Dmitri's Bucket of Projects

Daks 2008

2008-10-28T22:41:00.004-04:00

An awesome trip to the Adirondacks this year. Two solid hikes, the blue ledges a simple hike to a little tributary to the Hudson. one side of the creek, shore where the hike ends. The other side, a 200 foot rock face. It was pretty cool. The next day, we hiked to the top of Owls Head Mountain. The view was amazing. Just amazing. Pictures don't do it justice. I picked up an electric griddle which made some awesome breakfast sandwichs and then some of the tasiest grill cheese sandwiches I've ever had. Bacon + Tomato + turkey slices + cheese = friggin' awesome! :-)

Daks 2008

Cathartic ramblings

2008-08-31T11:25:00.003-04:00

It's 5 months to the day that my Mother passed. Afterwards there was a rush to clean out the apartment, sort out who is taking what, and what's being donated. My sister and I had a healthy attitude about it and a good deal of it went to friends or friends of friends who could really use it. It's astounding when you're confronted with the problem. What do I do with a ton of plates and an eclectic collection of silverware? One of Nicole friends or a friend of a friend was moving into their first place and was broke. She was happy to take it. I didn't even know this person but it made me so happy to think this stuff was going to find a home. We ended up throwing out alot but not nearly as much as I thought we would have to. All the major pieces of furniture found a home, even the cursed coffee table. Cursed because Nicole and I hated the thing. It was older than we were, made of oak or some such heavy wood with a large glass top. The height was not like any other coffee table which may explain why Nicole and I bruised our knees on the stupid thing more times than we could count. We joked about hucking the glass and taking a saw to the wood which we'd then burn in my fireplace at Thanksgiving. :-) I was almost disappointed we didn't get to follow through on that one.

A moment of silence

2008-04-02T09:23:00.005-04:00

Sirpa Lenna, my mother, passed away, late Saturday night, March 29th. Services were held Saturday April 5th. Her memory will live on in the hearts of so many people. Good friends of hers came from all over. People she's known for decades. Dear friends, former neighbors and co-workers new and old. My sister's good friends all came to lend their support. A special thanks to the Butler's who came at the start and stayed the whole time, which was incredibly kind. My own friends, Pat, Tom, Mark, Doug, Eric, Aggie, Aric, Sara and Christine all came to pay their respects and lend their support. And my deepest gratitude to Damien, Frank, Mike, Ryan, Vic and Courtney who drove all the way down from Boston to express their support. Words can't express how good it felt to see so many people. Thank you all, and thank you, Mom, for being so wonderful as to inspire such a gathering.

Pause

2008-03-16T21:18:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I wish I could put life on pause. So I could catch me breath. My mother's been fighing a good fight. A very long fight. Now, the end nears, and everything else falls by the way-side.

Christmas 2007

2007-12-25T23:02:00.001-05:00

Christmas 2007

2007 Christmas

Crete

2007-09-15T11:01:00.000-04:00

Pictures from Crete

Crete

And I'm spent..

2007-08-29T23:12:00.000-04:00

I got home a few hours ago, spent that time catching up on mail, paying bills and repacking. Off to Dublin tomorrow, continuing on to Crete on Sunday. Yeah, nuts. Tokyo was good. The roll out was successful, and seeing my friend Al was really good. We putzed around Akihabara for half a day, checking out weird anime/techie stores and arcades. I dropped some money into a pachinko machine. Later we visited the Sensoji Temple (also known as Asakusa Kannon Temple), a Buddhist temple in Tokyo. Sunday I went out to meet him , his wife and their one year old son, in Yokohama. It was a nice area. We did a little boat tour, which was more about just having a nice rest in the A/C while still seeing stuff. the rest of the week I was just anxious to return to NY and start my little va-cay. The last night there I met Al at the Hachiko statue in at Shibuya, we grabbed dinner and hung out at a few arcade waiting for a down pour to end. I picked up my one gift for myself, an Xbox360 Wireless LAN adapter. Why? Because it was way cheaper there. IN the states it costs around $100. There it was 8,290 Yen, which is about $73. I needed one since the move, and opportunity came a knocking. :-) I'll upload pictures in a couple of weeks, when I get back from Crete. Or after the Adirondacks trip.

Moshi-moshi

2007-08-22T17:26:00.000-04:00

Landed in Tokyo Monday, and have been doing little else but sleeping and working. I'm staying in the Roppongi Hill area which apparently is quite the place to be. Having never been to East Asia, this is kind weird. It does make me want to take up a foriegn language. The whole place reminds me of an old friend. Fortunately or unfortunately, my dinners have predominantly been room service. Unfortunate in that it'd be nice to have time go out to restaurants properly, but fortunate in that room service is really just delivery from the rather nice restaurants in the area. I had a truly yummy katsu don my first night, and a yakisoba last night. I'm looking forward to the weekend as I'll get to hang out with my friend Alain. We were good friends in college but I haven't seen him in the years since he moved, with his wife, to Japan.

Japan Trip

Never time enough

2007-07-22T21:48:00.000-04:00

KK's visit has come and gone. She's been gone roughly 24 hours and my place seems emptier without her. Between all the running around we had precious little time. Thankfully the Crete trip is only 5 weeks away. We caught the latest Harry Potter movie which I enjoyed so much I began to consider reading them. I polished off World War Z and then picked up the 1st Harry book on a whim. I devoured it in a few days. Kind of quick for me since I'm a slow reader. I picked up year 2 and 3 today, and am looking forward to them. I didn't care for the Chamber of Secret movie very much. It's my least favorite of the 5. I'm hoping the book is better.

PA is right

2007-07-09T21:35:00.000-04:00

It is addictive :-)

Hurts so good

2007-07-08T09:35:00.000-04:00

Habitat was great. I spent most of the day installing base board. The rest of it banging on a rock. Seriously. We were repairing several homes that had been damaged in the big storms we had a few weeks back. In the basement a rock was protruding up from the floor. Supposedly it's the top of a huge rock that was too big too move when the place was constructed. Anyway, I hated it how it was sticking out of the way so I found a mason's chisel and with a hammer banged on it. It turns out rather than being a hard piece of granite it was just some mass of sediment. It wasn't too big, the original builders were just too lazy. I broke it up enough to conceal it completely. The owner was pretty happy about that, which made me feel good. I got to meet a bunch of nice people from where I worked including a few that higher ups on another team that I have worked with before, and made a good impression. A nice bonus. My legs are still hurting from all the squatting though. It's a good pain though :-)

I still can't put down World War Z. I'm maybe 50 pages from finishing and am forcing myself to put it down today so I can work on my own place. I've still more unpacking to to, and I need to get a stud finder so I can hang some things. KK in T-4 days.

Update: busy day running errands at the usual suspects (Depot, Target, etc.) I picked up the new Linkin Park CD "Minutes to Midnight" (9.99 at Circuit City this week), and I have to pass it along as a solid purchase. I mainly picked it up for "What I've done" from the Transformers trailer and movie. and was pleasantly surprised. They apparently spent a lot more time on this album and it shows. The lyrics are actually quite good, especially "Hand Held High", a fitting song given the events of the weekend. 250 dead in Iraq and the New York Times calling Bush's plan to stabilize Iraq, through military means, a lost cause.

If you could..

2007-07-04T22:42:00.000-04:00

.. spend $10 and buy 2 hours and 23 minutes of childhood joy. Wouldn't you do it? I did that today. And I loved every minute of it. I never thought I'd say this, but thanks Michael Bay.

On another note, I can't put down a book I am borrowing from a friend: World War Z. It's the story of the zombie apocalypse written by a reporter interviewing survivors. A Chinese doctor, a opportunistic drug company mogul, a human smuggler, an illegal surgeon, a former head of state, a muslim fundamentalist, and many many more from all across the globe. It's an incredibly imaginative work. I just hope I can put it down tonight becaue I'm leading a team at Habitat for Humanity tomorrow.

Night one

2007-06-18T21:11:00.000-04:00

My first night in the new place. It's too quiet and doesn't quite feel real. I'm honestly still waiting for something major to go wrong. The new noises are a bit more unsettling than they should be. I wish K was here to share in what should have been a celebratory night. Instead I'm reclining on my love seat, borrowing someone else's wireless connection, blogging. I also wish I had a cat so I could blame it for the strange noises.

Count down to the move

2007-06-07T23:17:00.000-04:00

A week a few days from now I'll be in my new home. Closing was shortly after I got back from Ireland, and since then it's been about packing, and making the place my own. fresh paint in the living room (a warm reddish brown.. it reminds me of chocolate) dining section (part of the living room went with a grayish brown that ended up being much more gray than brown, not sure I'll keep it but looks nice with the brown living room) and main bedroom (planned on nice warm color , but ended up going with "Seven Seas" by Behr a dark blue but not navy). The bedroom blue I wasn't sure about. A few different paint pamphlets had a strong blue with white accents (like this) and some other colors. After it went on the wall I knew I made the right decision. It goes with the wood furniture I have and I'll leave the ceiling white and get white wood blinds. I'm really psyched about it :-). Now what to do with the guest room?

More than words

2007-05-23T23:47:00.001-04:00

It's been ages, and so much has happened. My time in Ireland was better than I could have imagined. The photos just don't do it justice. I can't remember the last time I took two weeks off for a vacation. I always thought "2 weeks? that's almost too much". Never again. Why? When you land on a Saturday having taken a red eye, with a crying baby a few aisles back, enjoy a nice Irish fry-up, sleep for a few hours and then go out until 4am,.. well you need a couple days to recover. Sleep in for the next couple of days and you know what you do? You laugh outloud because you still have over a week and a half left!

The country was beautiful, but definitely my favorite thing was the people I was with. Kathryn's family and their assorted friends and significant others were warm, welcoming people that always made me smile. Even if I had never met Kathryn, I would love to call these people friends.

Then a few days after I got back, I closed on my place. Since then Life mainly been about work, missing KK, packing boxes, prepping the new place, and sleep. Oh and some WoW when I get a chance.

Holy F*ck.

2007-03-11T23:12:00.000-04:00

On her way down to the city to pick me up, so that I could drop her off at JFK, my girlfriend was in an accident. Just a few minutes into the trip, some moron decided that the solution to sun-glare was to speed up and change lanes. She's OK with just a concussion. She was kept over night at the hospital for observation and was released the following day with a neck brace. She was driving my car. I thankfully saw her before I saw it. I'm still in shock when I look at these. And deeply grateful that she is safe.

You'd think that the other driver would be a shoe-in for jackass of the day. Yeah, you'd think that. But, no, humanity is nothing if not amazingly determined to sink to new depths. While my girlfriend lay unconscious and the emergency personnel used the jaws of life to rip off the passenger door to get to her, there was someone else on the scene. Someone who looked at the two bags that had been on the passenger seat but were removed to get to the unconscious beauty. Someone who thought: "hey,.. that's some laptop bag" and "oh, look, a hand bag" then went and took them. The offending driver had poor judgement. But this thief is human garbage.

Contract signed

2007-03-06T23:10:00.000-05:00

The contract is signed. They say it almost feels surreal , writing that deposit. Not to me. It felt quite real. I am excited!!!

Possibilities

2007-02-06T23:06:00.000-05:00

I saw two places tonight. They were in the same complex and had the same overall floor plan. One was empty the other still had people in it. The later was much nicer, and was significantly better taken care of. The price diff is about 15k, though I imagine the place that isn't as nice, which as I said was empty, is more willing to negociate.

House Hunting

2007-02-04T23:03:00.000-05:00

Looked at my first place today. It was rather disappointing. I had really high hopes for it. It was two bed room, really close to the train station , it even had a little bit of a enclosed grass/garden. The lay out was odd, the price & common charges were too high, but the clincher what the bars on the window (it's ground floor). Since they probably weren't allowed to put them on the outside of the build, they put them inside. It looked like a prison. Special thanks to my agent who came out on Superbowl Sunday to show it.

Books

2007-01-16T13:33:00.000-05:00

A couple of quick things of note: I saw this cool article on yahoo this morning which inspired today's post. I also just finished a great book called Stiff by Mary Roach. I'd heard about the book a long time ago and had pretty much forgotten about it until I saw it in the store before Christmas. I figured I'd wait until after Christmas as my mother and sister always get me good books for the holiday. Good as in critically well recieved, not always good as I enjoy them. The only thing I've asked from their books is they can't be Oprah books, and they can't have every male character being a contemptable twirp. So this year my mother got me Stiff and The Plague by Albert Camus. When I opened Stiff , she said that she'd heard it was really fascinating. I chuckled and, knowingly, asked "From who?" She couldn't remember. I decided not to remind her. I enjoyed the book quite a bit though it doesn't have a very steady pace. I found the first half of the book much more interesting than the later. Lastly: Burning Crusade is finally out. I pray I can get some more of my friends back into it. I miss playing and talking to them.

The next big thing.

2007-01-03T20:47:00.000-05:00

Yup, and it's not a knitting project. It's the purchase of place. Yeah, a mortgage. I've been working on this for some years now. I didn't think it would happen this soon when I started. I had always thought I'd wait until I was with married until I bought a place. Then a little over a year ago I came to the epiphany that I really can't wait for my life to get to a place to do things. Especally when I have no real control over it getting to that place. So last year on my birthday, I took the day off, wandered to Barnes and Noble and picked up a few books, most notably Home Buying For Dummies. I can not understate the value of that book. It reads incredibly easily to read, and just great for info. If you buy one book on it, buy that one. Of course I'm saying this before I've gone through the process. I'll review it again when I'm done. More progress to come.

Cue light from above and Angel chorus

2006-07-23T15:44:00.000-04:00

Just key it on up because this thing is proof there is a heaven, and Dell is selling their flat panel monitors. Twenty-four inches of widescreen goodness, with a resolution of 1920x1200 this turned a rainy Saturday into a rediscovery of World of Warcraft. The image quality is breath taking. I saw it at, my friend, Frank's place, but didn't appreciate it until I cleaned up my desk, moved out the old 19" CRT. I laughed a laugh that was the glee of a school girl mixed with crackling of a power mad prince just crowned king, as it powered up for the first time. I can't rememeber the last time I felt this giddy after a purchase.

Go Me!

2006-06-18T16:47:00.000-04:00

You know, it's been a long time since I've looked back at myself, and not just a single action, and was proud of myself. The last several days have just been fruitful. The first stage on a major project that I've been part leading went live, and aside for 2 hiccups which we knew about when it went out, it was a success. This has been over 6 months in the making, and now we jump into the next stage of it. I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity (Westchester chapter) today and am going back again on Saturday. My 3rd week of going to the gym as just ended, and while I wasn't going as much as I'd have liked because of the work deadline, I've kept at it when skipping it would have been much easier. I look forward to returning there Tuesday and Thursday. I got an odd message on my voice mail Saturday from the NY Blood Center. Apparently I'm a white blood cell match to a boy undergoing surgery today (Sunday). They asked if I could please donate. I called back but they'd already found enough volunteers, but asked that if any complications should arise this week would I be available? I said of course and don't hesitate to call. I'm glad they found enough donors because, one, it's reassuring to know there are good people in the world who would altruistically give of themselves, and two, I was rather looking forward to Habitat. Sometimes on day like today, life just feels right.

Long overdue

2006-05-29T17:29:00.000-04:00

So here it is, 61 inches long, a few hairs over 4 inches wide. I did finish a few month back, but just haven't focused on the blog. Truthfully, I look at it and feel an incredible sense of pride. I've recieved several complements on it, some solicited, others not. I'm proud of it because first I wasn't sure I'd actually finish it. I couldn't pick up the sticks without feeling some pangs of the heart, but I didn't want to let that be the reason I turned my back on something I genuinely enjoy. I've already decided on a new project. Another scarf. I know, not that challenging, but it's for my mom. I had someof the yarn from her hat left over so I tried to find something that was more or less match. I don't think I have an eye for color, so I may have messed it up, but the yarn I went with is hand dyed with different shades. I'll probably start at the end of the summer. I don't much feel like handling handling wool with sweaty sticky hands. Can you blame me?

It is done

2006-03-18T23:30:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the folks ar Flying fingers in Irvington, I completed my projects and got some yarn for the next one. Yay!

Casting off

2006-03-04T20:38:00.000-05:00

OK, I've done it all of one time, binding off. I tried it today and fail so spectacularly that I will not even attempt it again without guidance. I'm thinking of hitting a local yarn shop for some assistance. The scarf looks fantastic, I just so want to not screw it up now. Pictures willappear when it is done-done, and wearable.

I am...

2006-02-11T14:33:00.000-05:00

You are Shetland Wool.
You are a traditional sort who can sometimes be a

little on the harsh side. Though you look

delicate you are tough as nails and prone to

intricacies. Despite your acerbic ways you

are widely respected and even revered.

What kind of yarn are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Sentiment

2006-02-02T23:09:00.000-05:00

I saw this the other day and just busted out laughing. It reminded me of the cats that have been in my life at one point or another. Keesu, Seven, Cootie, Emily, Keesu (yeah another one :-), Loco, Coco and Chanel. I love and miss them all. Only one has passed on, that I know of, the others left my life with their owners. The sadness of their absense is lessened thankfully, by the knowledge that they are loved and happy in their homes.

Transitioning..

2006-01-09T23:21:00.000-05:00

I transitioned from my original skiens to the next set. I'll need to seek out some help with weaving the strands in. I'll either scout out a Stitch & Bitch group, or hit one of the local yarn sharps for some sage advice. I'm looking forward to making some solid progress on this with a target of finishing by the end of the month.

Scarf continued

2006-01-02T18:08:00.000-05:00

I made some good progress over the holidays, and quickly approaching the end of the skiens. I have another two, so the scarf will be roughly twice what it is now (28 inches). Too long? Too short? No idea. Suggestion? Barring any suggestions I'll make it the full 56 inches and if it's too long, I'll frog it to a better length.

To hell with...

2005-12-21T06:34:00.000-05:00

the TWU.

Johnnie Damon.

and advertisers/scammer/phishers who post comments on your blog to promote their sites & schemes.

Scarf up to close to 2 feet. Would finish it in my commute this week if I could knit on trains and bouncing buses.

Progress

2005-12-13T22:46:00.000-05:00

Didn't think I really started, did you?

It's been a while.

2005-12-07T23:35:00.000-05:00

It has been a very long time since I posted. I was tempted to just stop this as the primary reader of the site is no longer in my life. This is still a useful place to log my projects. The HTPC project is pretty much done, and eventually I'll upload the picts from the build and discuss it. This blog though has been pretty much the place where I've discussed my knitting. I had put the needles down, but have since picked them back up. My desire for a scarf , the dropping the thermometer, and a bunch of other reasons I won't get into, has me knitting again. I completely frogged the project and decided to go with a much simpler pattern. It's simply knit2, pearl2, repeat. It's a basic ribbed pattern that after I've made some progress on, I've decided I really like. I'm still using the Rowan 4-ply soft 50g, and using 2 strings at a time. I've gotten between 10 & 12 inches done on it. Pictures eventually.

Hi everyone!

2005-04-26T20:28:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted. The stickes have been resting, while I've been working on the HTPC project. A special thanks for Mrs. MacKay for the pattern she sent me for the neck warmer. I will definitely be starting that project shortly. Truthfully the last few weeks I've not had much time for anything outside of work. My grandmother, Ann, passed away 3 weeks ago, and my friend Mark's father, passed a week later. I can't quite put it into words, and, in truth, this isn't the place for it. When I start a cathartic blog, that will be the place for it.

Thank you

2005-03-31T09:49:00.000-05:00

Thank you for the kind words of encouragement, everyone. And thank you, Kim, for the advertising ;). To the right is the scarf as I shall leave it for a while. I definitely wasn't going to give up and put the sticks down, because when you put the sticks down, the terrorists win. This brings me to several tangets. Usually when writing I try to follow a single train of thought, but today you all are not so lucky.

"..the terrorists wins." Nothing quite like beating a dead horse when it comes to jokes. It's happening alot on one of the webites I read: AnandTech. There, the commentors are beating Yakhov's "In Soviet Russia" line to death (though most are attributing it to a line from Family Guy which itself was poking fun at the Russian comedian). Some of the comments are funny, most, not so much.
Switching projects. Well the HTPC project is actually moving forward, slowly out of the planning stages. I got my PVR card yesterday, and will pick up a nice long Coax cable tonight to run the cable to it so I can start playing with it. I'm hoping to have the build wrapped up by the end of April. YAY!
But what about the scarf? Scarf in my original idea is being put down, but I have a NEW knitting project idea!! A mini neck warmer/wrap! How's that different from your scarf, Dmitri? Well, the other scarf is for winter, general use. This one is much smaller and has one specific purpose: to cover my neck when I ride my motorcycle. It's not meant to be wind proof, the collar on my riding jack does that. It's just meant to help keep my neck warm on those 60 degree days when I'm cruising down the highway. It'll be small, maybe have two buttons, and may be felted. Thoughts?

When do you stop frogging and just put the project down.

2005-03-29T12:01:00.000-05:00

That's the question for my scarf. I've started this 5 or 6 times now, and I have to say, it is discouraging. I think the design I chose is not optimal for the combination of yarn and color from a learning perspective. I've no doubt someone with a lot more experience could whip through it without thinking. As project number two, I think it is beyond my grasp. The yard is very thin and the pattern uniform in spot so my tension needs to be much better than it is. I also need to stop trying to knit on the train. It moves too much and I'm not good enough to compensate yet. My first project went well, but I think that happened because I was doing a more forgiving project. And I was doing it, while sitting on my futon with good lighting, minimal distraction, and for at least and hour at a time giving me a chance to get into a rhythm.

The question is do I change the pattern, change the yarn, or change the project? I'm thinking about doing the later, moving to a thicker yarn, and just doing a seed-stitch pattern. Before that, though, I want to work the 4-by-4 square to death. I want to study some of the other stitches, and more importantly learn how to fix a mistake without frogging. Oh, and practice my tension the whole time.

Spring? Where Are You?

2005-03-23T18:16:00.000-05:00

The scarf has been started yet again. I've frogged it a few times now, and I need to get moving on it or else I'm going to become bored with it and move onto another project. I've tweaked the pattern again, and hopefully it'll come out alright. I'm using the Rowan 4 ply soft mentioned on the February 13th post. The yarn itself is pretty thin, so to give it a bit more thickness, I'm using two strands from two skeins at the same time. It's making for an interesting look as the two strand occassional twist. I'll get a close up shot at some point when I get further along.

Doubling up on the yarn, I'm going 30 stitches across, which is roughly 6 inches. The pattern look likes this (start at the bottom):

....

3 rows of seed stitch.

Projects, it's time to wrap you up.

2005-03-15T11:08:00.000-05:00

Lots going on the Home Theater PC front. I'm getting to a point where I want to get that project wrapped up. I've been neglecting my knitting, and I don't have a very good excuse. I highly recommend the Minish Cap, though it's easier than some other Zelda games, still it has been a fun romp so far. Now that I'm about to wrap it up, I want to whip through my scarf, which I did end up frogging. I'd like to finish that up in a coupe of weeks, before the weather gets nice, and any reason to wear it will disappear for several months.

"Somewhere they seek the day..."

2005-03-07T23:46:00.000-05:00

News on the knitting front is slow. I frogged the scarf, and am trying to restart it. I'll give it some solid time on Thursday. I've been concentrating more on my HTPC lately. I've assembled the start of a Case comparison table. Right now I've only looked at the lines from Ahanix and Silverstone. I'll probably add CoolerMaster shortly since they made my main PC case, which I love.

New colors

2005-02-27T19:13:00.000-05:00

So, Kim, what do you think of these? I found it at http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com. It was incomplete. I just finished and tweaked it some.

A second blog

2005-02-21T22:54:00.000-05:00

I created a seperate blog for the HTPC project. I'll still discuss it here as decisions and progress are made. I'm using that blog to dump my brain so I can figure out all the decisions I need to make. By most accounts, an HTPC is usually an on going project with alot of analysis, and tweaking. Anyway, the knitting projects will still be here. I made some good progress on the scarf over the holiday break.

Excuse the color, I had to play with the brightness so I could show a bit more detail. The color is the one from my previous post. I do have a feeling I'll need to frog it. :-( There are a few problems I'm seeing. First, my tension is off in a couple of spots and really bad in one spot. (grumble, train bouncing, grumble) The other problem in the curling in certain sections. I'm not sure how to avoid this, so Kim, I'll need your help on this one.

Tag.. I am IT, baby

2005-02-18T16:00:00.000-05:00

OK, so I'm like IT, and I caught IT from my girlfriend, the notorious K.I.M. I think I have to answer some questions. If I'm wrong, Kim, let me know:

How much space is left on your TIVO? Don't have one. Building one (see HTPC mention down below).
What was the last TV show you watched before reading this message? What NBC in New York shows at 6 am in the morning.
List five shows you won't miss. None. I like some shows but without a Tivo, I'm missing shows all the time.
Three peeps to pass this on to? Will get back to this. I don't know many bloggers.

In other news, I'm not in the greater DC metro area. Ok like Northern Virginia. I frogged my test pattern for the scarf while taking the train down and got down to starting this scarf for real. The test pattern, I did 20 stitches, so for the scarf I'm going with 30 stitches which should be roughly 6 inches. I am using the 4 ply yard discussed in the previous post. I'm knitting with 2 strings of yarn instead of just one, and using a US 7 guage needle. Pictures To be posted shortly, as well as the final pattern, which I came up with on my own.

One shall stand and one shall fall.

2005-02-13T00:24:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite movie quotes. Two points to who ever gets it. With a tiny god laid to waste, a new project shall rise to take it place. A knitting project.
I picked up some yarn at the local yarn shop, the day of the Patroit's victory. Anyway I picked up few skeins of an awesome shade (382) of Rowan 4 ply soft. They call it beetroot, I prefer to think of it as a nice Merlot color.

It's for a scarf. Originally I was going to take a pattern from a book, but after doing the test square with it, I decided not to. I'm going to try a few more test squares in a pattern I'm making up. Details, and pictures to follow once I find something I'm happy with.

So this weekend, Kim and I hit Flying Fingers Saturday morning. I picked up a set of needles, wood, number 7s, and a pattern book for sweaters, my big project for the year. The book is Arans & Celtics: The Best of Knitter's Magazine

No idea what color yet or even which pattern, but I'll get to that after I'm done with the scarf.

A Tiny God Denied

2005-01-31T17:50:00.000-05:00

So after alot of hemming and hawing I've decided to let the tiny god remain dormant. I do want to do this project but ultimately , nVidia and ATI are pissing me off with their paper launches, and their complete ineptitude to deliver of high end product in any significant quantity to a public starving for them. I choose not to support this. When I can get the products I desire to build the machine I want to build, I will do so. This new machine is certainly not critical to my survival nor my happiness, and I will neither settle for a lower end product, nor will I pay the ridicules mark up that some e-tailers are charging for the PCIe versions of cards I would consider. I'll revisit this in late April. As I build the machine, at the same time I'll be helping a friend build his first machine. He's an accountant and will simply be wandering through TAX HELL in the mean time. When he's finished, we'll pick this back up, and see what the world looks like.

That said, work will not stop the HTPC project. No, sir, that, my friends, moves forward.

A Tiny God Concieved

2005-01-24T13:08:00.000-05:00

Yes, a tiny god. Ok, maybe not so tiny a god. I'm talking a gaming machine. A machine for that pushed eletrons like they've never been pushed before.. (at least not in my house). I'm not talking bleeding edge though. No, I don't need to do anything too stupid from a price perspective. I'm looking to ride the front of the value curve rather than the crest of it.

The case I'm going to use is the same at the one I used for my last machine: the Coolermaster ATC-210-VX1:

I love this case. Seriously. I first saw it in an article in Computer Gaming World. It was used by specialistic PC maker Voodoo PC in their high end system. Only they had painted it an utterly striking shade of high gloss red and installed a window in the side of the case. It was a thing of beauty. I admired it quite a bit over the following week, and decided to mail Voodoo PC to see if I could acquire a case from them. They replied that it wasn't available by itself. I was heart broken. I considered buying the PC from them, but quickly dismissed the idea as it, like most enthusiast PCs, was priced extremely high. I decided to take a closer look at the images and see if they had built this case themselves or if they'd taken someone else's. It turned out to be a Coolermaster. I had experimented with case modding, or case ricing, as I like to call it. I thought I would try to replicate their addition of a window and paint job, but cancelled those plans when I saw the case myself along with the price tag. It was over priced, but it was what I wanted, and here we are alomst three years later and I definitely staying with it. I do think about the paint job from time to time, but I don't think I have the skill or the equipment to do the job right.

Ok enough about case. My current target machine is:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (90nm) - Why? the 3800 is 200 MHz faster and more than twice the price.

nForce 4 SLI mother board. I would like to go with the ASUS, but it's looking like DFI is coming out with a very comparable offering. Yes, I saw Anandtech's article. Here's my response (item #25).

Video card: This is the big problem. I would LIKE to get a PCIe Geforce 6800GT. I would also like to NOT pay the redicules markup over MSRP and the AGP version, that most retailers are charging, IF they even have it in stock. This is very frustrating to me. Especially if ATI is able to deliver their x800 XL is any sort of quantity. The typical MSRP on the 6800GT is around $400, for the x800XL, $300. I want the SLi upgrade path but I really feel like nVidia doesn't really want me to have that path. This alone is what makes me consider putting off the project until April or May, so I can reconsider my video card and motherboard options.

An HTPC conceived

2005-01-23T11:21:00.000-05:00

What's an HTPC? It's short for Home Theater PC. It's a PC that would be part of your home theater system. It could do something as simple as play MP3s on your stereo, or much much more. I got the idea of a million places, bu most recently from my friend Rick, who recently mentioned the trials and tribulations of his experiences creating one. My goal, a programmable PVR (Personal Video Recorder) with TIVO like feaures that I can then burn to DVD or copy to another machine. I would also like to play MP3s, and occassionally MAME. I know that recording an audio video input on your PC is hardly a new thing, but it's the programmable aspect of it that is going to present the challenge. So let's list out goals for this project:

An HTPC that has the following attributes:

I need to reuse as much of my existing PC as possible:

AMD Athlon XP 1900+

512 MB RAM

Western Digital 120 GB Speciall Edition hard drive w/ 8MB cache.

Gainward Geforce 4 ti4400.

ABIT KR7-RAID motherboard.

Creative Labs Soundblaster Live 5.1 sound card.

Unknown network card.

It must be as quiet as possible. True silence is probably too costly, but a loud PC does not make for an enjoyable entertainment experience.

It must be stored in a case that will not look out of place with other home theater components.

It must have a hand held remote for primary operation.

It must be able to pause live TV without interfering with recording.

It must be programmable.

There can be no reoccuring monthly fee.

I would like to run it using Windows Xp, and avoid buying MCE if possible.

My Mother's Hat (aka Knitting Project #1)

2005-01-22T21:29:00.000-05:00

I've resisted the whole blogging thing for long enough. Main reasons were it just seemed a little to self important, but my girlfriend Kim, actually has a good idea for a blog: as an actual log of projects. Currently I have a few thing on my mind. The building of a new PC and the conversion of my existing PC to an HTPC. On the less techy front, a knitting project will likely be in the works soon. My first knitting project was a hat for my motherm which I gave her for Christmas.

Knitting Project 1.

Satisfied customer

The card reads:
"Congratulations! You've been given a Dmitri Lenna Original! It's been hand knitted with love and care by a 30 year balding man in the Northeast section of the United States. The multi-color rim is 100% Merino Virgin Wool. The red body is 55% Merino Wool, 35% Microfibre & 12% Cashmere."