The 20,000th visit to PI occurred this morning. Someone from right here in Portland popped in for an early-morning look-see.

I know… I’m easily amused.

Yesterday I learned some interesting facts about hal.dll, as well as a few other related items.

The first thing I learned is that when you fix things that aren’t really broken take care of some long over-due partition realignment on your hard drives (yeah… that’s the story), one problem that you might have is that your computer then loses its mind and will refuse to boot. Insane computers, as any follower of sci-fi could tell you, are not a good thing.

But that’s why we do backups, right? And, yes grasshopper, I did do backups before starting down this path. I had brand new, shiny backups of all three logical drives on physical hard drive #1 (c:, d:, and e:). And I had a whole physical drive (#2), originally set up to dual-boot, no longer being used for anything. All I wanted to do was remove everything from no-longer-used hard drive #2, freeing up a bunch of space to move e: into, and thus freeing up more space for d: on physical drive #1. So I had backups, and I had tools (Partition Magic, which has worked well for me in the past).

Happily whistling We’re Off To See The Wizard, I started down the yellow brick road. I’ve done this sort of thing before. Lots of times. I have backups. It’s not that scary. Not as scary, say, as cutting a steek.

And, speaking of knitting, as you follow along the yellow brick road with me you might realize that there are actually several long periods of technical inactivity on my part whilst the computer “did it’s thing,” and that left quite a bit of down time (pun unintended) for knitting. The socks are ready to have their little heels turned. And if they still fit afterwards, I’ll post a pic.

Now, disclaimer: Don’t try this at home, kids, unless you are prepared to face the consequences.

I set up a bunch of disk changes in Partition Magic and pressed the “submit” button. A nice message told me my computer would reboot. “OK” I said, still whistling. The computer rebooted.

Although sick, I did manage to make a few string loops with a couple of sticks.

As Shetha pointed out in her comment, working on lace might not be the best choice while full of decongestants, but socks seemed a safe bet.

This is Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in the Vera colorway. The stitch pattern is a standard wavy pattern with every 6th row purled. Needles are Inox Gray size US#2.

I’m not normally a “pink” person, but this yarn just called to me. I like the way the browns, khaki, cream and touches of teal mix with the bright raspberry. And I really love the way it’s knitting up. It reminds me of grandma’s old afghan.

I first tried to join the bandwagon and do Jaywalker socks with this yarn. But, after a few false starts, I just didn’t like the way that the Jaywalker pattern looked upside down — me being a toe-up person and all — and I tried this instead. I used a fan-style toe so that the lines of increases on the toe match up with the decreases in the pattern. I did that by accident on the lace socks I made for E, and I have always wanted to try that again.

And this pair, I’m making sure, fits!

PI might be down for a little while around 11:30 PT tonight while my host, successfulhosting.com, upgrades some of the database hardware. During that time if you browse here you’ll get an icky error message. Please just wait 1/2 hour or so and then try again. The upgrade is a good thing!

Yesterday I went to the local store and sold my soul to the pharmacist for the “good drugs” that are now kept behind the counter. In return for a little legal cold medicine, I had to show my drivers license and sign my name to a form that showed how much I bought of what and where and when. I didn’t have to sign in blood, but I’m sure that could have been arranged.

I know this is all to keep bad people from making bad drugs out of the good drugs. I know that. I’m not complaining. Much.

Fortified with good drugs, tea and kleenex, I spent yesterday feeling sorry for myself. When I was awake, that it. I spent a lot of yesterday sleeping. Today I still have a fever, but enough cold medicine, tea and kleenex to tide me thought for another day, I think.

This morning I learned of the death of a long-time colleague who I have known for many years and through a couple of different employers. He died suddenly at work, and leaves behind a family with three children and many saddened coworkers.

When #1 Son left for school this morning, I gave him a big hug and told him how much I loved him. And I plan on telling all my friends the same thing, as soon as I can risk contact without spreading my germs. And you should all do that too! Life is so short and might be over when we least expect it.

May we all live as though every moment is our last.