the Redskins have spoken--and I biked to work today! :-)

First, after weeks of monitoring the election prediction sites, I want to point out that we can throw away all the polls, and not bother voting, because it's all settled. Per the Washington Redskins, John Kerry is absolutely, positively guaranteed to win the election. As everyone who hasn't been hiding under a rock knows by now, for the last 17 Presidential elections the outcome of the Redskins' last game before the election has predicted the Presidential winner. If they win, the incumbent wins; if they lose, the incumbent loses. So, today they lost to the Green Bay Packers 28-14. Thus, Kerry wins. Absolutely, positively, 100% guaranteed. ;-)

(After all, there are no [Red Sox] 80+ year traditions that have been [Red Sox] broken lately. Nope, none at all. Really. Why, it's as likely as the Red Sox winning the World Series...[grin])

However, that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is the description of the game:
--------------
LANDOVER, Md. (AP) -- Clinton Portis celebrated the apparent winning touchdown with a leap into the end zone, capping a 43-yard reception that gave the Redskins a one-point lead with 2:35 to play.

Oops. Scratch that. Flag on the play.

Receiver James Thrash was whistled for illegal motion, a call Thrash didn't understand and one that Washington coach Joe Gibbs called ``an absolute mystery.''

The Green Bay Packers had a different feeling: sheer relief.

Al Harris intercepted a pass on the next play, and the Packers drove for an insurance touchdown to cap a 28-14 victory Sunday that pulled Green Bay (4-4) back to .500 after a 1-4 start.

But the play everyone will remember is the negated touchdown.

``I was exhausted,'' Washington tackle Chris Samuels said. ``I was chasing Clinton all over the field after we scored the touchdown trying to hug him. I was like, 'Slow down, man. I'm trying to celebrate with you.' Then, I turned around and saw the officials calling us back. It's just disappointing. It's tough.''
-------------------
Based on the game, I predict an apparent Bush win, followed by a legal challenge by the Kerry campaign, and a judicial review awarding the win to Kerry on some inscrutable Republican election foul. Nostradamus hath spoken, via the Washington Redskins.

(Hey. Weirder things have happened. ;-) )

On the other hand, given that the Red Sox just won their first World Series in 86 years, under a blood-red moon (full lunar eclipse), and The Economist, capitalist magazine extraordinaire, just endorsed John Kerry, I think it's pretty clear that Armageddon is on its way. So the outcome of the Presidential election may not matter. Perhaps Nader will win, upon which we'll all be caught up in the Rapture. Prepare, prepare, the end is near!!

(Hey, it's possible. [grin])

Meanwhile, I biked to work today! I was going to go off on my usual cycling run, but then it occured to me that hey! I can bike to work now!! because I'm working!!!!! so of course I had to go and scout out routes. Unfortunately, work is on the opposite side of a major freeway (the 101), which does limit my options, but with patience and perseverance I have successfully located at least three, equally good, routes to work. Unfortunately, they all have the same drawback. I appear to have a choice between:

(1) getting run over in a sea of freeway merges while crossing the 101 at Willow;
(2) getting run over " " " " " while crossing the 101 at Marsh;
(3) getting run over " " " " " while crossing the 101 at 84.

(That last one is truly terrifying--merging through two consecutive freeway-only lanes, immediately followed by a high-speed merge with cars getting off the freeway. I was sweating bullets crossing it on a sleepy Sunday afternoon--no WAY am I getting anywhere NEAR it during Monday rush hour.)

Fortunately I ran into some cyclists who pointed me at another alternate route, which apparently does not involve getting run over :-), so I'm going to scout it out next weekend. (It takes a freeway overpass that is *not* a freeway exit.) I think it will take considerably longer than the three options I tried today--all of which take about half an hour--but I figure that, by skipping the ambulance, trip to the emergency room, reconstructive surgery, and the year of physical therapy, it probably comes out considerably faster. [impish grin]

Meanwhile, I'm making progress on my sample chapter, which is a damn good thing since I have to get it (or at least seven pages of it) done for review for my writing class tomorrow evening. :-)
Tien

Nesting :-)

My friend/housemate and I have agreed that I can rent the room I've been staying in for the next year and a half, while she's up at Berkeley. It works out well for both of us: I'm paying considerably less than I'd pay for an apartment, and get practically the entire house to myself--she gets a housesitter she can trust, plus some income from the rental, and can pop down and visit whenever she wants to.

So I've spent most of the last few days moving--moving the stuff she was storing in my room back into her room, and moving a few of my things in. Instead of 3/4 of a single dresser, I now have TWO dressers entirely for my own stuff--luxury! And the boxes, furniture, and giant artists' supply cabinet that were in my room are gone, and the snake cages are up off the floor, so I have oodles and oodles more room than before. I've been on a rampage of organizing, categorizing, and tossing out everything that doesn't work. Going down to my storage space and retrieving things from the more accessible boxes.

In short, I am nesting. :-)

Not much else to report at the moment--or rather, I don't have time to go into the depth I'd like--I start my new job on Monday, AND my sample chapter is being reviewed in my writing class on Monday evening, so as you can guess I'm pretty frantic. I've spent today either cooking (a wonnnnnderful cream of tomato soup using dry-farmed tomatoes (intense flavor), top-grade manufacturer's cream (super-heavy, non-ultrapasteurized whipping cream), milk, and a few spices), working on the book, or hemming pants. I have four pairs of pants finished so far and have another four to go. Dang, I wish I were taller!

But the short version of cool stuff happening:

• Interviewed the director of AIDS Lifecycle about the event, and got some really cool factoids (do you realize that they went through 11,000 gallons of water and 32,000 pounds of ice in just seven days? or that they needed seven forklifts on the event? 884 porta-potties?), plus a lot of great insights to how the ride works.
  
  My favorite factoid: the advance road manager goes out the day before the riders go out, and removes all the dead animals with a shovel. (Dang, these people are organized.) Mystery solved! I had wondered how we could ride 600 miles in 7 days and not see a single roadkill. Now I know...
  
  Anyway, I'll write more about that later when I'm not so busy. However, I did make inroads on getting interviews with some of my more elusive subjects, and am getting ready to interview one of the Cycle Buddies and trying to set up an interview with the chair of the Board at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. By all accounts, he's a really nice guy, and I want to use his perspective on Day One, to put the Ride into context. (He's HIV+, by the way.)
  
• Wrote a couple of really good commentaries (don't recall if I've posted it to the "Posts" blog yet--if I haven't, I'll do it once I have a chance to catch up) on unconscious prejudices and sexism. Very happy with that because it addresses something I've wanted to talk about for quite some time: sexism does not have to be overt or intentional to be prejudicial. In fact, most of the sexism I've run into are what I call "10% factors": it's not that they hate you and think you shouldn't be there, but you don't match their (internal) image of category X, so they don't feel quite right around you, and you have to work 10% harder to convince them that yes, you *are* competent even though you don't quite "smell right".
  
  But I've never been able to express that with precision before, so I'm happy about having written that. Like I said, I'll post it once I have a chance to catch up. Several other women in science/engineering have already thanked me for pinning down so precisely the gender issues they're struggling with.
  
• A small thing: discovered a really tasty, low-fat, and fairly low-effort meal. I needed to cook a turkey breast, but it was too big to pan-fry and would probably dry out anyway (it's 99% fat-free). I was trying to figure out what to do with it, and eventually thought of cooking it en papillote! So I got a big sheet of parchment paper, put the turkey on it, got out some bacon/ham I'd bought at the farmer's market, and sliced the ham thin and put it on the turkey for flavor.
  
  Then I started thinking what else I'd want to cook with it--some kind of onion of course--and threw in a scallion or two. More fast-cooking vegetables--sliced up two carrots and threw them in. And then I peeled and added a few chestnuts, because I love chestnuts and thought the onions and other flavorings might cook in. Then I sealed up the parchment envelope (papillote) and stuck it into the toaster oven. Presto, maybe half an hour later I had perfectly cooked turkey, with a slight smoky flavor from the ham, the carrots and scallions were tender and tasty, and--bonus--the chestnuts were fantastic. They absorbed all the flavors and came out with this glorious bacon/ham/smoky richness, plus the natural sweetness of the chestnuts. It was glorious. (I plan to try it again this week.)
  
• Second best of all: my cycling coach (the one who got me ready for AIDS Lifecycle 2 in just seven weeks!) has agreed to train me for AIDS Lifecycle 4!! I was really worried about whether I'd be able to ride this year, since the knee is still giving me trouble, but if Curtis is training me, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to do it. Not only is he a top-notch cycling coach, but he's also a licensed physical therapist and an expert bike fitter. So whatever goes wrong, odds are that he'll understand it and have a fix for it. I feel way better. And I am starting my training ASAP.
• And, the BEST of all: I get my cats back!! I'm flying out to the East Coast sometime in early to mid December, and taking my darlings home with me. The very worst thing about being unemployed has been being separated from my cats...but soon the Fuzz will be chewing on my phone cords, and Sweetheart will be bossing me shamelessly around, as usual. Yay!!

Anyway, that's the short form...project-wise, I'm still doing the blackwork a bit, plus I've decided (yet again) to learn the Dvorak keyboard. Dvorak is supposed to be much more comfortable and often faster than the standard QWERTY keyboard--which was originally designed to *slow down* typists. (Back in the Stone Age, i.e. the age of manual machines, a fast typist would jam the machine, so it was important to keep the speed down to avoid mishaps.)

I've been fascinated by this, and keep trying to learn the Dvorak keyboard. Problem is, I type at about 110 wpm on QWERTY (and now you know how I manage to write such long posts! ;-) ), so going down to 20 wpm on Dvorak is just intensely frustrating. So I'm trying it again, but don't expect to switch over this time, either; it's just a fun thing to try. :-) I like having a stupid video game to play while thinking about what I'm writing, and it might as well be a typing tutor. :-)

That's it for tonight...back to work on the chapter!

Tien

Shopping extravaganza!

I am pleased to announce that I have been awarded the "Queen's Crown" by a gay friend, for excessive purchases of clothing at bargain prices. :-) A few days ago, a friend took me shopping at Thrift Town in San Francisco, where I bought:

12 tops:
--5 silk blouses (cream, magenta, fuschia, teal, and olive)
--4 linen shirts (white, white, burgundy, chocolate)
--1 short-sleeved men's shirt, terra cotta
--2 white cotton men's shirts

2 vests:
--1 light gray, classic waistcoat
--1 blues and mauves, patterned, heavy tapestry weave (reminded me of upholstery fabric)

7 pairs of pants:
--3 pairs of wool pants (charcoal, burgundy, green-gray herringbone tweed)
--4 pairs of khakis-style pants (tan, black, dark blue, brown)

--2 shirt-style blazers (green linen, black microfiber)

--1 orangey-brown wool coat, ankle-length, hand-tailored(!)
--1 black trenchcoat

--3 belts

a total of 28 items for a mere $112.50 (!) Two giant bags (like trash bags) full of clothes.

Better yet, all the items were new or nearly new, Macy's quality or above. Stuff I would have paid $80-300 for at retail. At an average of $3-4 an item, including both coats. Beat that. :-)

I can't claim full credit for it, though, as my friend took me to Thrift Town and gave me all kinds of fashion advice. I asked her how on earth she knew all that, since I never see her in anything formal, and she looked shocked and said, "I was a criminal! I needed to know how each class would look, dress, and act!"

Ask a silly question...

(Actually, given this particular friend, I have no doubt she was telling the truth. She makes my checkered past look downright boring. I stand in awe, and consider her my inspiration. (Well, minus the criminal part, that is. Although I do hope to get arrested someday...))

At any rate, she was really helpful in teaching me useful things like "you have to wear a belt if you wear something with belt loops", and "your socks match your pants, not your shoes". Basic fashion knowledge, but I'm a geek...I tend to think of clothing in functional terms, and have always regarded fashion as a Divine Mystery.

I'm still not a strong believer in fashion generally (jeans, T-shirts and Birkenstocks here), but I feel much better now that someone has given me the basics on how to dress. There's something to be said for choosing to flaunt dress standards; but I don't like erring through ignorance. If I'm breaking the rules, I like to know exactly what I'm doing and why.

So now I know that a black belt is never worn with khakis (ditto black shoes) unless you are wearing a black top; otherwise you wear brown, which is acceptable for all occasions that don't involve black. Similarly, brown shoes can be worn with any pants except black, and that you really don't need anything besides black and brown. And I have an entire new work wardrobe for less than a single pair of pants would cost at Macy's. (Heck, I got a pair of Ann Taylor wool pants for $5 that I know would retail for $300 at Macy's.)

But best of all, I have the "Queen's Crown" for excessive shopping and bargain hunting. I plan to wear it with pride. :-)

(When you manage to impress a gay man with your shopping wizardry, dang, honey, you're doing good. :-) )

Now I just have to get a drag queen to teach me about makeup, and I'll be totally set. :-)

Tien, proudly puttering around the house in her nice new crown

Extreme ironing

OMG. A friend just sent this URL to me. I made up some poetry to go with it...

These are all from http://www.extremeironing.com.

May I present...Extreme Ironing!!

Could you iron on a train?
http://tinyurl.com/5j7f4

Could you iron, wreathed in flame?
http://tinyurl.com/48x33

Could you iron a hippopotamus?
http://tinyurl.com/3hwak

Could you iron here with us?
http://tinyurl.com/4d83m

Could you iron on the run?
http://tinyurl.com/7y36y

Could you iron just for fun?
http://tinyurl.com/4mcxc (Dang, this one is *truly* impressive.)

Yes!!

I would iron on the rocks!
http://tinyurl.com/5o7vf

I would iron, up on top!
http://tinyurl.com/4374x

I would iron in the air!
http://tinyurl.com/3mhpf

I would iron ANYWHERE!!
http://tinyurl.com/3trg7

-------------
...and, just because I'm a cycling fiend:

a nice cycling shot:
http://tinyurl.com/5lj8

...but the TRULY impressive one:
http://tinyurl.com/6kqyt
(yes, that's a Tour de France maillot jaune (yellow jersey) on that ironing board!!!)

...and, in honor of my trip to SE Asia:
http://tinyurl.com/44qpn

Finally, a woman skips a few steps in between...and irons a sheep. :-)
http://tinyurl.com/5sqda

:-)

Tien

Got my Openwave new-hire employee packet... :-)

...Whee! It's so exciting!!

Just think...I have a job, so now I suddenly have, absolutely free...

• health insurance
• life insurance
• disability insurance
• a vision plan
• a dental plan
• gym membership in a VERY swanky gym, complete with climbing wall :-)

plus incidentals like travel assistance programs and othersuch.

Not only that, but the health insurance is WAAAY better than what I currently have...I'm paying $350/month right now for insurance with a high deductible and 30% copay, and suddenly I'll have "free" insurance with no deductible, a 0-10% copay, and way better coverage for just about everything.

Which is to say, on top of actually having income, I'll also be getting probably about $500-600/month in various kinds of insurance, and improved benefits. You really don't think about those things until you don't have them!!!

I was actually lucky to get individual health insurance at all while I was unemployed. I would never have been able to buy it if not for HIPAA (thanks Clinton!)--my knee surgery meant every private insurer turned me down for regular insurance. To get coverage, I had to invoke HIPAA, which forced them to take me, since I'd exhausted my COBRA coverage. I wound up paying triple the usual rate, but I had coverage. I'm extremely grateful for that. :-)

Anyway, in addition to all those wonderful benefits, I now have loot! I have:

• Openwave Post-Its
• an Openwave pen
• an Openwave commuter mug
• and a very, very nice Openwave backpack :-)

It was kind of funny...the HR person said, "Here's your new hire package," and handed me a backpack. I had no idea that the backpack was part of the new hire package (I mean, they're not exactly standard--I had been expecting an envelope or something), so we had a brief moment of total confusion before I realized it was a freebie. But dang, I like being employed. :-)

And the backpack is really cool. It's black, heavy fabric, nicely padded--even has no-slip velveteen on the shoulder straps, so it doesn't slip down off your shoulder--and best of all, it's perfect for smuggling drugs, because it has so many pockets Customs couldn't possibly search them all. I count ten pockets, seven of which are zipped-up pockets, and I'm still not sure I've found them all. I have no idea why I would need ten pockets, but this is clearly an upper-class, top-quality backpack, so it needs ten zippered pockets. :-)

Clearly this is meant to show me that Openwave is one of the absolute top-notch backpack manufacturers in the world. And I wholeheartedly believe it. :-) Unfortunately, what they actually make is software for cell phones--but hey, as soon as they go into the backpack business, I'll be right there buying. *grin*

(And that backpack is way better than an Openwave T-shirt, which is the usual standard.)

Anyway, I've just finished drooling over the employee insurance plans (I never thought I'd find myself drooling over an insurance plan), which allows me a few seconds to look at my other arrival! My fleece finally came back from Wooly Knob Fiber mill! It's all washed and everything. I have a 13 micron merino (from Carol Bliss), some lovely kid mohair fleece, a gray Rambouillet fleece, and a bit of Romney lamb. Not much of anything, but very cool. Unfortunately, I'm not spinning at the moment, but it can wait. If I decide it can't wait, I'll ship it out to be spun up for me.

And, I finally heard back from the director of AIDS Lifecycle, and he's willing to let me interview him! What a relief. I had been worried that they had suddenly decided to hate me for some reason (totally irrational), but it's nice to know they don't. :-)

All in all, it's been a very good day. :-)

Tien

BREAK OUT THE CHAMPAGNE....

I HAVE A JOB!!!!

2 years, 3 months, and 3 days of unemployment. Over.

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

Tien

a short discussion of indigo...

...but first, the Big News! Silicon Valley added FOUR HUNDRED JOBS this month!! Four hundred!! Yay! Wahoo!!

...actually, that is big news. Check it out:

From the San Jose Mercury News (http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/9956462.htm?1c ):

Silicon Valley added 400 jobs last month.

It's only the second monthly job gain since the local economy collapsed back in March 2001, according to payroll data released Monday. While minuscule, the numbers have given some economists hope that the region may be about to emerge from its economic coma.

At the same time, observers cautioned that growth will remain slow and that it will be many years -- at best -- before the region recovers the more than 200,000 jobs it lost.
[...]
According to the latest payroll data, Santa Clara County reported 839,600 jobs in September, up 400 jobs from August.

The job gain is seasonal, and can primarily be attributed to 1,100 jobs added by government, mainly in education. Such gains are typical in the fall, and Silicon Valley is still more than 7,000 jobs short of where it was this time last year.

But in recent years, even seasonal gains haven't been enough to offset losses in other areas. Since the last time Santa Clara County posted a monthly job gain -- 300 jobs in November 2003 -- things have been sluggish even in the peak job months of September and December.
------------------------------

So hey, maybe there's hope for the Valley. I have noticed that the job market has loosened up recently. (Hey, I might even be employed soon.)

Back to indigo--I wrote this little piece, which you may find amusing, in the midst of a discussion about color names. True to form, it's a discussion of indigo chemistry mixed with the more (ahem) colorful parts of indigo's story.

> On the other hand, since most of your example colors have been bits of
> plants and such, perhaps "Indigo" is the color of bit of the "Indigo"
> plant rather than the color of the dye...

No, actually. Indigo is one of the most interesting natural dyestuffs, chemistry-wise, and the plant itself is green. Not only that, but a properly prepared dyebath is antifreeze-green (no, really!). Indigo itself doesn't dye anything; it's totally insoluble and won't bind to fiber. To get it to stick, you have to put it into a reducing bath and reduce it to indigo white, which *is* water-soluble, and is colorless to pale yellow-green. Then you dip your fabric into the bath, let it slosh for a short while (not too long because the bath is strongly alkaline, bad for wools), pull it out, and air it until the indigo white oxidizes into indigo, turning the yarn from green to blue.

Once it's fully oxidized, you dip it again. The color gets darker with each dip. The trick with indigo is to make sure that each dip is long enough to saturate the fiber, but short enough that the already-deposited indigo doesn't vanish back into your reducing bath. In the literature, many short dips into a weaker dyebath produce better results than one dip into a strong dyebath, and this was what was recommended in colonial times. The Akha, however, use a very strong indigo bath and only dip 1-3 times. They're willing to live with lots and lots of bleeding, however.

The other entertaining part about indigo is that, as noted, it has to be dyed in an alkaline dyebath. Well, how do you get such a dyebath from natural ingredients? Fermented urine. (Per the literature, the best such urine came from a boy-child under ten years of age, collected in the morning. (I hesitate to even ask how they did *that* study.) However, there are amusing reports in books on indigo about "Mme so-and-so having another one of her piss parties," where apparently men were invited over and plied with beer so a dyer could collect pee for making indigo. Sadly, the resulting piss was probably more beer than urea, which is the useful substance.)

Anyway, I got a bit off track, but the best and most washfast indigo was made using urine dyebaths, which gave them an (ahem) characteristic odor. Along come synthetic dyes, and now there's a cheaper process for indigo, but it tends to bleed and crack and generally be inferior to urine-dyed indigo. Smart consumers, of course, then started picking up and sniffing the fabric to make sure it was the "good stuff" (urine-vat-dyed). Equally smart manufacturers, of course, got one ahead of *that*, which led to "Urine Vat Fragrance #5", which was apparently sprayed into cheaper chemically-dyed indigo fabric to make it smell like the real thing.
So now you know at least one use for urine perfume. :-)

(I made a desultory attempt at a urine vat once, but couldn't seem to get it to ferment properly--possibly because, in an attempt to stave off the horrendous odor that is reputedly associated with such fermentation, I kept it a bit too well-sealed, so not enough air got in. I must confess that I wasn't terribly inclined to insist on a repeat experiment, though I still intend to try it someday.)

At any rate, the indigo plant itself was too tropical to be grown in Europe, where the dominant source of indigo dye was...anyone remember the Celts? --woad. Identical dyestuff. But indigo had a much larger percentage of dyestuff, and so was typically imported in cakes of "indigo blue", which were then rather laboriously ground up and used in dyeing.

So...how did they grind it into a very fine powder, given that indigo chunks are harder than most rocks? They cracked it into small bits, tossed it into a bucket with two cannonballs and a bunch of water, and had some poor soul churn the cannonballs around and around. Eventually, he got to stop, they let the water settle a bit, then poured off the blue water and used that for dyeing. Anythign that wasn't fine enough to stay in suspension stayed in the bucket, water was added, and the poor soul got to start rolling the cannonballs around again. (This job was obviously the precursor to McDonald's. :-) )

In modern times, there are easier ways to get your indigo ground into small bits, but they mostly involve sacrificing an electric coffee grinder. I had one that I used to grind indigo and other dyestuffs. It was not happy.

The other interesting thing about indigo is that it is (to my knowledge) the *only* washfast, lightfast blue in nature. *Every* plant that produces a washfast blue, produces indigo. There are one or two other blues available (logwood mostly), but they all oxidize to brown over time. That's pretty unusual; there are any number of natural dye chemicals that produce a permanent yellow or red, but there's only one (permanent) blue. But if you think about it, blue is pretty sparse in nature, too. Most blues are anthocyanin, which oxidizes to brown eventually.

This random interlude on natural dyestuffs brought to you by...

Tien

almost there...I think!

Got a phone call from a friend at OpenWave yesterday, telling me that a job offer is "in HR" and I should get an offer letter within the next day or so. Needless to say, I'll believe in an offer letter when I see one, but I'm starting to think it's time to buy the champagne. :-)

This is a particularly nice position both because they're willing to match my previous salary (which amounts to a raise, since salaries have dropped in the intervening two years) and because it's an interesting position with lots of career development possibilities. It's a customer-facing professional services position, a hybrid between product development and professional services--that group develops custom applications for customers, but retains the intellectual property rights and the code for use either in the main platform or other customers.

More to the point, from my perspective, it's a small, fast-growing group that is just starting to use project management, and this makes it extremely attractive. I like starting up project management groups, it's fun (and lets me get in on the ground floor). So yay!

Other than that, my life has been pretty boring the last few weeks--I've been concentrating on writing resumes. Not much fiber arts stuff, either. But it looks like I have a job!!! And that's the best news yet. :-)

Meanwhile, I've been engaged in quite a bit of political analysis on some other mailing lists, and have posted some of the writings to my writing blog:
http://www.travelingtiger.com/writings/blog/blog.html

Most of it is analysis of various aspects of Supreme Court decisions and Constitutional rights, revolving around the gay marriage debates--much of this is fairly dry, so if equal protection, full faith and credit, and due process (right to privacy) don't float your boat, I'd skip those sections. Also, I am very strongly pro-gay-marriage, so bear that in mind as well. However, there's an interesting piece on color and color words, and another one on the classic "Men are from Mars, women from Venus" communication issues. Both of them are pretty analytical, though, so I'm not sure if it'd be interesting to people. But hey, it's there. :-)

Oh, and I went on the first training ride for AIDS Lifecycle. I only did the 8-10 mile ride, and my knee was a bit cranky, but I'm definitely signed up for this year. :-)

Tien

general update, and weight training :-)

Sorry for the radio silence, but it's been a busy time. I was wondering why I wasn't making progress on the book, so I took the time to write down what I really do with my time, and lo and behold! about three hours on any given day is dedicated to writing resumes and cover letters (I manufacture a custom one for each job app), and another two hours is spent at the gym, with two hours after that spent recovering. That takes up a good chunk of the day.

On the other hand, all that resume-writing is paying off; I've had two interviews this week and am having a phone interview tomorrow. The two interviews were both serious, full interviews (as opposed to phone screens) and I think it's quite likely that one or more of them will make me an offer. Of course, I've said that before, so I'm continuing to look. At this point I'll believe in an offer when I see one. But it looks hopeful.

Gym-wise, I've seen some definite improvements in strength and waistline. For my Wednesday interview, I accidentally put on the wrong pair of black slacks to go with the suit. I was a bit surprised because they felt a bit tight--turned out they were the pair that REALLY didn't fit a few months ago! As in, I had to suck in my breath to get it buttoned and it was like wearing an iron band around my middle. Now they're just a little bit tight, not too bad, and the pants I bought a month ago are loose. (Hey, you can't have everything. ;-) )

My jeans have also switched from being tight around the butt to being tight around the lower thighs (quad muscles). This is a Good Thing, and will only get better as I go back to cycling.

I've also added one size up top, which is impressive. I've gone from a size 10 to a size 12. (And no, not because of the waistline; the old suit got tight around the shoulders/arms.) So I'm pleased. (I was a size six back when I didn't do *any* weight training. No kidding. It's all muscle.)

One thing that gets me cranky about women's weight training books (which I mostly ignore)is that they always start by explaining that women don't have testosterone so no, you don't have to worry about bulking up. Good gods, what's WRONG with looking muscular? I think solid muscles look a lot better than skinny. There's nothing wrong with looking strong. (And yes, we do bulk up--just not as much as men do.)

Just for amusement value, despite all these alterations my weight has not changed: I'm 5'0" and 152 pounds, the same as before. :-) Also, by BMI, I'm two pounds shy of being clinically obese. *chuckle*

Once I'm employed again, I do want to get a personal trainer: I want to get seriously into weightlifting for the next four months, then go back to cycling. It's kinda dumb to alternate the two sports, since they work actively against each other, but I love doing both, so why choose?

Fiber-wise, the blackwork project is going along nicely, and I got a call from Wooly Knob Fiber Mill--the stuff I sent in is FINALLY washed and being sent back to me! So that will be nice, though spinning is pretty much on hold, since I'm working on the blackwork project.

Anyway, the big news for the week is the interviews; both companies I've talked to so far are seriously interested in me, which makes me very happy. I *think* at least one of them will make me an offer. I hope, anyway. Two years and three months of unemployment is WAY more than enough.

Tien

black embroidery thread, materials problem-solving

Went back to the needlework shop for more black thread for the embroidery project, and not too surprisingly, wound up spending an hour in the shop just looking at black thread and white fabric.

One thing that constantly amazes me is what a big difference small differences can make to the "look and feel" of a project. Tighter twisted yarns, a different shade of black, a slightly thicker of thinner yarn can make a big difference to the overall appearance of the finished piece. My original threads were (relatively) loosely spun, on par with most silk embroidery floss, and produced a soft line, with an antique feel. I had switched to newer, "higher-quality" threads from a professional blackwork designer (Leon Conrad's line), which were more tightly twisted and less inclined to fray. They produced a straighter, cleaner line, but at the price of the softer, "antique" feel.

So there I was, looking through black threads to find a substitute. Not just to be exactly similar (I figure the 32 different patterns will cover up a lot of the thread variations, especially since the squares are all separated from each other), but to find one that would give the right "feel". After sorting through fifteen varieties of nearly-identical black thread, I finally picked out a new black thread for the thicker lines, and went back to the same one I'd used initially for the thinner lines. Unfortunately, the thinner thread was one I had originally bought in gray and dyed black (it doesn't come in black), so I had to do the same thing. Which meant not only dyeing it black, but also scouring it--hard--to make sure all the excess dye was out.

Admittedly a lot of work for a piece, but when I started that piece I spent two or three hours in the shop, selecting white fabric, three thicknesses of black thread, and a gold metallic thread. There are dozens of shades of white and not all of them do well with all shades of gold. When I'm working on designing a piece, I like to compare everything that's available and pick the combination that I think produces the best effect. Whether this is a good approach to life generally, I don't know (I also tend to spend way too much time ruminating over available choices, even if they're mostly-identical (batteries, toothbrushes)), but I do think it produces better art pieces.

One of the things that surprises me about embroidery threads is that people think of them as separate from "thread" (as in sewing thread) or "yarn" (as in needlepoint yarn). Silk embroidery thread is really just a six-ply 30/2 commercially spun silk yarn that's been dyed, cut into short lengths, and sold at truly astronomical prices. The yarn they use--if you buy it for machine knitting--retails for about $200/kg, ($90/lb), and the finished, dyed yarn runs about $4.00/gram, or about $4000/kg. But you *could* buy the yarn, and make your own embroidery floss at a fraction the cost.

So why buy embroidery floss rather than make your own? Well, three things, really.

First and foremost, you're paying for reproducible results. You can only use your own dyed yarns if you are also making your own pattern; if you want to cross-stitch a designer's pattern accurately, you must use the threads they specify. Unless you want to go off the beaten path and design your own, you're better off using standard yarns, even though they're much more expensive. (But realize you're *paying* for that level of control.)

Second, you're paying for choice and control. The average line of embroidery threads has 300-400 colors in its palette, many of them in graduated shades, and unless you're willing to take the time to make 300-400 colors of your own, you have a better selection available in the commercial palette. The commercial dyers also have better control over their own processes, so they can duplicate colors almost exactly--meaning you can come back and buy more later.

Finally, you're paying for skill and hassle. Dyeing all those embroidery threads takes skill, and it also takes time. If you are doing a complex cross-stitch pattern with over 300 different shades, it just doesn't make sense to dye and work out duplicates for all existing patterns; it's cheaper to fork out the money for the premade threads. For cotton thread, even at full retail, one can get a full set of 300+ shades for about $150, which is a lot cheaper than all the materials, etc. for dyeing.

For those reasons, I don't really have an issue with sticking with commercial embroidery threads most of the time; they're a good deal, and for most purposes it's quicker/easier/better to use commercial threads rather than making your own. However, there are also downsides to commercial threads:

1. Limited palette. 600 or 1000 colors (from multiple manufacturers) sounds like a lot, but it really doesn't even come close to covering all possible colors and variations. Virtually all embroidery is done in plain threads because that's what the conventional palettes offer--what about threads with metallic bits, mixed cotton/rayon, other exotic blends? Multicolor threads with the exact blend of colors you're looking for?
   
   Commercial palettes offer a very wide world for exploration--easily wide enough to spend a lifetime exploring in--but they do not offer all experiences. I've frequently found myself wishing I had a thread "that just..."
   
2. More expensive. For cotton, the difference in expense doesn't amount to much. In silk, the cost of threads can be breathtaking--a full silk palette would cost $1200 as opposed to cotton's $120.
   
3. (a subtle one) a narrowing of one's world-view. To me this is the biggest issue...and it has nothing to do with using commercial embroidery floss, but everything to do with how one thinks about embroidery floss. It is one thing to use commercial embroidery thread conscious that it is the best available choice most of the time...but I think it is a mistake to think of it as the only available choice. That changes the world from a convenient and comfortable landscape to one surrounded by walls.

This is one of the things I like so much about handspinning; it is very good for reminding one that the walls are artificial; they're not actually there.

What astonishes me from time to time is how many spinners, while waxing eloquent about the artificial limitations of commercial yarn, nonetheless allow the same "walls" to be built around them in other areas...such as spinning wheels, or tools. Most spinners think of "serious" spinning tools (i.e. anything beyond the CD spindle) as something they buy. So did I, until I went off to Southeast Asia. But watching the Akha people prepare cotton by plucking a bow over and over again, in a heap of ginned cotton, and watching them build a loom out of lengths of freshly-cut bamboo, made me realize how artificial this is. It is certainly easier to buy a spinning wheel, just as it is easier to buy commercial embroidery floss. But the convention is not a wall.

How much you get from remembering this really depends on your lifestyle...it is possible to live an entire life within the walls of convention and still lead a satisfactory life. But I think that life is richer, and full of more possibilities, when one remembers that the walls are illusion--timesaving, useful, there-for-a-reason convention--but not fact.

In my view, there are three steps to problem-solving:

1. identify what you want
2. Okay...but what is the problem? What kinds of things will solve my problem?
3. How do I get to a solution?

So for this blackwork project, it might be:

1. I need one skein of black Needlepoint Silk embroidery floss. Hmm...can't find it.
2. Okay, my actual goal is to find a medium-weight black thread to stitch outlines in the chess squares. It should be spun moderately loosely, and be heavy enough to make a bold line without being so heavy it distorts the fabric.
   
   Stuff that might work includes
   --silk embroidery floss (top choice)
   --lightweight cotton perle thread
   --lace thread for crocheting doilies (would require dyeing)
   --multiple plies of sewing thread twisted together
   --really lightweight merino lace yarn
   --etc.
   
3. I could:
   --buy Needlepoint Silk
   --find an equivalent thread in a different manufacturer
   --get 30/2 silk yarn in bulk and dye it black
   --spin my own silk yarn
   --buy lace yarn from a craft shop
   etc.

I find that if I frame my thought as generally as possible--"I need a medium weight black thread, with these characteristics," as opposed to "I need a skein of black Needlepoint Silk"--there are suddenly far more alternatives. And the same for everything else in life.

I think that's the real secret to "out of the box" thinking--look at what characteristics you need, what will get you towards your goal, and what can be done using the materials at hand--rather than setting one's heart on a specific object or intermediate goal.

There was more that I wanted to say, but I'm overdue for a cycling workout and for some other errands, so I'll have to leave it for later...

Tien

stinky fish bacteria

Just to show you what an interesting place the world truly is:

Twice in the last three weeks I've bought a fish at my favorite fish market and discovered (after getting home) that it was stinking and putrid. But it didn't smell like ammonia (which is what my seafood usually smells like when it spoils)--it smelled horrible. Like a mixture of shit, sulfur, and garbage. Like a stinking mud flat.

Anyway, the first time I figured it was just an aberration, the second time I got worried. So I posted to Darbnet (a mailing list for fellow Caltech alums) asking about it, which is what I usually do when I have a science question I can't answer.

A biochem friend responded:

It's probably Alteromonas putrifasciens. As the name suggests, it is a stinky bacteria. And it is a very common stinkerupper of fish. Other stinkers include Salmonella, but not a sulfury smell with that. It's probably not the market's fault. It is more likely the ship that supplied it.

Alteromonas putrufaciens is one of those bugs that lives everywhere and eats everything. The bilge of the ship is probably full of it. When the bug goes anaerobic, it switches to an Iron reducing electron transport system and "breathes" iron instead of oxygen. So in the anaerobic environment of the bilge, the bug is busy eating the organic shit and breathing the iron in the hull.

It is also found in oil pipelines. That is where I became acquainted with it. It eats oil pipelines, causing them to fail under high pressure much sooner than calculated. So now it is standard policy to pump slugs of water between different oils/gasoline. These slugs are full of antibiotics to protect the oil lines.

So the stuff that's been stinking up my fish is the same bacteria that eats oil pipelines. Is that cool or what??

Actually I think it's also pretty cool that this bacterium has a dual metabolism--which I don't think is all that common--and that it can "breathe" iron instead of oxygen. I'm sort of tempted to dig up more info on it.

So anyway, if you've ever wanted to know where I get my weird factoids, now you know. :-) (The same guy told me about a paper describing how--honest!--pumpkin sap could be used as glue.)

I could provide an update on my creative projects, but it's late and I want to get to sleep, so I'll just leave you with the stinky fish, the hull-eating bacteria, and the purple pipeline eaters. Life is weird enough already for tonight. :-)

Tien

cats, knees/learning, and blackwork

Never made it to the AIDS Lifecycle party: I stopped on the way up to check on a friend's cats (I'm cat-sitting), and found one of them locked in a tiny little bathroom with an entire container of bleach spilled on the floor. (Cat was cowering under toilet amidst choking bleach fumes.) So I spent the next three hours either en route to or at the vet. Fortunately, the cat turned out to be OK, albeit with very irritated eyes from bleach exposure, but I missed the party.

(I am still trying to figure out how he managed to lock himself into the bathroom *and* spill a container of bleach that I hadn't even noticed, but cats are talented, as you well know.)

My knee went out again, but I fixed it! which I'm still pretty psyched about. The kneecap got pulled out of position, so it was grating slightly against the cartilage, which produces (surprise) knee soreness, not to mention being bad for the knee. After three days it still wasn't any better, so I was considering going to the doctor. Then I actually sat down and thought about it for a moment. The kneecap is held in place by a balance between several muscles. In the case of my particular knee problem, it's a weakness in the inner thigh coupled with a tightening of the outer thigh. Since it was fine a week ago, either the inner thigh muscles have stretched (unlikely) or the outer thigh muscles have tightened up (extremely likely).

Hmm. So I went and did an exercise for loosening up the IT bands and the lateral quads (translated: the outer thigh), and damn if the knee didn't go right back into position. Logic actually works for body mechanics! I'm shocked. Utterly stunned.

One of the things I've noticed is that when dealing with something new, people (including me) tend to assume that it must be complicated and difficult and they don't understand it. Once they get some experience with it, they start feeling more comfortable with it and start thinking about it, rather than looking up or always asking questions of an "expert". I've always regarded body mechanics as one of those semi-magical things because there are lots of muscles and tendons and so on pulling against each other, and only a trained expert could possibly figure out what was what. It's really cool to realize that I now know enough to start working out my own problems, and I don't always have to consult an expert.

(I don't mean to suggest that it isn't a good idea to go to a physical therapist, by the way; just that it's nice to be able to figure out some stuff on my own.)

Actually a lot of people seem to get stuck at the "this is confusing, I need an expert" phase. I think that's a pity--it's a byproduct of how we get taught things in school, I think. Lots of places teach various subjects--history, mathematics, etc.--relatively few teach how to think.

I read an essay my freshman year of college that made a huge impact on me--it was called The Loss of the Creature, by Walker Percy. It was about the difference between real experience and preconceived expectations--how the Grand Canyon that a tourist sees, after reading the brochures and buying the packaged trip and taking the tour, is totally different from the Grand Canyon that, say, a Spanish conquistador bursts upon, totally unknowing. But it was also about the loss of experience to "experts"--how a young beachcomber coming across a dead dogfish and digging around in it, curious, with a knife will experience more of the dogfish than the student dissecting it in a college laboratory as part of an exercise. The difference is between seeing it as an active observer--essentially doing your own thing, exploring--and as a more passive person, to whom information is fed and who acts as directed.

This is of course the same thing as with the Grand Canyon tourist--getting off the beaten path means you experience more, though you may not see as much. (The beachcomber won't know as much about anatomy as the dissecting student, but s/he will have had a more direct experience with exploring a dogfish.)

And in fact the same thing happens in knitting, which I think is really mournful. People are mostly taught to follow patterns, and not to venture forth off the beaten path into the unknown. I wish American knitting patterns were written with teaching in mind--instead, they just give precise instructions, with the implication that the pattern will explode if you don't follow them exactly. This is terribly intimidating to the beginning knitter (I remember quite distinctly), and really discourages exploring. *sigh*

Speaking of exploring and fibercraft, i've gotten briefly interested in blackwork, and am working on a blackwork embroidery chessboard I started several years ago. It's essentially a Leon Conrad design (http://www.leonconraddesigns.freeserve.co.uk/blackwor.htm for some utterly gorgeous blackwork designs)--Queen Besse's Chess Board--but I set it down for several years because I didn't like how it was coming out. The individual patterns were pretty, but set in a chessboard pattern they lacked unity--there was no focus to the piece, and I didn't like that, so I put it down.

So, several years later, I have the hankering to do embroidery again, and it occurs to me that I can solve the dis-unity problem by embroidering interweaving "ribbons" in the white squares, which will (visually) hold the chess board together. So I am simultaneously stitching the existing pattern, and designing the pattern for the extra "ribbons". I find it's easier, when I try something new, to take an existing pattern and modify it, rather than designing from scratch. That's basically what I'm doing with the blackwork, and it's making life much easier.

As for the book? Nothing in the last week or two. That thing is damn hard. Back to work on it tomorrow.

Tien