Everyone Should Have a Thaddeus

My husband is really quite amazing in a number of ways, but researching and learning on the internet is something he does better than most.

From Shopping to Computer Upgrades

Whether it's finding the perfect shirt to give as a gift to our brother-in-law, or teaching himself to upgrade the memory and hard drive in my lap top...Thaddeus is most impressive.

Recently, he noticed how slow my Mac Book Pro worked.  It's worked this slowly since we bought it in 2011, but since I do a lot of my computer work on my work lap top, it wasn't a big deal to me.  But it was completely unacceptable to Thaddeus.  He immediately set out to find out whether a RAM upgrade would fix the performance issue and how to find out how much RAM I actually had, and how much of it was being used.

He ended up doubling my ram from 4 to 8 gig and also replacing my hard drive with a solid state hard drive.  Even though he's never done this before, he was able to order the correct parts, determine he had all the tools necessary and install the new parts in my lap top.  The installation took about 20 minutes...it was quite surprising.

The result is, my computer runs like new...well...better than new...it's about 10 times as fast as it used to be.

And, he used the RAM he took out of my laptop, to add more to his iMac.  Like I said, amazing.

Current Knitting/Spinning

Zipping along on my current scarf/wrap project and thinking I may need to start a new project soon.

I've added about 15 inches since the last photo and I'm still enjoying working on this project.  My niece has asked me to knit her a hat, so I may add that in as a new project shortly.

I also started back spinning the mohair/romney blend I got from Mindy at Puff the Magic Rabbit.

I saw some brioche stitch knitting by Nancy Marchant on Facebook that I think would be a perfect use of this handspun yarn, so now I'm even more inspired to get some yarn made.

Readers' Comments/Questions

Selma writes, "Joe, you might really enjoy knitting the patterns of Hanne Falkenberg. Lots of color changes, fascinating engineering, and, often, totally garter stitch."

Actually, I used to love Hanne's designs when I was working in the yarn store...my current project kind of reminds me of her designs in a much simpler way.  I hated that you had to buy a kit to get her designs.  I thought they were too expensive for what you got.   Also, most of the women I knit for wouldn't have looked very good in her designs, so I never ended up doing any of them.

Emoticons

Here comes another opportunity for QueerJoe to be judgmental and insulting.  I think emoticons are ridiculous and are only used by lazy people who don't care to think enough to write/text what they really feel.

If You Must

When e-mail started to become standard practice within the business community (it was only 15-20 years ago...it's still amazing to me how we did without it before e-mail), and then instant messaging followed, many large corporations started putting out standards of etiquette for using the new technologies, with useful advice, such as "Don't replace a conversation that should take place face-to-face with an e-mail or instant message."

Now that emoticons have become ubiquitous, even in business settings, I think standards of etiquette need to be put in place as well.

• Emoticons should only be used to supplement text...to give a tone that can't easily be conveyed in the words.
• Responding to someone's Facebook status of a family tragedy (such as the death of someone close to them) requires more than a sad face.
• If you really want to be supportive of any problem a friend has texted you, a thoughtful, typed reply is better than an emoticon.
• If you're going to be rude enough to text an important message to someone that should be said to them in person, don't add to the rudeness by adding emoticons.
• If you're one of those people that adds "just kidding" after insulting someone even when you're not "just kidding", a winkie face emoticon is the same thing.

The other day, someone announced the death of a family member on Facebook (which, even though it was very well written, I didn't think should be posted on Facebook...just sayin') and someone actually commented with a :(

The least they could have done was a sad teary face.

Any other rules or breaches of emoticon etiquette?

Current Spinning

I made some progress spinning the singles of the British Romney from Carol at Black Bunny Fibers...you remember, the singles I was planning on plying with the Blue Face Leicester.

If anyone had asked me prior to now whether I'd ever recommend Romney for spinning, I'd say it was crap fiber, but great to learn on.  I have changed my mind...this shit is fucking AWESOME!

Readers' Comments/Questions

Thank you all for your ideas and thoughts on leftover remnants of yarn.  While I can't imagine having the time for any of them (especially when I have tons of non-remnant yarn), I now will have a bit more difficulty disposing of this yarn.

Google's Top 10 Knitting Blogs

I was shocked (and pleased) to find out that I am number 6 in the list of top 10 knitting blogs on Google!  Or at least, so says Liberty's Yarn.

Adding Labels/Tags

I'm not sure how she came up with her Trending Knitting Blogs, but I'm glad to see I showed up in that top 10 list too.  But just to make sure that I continue to stay up there with some of my heroes like Kay & Ann and Stephanie, I've decided to start adding tags (or blogger calls them labels) to my posts, so more search terms will be added for each blog post.

Although Liberty maintains that keeping a strong blog readership is a lot more than just work the SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

So, for that, I thank you all for sticking with me.

Current Spinning

Having finished the singles of the Black Bunny Fibers BFL (BBF BFL) in the reds and purples...

...I decided I wanted to mix it up a bit in the plying, so I'm spinning the following for the second play of the yarn:

Also a BBF yarn, this is British Romney in deep blues, teals and purples.  I did a little demo plying to see how I liked, it, and I do!

I'm thinking about using this yarn to make a Stephen West shawl, but that's still in the planning stages.