Anyone out there use Movable Type for their blog? What do you think of it?

I’m not terribly enthused by the idea of switching to Blogger beta at the moment. The Web host I use for my private email account already has Movable Type installed, and they maintain it. So, I’m considering the idea of shifting my blog to my personal domain. Just want some comments/opinions by people who have experience with MT before making my final decision.

Thanks! 🙂

First off, Happy Valentine’s Day!

Okay, good. Now that that’s out of the way, I can say thanks to everyone who sent their well wishes while I was sick and specials thanks to those of you who reminded me that February is a short month and will be over sooner rather than later. 🙂

Onward to knitting… I had mentioned before that I was trying my hand at a simple st st vee neck sweater using the instructions in Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top. But, I didn’t really saying anything else about it even after prodding by blog readers. So, today’s the day. It’s a plain st st cause I used to have some basic store bought sweaters that I loved so much the elbows disintegrated. I couldn’t patch them, cause there was nothing left to patch. I decided to go with a vee neck to be different from the last couple sweaters I’ve done, which were all crewnecks. I’m knitting it out of Heirloom Yarns Heatherwood in a sage green color.

I cast on the back shoulders with great trepidation and porceeded into the short rows. As I got to the armpits of the back, I tried to figure out what to do next (I didn’t have the book with me) and did a sort of reverse engineering from a bottom up sweater. After reading the directions in the book I realized I was completely wrong and ended up tearing my armpits out and doing it Barbara’s way. Then, I picked up the front and did the short rows, knitting ever downward, working in the neckline increases.

Then, I joined the front and the back. I was making progress. I could begin to admire my handy work. I love the short row shoulders! It was beginning to look like a sweater. This is, of course, when it got extremely boring. All knit, all the time. So, I did what any knitter in my place would do, I cast on a sock.

I think January should be a write-off. It sucked all sorts of balls. The husband had the stomach flu that’s been going around so much it made the news (not the norovirus, but the other one). I had a head cold that I’m still trying to shake the reminants of.

I’m not sure how February’s going to go. There were definitely some birthing pains right from the start. The 1st marked the official first day of officially being a part of the big tech company that ate the smaller tech company I worked for. I’m not really getting into the school thing, and my first assignment is due in a week, and there’s this whole thesis proposal thing I’m supposed to be working on. And we can’t forget the warning a girl I met at a party last month gave me… “oh, you’re a snake. This Chinese New Year’s is for the boar. This year’s going to be hard for you cause the snake and the boar are opposite signs.” Definitely doesn’t sound promising, does it?

I think my throat is trying to kill me from the inside out. *ow*

At least there are good things like lotion tissues, hot tea, and hot soup.

I’m sure there’s someone (at least I hope there’s someone) out there that has been wondering where in the hell I’ve gotten to.

Well, my parents’ gift to us for Christmas was to treat the family to a Mexican Riviera cruise. So, I spent Christmas on a ship with far too many people. The food was okay. The shore excursions the husband and I went on were fun — there was tequilla tasting in Puerta Vallerta, Walking tour in Historic Mazatlan, and horseback riding on the beach in Cabo San Lucas. And now I have a small cache of photos to last me for more than a few Eye Candy Fridays. 🙂

By far, the best tacos were found in Puerta Vallerta. One good place was at the tequilla ranchero our tour went to. We watched them press and grill the tortillas and grill the meat… simple, tasty. My sister also got the best tasting lobster tacos I have ever tasted at dinner at Si, Senor… again hand pressed tortillas. Now, the husband is talking about learning to make tortillas himself.

We got back from our week at sea in time to drive up from LA and go to bed before the new year was rung in. It’s an 8-9 hour drive and we were wiped. Thankfully, I had the 1st off and was able to take the 2nd off as well in order to have a vacation from my vacation.

I managed to get myself through the first, short week back at work. But, the next week sucked. I was feeling depressed (probably a combination of post-vacation blues, and the fact that I had severely cut back on my sugar intake… sugar releases serentonin in your brain, which makes you feel happy… less sugar, less seretonin), I had to get my resume out to places in my internship hunt, and try to get back on my exercise routine. Thankfully, the depressive apathy had begun to pass by the end of the week, just in time for me to be silly and join Runagogo.

MLK, Jr. Day was a day of laundry so that I could have something to wear to my internship interview at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) archives the next day. Which brings me to the good news of the month… I’m going to be doing 12 hours a week at the SLAC archives for my internship. *happy dance*

My internship starts tomorrow. Classes start on Wednesday. My sanity is going to be greatly pressed as I have to work 40 hours this week and I have a professor who may have taken it upon himself to throw the dept’s published schedule for the class out the window. Somehow a class that was listed as hybrid (online and onsite) with onsite meetings 4/14 and 4/15 will now have several virtual class meetings and 3 onsite class meetings in the middle of the semester. Um, yeah. This semester may see the return of the eye twitch somewhere between internship and thesis proposal writting. Hopefully, I’ll still be able to find sometime to fit in the knitting since it can help.

Today’s eye candy was taken with my camera phone, so the resolution is a bit off.

I was on my way back to my cube yesterday after getting breakfast at my work campus’s cafe, and I saw this is the grass amongst all the frost. There’s a small dip in the lawn there, so some water must have gathered, then froze over during the night. The ice looked sort of latice-like. It was really pretty. I only wish I had had my good camera with me to get a better picture of it before it melted.

If you click on the pics to go to their flickr pages, they look a little better over there.

So, I’ve decided to try my hand at making a basic v-neck st st pullover following the directions in Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top. All my basic store bought sweaters, which kept me suitably warm for quite some time, all gave up the ghost. Mostly they were done in by huge gaping holes in the elbows. There was nothing there to attempt fixing — the elbows were simply gone, and I’m not a leather elbow kind of gal.

In other knitting relatedness, I don’t think I’m going to re-up for the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Rockin’Sock Club. They raised the price by a good $40, and I wasn’t sufficiently wowed this year to pay more for next year.

Meanwhile, I’m trying not to lose what’s left of my sanity to the last week and a half of 2006.

Today’s Eye Candy comes to you from Napa County, California. The husband’s company decided to take everyone on the Wine Train. The vineyards were fun to watch go by since harvest happened a couple months ago, and now the vines have turned fall colors and are losing their leaves. The food was okay. The wine was good, but then we had brought our own. 😀 We shared a table with one of the husband’s coworkers and her husband. Apparently, after talking to me for 3 hours, the husband’s coworker thought I was from somewhere other than America. The next day at work she asked him where I was from, and expressed doubt and surprise to learn that I grew up in America. (Of course, I’ve got enough of a Canadian accent that I’ve been asked what part of Canada I was from by Canadians.)

I’m afraid they’re a tad blurry, but they were taken with my camera phone on a moving train.

From Rabbitch

You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.

No.
Explanations.

1. Yourself: introvert
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend (spouse): wonderful
3. Your hair: red
4. Your mother: dependable
5. Your Father: mellowing
6. Your Favorite Item: palm
7. Your dream last night: forgotten
8. Your Favorite drink: wine
9. Your Dream Car: electric
10. The room you are in: cube
11. Your Ex: gone
12. Your fear: pain
13. What you want to be in 10 years? myself
14. Who you hung out with last night? husband
15. What You’re Not? organized
16. Muffins: blueberry
17. One of Your Wish List Items: peace
18. Time: need
19. The Last Thing You Did: email
20. What You Are Wearing: sweater
21. Your Favorite Weather: rain
22. Your Favorite Book: Ambrai
23. The Last Thing You Ate: cupcake
24. Your Life: changing
25. Your Mood: tired
26. Your best friend: afar
27. What are you thinking about right now? tonight
28. Your car: zippy
29. What are you doing at the moment? typing
30. Your summer: hot
31. Your relationship status: comfy
32. What is on your TV? tivo
33. What is the weather like? cloudy
34. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday

It’s got to be one hell of a hole I fell into… I haven’t even really been reading all my blogline subscriptions.

Must get back on some sort of posting schedule.
Must find more pretty pictures so I can post Eye Candy again.

Must not allow reading everything I ever and never wanted to know about incunabula period printers (i.e., Aldus Manutius & Fust and Schoeffer) drive me batty.