Thursday, July 29, 2010

Me vs. Spinning Rainbow of Death

Today was a lesson in futility. I've spent hours and hours this week staring at the computer screen, daring it to defy me (which it has. Repeatedly.) only to have my desire for productivity dashed.

Let me back up a bit. I should explain how this battle began, because it's obvious you know nothing of what has been going on this week.

It started on Monday. Monday was nice. Nothing going on, nothing really to do. My Institute class was rescheduled for the next day, and my Videography class was canceled due to an air conditioning problem (you do not want to be stuck in a Salt Lake City studio with no air conditioning in July). Monday was a nice relaxed day.

That should have been my first clue. Mondays are never nice, unless Monday knows that the rest of the week is planning a series of really mean pranks that will leave me sobbing in a fetal position come the weekend.

Tuesday started with Institute. I was ready, and it all went downhill from there. I n discovered that I would have to take all new pictures for my photography portfolio. Oh well. I like taking pictures. Pictures are fun. Driving in the city, however, is not.

Utah is filled with many nice people. Those nice people are not, necessarily, good drivers. There's a huge difference. After fighting my way through crazy, rude drivers to Park City to see my chiropractor (went very well. Only high spot in a series of lows), I had only a short visit before I had to drive back through these drivers. I made it in one piece.

Wednesday, I awoke with a nasty headache. I get cluster headaches, and most days I get them about 4:30, maybe 5:00 in the evening. Today I woke up with it. This bodes for a medicated day of angry pain poking me in the back of the eyeballs. Now, all I wanted to do was knit. Too bad. Stuff to do. As usual.

Come Videography I, I was in so much pain from my headache, sick from not eating most of the day, and annoyed by the constant ringing of my phone. I couldn't focus. I was ready to scream. Then I remembered I had to return stuff to the library. I was dutiful. No more fines.

This morning, my headache was back. I was tired, sluggish, and in a really bad mood. I had to get myself to the editing room. My group member, Walter, and I should have gotten the entire film blocked out, with the detail editing able to be finished tomorrow.

We spent five hours importing.

It wasn't like we wanted to. Macs are a pain in the tush, and I know a lot of Mac lovers! I really don't understand them! I spent most of that time battling the Spinning Rainbow of Death. Half of the film was refusing to import, the other half was terrible (thanks, group member. It's not hard to check out a tripod). I still have to use the terrible half. And they wonder why I'm such a control freak about this stuff.

But it's raining. I'm going home. I'm going to try and figure out this stupid import problem while I watch Midsomer Murders and plan the remake of the Eyelet Blouse.

The week still has a day. I think I can survive until, then, but if not, I leave all my yarn to my sister Erin. Erin, if you want more socks, I think you could make them yourself.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Pioneer Day Part II

So, I promised pics, so here's pics.

This is the ropes course. Awesomeness. I came down shaking with the adrenaline rush.

This is where Allison and some others did a Spice Girls lip sync. Very funny.



We played an awful lot of Phase 10. Very fun/infuriating game.

We went out on the lake in canoes.

We did eventually have to come back in. Good timing, too. We were all amazingly sunburned.

All in all, good weekend.

Friday, July 23, 2010

A-Camping We Shall Go!

Today, I am off for a camping overnight with Allison! Why? Why this weekend, you ask? Welcome to the Utah holiday known as Pioneer Day! Pioneer Day celebrates the founding of the state of Utah. This was approximately the day when Brigham Young looked over the ridge and said "This is the place." The pioneers stopped traveling, and settled here in Utah.

After leaving, the Saints eventually found a relatively secluded area to live in. Originally, the Saints were going to call it Deseret, a Hebrew word for beehive. However, a rather unkind senator decided that it wouldn't be called by a "Mormon Name" but rather decided that the Ute Indian word, Utah, meaning "in the tops of the mountains" would be used.

Today, it's celebrated here with parades, fireworks, carnivals, farmer's markets and a pile of other things. I'm excited. This will be the first Pioneer Day I've ever spent in Utah. It's not such a big deal anywhere else.

I'll post pics tomorrow.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Curses! Frogged Again!

So you remember that nice eyelet blouse I've been working on? Well, despite the removal of the lace panel, things still went wrong. I planned four inches of ease. Somehow, I wound up six inches shorter than I remember measuring, and three inches wider.

Once something like that happens, there's nothing you can do, except reclaim the yarn. There's cotton drying in hanks in my shower.

Sigh. Back to the drawing board. Maybe I'll try seaming the sucker this time. Even though I hate seaming with a passion.

I'm also working on a lace stole, knit side to side. Can't say much more than that.

Friday, July 9, 2010

To Add, or Not to Add...

I've been working on a pattern called the eyelet blouse. It's driving me nuts. I'm finally (really finally!) close to the end... and I've hit a snag.

My design calls for a bit of lace to be worked on top of the bust, with little gathers underneath it. The gather's aren't hard to work. I knit a row of purl stitches along the front where I wanted the panel to start, and I picked up and knit a small portion of them. This creates little gathers where I skipped over stitches. Unfortunately, this also means that I simply don't have enough fabric for the bust. I'm tempted to ignore it completely.

I mean really, is stockinette that bad? It has lace sleeves and will have lovely ties at the back with ribbon around the top to pull the neckline in, like a peasant top. Does it really need that extra lace?

I don't think so, and it's MY pattern! I think I can change it whenever I want.

Thanks, blog, for listening!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

The Declaration of Independence

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

"A toast? Yeah. To high treason. That's what these men were committing when they signed the Declaration. Had we lost the war, they would have been hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered, and-Oh! Oh, my personal favorite-and had their entrails cut out and 'burned!' So... Here's to the men who did what was considered wrong, in order to do what they knew was right." -Ben Gates National Treasure

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Preamble to the Constitution

I am, as I have said to many people before, a Constitutionalist. This means I hold the U.S. Constitution in the highest of regard, and think that our laws have severely moved away from it. On the weekend of our nation's birth, I think I'll post some of the documents I revere so much.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

If you want to read the whole Constitution, click here.

I feel I should also state that I'm not one of those nutty tea party people, nor am I a left-wing nut job. Too much on either side is too unbalanced for me.
Creative Commons License
Help, The Stash is Attacking! When Yarn, Knitting and Growing Up Go Terribly Awry by Kimberly Lewis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thestashattacked.blogspot.com.