Monday, April 28, 2008

Stashbustapalooza

Check out this sweater and hat combo made for Baby AW, far away in London:


Pattern: Daisy by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I used up stash leftovers of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece and Cotton Classic. I like bright colors on babies, and it seems Miss AW would agree!

Also stash busted two pairs of socks (no photos yet), one in army green mock cable rib, one self-striping blues in a chevron pattern.

Currently on the needles:
Fast Florida Footies for my mom (began during vacation in FLA last week, will be Mother's Day gift)
Green Classic Elite Star pullover for R
Baby hat for one of my colleagues due next month
Sitcom Chic - time to pull it out of storage and finish it already

And...for my birthday my better half bought me a copy of 2 at Time Socks. I'm about 3 inches into the cuff - it was slow starting, but I'm getting the hang of it. The book has nice patterns too, regardless of whether you end up liking the two at a time approach (consensus at yesterday's knitting group was split 50-50).

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

If that doesn't work, try a carrier pigeon

While I love my new job, there have been a few hitches in the area of telecommunications.

-my email address used to belong to a student with the same last name as mine, who seems to have graduated recently. He gets mailings for things like College Republicans and the Scandinavian student society. Also, he either thinks his old address is forwarding things to him or he likes giving out fake info, as he apparently took a ReMax real estate training class last week and gave my email as his.

-my desk phone was until recently a fax number for another department. I have learned to answer the phone with the headset well away from my ear. It took a while to convince the would-be faxer from Croatia that she had the wrong number.

-my work-issued Blackberry (fine after its flour bath) number used to belong to an apparent deadbeat lothario named Richard who routinely gets calls from debt collection agencies, credit card companies, and random women. The women are surprised to hear a female voice answer; the debt collectors assume I am fronting for Rich. He/I also gets many calls that ring twice and hang up. Maybe it's the Postman?

Also, fun fact: At my last job I had inherited the former email address of one of the real life students whose story is depicted in the new movie "21." A few years ago she wrote to warn me that casino detectives had a record of her email address and had incorrectly deduced that my maiden name was one of her aliases. She alerted me that I may encounter problems should I ever try to play blackjack in Vegas (unlikely, as I'm too frugal to play more than the nickel slots!).