afghan latest.

The Afghan Project is temporarily on hold, because Christmas is coming. We have quite an itinerary for our travels, and we're giving gifts of scarves to our kind hosts. So, instead of knitting the afghan, I'm knitting scarves. Can't say much more, in case any recipients happen to see this! But I'll be sure to take pictures of the scarves both before they are given, and maybe even with the recipients wearing them.

The current scarf I'm doing I'm making up the pattern as I go along. Well, sort of. A few more rows and I'll have the basic pattern which I then repeat until the scarf is long enough.

another finished square and odd TV commercials

My DW and I were watching A Christmas Carol on TV, during which I finished my latest afghan square, number 15:Stepped Fret. With 32 of the 63 squares completed, I am now officially over halfway.


During said movie, we saw a commercial for Jimmy Dean's breakfasts. The young lady said:

Our eggs come from real hens, our cheese comes from real cows, our sausage comes from Jimmy Dean

My wife and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. I don't think I want any of that sausage.

Luncheon Conversations.

Pretty much every Sunday, a bunch of folk from church meet for lunch at a local restaurant. Today Jimmy John's got to be the venue of choice.

Conversations at these informal gatherings can be, quite literally, about anything. With Thanksgiving still fresh in everyone's minds, discussions naturally turned to what everyone had done. 3 of those present had been to the same dinner that I had, so there was some talk of that. In particular the fact that our host had a "sighted pellet gun, it was cool" with which he shot some squirrels that had become a nuisance came up. It was then pointed out that the best thing to do with dead squirrels was to eat them, because then they had been useful, rather than shooting them for their own sake. Never mind the fact that they ateall sorts of things growing in their garden, and they really were annoying. An argument ensued. Was it better to eat the squirrels, or not? Did not eating them make their killing senseless? Was the fact that there's really not much meat and it's a lot of effort to get what little meat there is relevent? I proposed a simple solution. Bury the dead squirrels below the tomato plant that they'd been eating, as a kind of ironic justice. No hassle with getting the meat, and they'd decompose, feed the tomatoes, which you could then eat.

Later, I was examining someone's scarf that looked like it was knit. Since I've taken up knitting, I've become a lot more interested in fabrics and how they are made up. I commented that as I knit, I was interested in knowing more about the fabric of the scarf. This completely blew the mind of B.

"You knit?" B said.
"Yes," I replied.
"I don't understand. You mean with wool, and needles and stuff?"
"Yes, that's how most people do it."
"I don't understand. WHY?"
"What's so hard to understand?"
"But I don't understand why. Did you always knit, did you just wake up one day and decide to knit? why?"
"Well, my mother-in-law taught me when she was visiting in the summer. I was at a loose end."
"Oh. I guess I can accept that."
"No, you can't, you still think it's strange," piped up someone else there.
"Well, yes, I guess you're right," said B.
"Why do people have a problem with this? I knit, I like scented candles, and I'm not gay!" I exclaimed.
"You forgot to say you're British, which would explain a lot" said someone.

It was all very amusing.

In other news, I'm making soup for our regular Monday Night Football gathering. Tomorrow, the Saint Louis Rams play at the Green Bay Packers. As a Packers fan in Saint Louis, this could be an interesting game, in as much as I'll be pretty much the only one rooting for the Packers. It's also Brett Favre's 200th consecutive in-season start. (It will be his 219th, including playoffs). That is a phenomenal record. Anyway, with the temperature likely to be in the 20s, the Packers are in my opinion, a shoo-in, especially the way the Rams have been playing this season. The spread of 6.5 points that the Packers have been given is surprisingly low. I reckon Green Bay will win by 14 points. We shall see.

As for the soup, I'm making beef stew, and a mexican-like caldo de pollo.

Afghan Update

I finished another square, number 28:Twining Rib Pattern . I've also managed to find time to take photgraphs of all the squares I've compeleted so far, and put a page up with all the details. As I complete squares I shall post them here and put them up on that page too.

I am currently working on square 15:Stepped Fret, and 45:Bobble and Leaf. The bobble and leaf is an interesting pattern, with the turns to make the bobble. I'm looking forward to the finished result on that one in particular.

TV

Something I've noticed in the nearly 4 years I've lived here is that this country has something in abundance that no other country has nearly as many of. Americans. That may seem funny to you, but really, there are lots of them here.

So, why is it that for the new FOX TV series House they were unable to find an American actor to take the lead role? Don't get me wrong, I love Hugh Laurie. He's a fine actor,and I know him best for his comedic appearances with Stephen Fry. But one thing he's not is American.

Now, in principle, I do not object to him appearing in an American TV series, but why does he have an American accent? If it were so important to the plot to have an American doctor, how come the casting director was unable to find a suitable American actor? As I said, America is really not short of Americans.

It's not even a good American accent, in my opinion. Admittedly, that could be coloured by my knowledge of what he really sounds like, so maybe he sounds American to Americans. However, given how bad most Americans' attempts at British accents are, I rather doubt it.

It's a shame really, as the series seems to be promising, but the accent is just so distracting I find it hard to concentrate on the plot.

What the turkey was and what I am.

Stuffed, that is. We continued our tradition of joining a particular family in our church who always open their home to those who don't have family in the area. Except this year was the first year since they had their first that none of their offspring has been present. Two of them live in Seattle, one in the DC area, and the other, while he lives nearby, was visiting his in-laws this time. So we became their surrogate family.

Dinner was good, the food excellent. We had the traditional American fare (turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with toasted marshmallows on top, green bean casserole, ambrosia, stuffing, gravy), some favourite dishes of the hosts (mashed rutabagas (which I know as swedes), oysters), an English dish that goes extremely well with turkey and other game birds, that I had prepared (bread sauce*), and some Chinese dishes as the the other guests were all Asian (a chicken thing, and a spicy noodle-shrimp-pork dish).

Conversation was great, with topics including nearly being shot, chickens, nearly being hit by cars, being compared to teletubbies in Best Man speeches, wrestling, life as a paediatrician on call, to name but a few.

Repairing to the lounge to watch the Cowboys beat the Bears in the Thanksgiving day game, those of us so inclined also did some knitting.

After dinner had settled, we enjoyed Apple Pie, Pecan Pie (both courtesy of Sam's Club, and a Pumpkin Pie that I had made.

We also played Apples to Apples which is always good fun.

It was, overall, a relaxing, yet curiously tiring day.

* Recipe for Bread Sauce

Peel, top, and tail a medium onion, and then stud it with whole cloves around the larger of the two cut edges to make a crown. Place the onion, crown down, in a saucepan. Add some milk, and some white bread with crusts removed and broken into small pieces (or you can make it into breadcrumbs first) and gently bring it to a boil. Must be on a low heat or it will burn on the bottom. You need enough bread and milk to have enough sauce for your needs, and to have the right consistency (sort of "thick sauce"-y, maybe slightly lumpy). Let it gently bloop for half an hour or so, and then leave it for as long as possible before the meal. If you can manage overnight, great.

Before serving, remove the onion (which should remove all the cloves too, but if not, fish out any that escaped), and reheat in a microwave (reheating this sauce in a pan is a very delicate operation, prone to burning). Put lashings of it on your turkey, and consume, moaning with the pleasure of it all.

My afghan - the early squares

Having found our digital camera so that we could use it tomorrow at our Thanksgiving meal, I uploaded the pics that have been on it for months. These included the 11 squares I'd finished for my afghan by the end of June. I've since completed quite a few more.

Please note that these squares have not been blocked yet, so they may not look too square right now! I've also not had time to properly present the pictures, but wanted to get these pics up as a first draft as it were. The file names show the square number in the book (there are 63 total), and the name of the square.

I'll be taking more pictures soon, and will then present everything properly too.

Snow

We had the first snow of the season today. Not much, just an inch or so. Of course, I'd have thought that a lot before I moved to the US, as Alison recently commented. I told my DW what Alison had said, and her response was something to the effect of "6 inches heavy? It's not heavy unless it's at least a foot". Of course, she comes from western NY state. I guess the perspective changes work both ways.

I am reminded of my first day in the US (other than on vacation). It was December 2000. I'd passed my British driving test just a few months before, so I didn't have a great deal of driving experience. I'd never driven on the right. And I'd never driven in snow. So the 6-8 inches of snow that fell that day in Saint Louis were a wonderful welcome to jetlagged me. Fortunately, Paul and Alison met me at the airport and helped me out that first night. Alison then very kindly drove me the next day, and then the next day, she sat by me as I drove on the other side of the road, in the snow. I am very thankful for her kindness. I know she gave up a lot to help me out. So, thank you Alison.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, what are you thankful for?

Blog Title

I've been thinking for some time about what name my blog should have. At last, I think I've come up with it. So, my blog is called

/(p[eu]rls of wisdom)?/

Why? Well for now, I'm not going to explain, but might at a later date if enough people are confused by it.

Have you killed Clifford Brooks yet?

NaNoWriMo. I'm aware of it, and even know someone participating, but other than that it's not really held any interest for me. Until I heard this story on my local NPR station today. One part of that story, which you can listen to at that link, involves a NaNoWriMo participant called Clifford Brooks. Apparently, it's become quite trendy to kill a Clifford Brooks character in your novel. So, have you participated? If so, did you kill Clifford?

New Skills

As you may have noticed I'm fiddling with my template, learning CSS as I go. Me like.

links - what's your preference?

Which do you prefer? A link that brings up a new browser window, so that you can continue reading the blog in the existing page? Or one that brings up the new page in the existing window so you'd have to use the back button to get back to the blog?

Let me know...

Permanent Residence

Well, it's been nearly 2 years since I got my Permanent Residence ("green") card. Because I got it through marriage, I have to apply to get the condition on it removed. So I have a fun form to fill in and documents to copy and send with it. Oh. And money.

Saint Louis Youth Orchestra

Went to see the Saint Louis Youth Orchestra today, an orchestra of people aged 12-22, in association with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. The program was

SMETANA The Moldau from Má Vlast
HAYDN Symphony No. 70 in D major
ELGAR Serenade in E minor for Strings, Op. 20
TCHAIKOVSKY Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture
Program notes

We thoroughly enjoyed it, and the Youth Orchestra played magnificently. If you would like to try some excellent classical music, I highly recommend hearing the SLYO. Their next concert is Saturday March 12th at 8pm, and their final one of the season is Sunday May 15th at 3pm. Ticket prices are at most $12 for the youth orchestra, said tickets being $99 for the regular orchestra. These are extremely good value, as the quality is excellent. Unfortunately, the youth orchestra isn't that well attended - most of the attendees know someone in the orchestra. That means lots of people are missing out on great music. If you're in Saint Louis on one of those dates, I highly suggest you consider getting some tickets.

World Toilet Day

Tomorrow (November 19th) is World Toilet Day. I wonder if Google will celebrate by changing their logo as they often do on various days...

Dibley

One of the few TV channels we get clear enough to watch without going crazy is our local PBS station. Thursdays I enjoy because at the moment we're getting a double dose of The Vicar of Dibley. Being a Preacher's Kid, from the Church of England in which the comedy is set, I enjoy the humour in it a lot. I do wonder what the Americans think of it though, as many references will go over their heads.

Home Group

Home group was smaller than normal yesterday, as a number of people had other commitments. One of our number is going to have an endoscopy soon, and commented that they were not going to have a colonoscopy. That was mentioned because it seems that most of the group have had a colonoscopy. I think that says something about the average age of the group we are in. I reckon the topic comes up around once a month.

We started looking at Titus, and concluded that Paul was expecting the letter to be read by others. Firstly, compare the greeting in the first few verses with the greetings in, say, 2Tim, or Philemon. Paul was clearly setting his authority out, even though he knew Timothy extremely well - they had been working closely for 15 years. This, we decided, was to make sure that those on Crete were reminded of Paul's authority, and also so that as Timothy carried out Paul's instructions in the letter, that he could demonstrate it was not purely off his own back that he was doing this, but it was under Paul's authority and instruction.

Knitting

Alison sent me information on a knitting pattern that intrigues me. Thanks Alison.

Right now, I think it's a bit much; even Alison commented in her email that she'd had some difficulty with it, and she's an accomplished knitter. I shall not bite off more than I can chew, but I shall keep a record of it, for a future project.

In the meantime, I shall continue on my Learn-to-knit afghan. So far I've completed 27 of the 63 squares, with 2 currently being worked, so I'm nearly halfway. It's been a fun project so far, and I've learnt lots.

I've been doing some at lunchtime at work, and it's raised a few eyebrows, but it helps me relax, so I'm not worried about what people think.

Note to self...

Mustn't forget to write about Home Group, and how we always manage to bring up the subject of Colonoscopies. I would write about it now, but have to get to bed.

From the heart

Today, I discovered that the heart monitor that I'd put in the internal mail system on October 25th was still sitting in the mail room, because the mail collection/pre-sort company wouldn't take it. I'll be getting it back tomorrow, now they know it was me that put it there, and I can take it to the post office personally. That will save the $672 that the monitor company wanted to charge me because it hadn't yet been returned.

I suppose that means I should explain why I had a heart monitor.

There I was, heading off to work along highway 364 (aka the Page Extension, a relatively new road with a bridge over the Missouri river from Saint Louis to Saint Charles, easing the traffic on I-70), when a police car started following me, with flashing lights. *sigh* I got a ticket for going a little fast. And, of course, as anyone would in that situation, I had that "heart-in-the-throat" nervous feeling.

I trundled off to work, and didn't really give it another thought, except I was still feeling the same feeling a couple of hours later. When it got to lunch time, and I was still feeling funny, I took my pulse, and discovered that it was irregular.

So, I called my doctor, told her the symptoms and was told "Um... we'd like to see you... now..."
I leave work, and drive to the doctor. The technician fits me to an EKG machine and take some readings. I'm panicking - my dad has had heart problems resulting in a quadruple bypass in January 2001. The doctor takes a look at the graph, and then comes in and tells me I have Atrial Fibrillation but without telling me what that is. I'm told they are going to see if a local cardiologist can fit me in, and she leaves to make that arrangement.

While I'm in the examination room, the door is open, and I can hear what's going on outside... I hear "If he can't fit him in, we'll emergency him". That's a great thing to hear when you're already panicking.

Anyway, the cardiologist says he can fit me in, so while they are aking the final arrangements, I call work to let them know I'm not coming back today, and I also call the temp agency to let them know too. However, my cell phone battery is low, so I have to keep my calls short. While I'm on the phone to the temp agency I say "I'm at the doctor, I can't stay on the phone long as my cell phone battery is dying, they already know at [my assignment] that I'm not coming back today." However, I realise, afterwards, with the low battery and poor signal, it's entirely possible the person at the temp agency heard "I'm at the doctor... dying..." I also called my wife. I learnt that the words "I don't want to you to worry, but..." are not very good at preventing worry.

I drive to the cardiologist, not far from my doctor, and I get another EKG. Then my cardiologist comes to see me. ["My cardiologist" is a phrase I didn't think I'd need for a long time to come...] He asks me lots of questions about my symptoms. ["Do you know when it started?" "Yes at 7:17 this morning" "7:17?!" "yeah, well, that's the time on my speeding ticket..."] He explains what A-Fib is, and tells me that, subject to a couple of blood tests to confirm, I have none of the risk factors. I then head out to have an ultrasound of my heart, and it's really weird seeing my heart on the monitor with all its bits moving! I then return to the first room, and have yet another EKG. Apparently, my A-fib has stopped and my heart has returned to normal ("sinus") rhythm. If it hadn't, the cardiologist would have had me back the next day to give me an electric shock to get it back into sinus rhythm.

The cardiologist also told me that in and of itself, a-fib is not life threatening, but with the heart not pumping blood properly, the blood can pool, and if it's stagnant, it can clot. Clots can then cause strokes or heart attacks. Therefore, it's important to get an episode of a-fib treated promptly. He puts me on some medication, and a heart monitor for a month.

When I saw him again, he said that all my bloodwork came back negative, that there were no episodes recorded on my monitor (I'd had a few extra beats, but nothing to worry about), so I have none of the risk factors. I simply have to have one aspirin a day, and just be aware of if I get symptoms again. So, I'm essentially OK.

I did find out though that my visit to him had completely wiped out my health insurance deductible for the year (and when choosing our deductible last year, we'd decided that as we were both in good health, and finding finances tight, that we'd go for a higher deductible and lower payment. *sigh*) so I was going to ask their administrative staff if we could work something out. However, I was beaten to the punch - they offered to work things out with me before I could ask!

So, that's why I had a heart monitor, which will be winging its way back to where it belongs very soon now... because I can't afford for it not to.

Good news from home...

Smoking ban proposed for England

A smoking ban was put forward by the Scottish Executive last week. Smoking could be banned in every cafe, restaurant and most pubs in England in four years under plans unveiled by the government on Tuesday.

Full story.

What file extension are you?

Which File Extension are You?

[thanks Paul]

Starting over.

So, I'd been hounded to set up a blog, and I did so. However, I didn't really have time to maintain it, so I've decided to start over. I've also modified some things so that you don't have to have a blogger.com account to leave a comment.

Hopefully I'll find time to put some logs in more frequently than I have been, and this blog has no real theme as such, it's just what comes out! :)

Hours have been cut a little at the day job. Hopefully work will pick up again soon. So, I'm on the hunt for something, perhaps going back into my former geek profession. Hopefully without the terrible hours though. 3rd shift is not nice. I'm so glad I don't do that any more!

Knitting is coming along well; I've knitted about a 3rd of the squares for my afghan. I must find where I've misplaced the digital camera, and take some pictures of what I have so far.