Travel: June 2004 Archives

You can take my lack of posting as an indication that I had a great time in San Diego. I just didn't have time to sit down in front of the internet very much. Of course, who wants to sit down when the world outside your window looks like this:

A Room with a View: The View from the Sheraton San Diego at the Marina

From our hotel room on the 11th floor we could survey all of San Diego and the lovely harbor around us. It's difficult to tell, but on the right side of the picture is a naval base. The big grey thing that you see is an aircraft carrier, (I think it is the USS Nimitz, but I am not exactly remembering the ship number). While we were there, there were a total of four carriers in port, if you include the USS Midway, a decommisioned carrier that is now performing museum service duty. Also docked (briefly) while we were there were the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Carl Vinson (which we had seen before when we took a trip to Seattle). Although we didn't see her, apparently the USS Ronald Reagan was due in soon, as well, as a result of some big training exercise that is scheduled to occur. To give some sense of the scale of these boats, here's a picture that John took of me in front of the Midway (which is about 200 feet shorter than the current Nimitz class carriers).

USS Midway in San Diego

(John took a lot of other pictures, but I will spare you all the photos of planes and gun turrets and landing gear, which, while cool, probably are more interesting for John than for anyone else.)

We learned an interesting fact about the carriers while we were touring the Midway on Monday. Apparently, ever since the attack on Pearl Harbor, there is some kind of military rule that states that there will never be more than three carriers docked in any one port. However, due to some significant training exercise that is happening soon, there could be a lot more than three of them in the area. One morning, I got to see the USS Abraham Lincoln heading out to sea. All I can say is "Wow".

Actually, the seeing the Midway (which is on the left side of the picture near the cruise ship) and getting a chance to meet some of the veterans who served in various branches of the US military did make me stop and think for a while. Many people have given up a great deal to protect this country and her allies. While I may not always agree with the reasons, I do have a deep respect for those who choose to serve.

But we didn't come to San Diego to see the Midway, we came for the QualComm BREW 2004 Developer's Conference. Well, "we" is not, perhaps, the right word. John came for the conference, I came for the weather and the chance to see a good friend. BREW is the OS platform that QualComm has created so that you can run applications on your cell phone.

It's not that difficult from the Palm OS, so I was kind of interested in finding out more, but the conference was completely booked. They were pretty serious about checking IDs so I figured there would be no chance that I could sneak in and hear about some of the cool geeky things going on. But one of the people from John's company got sick and couldn't come to the conference, so John's manager transferred his registration to me. How cool is that? (At least if you are a geek girl like me?) I actually got to go to a few interesting sessions, and to the big party, which featured the B52s. Now, as both geek girl and child of the 80's this was about as cool as it could get. I never thought I would be dancing to live by the artist "Private Idaho" and "Rock Lobster". You can bet I'll be tagging along next year when this conference happens again.

On Wednesday, I got to go to the famous San Diego Zoo with a good friend and her beautiful five year old son. There's nothing quite like tromping around a great zoo with an enthusiastic child. We saw Pandas and Hippos and Elephants and all sorts of other interesting wildlife. But I never got out my camera once -- I was too busy soaking it all in to remember.

Did I do any knitting? Not much. I did finish a scarf for the friend I went to the zoo with. She's been going through a rough spot, lately, and I wanted to make her something special.

Red Eros Scarf

I know I swore that I would never make another one of these scarves because EROS makes me crazy, but I just thought the red would be perfect -- and I had just learned a little trick to make the knitting easier. You can find the pattern here. It's a very easy scarf, and I've yet to make one that didn't make it's recipient happy. Here's a closeup of the ruffly edge of the scarf:

Eros Scarf Detail

What's the trick? Well, make the garter stitch happen by purling the whole scarf. It goes a lot faster (even though you're purling) because its much more difficult to split the yarn with your needle coming at the loops purlwise. This scarf is also where I learned to make the worlds easiest ruffle -- cast on twice as many stitches as you want for the body of the scarf, knit as many rows as you want the ruffle to be, then K2Tog all the way across the row.

I was hoping to have a few pictures to show, but between the rather slow internet connection at the hotel and the reticence of my CompactFlash reader, I am photoless.

Today we spent the better part of the day strolling around the decks of the USS Midway -- an aircraft carrier decommissioned in 1992 that had entered the US Naval service in 1945. This was actually the first day that the ship was open to the public for touring, so we felt pretty lucky. There were television news crews wandering around all over the place. For me, it was most interesting from the perspectives of what technology it had and what technology it was lacking. There was definitely very little high technology around, except when it came to the planes that were once shot of the decks. Most of the complicated stuff was maintained and manipulated by well trained humans. Perhaps the most impressive computer of all is still the human brain.

Also entertaining was watching my husband walk around and scope out all the different bits of technology and machinery. If you could look through our photos you would be impressed by the number of pictures of airplane wheel assemblies, large pipes and large pieces of metal working equipment. I couldn't help but think that my Dad would have loved to be there with us.

But probably the best part was the older veterans who were populating the carrier, both as visitors and as guides. There were many good stories and it was really neat to hear guys who had actually crewed the ship talk about the role they played there.

Apparently it was also quite an amazing effort to get this carrier ready for viewing. If you want to know more, they have website.

I've done just a little knitting (I'm working on a simple Eros scarf for a friend who lives in LA and needs a little pick-me-up) and I spent most of the evening working on my Needle tracking program. A number of people have asked if I will be making an announcement when it is ready. I definitely will be! I will also have a place on my website where you can go to download it. It's about 85% of the way there now, so hopefully by the end of this week or early next week I'll have something to share.

North of Golden Gate Bridge

The trip to San Francisco was quite an adventure. Like all adventures, there are good parts and bad parts. Fortunately for me, I got the bad parts out of the way at the beginning.

I've done a reasonable amount of air travel in my day. I'm not a high flying frequent flier, but I'm used to airplanes and air travel out of O'Hare. And this trip started the way it was supposed to. I got to the airport around 9:30 am on Friday and was all ready for my 11 am flight across the country. We boarded on schedule and I was happily anticipating an afternoon of swatching and fibery goodness while John finished up his conference obligations.

But this was not to be.

Before take off, the pilot let us know that there was going to be a little delay while they checked to make sure that a particular maintenance item had been taken care of. We waited a bit as this was attended to, and then we got the all clear and headed on our way. So far so good.

About 30 minutes into the flight, I was yawning and thinking about taking a nap when the pilot announced that the equipment that maintained the cabin pressure had failed or was failing (apparently this was what they had been concerned about at the airport, and had been told was taken care of) and we would be turning back for Chicago. If there's anything that makes you wake up quickly its your pilot telling you that something is wrong with your airplane.

Now, before I go on, I should remind you of a couple of facts about this flight. 1) it was a very full long distance flight bound to SF from Chicago with a lot of jet fuel 2) you can't land an airplane carrying too much fuel without a serious emergency (which apparently we didn't have -- even though the reason we turned back was because the O2 masks were about to drop), and 3) only 1/2 an hour our from Chicago, we hadn't burned very much fuel at all.

So you can guess what comes next. We flew back towards Chicago and the pilot came on again to tell us that we were going to have to circle Rockford until we had burned off enough fuel to land. We flew in circles around Rockford for an hour. I think I saw the same power plant go by the window five or six times. And then we landed at O'hare again at about 1:30 pm. The time we were supposed to have arrived in San Francisco. Sigh. So much for a nice afternoon in San Francisco.

To give American some credit, they did have things taken care of, and we were off the ground again by 3 pm. It was a very deja vu feeling since we left from the same gate both times. The passengers deserve a lot of credit, too. With the exception of 2 people, everyone else was well behaved (although there were a lot of people taking advantage of the bar next to the departure gate). I got a little bit of a chuckle out of the pilot as he came over the intercom "Just in case anyone is concerned, this is not the same aircraft...".

Fortunately, the second trip out went without a hitch. But the moral of this story? It's bad karma not to go with your hometown airline. I shoulda been on United...

John and I stayed in "Grand Hyatt" downtown in the center of the shopping district. The good karma part of the trip is that I was staying just three blocks away from Art Fibers.

Art Fibers, I have to say, was worth a trip to SF all on its own. It's its own very special place. The folks in the shop were friendly and helpful and the fiber was a treat to touch and work with. One of the nicest things about this place is the little sitting area and the free swatching balls. Like a yarn? Grab it, swatch it and then you can get help from the staff putting together a custom designed sweater. If I lived in San Francisco, I would be in this place more than I should be. The yarn isn't cheap, but you do get bigger discounts, the more you buy.

I wanted to try a couple different yarns, so I decided that I would try for a trio of summer tops. Here's the yarn I came up with:

Yarn So Good You Could Eat It: From Left to Right, Chai, Biscotti and Mousse

I set out on this mission with a goal towards making some things that I could wear in the office. So the colors that you see are a little more subtle than I would normally pick. But not quite as subtle as they appear in the picture.

Chai in Color #16

Chai is a handpainted 100% Tussah Silk yarn. Hopefully as I start working with it, I will be able to capture it's true colors better. It really leans towards a deep charcoaly grey, garnety purples and reds, deep ocean blues and teals. It is a buttery soft yarn that you just have to feel to believe and that has a special sheen that I usually associate with mohair. The yarn comes 165 yards to 50 g and knits up at roughly 22 stitches/28 rows per 4" on a 4 mm needle. It has a lovely uneven texture that makes the fabric airy without being too revealing. This is destined to become a little top with short cap sleeves, a V neckline and a bit of a frill at waist.

Biscotti in Color 5B

Biscotti is 100% nylon. Neither photo captures it's colors very well. The group shot is a little dark, the up close shot is a little light. It is a dark yarn that appears almost black until you get up close to it and realize that it has blue, green and brown undertones. I am hoping to make a simple sleeveless shell with a ballet neckline out of what I bought -- perhaps trimmed with some of the Phildar Reliefs (a yarn with a similar texture) that I got from Becky a while back. This yarn comes 83 yards to 50 grams and knits up at 14 stitches/24 rows to 4" on US 10.5 needles. It's a soft yarn that knits up into a interesting textured fabric (much like the Tai that I knit with last summer).

Mousse in Color #3

But perhaps my favorite purchase is the Mousse. Mousse is a boucle ribbon yarn that appears to be the younger cousin of Rowan's Cotton Braid. It's a 20/30/50% Linen/Cotton/Nylon blend. There are a whopping 193 yards per 50 gram skein. The recommended gauge is 22s/33r to 4" on 5.0 mm needles, but I liked the tighter gauge that I got on 4.0 mm needles, so I will be doing a fun summery tank top with a lace edging on the smaller needles.

I'm likely to start with the Mousse. I just can't stop touching it, and I think it will be the most practical for the summer. The top is going to be K2Tog YO lace up to the waistline, after which it will be solid. It's going to have a scoop neck and wide shoulder "straps" so that it will be work friendly.

After my trip to Art Fibers, we did a good bit of meeting with friends, eating, shopping and bonding with big trees. In spired by all the wonderful chocolatey goodness I've seen on Mariko's blog, I couldn't resist bringing these home with me:

Chocolates from RichArt

I think they are almost too pretty to eat -- but I will make the ultimate sacrifice since the "instructions" tell me that they are at their best up to a month after purchase. This batch is full of nutty fillings -- hazelnut, praline, etc. You can find out more about these decadent little French goodies here.

The trip back from SF to Chicago was uneventful and calm. We got in around midnight Monday night and between work and school and programming I've been on my toes since my return. My needles have been conspicuously silent since I have a lot to do before I leave for San Diego on Sunday to soak up some sun while John attends a geek meeting.

My Palm programming project is due next Tuesday, and I hope to have it all but completed before I get on the plane to San Diego. I'm going to be skipping KIP tomorrow night in hopes of getting some good progress made (it's hard to program and socialize at the same time). I wish a good time to everyone else, though, and will definitely be there for the next meeting on the 17th.

P.S. I'd love to hear about "must see" or "must eat" things in San Diego. I'm going to be there from Sunday to Thursday afternoon and should have a lot of free time.