Holly Doyne – Page 190 – words, wool, and travel

MSC Sinfonia – Day 1 – Genoa

Posted on 2007-11-19 by Holly2007-11-19

19 Nov 2007

Travel

Leaving Milan by train –

We were on our way to Genoa. Train reservations are a must – even so – the car was packed. So packed with people that all the large suitcases wound up out in the hall at parade rest up against the outside wall. Not an issue till someone tries to walk through the area, or worse, wheel a snack cart.
End result is that several of us wound up crouched on our seats with the center of the compartment filled with luggage. And wooden knitting needles don’t like to be stepped on.

We didn’t get a lot of time in Genoa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoa and http://www.timeout.com/travel/genoa/intro.html ) since we elected to try and check in (ditch the luggage).

By the time we managed to do that – it hardly seemed worth the effort to go back into the city.
Besides, they were offering Free Lunch up in one of the dining areas.

The ship is the Sinfonia.

Also seen here, here and here,

Leading to this

and finally here – in the cheap seats!

Thank you for surviving all the pictures of the ship – I promise I won’t do that to you again.

There are the important things – like Genoa Harbor –

Or the nice starting digital map that is on several screens throughout the ship.

Socks

Wicked is finished.

So I pulled out Rivendell, going from a partial cuff to this –

to this

over the day. The detail on the top looks like this –

Audio Books

Finished Too Many Cooks – by Rex Stout. Written in 1938, the publisher notes at the beginning that there maybe portions that will offend most today. Rather than edit the book, the original has been left intact, feeling that the reader is able to distinguish and handle those parts themselves.

Nero Wolfe (the main character), besides being severely obsess, is a frank misogynist. Set in West Virginia, people of colour might not have been slaves, but the attitude toward them was less than sterling. I don’t think it hurts to be reminded of how much change we have seen in the last 60 years, both in attitude by the white male and in law.

-Holly

Knit, Meme & words in the ears….

Posted on 2007-11-18 by Holly2007-11-18

Kristina – yarn sticks http://yarnsticks.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/365/ added me to the list of Rocking Girl Bloggers. Along with a comment about pairs of socks knit. I really don’t think it has been all that many. Not really.

New Meme from the Scrabble Queen –

You have to open the book you’re currently reading on page 161 and read the fifth sentence on the page, then think of 5 bloggers to tag with.

My problem is which of the books I’m reading do I use?!?! Ok, I will do both of them..,

from Murder At The National Cathedral:
“Were they aware of the murder that had taken place there?

from Darwin’s Black Box:
“But the other problems will not concern us here.”

The five Bloggers I will tag are:

Amy, Holly, Heatherly, Monica, and Ashley

now – how do I do that with an audio Book?

Departing for parts not yet seen

Posted on 2007-11-18 by Holly2007-11-18

Remember I said Cruise?

This is the ship. And this is our intinerary. We start in Genoa and end in Buenos Aries.

I am packed. I am not organized but think I will have more than enough time to regret anything that I forget.

One of my teens is presently in Barcelona and I am contemplating calling her, just for the sake of doing it.

I will write and take pictures every day – and will upload them every 1-3 days depending.

And of course, there will be knitting.

-Holly

Packing

Posted on 2007-11-17 by Holly2007-11-17

I am never sure how much to take on vacation. As a result, I pack either too much or too little.

The choice of suitcases is either the 22″ or the 26″ pull-toy. I did the two weeks of China with just the contents of the smaller suitcase. But this is a week longer (sort of) and I want to bring along sport clothes and will need at least one decent outfit. Add to that the changes of weather from here on the Continent to what it will be in Brazil and Argentina and I am kind of flailing.

The knitting was easier (grin): the three pairs of socks that are in progress ( I should easily be able to finish them), several hanks of sock yarn in case I want to knit more socks,

patterns to go with the above, the Kauni Cardigan so that it gets finished, and Mein Weg to start in case I really make progress.

As you can see, I decided to go lighter with the contrast yarn and pulled some Finnull out of stash. This was, of course, after I had made a run downtown and picked up some Roedel. But it is superwash and I just don’t think that they will work well together.

From what I can tell – out of 19 days – we will have less than 48 hours on land.

That is plenty of time to knit. Oh, and I have yet another baby sweater to knit. Peapod I think, and it a nice bright stripe!

Audio Books

In between the laundry and packing, I have been loading audio books onto my computer and portable drive so that I will have plenty of listening material. Jasper Fforde, Michael Connelly, Catherine Coulter (FBI Series), Perri O’Shaugnessy and Terry Prachett to name just a few.

I am planning on watching the sea, listening and knitting.

-Holly

Getting there

Posted on 2007-11-16 by Holly2007-11-16

And another day spent spinning in circles.

Or so it seemed.

Between saving Audio Books so that I would have music on the trip and making phone calls, I felt that my life was perhaps coming under control.

I haven’t heard back from the nice school lady. She is TDY next week, and I am gone for the next three. The kids may have a school interview somewhere around 19-20 Dec. They are not running on thrilled, but I can hope that something sparks their interest.

At least I managed to clean out my inbox, handle a couple of taskings and complete a support form before grabbing my leave form and heading out the door.

Knitting

Not much to report. I have to decide on the projects for my cruise. After all, the boat floats on Monday and I would like to have everything packed on Saturday.

Which reminds me – have you seen some of the lovely patterns on Wolke 7? I am looking at Mein Weg as a cruise knit. Since the author states that it is TV knitting worthy, it should do just fine. There are a couple of changes that I might make. Other than making it smaller (grin) – and that is to see if I can ditch the garter stitch. Probably not, as it would have a different drape. I may also steek the front so that it matches. I have this lovely cone of Kauni in blues, purples and a bit of green. Now to see if I have enough black on hand for a contrast or will have to hit the yarn store today.

But I have to do that anyway since I have one more Peadpod to knit. Unless someone can suggest something different. (I put my copy of Babies and Bears somewhere).

Audio Books

I managed to pull seven books to my hard drive in and among everything else I was doing. I am not sure what I will want to listen to and a choice would be nice. The laptop weighs the same regardless, which is not something I can say for hauling along a large number of CDs.

Which reminds me – I switched over to FreeRip from Real Player and Window Media Player. It is more than happy to run on a computer that it not hooked up to the Internet. And it just rips. Not plays, not argues with me about what I want to do. It also is a bit faster than the other programs. Important factor when you have large numbers of CDs to deal with.

Arches

Stairs to workout rooms. Shaolin Center. From 9 Aug this summer in China.

-Holly

Next Crisis

Posted on 2007-11-15 by Holly2007-11-15

What do you think? Perhaps the obvious – money.

From the last time I had to blast off, leaving the family behind, they have changed the rules. If you head to a tour where you don’t take your family, but could – it is your problem. Used to be (don’t cha just love it?), that if you left the family to make their life better, you collected allowances for the location where your family remained. Counting it out, it is cheaper to do that than to move a complete family twice. But no, someone apparently thinks that saving two moves doesn’t balance the books.

Economically, I am more than willing to donate money to charity, but not to subsidize the US Government. If the family “officially” comes with me, then the government pays the school tuition for my teens.

It might balance things out, and will certainly cut down the number of trips that I need to make across the Chanel. As well as not being really thrilled about having the kids in school on another continent.

No knitting today, no spinning today. Just a whole day spent on the phone, web and email.

On the Audio – Bait – Karen Robards.

On the nightstand – Tanya Huff’s The Heart of Valour.

-Holly

RFO

Posted on 2007-11-14 by Holly2007-11-14

Which stands for Request for Orders. This nice little one pager from my branch that I have to take over to the personnel office comes in by email (after I have to go to the main site and reset a password and log in manually), and then they cut me orders for the move. Without these particular sheets of paper, I don’t have the authority to do much of anything but sit and whine, much less get the good old government to pay for that which they should.

All sorts of fun, not that I did not have enough to do this week. I am going to try and bug out on all the mandatory briefings for movement overseas…seems like I am already there from a US point of view.

Now on to the more important things in life –

Treasure

These came in the mail today.

It is my October (and last) SOM from Chameleon Colorworks. Bamboo, incredibly soft yarn in a pale seafoam color. Last kit, not because I don’t love Janel’s hand dyed yarns and patterns, but because she is selling off her business. I now have collector’s kits (grin) and I am hoping Nancy Colburn carries on as well (could not find a website for her).

and from The Sweet Sheep this nice box contained this-

and this underneath.

Spinning

Would you believe that this

fit into this?

Tomorrow it is on its way to PA. The challenge for the last several weeks has been to find a box that would hold the 24″ diameter wheel. [Hint, think diagonal placement in the box]. After worrying about two boxes, I managed to get the legs off the base, all the metal thingies in a baggie, uprights, footman, whorls and bobbins into the same box, padded with some wool. Wool is a wonderful packing material.

Now also to mail off some other things at the same time (wool, boxes of books to downrange, a few holiday packages and the like).