excellent set. I thought the sound levels were a little off, and it was hard to hear the vocals at times under the crush of guitars, but that was o.k. They played a mix of older material, and a lot from the new album. Several times they went into long, extended guitar jams that were a real thrill.

They didn't play an encore, they just ended, brought up the lights, and David Gedge ran out to the front area where they had merchandise set up for sale. When was the last time you saw that: the front man himself at the t-shirt table talking to fans and signing autographs. I got the distinct impression that he really appreciated his fan base, even during the show when he would banter back and forth with the audience between numbers.

When I got up to the table, I bought the new CD [especially happy to hand my hard earned cash directly to David Gedge himself, not some flunky behind the register of some mall store] and he opened his pen and signed away!

I brought four other CD booklets and he was happy to sign them all for me:

Watusi [1994]

Mini Plus [1996]

2,3,go [CD single, 1996]

Montreal [CD single, 1996]

The Wedding Present

2005-04-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

You know, the rock band The Wedding Present.

I'm off to go hear them tonight at the Troubador in West Hollywood, and I can't wait!

David Gedge is sooooocoooool and I'm bringing all my Wedding Present CD booklets and sharpie pen. His autograph would rival Frank Black's on my CD shelf.

Complete concert review to follow.

PFO: Checker Scarf

2005-04-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

Last night I cast on the blue and brown hat and was sitting in bed working on it, semi-watching the [lame] Miss USA Pageant when I dozed off. I woke up at some point and realized that the show was over and the few rounds I had done were in 2x2 rib instead of the 1x1 rib that I had swatched. The day job is a pressure cooker these days and it sure showed last night.

I think the last thing I remember was the swimsuit exhibition and being amazed at how humungous all the girls' boobs were. Completely surreal.

So, I managed to frog back, re-work my cast on, and get a few more stitches out before I went back to sleep, but I haven't looked at it since, so I'm not sure what I will find when I get it out later and try to get a few more rows on before bed.

Hopefully the hat will be in some kind of shape for photographing by the end of the week. Meanwhile, I present a Previously Finished Object: the scarf I made back in February for my friend Jim when he was diagnosed with cancer:

The scarf is about 7" wide and 65" long.

It is Cascade 220, knit with a double strand on 10 1/2 needles. I love the wide range of colors this yarn comes in, and I also really like the deep, luminous, solid quality of the color.

Here is a close-up of the stitch. If anyone knows a proper name for this checkerboard pattern please let me know.

This is more accurate with respect to color.

2 New WIPs: Knitting and Welding

2005-04-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon in a nutshell:

WIP #1: Knit swatch

Worked up a quick 1x1 rib gauge swatch on my trusty #7 dpns for an upcoming striped rib hat. I did this while watching 2 episodes of Coronation Street with Phideaux. He's really into British television, and CS is apparently one of the most-watched shows over there. Its basically a soap opera [episodic drama in industry parlance] but airs in the evening and has far better production values and writing than any American soap opera, at least from what we watched. I used to watch The Simpsons with my knitting before going to sleep, but since Fox 11 moved it from 11 pm to 11:30, [past my bedtime] I think I'll get Phideaux to lend me some CS dvd's to knit with before retiring. The episodes are only about 20 minutes each, which is just about how long I can stay awake and focused enough to knit before I have to turn out the light.

WIP #2: Patio Table Base

I got started on a glass-top steel patio table base that's been kicking around in my brain for about a week:

Now that we're having glorious spring weather I want someplace to sit outside and have my morning coffee; its the perfect excuse to get out the welder and whip up a nice patio set.

I already have a round glass table top that I scavenged off the sidewalk in Echo Park one day last winter.

I just need to add three more pieces of rebar sticking up from the tube to hold the glass, then have it sandblasted and paint it.

And yep, thats all free steel scrap from the jobsite. It doesn't get much better than that. Wait, yes it does. Selling the furniture I make from the free steel scrap would be better. Stay tuned for details . . .

Structural Engineering Exam

2005-04-09T15:57:00.000-07:00

This morning I took my 5th and 6th exams [out of 10 required] towards getting my license to practice architecture in California, the Golden State.

(Piece of an I-beam I scavenged from a jobsite)

The exam topics: General Structures, and Lateral Forces [lateral forces are earthquakes and high winds - things that push on buildings sideways as opposed to gravity which just pulls straight down]

I've been meaning to get my butt in gear and start wrapping up these exams and get the license overwith. I took and passed my first four a year and a half ago and then back-burnered the whole thing. So earlier this week at my day job, a junk fax came through from this guy who offers seminars and refresher courses for people like me who want to jumpstart their exam study effort. Bonus: there were seminars on General Structures and Lateral Forces on the schedule for Friday afternoon/evening. A quick phone call confirmed that there was space available and I could register and pay at the door. Great!

Then another stroke of luck: the testing center had appointments available for Saturday morning and I could take both tests. Excellent. Refresher course, some late night cramming from the study guide I borrowed from a friend weeks ago [which has been staring up at me from the table by the piano as I practice my piano or sit and knit instead of reading up and practicing how to size a wood beam,] then, get some sleep, up early, and go right in there and ace the exams.

HA! What a fun fantasy that was while it lasted.

After suffering through Friday afternoon traffic for an hour and a half to get to the seminar [at some hotel in Newport Beach of all places. I cringe when I have to go to Orange County, unless I'm driving through to go visit my cousin Ed in San Diego,] I arrived about 15 minutes late. No worries though, there was a parking space right in front. I love it when I get rockstar parking. Too bad it never happens anyplace its actually difficult to park.

So the guy had already started his presentation and said to come on in, he would get my registration info on the break. The setup wasn't too shabby. Coffee and tea in the back of the room, linen tablecloths and a pitcher of water with a stemmed glass at each chair, with little jars of candies and mints sitting around just in case you needed a little bump of sugar to help stay focused.

There were about 20 people there; 'this guy does ok' I thought to myself. It became clear that it wasn't a larger organization putting this together, it was basically just this guy with his script and his xeroxed study handouts and his fax list of architects' offices to whom he sent out his schedule a few times a year. At $150 for the whole evening per person, he was probably going to pocket an easy $2,500 after he paid for the room, and his instructions were to bring cash.

When I arrived he was reviewing the preliminary material on test taking strategies, the format of the exams, stuff like that.

Then he got to the actual material that I came there for, the structural problem solving. Thats the part that sometimes involves trigonometry, and always involves a complicated bunch of equations and variables that are hard to keep straight [for me anyway]. And he goes whipping through it like lightning! Wait! I put my hand up. Why do you multiply that by 10? Where are we in the book? His pages had been copied and copied over so many times that many of the page numbers were cut off at the bottom of the page. His explanatory text and sample problems weren't laid out together so you had to keep flipping back and forth. The equations crashed into one another on the page, see illustration.

In case you are having a hard time understanding the formulas in this picture, its not that you don't know anything about structural engineering, believe me. Its that the manual is crap.

Now I started getting a little angry. I drove all the way down to freakin' Orange County, and gas is expensive! The exam is tomorrow! This seminar was my ticket to passing the exams and now things were looking dire. The exams cost me $100 each. If you fail you have to wait 6 months to retake it, plus another $100. No way was I going to stay for part 2 of this garbage. My only hope was to pay my $80 for part one and ditch out at the dinner break, get home as fast as I can, and cram from the study guide.

Then he glossed completely over concrete construction, not even a sample problem, although he acknowledged that there could be some concrete problems on the test. Great.

It was when he started rambling, and I really mean rambling, about history, that I decided he didn't deserve a dime of my money and I was going to make a break for it as soon as he ended the session. The history lesson included such gems as "well, there could even be questions about pre-historic architecture, you know, like the Egyptians, the pyramids and such," and "I would say the historical period started with the Ancient Greeks" and then some really retarded comments about the Acropolis and the Parthenon that I can't even try to recreate.

Then he sort of ended with something about Sir Christopher Wren and St. Paul's Cathedral in London, although he admitted he couldn't really remember what its structural-historical significance was.

---------------------------

This morning, during the General Structures exam, with one hour, three minutes and eight seconds to go, my computer at the testing center crashed. I panicked. I called the administrator over.

I got to resume my exam from another computer.

If I don't like my score, I get to take a free do-over.

Occasionally, in life, there is justice.

She Looks Fabulous!

2005-04-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

Well, doesn't she?

I actually did a u-turn and went back when I passed her on the road, a one-woman parade in a lavendar flower-petal-covered hat, walking along Sunset Boulevard, in Echo Park.

It was one of those moments that makes Los Angeles worth it. If just 5% of the population had as much style in their whole body as this lady has in her little finger, . . .

Click the pic for the whole stealth photoshoot.

I took these pics with the purpose of emailing them to my little sister, Allison, who makes fabulous hats herself.

Looking at them again today, I realized that since a] my life is really about the pursuit of those elusive, fleeting moments of glorious, aesthetic ecstacy (and this was one of those moments); and b] since the title of this blog is, after all, My Life Illustrated, then I really needed to share this fleeting moment with the readers.

Finished Object: Pink Baby Hat

2005-04-07T17:09:00.000-07:00

Hot off the needles: Pink Baby Hat, knit for an unsuspecting friend who had a little girl last winter.

I was inspired by this hat, but made up the pattern as I went along, using #7 dpns and some pink no-dye-lot yarn from Michaels. If anyone ever sees this blog and wants the pattern just shout out and I'll post it.

I'm pretty happy with it, considering that it was a freeform experiment. I had to frog back once and rework the decrease but I think I got it just about right.

Shown here modeled by my trusty companion and buddy, Paul the Dog. His brother Todd would have nothing of me and my hat; he prefers playing with the yarn in the backyard to wearing it.

Paul wears it more like a pill box; that's just his style.

Philip Johnson is Dead

2005-01-26T22:07:00.000-08:00

Well, here goes. No illustrations yet but give me a break, its my first post.

I've been meaning to launch this blog for a while now. After being inspired by my Big Sis, and further inspired by other bloggers I started finding out there, I knew it was only a matter of time. Then, as sometimes happens in life, events transpired over the course of the day today that brought me to the conclusion that it was time.

Philip Johnson died last night.

I got the call at work around 2:00 this afternoon. It was Dino, calling to tell me that Philip Johnson had died. Not exactly shocking news, given Mr. Johnson's age, but not something that I was expecting, either. I told my co-workers and alerted the Front Office. It brought a bit of a pause to the office, [just for a minute] as happens when you encounter that 'end of an era' moment that comes around once in a while, in life. [You could say that era still lives on in the great Julius Schulman. But Schulman is so West Coast, and Johnson so East Coast, that although they coincide chronologically, they really embody distinct arenas within 20th Century Architecture.]

Fernando called a couple hours later with the same news. I usually think I'm the last one to find out stuff like this. If I got 2 calls within one afternoon for the death of PJ, then the switchboards must really have really been lighting up.

Philip Johnson was the most effective advocate of bad ideas in the field of Architecture, perhaps ever.

Although he consistently advocated bad ideas throughout his entire life, there were two particular moments that stand out. In the early 1930's, he curated the Modern Architecture show at MOMA in New York. Basically, he took the work of a bunch of highly individualistic, mainly European architects, lumped it all together, labeled it 'International Style,' and sold it to the public.

Misleadingly, Mr. Johnson used black and white photography exclusively to portray the buildings, and only used views that supported his invented criteria for what constituted this new style. In reality, many of the architects used quite a bit of color, and their designs were highly individualistic. If anything, they shared little more than a throwing-off of the classicist/revivalist-inspired design mode that had dominated the field up to that time. The true meaning of the new design trend was that of individualism, of the designer cutting himself free and developing his own idiom, his own unique style. Unfortunately, this one-size-fits-all International Style fraud was eagerly gobbled up by the press and the public, and it stuck.

Following the fabulous success of this exhibition, he flirted with, among other things, Fascism; plaigarized other architects and got away with it; promoted Postmodernism; and then in the 80's, he repeated the MOMA stunt with a major architectural exhibition on Deconstructivism. This second time around, he collected a group of architects, few of whom had any actual interest in the philosophy of the late Jacques Derrida [the originator of the philosophical movement called Deconstruction,] and lumped their work together under the heading of 'Deconstructivsm.' The main tenet of this so-called style seems to be 'the uglier you can get away with, the better.' And now ugliness has a name and a formal movement, and Mr. Johnson's legacy lives on.

I'd say its time for some fresh ideas. The end of an era happily means the beginning of a new one. Its time to take back Architecture. Stay tuned for further developments.