Here’s the picture of my completed sock scarf, all washed and blocked. As we all know, it is a blatant rip off of Jerry’s version of the sock scarf.

Except mine doesn’t look anything like his.

For one thing, mine is a lot fatter, and at about 4 feet long (because that was all of the yarn I had) it’s 1/2 the length of Jerry’s at 8 feet. His is striped, mine is ribbed. He worked both sides of his top-down. I started at one toe and worked toe-up and then top-down on the second sock.

It’s all good. 🙂

I’m glad to have mine finished. It was a lot of fun to do, though, and worked really fast. I might make another one some time, if I get ambitious. I like the way that the fish-tail cables turned out.

This is a picture of the Wildfoote socks as of last night. It’s hard to tell from the picture, but there is a fairly subtle lace pattern between the ribbing on the front of the socks.

I’d messed the pattern up at one point and, after unsuccessfully attempting a “fix” with a crochet hook, ended up tinking out about 6 rows.

If the weather holds out the way it’s been so far this March, there won’t be much call for wool socks until next autumn. But if I can get them finished fairly soon, I may get a wearing or two in before summer.

The next planned project is a pair of socks for #1 Son. If he doesn’t decide on a color soon, though, I may knit up some cotton yarn I have laying around. That would be a pair of socks that I could use! I may also knit a second alpaca pair for my friend, who is going to wear out her socks because she refuses to take them off except to wash them!

Part 6: MGM Grand (redux)

Tuesday got off to a late start, but I did manage to squeeze a little gambling and a cup of coffee in before noon. When #1 Son got up, he looked out the window and said, It’s really raining hard, Mom. You’re going to get wet going down to MGM Grand.

I dithered about whether to do the focus group or not. But… $50 is $50 and I’m not so wealthy that it isn’t a meaningful sum of cash. I was due down there at 2:15, so I started out about 1:00. I decided to be “smart” and take the monorail so I wouldn’t have to walk so far. I knew the closest monorail stop was a Bally’s. For some reason I thought that I had to walk up to the corner and take the people-mover conveyor belt thingy into the casino. By the time I walked up the street, I was soaked. And, once in the casino, I realized that I could have walked through Paris and gotten there virtually dry.

And my foot really hurt, now. I could tell it was starting to blister on the bottom.

Since it was raining there were quite a few people waiting for the monorail, but I managed to get on to the second train that came. At MGM Grand, I hobbled down to Television City for the focus group. We were asked to watch snips from several shows that were simulcast on both HD-TV and regular TV and notice the differences. Then we were led to a room where we were asked lots of questions about how much we would be willing to pay for on-demand TV shows (zero, in my case), if we would pay $7 to see a movie 0n-demand with no commercials and available for 24 hours (no, since I currently pay around $3), if we would rather have $1500 cash or $2500 in electronic equipment (probably cash), and what equipment were we planning on buying in the next year (none). There was some debate about whether my computer counted like a Tivo, since I do have cable running to it and can record TV shows for later viewing.

After receiving my hard-earned (hardly earned?) $50, I hobbled out to the monorail station. The line for the monorail was now all the way out to the casino. I waited for a long, long, time. I would have risked the rain and walked, but by now my foot was killing me and the blister on the bottom felt like it was the size of Mt. Hood. So I waited. Back at Bally’s, I turned left and walked through Paris. I only got a little wet between Paris and the Aladdin. I bought some band-aids and hobbled upstairs to tape my foot up. I told #1 Son that I had to have some different shoes, so we needed to go shopping. I was also pretty hungry, as I hadn’t eaten. The litter in the room announced that #1 Son had gone for take-out sushi, but there wasn’t even a crumb left.

Part 7: The Aladdin (redux)

While in the room, I called Aladdin engineering and told them that I was having problems with the mouse, that I’d called Sprint, and that nobody had ever come by or called. The guy I talked to said that he’d call me back right away. I never heard from him.

The Desert Passage mall at The Aladdin has 104 shops. It’s not quite as upscale as The Forum at Caesar’s or the mall at Paris, but there are a lot of cool shops to look in. There was, of course, a shoe store. And they had shoes in European sizing, which fit me much better than American sizes. I bought two pairs — a pair of red casual shoes and a pair of black dress shoes — and wore the red ones out of the store. My foot started to feel better immediately, as did my spirit. There’s nothing like a new pair of shoes. Mama used to say that when you’re down you should go buy a new hat to lift your spirit. I look sucky in hats, so I buy shoes. 😀

We also stopped in a souvenir shop to buy umbrellas and gifts for some of #1 Son ‘s friends. He picked up a t-shirt and two souvenir lighters. We also ate passable but totally uninspired enchiladas at a Mexican restaurant that also boasted (go figure) bad coffee.

It was still raining. It rained hard enough to overflow the Bellagio fountain.

After shopping we hung around the room (mom with foot propped up) until it was time to hobble down to The Flamingo for:

Part 8: George Wallace at The Flamingo

Finally a good show! Both George Wallace and the comedian who did the warm up were hysterically funny. We were sitting right by the stage, so #1 Son got teased about his hair. 😉 I thought of it as turnabout’s fair play since last year I was teased soundly by the magician at V.

On the way back to The Aladdin, it was still raining like crazy. But, we were dry under our umbrellas. We turned in right after the show because we had to get up early for:

Part 9: Hummer Gold Rish Adventure Tour

Last year we took a Hummer tour to the Grand Canyon and it was lots of fun. So this year I booked the Hummer Gold Rush Adventure Tour, that takes you out to a gold mine and a ghost town. We had to be out at the pick-up point at 8:00 AM in order to catch the Hummer for the tour. The Hummer showed up about 8:20, and the driver said that the tour had to be cancelled.

Water and deserts don’t mix. The electricity at the mine and the ghost town was out and the roads were closed because of flash floods.

We were offered $10 off on the Valley Of Fire tour, but since I happen to know that tour is quite a bit less than $10 off of the gold mine tour price, I declined. Instead we trooped back in to the concierge desk to get a refund and find out if any other tours were still open. Well, said the nice lady at the concierge desk. I could probably book you on:

Part 10: Annie Bananie’s Wild West Vally Of Fire & Lake Mead tour

OK. It’s a hokey name meant to grap the attention of Japanese tourists. But, hey… what the heck. It was either Annie Bananie or boredom.

While the concierge lady got our tour booked, I took the opportunity to discuss with the manager the situation with our mouse. She not only promised to have it fixed by the time we got back, but also comped our internet usage. 🙂

For the tour, we were picked up by “Sierra Sam” in a 12-seat mini-van. Sam was a Texan who’d been doing the tour for many years, and he was a hoot. He had a story about everything, including the Las Vegas sign. I don’t know how many stories were tall tales, but he was entertaining. Along the way to Lake Meade he told us about the rock formations, the history of Las Vegas and pointed out the homes of famous people. Our first stop was at an area of rock formations where we got out and took pictures. We were up high enough to get some great views of the valley.

From there we travelled to Lake Meade. I was surprised to see that in many place there was dirt and gravel on the pavement where the water from flash floods had gone over the road. Many of the normally-dry gullies now contained fast-running streams. Sam said he couldn’t recall seeing it quite like that ever before.

At Lake Meade we ate lunch at a little restaurant. Food was good. Coffee was bad. It was too windy and cold to walk around much. But we did look out over the lake for a bit before retreating to the van.

Our next stop was Roger’s Spring. We looked at it from the van but didn’t get out because Sam had heard some of the roads ahead were bad and more bad weather was coming. He wanted to make sure we saw the Valley of Fire before the bad weather hit again.

We stopped at several spots in The Valley Of Fire, including the Visitor’s Center.

One stop was at some stone cabins built in the ’30’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps There are petroglyphs on the rocks behind the cabins. This picture was taken looking out of the window of the middle cabin. (click on the pic to embiggen)

As you can see, there was a great view, but the accomodations left something to be desired. The room is about 10′ x 10′, with a small fireplace and chimney in the corner opposite the door. The floor is dirt. There is no door or window. I doubt that anyone leaves a chocolate on your pillow. But, if you climb down the rocks in front of the cabins, there’s a pool and the swimming looked good.

Our last stop was at an arch formation. While there, it started to rain, and then hail. I was glad we’d seen everything because it was obviously time to call it quits.

All-in-all, the tour was a lot of fun. Sam was an awesome guide and the sights were well worth seeing. I’d recommend the tour to anyone. I’d even take it again myself. (But next year I’d really like to do the ghost town and gold mine!)

Sam dropped us off at The Aladdin in the afternoon. I was sorry to learn from him that the Aladdin is closing and will reopen as Planet Hollywood. I would have stayed at the Aladdin again. But Planet Hollywood… uh… no.

Part 11: The Aladdin (finale)
We debated where to eat dinner, and finally decided on Tremezzo, an Italian place in The Aladdin. #1 Son ordered a cup of coffee. Might as well give it one more shot. he said.

His coffee came in a French press. It smelled divine. I’ll have one of those, too. I told the waiter. Finally! Decent coffee!

After dinner it was pretty much just a little TV and then bed. We had to get up at 4:30 AM [groan] in order to get to the airport by 6:00, to catch an 8:00 AM flight. I always allow extra time for the trip back, because we always, always get stuck somewhere (usually in security).

Part 12: Homeward Bound

And we did get stuck in security. Not me this time, but #1 Son. At least the TSA in Las Vegas asked my permission before searching him. That was refreshing.

They confiscated one of the lighters that #1 Son had bought (just one of the pair, even though they were the same). And not because he had too many lighters (which he did), but because that one was deemed to be a “torch lighter,” whatever the heck that is. They also confiscated the 2″ pair of scissors that was in the little sewing kit I bought in the Aladdin sundries shop so that #1 Son could sew a button on his coat. The little scissors that could barely cut thread were deemed too dangerous.

The TSA offered to let us mail the lighter and the scissors back to ourselves for (get this) $8.00 apiece. That’s nuts. I could drop the scissors in a letter with a regular stamp and mail it at postage rates. We declined.

#1 Son was sorry to lose the lighter. But he bought another one at the gift shop in the terminal while we were waiting for our plane to board.

The ride to PDX was uneventful. Getting the car out of the parking lot was expensive, since we had to park in the garage. The fur kids were glad to see us when we picked them up. Captain Kidd had finally started eating a little Gerber turkey, Phoebe was happy since the staff had learned she likes to be scratched, and Moo Cow was queen of the world once the staff moved her into what she consideres “her room” (she whined and moaned until they did). And we were all glad to be back home.

Pics will be up on Mommymonster when I get around to it, which may not be any time soon.

Have you ever just had one of those days? The kind where nothing at all goes right. The kind that go way beyond a bad hair day to the place where everything just merges into one big lump of ickness?

Well… OK… my day wasn’t quite that bad. Not quite.

The day, strangely enough, began around 11:15 pm last night. I was snuggled with one of the cats in my rocking chair in the family room, trying to keep my eyes open to watch a bit of the news. #1 Son paused in his homework to go out to the garage for something. When he came back inside, he called out “Mom! The door won’t shut!”

I can’t recall any time I’ve heard those words when it was a good thing.

True, the door from the house to the garage had been a little sticky lately. Just yesterday morning we’d had a discussion about squooshing a bit of wd40 into the lock. But when I finally got home yesterday, it was late, I wanted to watch Earthsea on the Sci Fi Channel, and I couldn’t find the wd40 in the garage.

The door, in retaliation, went from sticky to stuck. And the following conversation thus ensued:

Mom: Where’s the wd40?

#1 Son: In the garage.

Mom: Where in the garage?

#1 Son: I dunno. I’m sure I put it out there. Look on a shelf or something

Mom: I looked on a shelf. I looked on all the shelves. I looked everywhere. Is it in your room?

#1 Son: Dunno, mom. I think I put it back. It’s not in my room.

And that meant a trip to the store at 11:30 at night for wd40. When I returned, lubricant in hand, #1 Son met me at the door with our existing can of wd40.

It wasn’t in the garage. It was in his room.

Trying to feel thankful that the family now possessed probably more wd40 than we could reasonably expect to use for the rest of our lives, I also took the opportunity to mention (once again) that it’s easier to find things when one puts them away in their proper resting place. I was way too tired to make more of an issue of it that that.

At midnight I began squooshing the door lock with wd40.

1:30 am found me still at work on the door. By that time I had squooshed ad infinitum with no result, and was attempting to take the knobs off and remove the latch so that I could close the door. I could get the interior knob off, but the exterior knob was held firmly in place by the frozen latch. It refused to let go even when I left off squooshing in favor of prying with a screwdriver while swearing, and finally jiggling the latch and knob while pleading to both the lock and to any personal deity that cared to answer to please let go.

OK I said finally, I’m getting out the hammer and giving you a good whack.

Hammer in hand, I suddenly felt misgivings. I’d worked for 13 hours on Monday. It was 1:30 in the morning. I could barely keep my eyes open. I knew my judgement was not at its usual peak of perfection.

What if… what if whacking the latch with a hammer resulted in an even worse mess than the one I was in? What if I was forced to call in a locksmith and confess that I’d totally screwed up not only the latch, but maybe the whole door? What if, instead of costing the $100 or so for the locksmith, I had to spend a whole lot more to fix whatever damage might be caused by my well-meaning hammer blows?

I put the hammer away and joined the cats in bed.

Around 11:00 this morning, after my round of early meetings, I decided I might as well know the rest of the bad news and looked up “Locksmiths” in the yellow pages. But, I had the good fortune to call Precision Locksmith. And this was my conversation with the Nice Guy At Precision:

NGAP: How can I help you?

Mom: I’m having problems with my door lock. The latch seems to be frozen.

NGAP: Do you have a quickset lock? You probably do. Their most common point of failure is a frozen latch. We see it all the time. Just bring the latch in. We have replacements.

Mom: I can’t get it out of the door. The latch is stuck in the out position and won’t let go of the exterior knob.

NGAP: Just give it a good whack with a hammer.

Mom: OK… uh, are you sure it won’t cause more damage if I do that?

NGAP: No, ma’am, I’m never known that to happen. We could come out if you want, but really you can do this yourself.

OK… So, off I went, from downtown to Tigard. There was a brief stop at home to remove the interior doorknob, whack the latch a good one with my hammer (most common point of failure, take that!), pop off the exterior knob, remove the latch, and put the knobs back on so none of the pieces got lost. Then a quick dash across Beaverton to Precision Locksmith, where for the paltry sum of $7.50 I was able to acquire a replacement latch. Then back to Tigard to install the latch in the door with the knobs and make sure everything works right. Then back downtown for afternoon meetings. Whew.

But I’d really like to thank Precision Locksmith, because I fully expected to have to pay for a house call. They lost the $$$ for that, but they gained a public thankee and a lifelong customer!

OK… the day looks a little better now.

[ed 12/15/04 6:55 am PT] When returning home yesterday after a hard day’s work, there was not nearly enough appreciation from #1 son of the smooth action of the newly installed door latch. Even when I pointed it out and demonstrated how the door could now be closed with one finger. Sheesh. The children of today…

Anyone who’s ever been on call knows what it’s like to have the phone ring in the middle of the night and find someone at the other end of the wire who expects you to instantly wake up and begin to make sense when talking about technical issues. It’s been awhile for me…

Thursday, 4:30 AM: brrrrring, brrrrring, brrrrring Hello? Hi. I hate to call you, but…

Ugh.

So at 5:00 AM I woke # 1 son and told him that I had to go to work, I would call him to make sure he woke up at the usual time, and I would be back to take him to school in time for his first final (end of term). I figured that by that time I could have other people in there looking at the code.

By 5:30 AM I was at work and looking into the problem. By 5:45 AM, the person who had called me was there. By 6:15 AM we knew how to fix it.

Time out to call # 1 son. Yes, he is up. I know he is vertical because he goes into my bedroom to turn off my alarm clock, forgotten in the rush at 5:00 AM. Don’t even sit back down, I tell him. Go make coffee and get ready and I’ll be home in an hour. OK, he says.

By 6:50 AM, the fix was applied and I was back on the road.

At 7:15 AM I walk in my front door and say, “Hello!” No answer. This does not bode well. “Hello?” No answerer. Come to # 1 son’s door. “Hello?” # 1 son leaps off of his bed, where he’s obviously been spending the time since I called snoozing away.

“It’s time to go to school,” Said I.

“OH NO, IT CAN’T BE!!!”

Oh, yes… it can. And there followed an extreme amount of drama, accompanied by wailing and gnashing of teeth. But, fortunately also accompanied by getting ready for school in record-setting time.

And, although he professed his undying hatred of me, school, and the world (in that order, I think), he did have the good grace not to blame me because he went back to sleep. Although he did say that by going into work at 5:00 AM, I screwed up his carefully laid plans to get up and drink a pot of coffee (already made and which I reheated on my way out the first time to drink in the car) so he would be awake for finals.

I reminded him that it’s good to be flexible.

By afternoon, finals had gone OK and I had gone from Wicked Witch Of The West to “What was it were you doing at 5 in the morning??? That sucks!” And I was a relatively decent human being once again, if slightly inept, in the eyes of # 1 son.

The problem with coming in early, of course, is that doesn’t mean I get to leave early. And that’s why there was a dearth of bloggage here yesterday.

Use Linux, get sued. Micro$oft warned Asian governments that they may face patent lawsuits if they use Linux instead of Windows.

At Microsoft’s Asian Government Leaders Forum, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, said that Linux violates more than 228 patents. He declined to provide specifics. Quoth Ballmer:

Someday, for all countries that are entering the WTO (World Trade Organization), somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property.

SCO group claims that Linux violates its copyrights for Unix. They have sued various companies, and have threatened to sue others, including Linus Torvalds. SCO refuses to allow access to the samples of code containing the alleged violations except under an NDA that would require signers to hold confidential even information that they knew before signing the agreement or seeing the code. The open source community refutes SCO’s claims.

SCO has been bankrolled by Micro$oft.

Singapore last month switched 20,000 PCs to run Linux instead of Windows. China, Japan and South Korea have agreed to jointly develop Linux applications.

The Chinese government considers Microsoft a potential threat due to conpiracy theorys that claim back doors in Windows code would give the US Government access to Chinese networks. Again, quoth Ballmer:

We think our software is far more secure than open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software.

Uh… sure, Steve… whatever you say…

Yesterday, Andy pointed out – rightly – that my CSS wasn’t validating.

I checked the XHTML, and when it didn’t validate, for reasons other than invalid characters in the newsfeed, I decided to work on it first. One of the invalid characters was in one of the items under Listen/Read/Watch. When I logged in to fix it, I found that the link to the cg-amazon plugin was missing. So I deactivated and then reactivated the plugin. And therein hangs a tale.

I don’t know what I did, but somewhere in there all of the post text (what you’re reading here) got lost. No post displayed, either on the main page or the archives. Comments were OK. But there was no way to read what somebody had commented on.

I spent all morning trying to figure out why, with little luck. A post to the WordPress support forum yielded no clues either.

After lunch, I uploaded a brand new copy of WordPress to a new directory. Post showed up. I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out why. I tried overlaying my “real” WP install with part of the test one to see if I could get the text to display. No luck.

Finally this evening I did what I should probably have done to begin with: I deleted the “real” WP install (after making a backup of course) and copied in the test one. Then I spent hours uploading and reactivating plugins and reapplying various customizations and hacks.

If you’re reading this, I was successful. But it wasn’t fun.

I’m glad it’s over.

And, yes, it validates, except for one CSS item in there to trick IE into floating the columns correctly.