Where did you get the cartoon pictures?

Abi-Station has fun avatar makers.

I am so smart!

I just refactored 3 nearly identical classes into one templated class and some typedefs. Yay!

Ooh! Blogger Pictures! plus, last night's dream

Nifty! I can directly upload pictures without having to host them somewhere else, or use BloggerBot, which I never did get to work for me. Thanks, Blogger!

Last night I dreamt I had to go back to high school/undergrad for some reason. I had a similar "You aren't finished; go back!" dream in between undergrad and grad school, but I don't know what might have prompted this one. Eh, fun with the subconscious mind, I guess.

(Did you know that "Blogger" is not recognized by Blogger's spellchecker? *grin*)

Stay connected, darn you! (Part 2)

As I grumbled about last week, the connection to the server I've been working on has been really flaky. I found it working just fine on Friday, and dared to hope that the problem had been fixed, but today it was at least as bad as Thursday. I asked one of the guys who is actually in the building and found out he has had the same problem, so at least I know it isn't just me, but that doesn't really help me get any work done. Of course, I probably wouldn't have a whole lot of progress on my current goal (making my program run in parallel) even if the server were available since there seems to be a bug in this other guys code and he hasn't gotten around to investigating it yet. *sigh* It's a Monday. (When did I start sounding like Garfield?)

Stay connected, darn you!

Most of my work is done on a server in another building, connecting via ssh. Today, the connection has been up and down (mostly down) so much that I wonder if someone is sitting there kicking the network port. There are other machines on that system that I can connect to and reach my files, but the computer with the appropriate software installed is hiding from me. It had been responding just long enough for me to get in the middle of a thought before disconnecting. Thanks to screen I don't have to start a session completely from scratch, but that doesn't help much now that the connection seems down for good. I haven't had a reply from their system staff, so I guess I won't be working on that computer for a while. If it isn't up when I come in tomorrow morning, I think I'll just work on something completely different on my local machine and hope it'll be better on Monday. (Of course, few things are better on Mondays. Such is the nature of that day.) *sigh*

Dream-of-Jade

My uncle has illustrated a book that will be available this fall. Looks to be a good one.

My hubby has a home page

I think he had one before, but now he's making it all pretty and stuff. There isn't much content on my husband's website just yet, but he does link to this blog.

I anoint my head with oil

Lately I've been trying to take better care of my long hair, not that I was abusing it before. I've started using shampoo less often, only once a week or so, and instead usually just use conditioner only. I periodically take my hair scissors and trim my split ends, which can be oh so prevalent here in the desert. Tonight, I lightly oiled my hair and put it up in a topknot. I've done the oiling before and it does seem to make a difference.

I probably could use a new hairbrush. My old one is getting some broken bristles that scratch my scalp and might catch my hair. Maybe I'll go splurge on a nice one this weekend.

Steek! Eek!

So, I've become bold and daring and deciding to try out the technique of steeks while knitting a jacket for my future niece or nephew. I made 3 stitch wide steeks for the arm holes and front of the sweater and knit an odd closed tube contraption. Yesterday, I finished knitting the body, so I used the crocheted method of securing them and, with much trepidation, carefully cut them open. I swear my hands were still shaking hours later! It just seems so very wrong to just cut up the middle of the fabric like that.

After regaining my composure, I picked up stitches for one sleeve, intending to continue the Fair Isle pattern I had used on the body, but I realized after a couple of inches that fabric that dense would probably prevent the poor baby from moving its arms. I frogged it back (rip it! rip it!) to try again, in the process dislodging far too many loose ends from the crochet chain that was supposed to secure them. (Note to self, make steek wider next time.) The connection at the shoulder looks a little bit wonky, but I think it'll hold. I might come back later and do a little stitching on the inside of the join to make sure it is really secure.

I knitted the sleeve in 1-1 ribbing (way more flexible than the Fair Isle of the body), possibly giving a bit of a vest over sweater sort of look. I've picked up the stitches for the second sleeve, much neater since I didn't rip it out this time, and am contemplating what I want to do with the front opening. I think I might see if I can find some cute buttons this weekend before deciding how wide the edging should be.

Beep beep!

I was looking out my office window just now and there was a roadrunner sitting on top of the garbage can. I've seen them outside of town, but this was right by the house. Wow!