Write (a blog)

Move along, nothing to see here. I’m just testing the WordPress application from the App Store on iTunes. It seems to be working just fine, but it still takes me forever to type on my iPod.

I don’t see myself using this all the time, but it will come in handy while I’m away on vacation. So I can be a true internet geek and blog while I’m away. I know! Lucky you!!!

Thanks to the timesucking forum at knittinghelp.com, someone has gotten me hooked on plurking. Well, I’m not really hooked yet, but I will be, I just know it. I really didn’t need another timesucker, but I figured what the hell, I’ll live dangerously.

If you don’t know what Plurk is, it’s like Twitter, but with a timeline involved. And if you don’t know what Twitter is, it’s sorta like a mini, micro, teeney weeny blog. Each post is only like one line, up to 140 characters. The point is to just blurb a little something anytime, like what I’m doing at the moment, where I’m going, my plans, my thoughts, etc, instead of trying to make a whole blog post about nothing sound interesting. It’s the stuff you’re doing between blog posts and emails. And it’s quick and easy to plurk  something. Your friends can comment on what you’re doing and vice versa. And it’s much faster than Twitter.

See.. it’s going to be a major timesuck. It’d be really great to have all my friends and family on it…

Wanna play? C’mon… please?

I was recently interviewed by Cheryl at Diva Knitting for her podcast and the episode went live today.

*insert extreme look of panic here*

I just finished listening to it and to my relief, I wasn’t as dorky as I had feared. But only not *as* dorky. There’s still plenty of dork-ness going on. You’ll get a kick out of it, I’m sure. Especially my sister. :p

I’ve known Cheryl for several years now because of KnittingHelp.com where we’re both moderators on the forum. Cheryl calls herself a “Diva”, but I disagree. She’s far too sweet and down to earth to be a real diva… you know the kind that makes crazy demands, sleeps til 2, and thinks the world revolves around her. Cheryl is super sweet and a very talented knitter and kniwear designer. I was floored when she asked if she could interview me for her podcast. But there it is, me rambling on about knitting and yarn. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks Cheryl!

Oh and it’s totally weird listening to a recording of yourself. Is that what I sound like?

Edited to Add: You know, I just realized that in the interview I first say that it’s really unlike me to have a lot of projects on the needles at one time, and then right after, I say I usually do have a lot of projects going at one time. Contradict much? Yeah, I know. I was nervous… gimme a break. The truth is that I USED to not have many projects going at once, and now I do. Whatever, unimportant anyway. Meh.

Right now, at this very second, I am blogging from my iPod, while watching Pierre bowl on the Wii.

Yes, blogging from my iPod!!!

I’m feeling all sorts of geekiness at the moment. Because I also just finished optimizing my blog for viewing on an iPhone or iPod Touch. And I have a webclipping icon already installed. Oh yes, I am an über geek.

But typing on this thing isn’t easy. 15 wpm is good, right?

My new find via Craigslist. An Ashford Traditional Spinning Wheel, in near perfect condition, with a lazy kate. I say *near* perfect, because it needs a new tensioner knob.

It’s an older model, from the 70s, so the scotch tension isn’t as refined as the newer models. But it’s adorable none the less. And for $130, it was a steal. *heart*

Also found on Craigslist… a new buddy! No really. I found a walking buddy on Craigslist that lives right near here. The two of us clicked almost immediately, we have similar weight and fitness (or lack thereof) issues, and she comes over almost every morning so we can walk together. I have a treadmill, but getting out there and walking is so much more enjoyable than walking on a stationary treadmill. Plus, she’s here in the morning expecting me to have my shoes on and ready to go. No room for excuses. That’s motivation!

Craigslist rules.

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By the way, the new sock tutorial is being written. The knitting is all done, photos all taken, and I just have to write it up and code the webpages. Thanks for being patient!!

Yay! I finally got my Ravelry Progress Bars all scripted and coded correctly so that they work in BOTH Firefox and Internet Destroyer (erm, yeah I mean Explorer, ha!) That has literally been giving me headaches for 2 days. And the culprit was a single misplaced comma. Ugh.

But anyway. The neato progress bars you see to the right are powered by Ravelry. They are in beta mode right now and are only available to a select few members who are testing different layouts and features. (That means ME! WOOHOO!) But the bars should be available to all Ravelry members soon.

Also, the whole Ravelry site itself is in beta mode, so if you do not have a membership, you can not see the neato pages linked from my progress bars. If you DID have a membership, if you clicked on the photo, you’d go to my project page on Ravelry where you can find out all kinds of info about that project. Clicking on the pattern name will take you to the pattern info, clicking on the author will take you to the author profile, and clicking on the heart will take you to the comments page on Ravelry. And all of that updates automatically when I edit my Ravelry pages!! Coolness, no?

But like I said, you have to have a membership. Boo. For now. Yay! It will eventually be open to the public, so fear not… you will be able to clicky to your hearts content soon enough. Well, not soon enough, because that would be NOW, but soon none the less.

If you’re unaware of what Ravelry is, it is a new website that is essentially a knitting (and crocheting) paradise. It’s your personal knitting notebook with all patterns, photos, authors, yarns and etc interlinked so it becomes one big ginormous yarny encyclopedia. You can enter your own projects, keep tabs on your to-do list, your done list, your friends and their lists and everything in between. You can click on the project you’re working on and see everyone else working on the same project and the yarns, needles and color they’re working with. You can click on that yarn you have in your stash to see what everyone else is doing with it… WITH pictures. You can click on a book and see every project other people have knit from it. You can send messages and join in forums and groups, and do so much more. You can pretty much do anything.

Oh, and it’s free. *blink*

Look —> progress bars! *happy dance*

I don’t know why, but I just spent an hour looking through my own archives. If you’ll notice, my blog archives cut off in July of 2003. But I started blogging in April of 2000. Yeah, I’m an old blogger. I lost all those archives due to several reasons, not the least of which was that an old web host of mine went POOF one day, taking all my files with them. *grumble grumble* I’m over it now, I swear!

Anyway… thanks to The Wayback Machine, I found some of my earliest blog posts, starting with the very first on April 27th, 2000!

thursday, april 27 2000

First Swallowing Tacks, then dimensionaLizm, then Sweet & Sour. Then I find this huge freaking list of blogs out there… Where have I been? Under a freakin rock? This blog thing is catching… too catching and I have the bug. I suppose “what’s new” pages are ancient history.. gawd I feel out of touch. So, here’s my blog… Bite This. Gnaw on some of my ramblings… God knows why you wanna, but who am I to argue with net trends?
13:44

So I started reading and archiving my old posts (I’m still missing like 2 year of posts, but I can’t do anything about that, yes I’m over it!), and ended up visiting some of the old sites I had linked back then, and then started feeling old and nostalgic.

Most of the old sites are totally gone now, and I feel mostly just old.