It's a block party!

I know, I have been AWAL for a little while. I have not be delingintly posting progress on my November goals like some people. I'm going to blame it on the interview. It sucked up 3 days last week, plus the time to prepare and then the time to recover. I had planned to catch up on my internet life in the evenings while I was there. In my past experience interviews of this nature are an exhausting experience and planning to do brain work in the evenings is a bad bad bad idea. It is, however, the perfect time to sit in front of a TV and catch up on blogging, blog reading and emails to all the friends that you want to write real emails to (not the "hey how are you I'm great life's busy hope to see you soon" kind). A grand master plan foiled by staying in a 1960's era home with GASP! NO INTERNET!

The interview:

I think it went well. My talk seemed to be well received and the people were nice. I don't think that it's the job for me though. I'm not ready to activate plan B quite yet. The house was the highlight. This was the first time I have seen teal and avocado paisley print wallpaper complete with matching curtains. The place was a hoot.

The paper:

I am half way through the data analysis. This is a bit behind where I wanted to be. I have been slowed by a couple of factors. First, the interview. Second, %#&@ing Windows. I had a very bad day yesterday. It seems that an 80 gig hard-drive shouldn't really ever hold 80 gigs unless they are stored under multiple windows profiles or some other BS like that. I came into the office yesterday morning all prepared to be in an environment where I could get a lot of work done. Total paper focus. Turns out I had a corrupt windows profile, which took ~5 hours for the IT guy to kindof fix. None of the data is lost, it's just in the wrong place. I'm an anal backup person, so I'm not worried about anything that might be lost. It's just that I really need the damn computer to function. Multiple phone calls and 2 hours or so with the IT guy did not jive well with total paper focus, so very little got done.

Random rant:

Am I getting old, or are those IT guys getting young? I mean seriously, when this kid, who looked like he was about 12 and had some kind of metal bar sticking out through his eyebrow, started telling me that I shouldn't have 30 gigs of data stored on this computer because blah blah blah, I almost blew a gasket. Where exactly would you like me to store the data? This is the computer it's analyzed on, therefore it needs to be on this computer, would you like to come rewrite the 70,000 or so lines of Pascal code that collects this data to see if you can compress it in some way the 4 or 5 other computer experts that wrote the code were somehow unable to figure out. Don't tell me that my desktop shouldn't have any files on it, "it's just like a messy desk you can't get any work done". Here's a hint, you don't like messy, comb your hair! Man it's a good thing I keep that internal monologue internal I might have made this kid cry. I'm getting old. No doubt about it.

The knitting:

The sweater is done and blocking. I pretty much had the exact same experience as the yarn harlot last night. Lot's of seaming, but I was too lazy to rip back the inch I should have on the arms so it's just going to stay that way. I even watched last weeks bionic women on the web, it's weird to read an almost exact count of your own evening written by a famous person. (I didn't have wine and had some dinner with friends)

The fit is good, and the moving mud closure Mom bought for me at Rhinebeck is the perfect color. I'll try to post pictures from Thanksgiving so you can get the full effect. This sweater is a brilliant pattern to knit. Kate Gilbert is truly genius. Many have said this before so I won't expound further than that. The yarn is Primo by Filatura Di Crosa. I bought it at Webs summer sale in June. I have 6 balls leftover, I don't know what to do with it. It's nice to work with, except it's one of those yarns that the ends don't really stay under after they are woven in. It comes in small balls so there are alot of ends. I LOVE the color. This is my best "for me" knit yet.

Since I had to drag the blocking board out, I finally got around to blocking the pea pod sweater that I knit over the summer as well. It's a Kate Gilbert Block party right here in my living room: