My favorite names (a list in progress).

Mario Hilario (a newscaster in Rhode Island)
Will Paradise (an ex-boss)
Henry Vumbaca (honorable mention to his dad, Dino Vumbaca)
Kim Komando (if this were not taken, I'd change my name to it)

I don't choose names for this list just because they're funny-sounding. The Name of the Year blog already does that. The name has to be someone I've known, or that I can personally document. And it has to be a name that one (especially me) would actually like to have. My favorite names are those that make me think that the person having the name must be a really neat person in some way.

That's why I'm torn about Coco Crisp (a Red Sox player). It's an irresistable name, but I'm not sure if I can call it favorite or desirable. Well, I can't get it out of my head. And I think his mom must have been a really neat person for giving it to him, so what the heck...

Coco Crisp
Isabel Kunkle
Tara Roach
Sara Finck
Sue Shein

Geeks' night out.

O'Reilly Media (the company I work for) is holding the first Ignite Boston! at Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square on May 31. Ignite Boston is based on the Ignite Seattle events, founded by Brady Forrest (www.igniteseattle.com). The concept behind Ignite is that it's a place for geeks to drink beer, hang out, MAKE something, and learn from each other.

From 6:00-7:00 PM we'll be building bridges! Using only 1000 popsicle sticks and a glue gun, can your team engineer the strongest bridge?

After that, author Scott Berkun (The Myths of Innovation; The Art of Project Management) will kick off the event with a keynote talk on...what else...innovation! Following Scott (until about 10:00 PM), other guest speakers will each have five minutes to tell you about some of the cool, new stuff going on in tech today.

So come and mingle with alpha geeks. And if you're an alpha geek -- or just make something really cool -- you can submit a proposal here: http://ignitenight.thirdeye.railsplayground.net/events/form/ignite_cambridge

Thunderheads.

OK, I took this picture at 3:45 PM. I looked up from my computer and thought I had fallen asleep and woken up at 8:45 PM. It was that dark out. It wasn't raining very hard, just scarily dark. Later, there was thunder, and warnings of possible hail or even a tornado. I love thunder.

We had some crazy weather a few weeks ago, too. I woke up one night and thought I was having an aural hallucination. It sounded like a freight train was passing over the roof of our house. Later, my voice coach, who's from the South, told me that freight train sound is indicative of a tornado. I've never heard anything like it in my life. A totally alien sound to my ears. We don't get many tornadoes in the Northeast.

More fundraising.

The Marathon Mama update: Kristina Pinto met her goal of raising over $7,500 for the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge. As you'll see if you click the link, a serious knee injury prevented her from completing the 26.2 miles of the race...on race day, anyway. Kristina is determined to finish the course as soon as her knee allows. Amazing.

Here's another local guy, One Food Guy, who's riding 192 miles in the Pan-Mass Challenge in August to raise money for cancer. There's still a lot more work to do, so I encourage you to sponsor Scott if you are able.

More knitting in spirit.

I did eventually finish the prayer shawl I wrote about in an earlier post. I'm going to start another one, but meanwhile here's a perfect and timely project for those looking for a smaller time committment: Hokie Healing. (Hokie is the name for the Virginia Tech athletes.)

Knitters and crocheters are asked to create 8" x 8" squares using the school colors (maroon, orange, white, and black), and mail them by May 31, 2007 to:
Mosaic Yarn Shop
880 University City Blvd.
Blacksburg, VA
24060

The squares will be sewn into blankets given to the victims' families.

Pee and Q.

One late morning recently I saw a well dressed, well groomed young man, complete with cellphone and messenger bag, relieving himself against this column. He was actually standing on the opposite side of this brick wall, and had enough class to face away from the street. Although I could only see his upper body, the posture was unmistakable. I pretended I didn't know what he was doing, and he pretended he didn't know I was walking by. Actually I think he really didn't know I was there.

I wonder what made him think this column was a good place to take a leak. It's adjacent to our office building's parking garage, which leads me to the real Q:

What is it about parking garages that reminds males of bathrooms?

OhMyMySpace

A couple of weeks ago, some loser hacked my MySpace page and started sending out spam MySpace Bulletins to all my MySpace Friends making it appear that they were coming from me. Actually they were. This person -- er, loser -- captured my username and password and logged right into my account, using it as their own. Furthermore, the loser added some code to my page so that anyone clicking a link on my page would be directed to said loser's own IP address, where their name and password would also be captured.

I'm surprised that more hasn't happened...said loser almost undoubtedly has my valuable email address, and should be bombarding me with spam, but isn't. I have no idea why someone would do this. Anyone wanting to send out spam MySpace Bulletins could create a new MySpace identity in a matter of seconds. Why bother hijacking the account of someone with a total of 9 MySpace Friends?

Here's how it happened:
I was surfing MySpace late one night, and landed on a "You must be logged in to do that" page. No matter that I was already logged in: Many Web sites ask you to reenter your password periodically, so I did.

Here's how to prevent it from happening from you:
MySpace never asks for your password while you're logged in unless you navigate away from MySpace. If you see the "You must be logged in to do that" page, look at your browser's address bar. If you see a misspelled version of "myspace.com" or a numerical IP address, DO NOT type your email address and password. To do so is giving them away to a phisherman. Back out of the page immediately.

Here's how to fix it if it does:
If you've been hacked, you'll find you can't get to your own MySpace home page. Anytime you click your Home link (or anywhere on your own profile page, actually), you'll go to the hacker's IP address. Instead, go to someone else's MySpace page, click Home on that page, and then click "Edit Profile." You'll find some unfamiliar code in your "About me" field. (It's much easier to spot if you have not customized your MySpace page.) Delete that malicious code, and things should be back to normal. At least, this was all I had to do to fix the problem.

I grok MySpace. But I don't understand it.

Is that your professional opinion, sir?

This is the receipt from my Toyota Matrix's first oil change. I love how my mechanic gives me my car's diagnosis in lay terms.

Still, it feels good to have a VERY NICE CAR.

I'm famous.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably know that I already know how to knit. But as you can see, I give an Oscar® worthy performance in this screencast on knitting instruction by Brian Sawyer on the Hacks Blog.

(And if you don't know what a hack is yet, here's an example of some Blogging Hacks from hackszine.com.)

I missed the lunar eclipse.

I missed seeing the lunar eclipse yesterday, even though I checked the time and bearing and drove out trying to see it.

I saw my first lunar eclipse in Belmont, Massachusetts. 1997, I think. I was on my way to an ensemble music class (I played flute, and the class included piano, violin, and cello.) The moon looked orange, just like this.

I really wanted to see the orange moon again this time, but in Eastern Massachusetts the total eclipse was just after moonrise, and it was also a cloudy night. All I saw was gray.

I think I could have seen it if I had driven farther and looked harder.

Photo of the 2007 total lunar eclipse in Massachusetts credit to Mike Theiss, from Weather Underground.

Where has this man been all my life?

A few nights ago, I woke up in the middle of the night, with a memory. I was a pre-teenager, seeing someone named Johnnie Ray on the Jerry Lewis telethon, which I was watching with my parents. They commented on how out-of-shape he looked now that he was past his prime. I was struck by his dramatic and extreme way of using his voice and body.

Waking up in the middle of night for me usually entails a quick Google search or email check along with the usual glass of water or juice. This time, of course, I googled Johnnie Ray and found on YouTube video of him in his prime. I was enthralled by what I found:



According to most biographies, including this excellent one by Linda Rapp on glbtq.com, Ray's style was a transition from Sinatra to Elvis. Bobby Darin clearly borrowed, too. (This answers.com article has more pictures.)

I've never wished I were born 20 years earlier...until now.

I'm trying to knit a prayer shawl.

I forced my mother to show me how to knit when I was about 7. She had tried a couple of knitting projects, but didn't enjoy it. I can't believe I made her teach me something she hated. Seven-year-olds are insensitive like that. Anyway, by the time I was 12, I had knitted 2 afghans, crocheted a poncho, and made several pairs of slippers, scarves, mittens, and stuffed rabbits. My favorite pastime was grabbing whatever yarn and needles and knitting clothes around my dolls, designing them as I went along.

In college, I started knitting a sweater for a boyfriend. Luckily, my next boyfriend was about the same size. I ended up altering it into a hip-length sweater for myself. Sweaters are hard.

My next boyfriend became my fiancee. A mediocre craftsperson, I married into a family of artists. One of my new sisters-in-law told me that I would have been one of the few who flourished during the industrial revolution, I was so good at doing fast, accurate, repetitive work with my hands. I know she truly believes that she meant it as a compliment. I still find it impossible to take it as one.

More on this saga later. Bottom line, I still like to make things. That never goes away even when I'm not making them.

When I saw an ad in our church bulletin asking people to make and donate "prayer shawls" (www.shawlministry.com) for local people under nursing and hospice care, I knew I had to do it. There was a scrap of a chance that someone in the world might benefit from a skill I had to offer, and I decided to take it.

Oddly, my skill failed me. I've had to rip out more on this project than its simplicity warrants. But I've recovered. This shawl will get finished. And it may keep someone warm...not a moment too soon.

First thaw.

"First thaw" is ironic, because we only got the first snow a few days ago. Today it finally got above 30 F. After the snow, it stayed around 20 F for a couple of days. Then the ice sheet started to melt. When I opened my hatchback to put the trash and recyclables in the car, that broke the 1.5" thick layer of ice on my roof in half, and sent the front half down onto my windshield.

Ice is heavy. I couldn't lift it off myself. But I could sort of push it off to the side and off the car. When it hit the ground, it broke into chunks, which you can see here. When I got to the dump, I noticed the frozen snow/ice layer on the back half of my roof. Again, I couldn't lift it off, and since the car radio antenna went right through the middle of it, I couldn't push it off without damaging the antenna. I ended up lifting up one side, then the next, so that it broke up into pieces about 1 foot on a side. Then I could slide them off individually.

The man in the second picture is doing the same thing with the ice from his roof, which slid down at the Stop sign in front of our house.

Didn't work.

The flower food didn't work. The roses are drooping and the chocolates are getting eaten.

All we can do is savor the smell and taste.

Valentine's Day presents.

Ben gave me a dozen pink roses. After I took this picture, they started to sag. I'm trying to revive them with freshly cut stems, warm water, and flower food. I'll let you know how it goes.

I also got an unexpected gift: I won a contest at work. It was to guess the number of conversation hearts in the jar. The prize was a box of locally handmade chocolates. Yum. I usually don't win things like this. But I'll let you know the formula that helped me win this time: Try to figure out how many of each item (jelly bean, conversation hearts, whatever) there are in each layer of the container. Then just count how many layers you can see. My winning estimate was 1256 little hearts in a big glass jar.

Nor'easter of '07

After the scary warm fall and early winter, we finally got hit -- and good. Six inches of snow on Valentine's Day, followed by so much cold that the snow and rain turned into ice rather than evaporating away as usual.

The storm alternate between snow, sleet, and freezing rain. Here's a picture of me catching some snowflakes on my arm when the snow was at its fluffiest.

I'm grateful that I can telecommute. Wasn't always the case, not by a long shot. At my previous two companies jobs I was under explicit pressure to get to the workplace, even when doing so was unsafe to the point of being foolhardy. But I did it anyway. :)

In which B. J. Hill meets the governor.

It's a go! On Monday Jan 29, B. J. will present Governor Deval Patrick with the book of messages he collected during his walk across Massachusetts.

Check out his blog. There are some new pictures from his walk across Mexico, too. Plus, he's scanned in some of the actual notebook pages.

The best Christmas present ever.

OK, there was the cellphone, and the skis, and the special dolls, and the 128 box of Crayola crayons, and all the other things I'm leaving out, but this Keurig Gourmet Single-Cup Coffee Brewing System is definitely my favorite present this year.

It's a cross between an espresso machine and a drip coffee maker. It makes the best coffee I've ever had. It makes me very happy. I'm actually drinking less coffee, because that one cup in the morning is so good.

A walk across Massachoo-choo.

Also of local interest...

As you may have noticed, I've started a little collection of Massachusetts-related links in the sidebar. My latest discovery -- A Walk Across Massachusetts -- comes a little late in the game. B. J. Hill (a 30-year-old special-ed teacher who seems like a really cool guy), has already completed his walk from the New York border to the tip of Cape Cod. B. J. finished last fall. He started out just wanting to walk across the state to get to know the place better, much the way he walked across Mexico when he was in college.

Then, as B. J. tells it: "after being invited to a town meeting in Charlemont, I found a mission. The selectmen were complaining to their state representative that the governor doesn’t seem to understand life out in rural Massachusetts. It felt like they were a million miles away from Beacon Hill." B. J. added a notebook to his backpack and started collecting messages from the people of Massachusetts, with plans to present them to the yet-to-be-elected governor.

Although the walk is done, the blog is still worth a look. The pictures he took along the way are excellent, and, yes, there's one from the Mexico walk, too. (He got a much better tan that time!) Also, the most exciting part is yet to come -- newly sworn-in governor Deval Patrick has agreed to meet with B. J. and collect the notebook! I can't wait to read the writeup of that meeting!

The Amazing CharlieCard Mitten.

Of local interest...

The MBTA (Boston's transit authority) has recently switched to a system of rechargeable fare cards. To gain entry to a subway line, you have to pass the card over a reader at the turnstyle. And an ingenious woman who takes the "T" everyday and uses her commute to get some knitting done came up with an idea -- mittens with a special buttoned pocket to hold the CharlieCard. To use it, you just pass the back of your hand over the reader -- no need to remove the card.

The Subway Knitter doesn't give a pattern. Presumably, if you can handle kitting a pair of mittens, you can handle knitting a couple of extra flaps for the front and attaching a button.

But if you'd like an authentic pair of Amazing CharlieCard Mittens, she's raffling off a pair to benefit Rosie's Place, a Boston women's shelter. (Click the PayPal link in the upper-right corner of the Subway Knitter's main blog page to enter the raffle.)