My Latest Fascination

I first heard this band on a radio station I listen to over the internet at work (in case you are curious, it's 94.9 fm in San Diego and it is AWESOME!)

The band is Gogol Bordello. Their style is gypsy punk. Yes, you read that correctly. It is a bizarre, perplexing fusion of gypsy and punk. I heard a song or two of theirs on 94.9 and was intrigued. I checked them out on YouTube. Some of the band members dress in traditional punk attire, some look like they belong to a wandering gypsy ensemble, roaming around from village to village. The band includes a violin and an accordion. In addition to playing the acoustic guitar, the lead singer also plays the "fire buckets." Still fascinated, but still undecided about whether I liked their music, or just the idea of their music.

Then I discovered that they are playing locally. HOLY SCHNIEKY! When I was exploring the band on the internet, I read that their live performances were quite a spectacle and not to be missed. I was determined to get tickets to this concert. At only 10 bucks a pop for non-student tickets, it was worth the risk.

I had dinner last night with a buddy of mine who presented me with a gift card to Barnes & Noble as a belated birthday gift. Methinks, hmm... I'm in the mood to meander around a bookstore looking for a treat... Lucky me actually found the new release from Gogol Bordello in the CD section. Jackpot. I've been listening to it all morning at work and... it's... official...

I AM A GOGOL BORDELLO FAN.

And I get to see them live tonight!

Correction?

I just saw someone else's estimate that it might take more than 500 hours to complete a blanket, not including the finishing. Since I'm a relatively new knitter/crocheter and I haven't ventured very far past the basic patterns, it is quite possible that my calculations are way too low...

I will quite happily admit that my estimates are wrong.

Still a whole lot of Hokie Healing going on!

Fun with Hokie Math

I just checked the Mosaic Yarn Shop blog. The current “Hokie Healing” square count is 6,589. According to Gina Bonomo, blankets are going to continue to be made until all of the squares are gone.

Let’s do some math!

It takes 64 squares to make one blanket. 6,589 squares divided by 64 equals 102.95. We’ll round that up to 103.

The average knitter could probably crank out one simple square in two hours. (Notice I said ‘average’ – not those expertly speedy fingers all tweaked out on caffeine.) The average knitter could probably make a complex square in about four hours. Let’s say, for the sake of our fuzzy math lesson, that half of the squares are simple, half are complex. So… on average, it takes an average knitter 3 hours to make an average square.

6,589 squares multiplied by 3 hours each equals 19,767 hours.

Impressive as that is, we’re not done yet.

On Saturday, an average team of 8 stitchers took an average of 2.5 hours to assemble 64 squares into a blanket (this is based purely on my own anecdotal evidence). That’s 20 hours of womanpower. Then it takes an additional 6-ish hours, according to my Mom, to crochet the two rows around the perimeter of the blanket to finish it off. So we have another 26 hours to add to each blanket. Remember, we're talking average volunteer knitter. The pros are statistical outliers.

26 hours multiplied by 103 blankets equals 2,678 hours.

2,678 hours plus 19,767 equals 22,445 hours!

To put that in perspective…

If one woman were to attempt this feat by herself, working 24 hours a day, it would take 935.2 days to finish the task. That’s 2.6 years, or 31 months, of NON-STOP STITCHING!

If that one woman were a little saner and were to approach the task like a full-time job, 40 hours a week – it would take 561 weeks (no vacations), or almost ELEVEN YEARS!

Conclusion?

Holy smokes, there’s a whole lot of Hokie Healing going on!

The Chair-y Tree

Could someone please explain to me why in the heck someone would strap a wooden chair to a big oak tree? Am I missing something? Is this a research project? A social experiment? A student prank? I don't understand!


It's been up there for at least a month. You'd think that someone would have removed it by now if it weren't supposed to be there. So... does that mean that it IS supposed to be there? The mystery is driving me mad! Mad, I tell you! MAD!!!

Have you ever...

...waited so long to plant something that it felt more like a burial?

The Second Garden Commandment

II. Thou shalt not prune thy ornamental shrubbery after dark.

Especially if you don't know what you are doing. And porch lights do not count as "light."

Hokie Healing Project

Mosiac Yarn Shop organized the Hokie Healing Project to create blankets for the families of the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings. They asked volunteers to knit or crochet 8x8 squares that would be sewn together (64 squares in each blanket). Today was the big sewing party at the Inn at Virginia Tech. Mom and I went to help sew together the squares into blankets. We had a lot of fun! We even left with 64 squares EACH to take home and piece together since there were so many blankets left to make (actually, Mom left with 128 because she planned to do one with her friends tomorrow afternoon). My mission is to complete this one, take it back to Mosaic, pick out 64 more squares, put 'em together, take it back, pick out 64 more squares... and keep going until there are no squares left. Don't know how many I will manage to do, but that's the plan.

Not surprisingly, the media showed up - all three local news stations, plus journalists from the Roanoke Times and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. WSET-13 (our local ABC affiliate) did a fantastic story - watch and see how many times you can spot me or my Mom...

Watch the WSET-13 video and play "Spot the Susan" here.
[Hint: I'm the woman wearing the maroon shirt...]

Additional news coverage:
WDBJ-7
WSLS-10
The Roanoke Times
The Richmond Times-Dispatch, includes slideshow

Be sure to check out Mosaic's blog for more details, including awesome photos!

Lawn Mower Madness, Part 1

[This is the story I was too tired to share last Monday…and I still haven’t finished it…]

We’ve had a lot of rain lately. Good for growing, bad for mowing. I checked the forecast this afternoon – rainy today and tomorrow, clear skies for two days, then more rain. Not that I’m complaining. I like the fact that my new gardens are getting watered for free and I can’t wait to see the results. The complicated part is figuring out when to mow the damn lawn.

So on the way home I noticed that the sun was out (kinda hard not to notice, what with all the brightness and everything). I decided that as soon as I got home, I’d mow as much as the skies would allow – hoping to have enough of a cloud-free window to get the entire job done.

So I’m at home and I’m changing into my grubbies and what do I hear? My neighbor’s lawn mower. Something in me snapped. Must… get… mowing…

Now, normally I’m not a very competitive person. But there must be something about mowing the lawn, particularly at the same time as a next-door neighbor, that brings out the primitive barbarian in even the most docile (or woefully out of shape) of creatures. Never mind the bellyful of dinner and diet cola – I was going to mow the hell out of that lawn.

My rival? Mister Look-At-Me-I’m-Wearing-My-iPod. Mister I’ve-Sharpened-My-Mower-Blades-In-The-Past-Four-Years. Mister Check-Out-My-Turning-Radius. I bet your self-propelled hunk of engineering even has a torque rating.

Yeah, well, ya know what I got? 24 volts – yeah I said volts – of raw rechargeable cordless electric mowing power. With blades so dull you could mow the lawn three sheets to the wind wearing flip flops and never lose a toe. And the mowing deck, woooah buddy! I can mow a whole 19” in one swipe (but since the blades are so dull, only 14” inches really count).

So we’re both mowing our front yards and I’m imagining this whole event played out on the big screen, directed by John Woo and Kevin Smith (their first collaboration – a truly historic event). My character is played by Jason Statham, a la Frank Martin in ‘The Transporter.’ My nemesis is played by Hugo Weaving, channeling his Agent Smith character from the ‘Matrix’ movies. If he’s not available, I’ve got Alan Rickman on line two. Since I can’t decide on the soundtrack, I’ll have to settle for an original score by Danny Elfman.

Since my mower is electric and too easy to turn on, I can’t show off my mowing prowess by doing that ferocious YANK of the (what do you call that thing that you yank?) as I throw my competitor the stink eye. The best I can muster is a sideways glance through my $10 sunglasses as I hold back the safety bar and flip the 'on' switch…

STAY TUNED FOR THE EXCITING (?) CONCLUSION OF ‘LAWN MOWER MADNESS’

[that is, if I ever get around to it…]

The Garden Commandments

I. Thou shalt not leave thy spigot on, for thy garden hose shall surely perish.

I was out watering my garden this evening - yes, I know you're supposed to water in the morning, but when the choice is between evening or NEVER, which one am I supposed to choose? As I was saying, I was out watering my garden this evening when my friendly neighbor from across the street came strolling over.

"I just saved you a ton of money on your water bill," he said in his always charming German accent. Alright I'm paraphrasing. What he said was, "You should thank me for saving you a lot of money on your water bill." Huh? "I was working in my garden the other day and I looked over at your house and..." I'm thinking ahead and wondering, is he about to tell me that my flowers looked so pitiful that he spent a good 45-60 minutes watering everything? Wow, what a guy! Tuning back in now: "...and I saw this fountain of water coming up from your driveway." What??? "...and I couldn't figure it out. Why would they be watering their driveway? It didn't make any sense. So I went over and turned off your spigot and I noticed that your garden hose had a split in it - the pressure from the water made the hose burst."

Ah, so THAT’S what happened to my new garden hose. Heh. Guess I won’t be trying to take it back to Lowe’s.

The charm of rural living

I stopped in at Unnamed Pizza Joint last night to pick up dinner and there was a stack of fliers by the register that caught my eye. Actually, it was hard NOT to notice the stack of fliers - the stack looked like it was at least an entire ream of copier paper (a typical ream of paper contains 500 sheets).
Click on the image above to enlarge for enhanced enjoyment. Identifying information has been removed to protect... well, me.

One of these things is not like the others

My breakfast: frozen waffles; fake buttery spread; 100% pure, grade A, dark amber, organic maple syrup.

Too tired to type

I had a story to share, but this will have to do for now.

Calibrachoa hybrid, commonly referred to as "million bells" or "superbells" (or "mine", heh heh) and looks like miniature petunias.

Looks like I've finally been bitten by the blog bug.

I went to see the movie Miss Potter with my mom tonight. Twice. After the 7:00 showing, my mother ran into this person and that person and chitted and chatted whilst I was in the ladies room. I reunited with mommy dearest in the lobby, where I discovered that Mom and two of her friends decided that they liked it so much they wanted watch it again at 9:15. As we stood there trying to figure out if I would join them for another round, I was introduced to the two friends - Bill and Jean. They said, "Oh, you're the one that sent those email updates to us when Mary had her two knee surgeries." Oh yeah. Several people have commented on how much they enjoyed those emails. (I'm still surprised that I was able to construct a coherent sentence during that whole ordeal.) I pondered about that on the way home - I've been pondering a lot lately - and thought, "Maybe I should share more of my musings and newsings with others..."

So here I am. I'm probably just here because I crack myself up. Or maybe I feel guilty for not keeping in touch better with the people I care about and blogs have an inherent feature of allowing people a shortcut to keeping everyone updated that is just too irresistible. Or maybe I wonder if these goofy thoughts that wander around in my brain as I wander around in my garden might be as amusing to others as they are to me.

Either way, I hope we both enjoy this little venture.