The Phoenix Rises

Let me start by apologizing for a lack of post yesterday. When I got home from Karate, I sat down to post, only to discover that I had no internet connection. It didn't come back up until sometime today while I was at work. Funny, I didn't miss it as much as you might think. I just listened to some Miss Marple stories on my Walkman, and knitted.

So what is new these last couple of days? This, for starters:

Four skeins of Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud lace weight yarn in Iris Heather. It looks gray in the photo, but it is actually a light purple. Someone on Ravelry was offering it up for $20 for all four. How could I resist? Now to find just the right pattern for it.

The second Baudelaire is done, but I don't have pictures yet. Soon. I knit the second one per pattern, and decided to rip the first one back to the same length. You know that too much of a good thing is not a good thing. This was one of those cases. I was trying to wear the first Baudelaire, and it was just not comfortable.

Sensei has changed the class times again. Adult class is now 6:30-7:30 instead of 7:30-8:30. This is much better for me, especially since we are working 9 hour shifts right now. That means I have to be at work at 6:00 AM. He has also added an adult class on Wednesday nights. I went tonight and it was just me and a green belt named Tim. Sensei taught Tim a new kata, and I worked on all of mine, including weapons. Sensei hinted that if I can make it to the seminar in Shreveport in November, I can test for my second degree then. If not, I will have to wait until next spring. I'm busy trying to save my pennies for that.

I apologize that my posts have seemed so disjointed lately. The writing muse has been quiet lately. I hope she whispers something soon. I'm even bored by my own blog.

And a lovely parting shot for you to enjoy:


P.S. Note to Buck: Last year, the first college football games were played the last weekend of August. I'm going on the assumption that it will be the same this year. I'll make a college countdown as soon as I get some sleep.

Summer Photo Project

Here is the list for the summer photo project. If anyone wants to add anything, you can do so until June 30th. Just leave me a comment or e-mail, and I will add the item to this post. Also, I know it's not officially summer, but we can go ahead and start taking photos. Remember, there are no wrong answers. Everything is up to your interpretation. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

Airplane
Architecture
Blue
Brightness
Child
Circles
Cooling Off
Decay/Decrepitude
Emotion
Face
Farm or Zoo animal
Festival or Fair
Flip-Flops (on someone)
Flower
Food and Drink
Fruits/Veg
Furry
Historical landmark/item/place
Light
Lines
Local landmark
Local Playground
Nighttime Event
Peace
Rain (Summer Rain)
Red Button
Simplicity
Small Town Square
Something defining your region
Sport
Summer
Sunset
Texture
Tourist
Transport
Tree branches against blue sky
Water
Weather
Wig (someone wearing)

Cool Video Of The Day

It makes me want to go out and shoot stuff.

Countdown

Countdown To Football Season

Calendar Contest

Lynn is having a contest to celebrate her second bloggiversary. All you gotta do is post a picture of your June calendar to your blog, then leave a link in the comments of her contest post. Here is my June calendar:

And here is Cody's:

Saturday Sky

We'll Have To Wait

Winning horse racing's Triple Crown is probably the most difficult thing to do in sports. It is so difficult that in 133 years, only 11 horses have done so. Not even the Greatest of Them All won the Triple Crown.

Sir Barton was the first horse to win the Triple Crown in 1919. The last was Affirmed, in 1978.

That's right. Nineteen seventy eight.

Today, Big Brown was looking to become only the 12th winner of the Triple Crown and the first horse to do so in 30 years. He had a chance. A good chance. He was big. He was strong. He was confident. He was undefeated. He had white on his face. All the great ones have white on their faces, or so it is said.

(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

But it was not to be. Something went wrong, though nobody is quite sure what yet, and the big colt was pulled up by his jockey with 3 furlongs left in the race. He lost.

And we'll have to wait a little longer...




So let's keep ourselves busy by watching a few videos.

Affirmed winning the Belmont Stakes and Triple Crown in 1978:



Seattle Slew won in 1977:



And the Legendary Secretariat in 1973:



I remember watching all three of these horses race. After Secretariat won, I remember asking my daddy if he thought they'd sell that horse, because I wanted to buy him. He said no, that horse is too valuable. I was only 8, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

A complete listing of all the Triple Crown winners. Short, isn't it?

1978 Affirmed
1977 Seattle Slew
1973 Secretariat
1948 Citation
1946 Assault
1943 Count Fleet
1941 Whirlaway
1937 War Admiral
1935 Omaha
1930 Gallant Fox
1919 Sir Barton

Rumors, Rumors

If the latest rumors are to be believed, Tony has dumped the bubblehead, again. Of course, her people are denying that it has happened, again.

Now, many of us have wondered why she was with him to begin with. After all, didn't she hate sports? Isn't that one of the reasons she divorced her first hubby--because he was a sports fanatic? Isn't that one of the things she hated about him? So why would she be hooking up with a professional athlete if she hates sports so much?

Some of us suspect that it had a lot to do with an attempt to bolster her own flagging image. He is one of the most popular young up and coming athletes in the NFL, so why not ride his coat tails back into the spotlight? As Mickey Spagnola once said, "You can't pay for this much cheap publicity."

Well, it seems that now her daddy wants to dip his fingers into that pot as well.

A source tells Us Weekly, Joe asked Romo, 28, to drop his agent so he could take over his NFL career and $67.5 million contract.

Which, of course, would net Joe a hefty percentage of that contract as well. Not only that, he's offered to "sell" their engagement--provided they should become engaged, that is. (On the other hand, her mother has stated that they are already married, so who knows what the truth is.)

Apparently this was the last straw, and drove the final coffin nail into their already shaky relationship.

If rumors are to be believed, that is.

One can only hope...

Re-Runs

Since that's all that's on TV, shouldn't blogland follow suit? What we have here are reruns of some of my favorite pictures from last summer.

Clothes

I hate shopping for clothes.

I think it's the fashions these days. We don't have much of a choice. I'm a bit old for the teenage hooker look. Yet I'm not quite ready for the cotton housedress either.

Why do I bring this up? I'm down to two wearable pairs of shorts. I need some more, but face it, no one wants to see this body in skin tight lowriders. But that's all I can find nowadays.

Unless I head over to the plus sizes, which will fall off of me.

Sigh, it may be time to break out the ol' sewing machine again.

After The Storm

Sunday night, it was. We had a hellacious storm blow through, but once it was gone, it left behind a sky of breathtaking beauty. If only photos could capture what the eye can see.





This just in: The Red Guys have won the hockey championship thingy. Contratulations, Buck!

I Watched Hockey

...but only a little.

The only TV show I like is House. It airs on Monday nights, so naturally I watched it last night, even though it was re-runs. After it was over, I flipped over to the hockey game to see what the score was.

"You're gonna watch hockey?" Cody asked, incredulously.

"I'm gonna go to bed," I replied. "I just wanna see what the score is. This is the hockey championship, you know. Oh no, the red guys are losing."

The score was white guys 2, red guys 1 and it was right at the beginning of the third quarter.

"You like the red guys?"

"No, but my friend likes the red guys, so I'm going to cheer for them," I answered.

"Oh, then I'll cheer for the red guys, too. COME ON RED GUYS!", called Cody.

I started cleaning up my kitchen a bit, but was still able to see the TV. I saw the red guys tie the game, but since 5 AM waits for no red guy, I went to bed right after that.

Around midnight, I woke up. I looked at the clock and thought, "That game is over now," but I didn't get up to see who had won. "They can wait until morning", I thought.

When I finally got up, I did check the score and found out that the red guys had lost to the white guys in triple overtime. Triple overtime!!!!

I guess it's a good thing I went to bed. I've had enough triple overtime for a while.

Cody woke up while I was getting ready to go to work. I told him the red guys lost.

"I know," he said. "I watched it."

"The whole game?" I asked.

"The whole game," he replied.

"Triple overtime and all?" I asked.

"Yep," he said. "And I've learned something about hockey. It's like basketball. It's dumb."

"I won't tell my friend you said that. At least not while he is within arm's reach of you."

Sorry, Buck. Not a hockey fan in the making here.

Sports Movies

With football in the throes of the off season, and hockey winding down (I don't watch hockey--I just put that in there for Buck), I've been getting my sports fix from watching movies. I thought I'd share some of my favorites. Now, keep in mind that there are a lot of movies I haven't seen yet, and some I just didn't like. This list is by no means exhaustive. It's just a few of my favorites.

Now, I don't watch hockey, but there are a couple of hockey movies I liked. In honor of the Hockey championship series (what's that called again?), I thought I'd start with them.


Mystery, Alaska-- In the town of Mystery, Alaska, in the winter there is only one thing to do. Play hockey. Every Saturday, the residents gather to play hockey and socialize at their small pond across from the school. The Saturday Game has been a tradition in the town for several generations. It has evolved to the point that the city council actually decides who gets to play, and on which team. All this changes when one resident of the town gets a job with a major sports magazine. He writes an article on the town and its tradition of the hockey game. Before they know it, the residents of the town have been set up to play an exhibition game against the New York Rangers. The outcome of that game changes the town forever. WARNING! This is NOT a family friendly movie! It could have been, had the writers not been so prolific with the f-bomb, and if they'd left out the affair which was totally irrelevant to the plot anyway. If you can overlook that, it is a good movie. I enjoyed watching it.

Miracle--My favorite of the hockey movies I've seen, Miracle is the true story of the 1980 Gold Medalist Olympic Hockey team. No spoilers in this review, since we know how it ends anyway. What makes it a good movie is watching how the players come together. How they move from being just a bunch of hockey players to being a hockey team. The "Who do you play for?" scene is absolutely stunning. It ranks right up there with the Do You Believe In Miracles? scene. Almost... Yes, its' a Disney movie and is rated PG, but don't let that stop you. It's worth the watch.

Next time: Baseball movies.

Summer Project, A Partial List

Just to give some of you an idea of what kinds of pictures we will be taking, here is a partial list of the items from the Ravelry board:

• A Local Landmark
• A Sunset
• A Flower
• A farm or zoo animal
• Something that defines the region/state/city in which you live (not necessarily a landmark)
• An item/place/landmark of historical value (example: The Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, or a Civil War battlefield–or whatever is historically important in your country)
• Emotion
• Simplicity
• Food and Drink
• Transportation

But what do they mean, you ask? Well, that's up to you. There are no wrong answers. It's all how you interpret it.

The full list will be coming soon. The Ravelry group is talking about starting a bit early. If they do, then so will we, if no one objects. But there is still time to add to the list if you wish. NO naked people, please.

Red Letter Day

Today is a red letter day in the FineMartailFiber house hold. Betcha can't guess what it was. Come on, guess! No, it's not my birthday, nor Cody's neither. It isn't an anniversary, either. I haven't finished a major knitting project, or even a minor one for that matter. I didn't get my stimulus check, nor is it Tax Freedom Day. Have you guessed yet? Give up? Ok, I'll tell you.

Today, June 1, 2008, I finally ate the last piece of Christmas candy!

Hey, that's pretty important! Now I can begin trying to lose my Holiday Weight!

*Sheesh* I'm going to go knit now.