Hm. Amazon has acquired Lexcycle, makers of the iPhone e-book app “Stanza.” I’ve been using Stanza for a few weeks now to read Red Mars, and it’s great. I would’ve downloaded the Kindle app, but it’s not available outside the U.S. I hope Amazon doesn’t kill off Stanza and screw all the overseas customers.
Month: April 2009 (page 2 of 9)
Another cute square-bottomed tote bag sewing tutorial: The Jordy Bag.
WAIT JUST A SECOND. You mean that the crazy underwater restaurant where Muriel gets dumped by Sophie Lee and her bitchy friends in Muriel’s Wedding actually exists and I can go there? And it’s not even that far from my house!
My friend Christian has posted his presentation notes from his talk at Yahoo last week. There’s some interesting stuff in there if you build websites!
Weekend Update: It was both an incredibly busy and non-busy weekend. I took the day off on Friday to run errands and get ready for the Knitting Retreat. I managed to drive myself out to St. Leonards in the morning for an appointment with my allergist, and then I successfully navigated through the Lane Cove tunnel and out to Homebush to pick up Na Craga from the Show. Then I raced back home to Chippo to tidy up the house before meeting Stef at Spudds for a workout. I had a quick shower afterwards, then hopped a bus to Circular Quay to meet the Snook for a late lunch (and a smooch goodbye!). Then it was back home to frantically pack for the trip.
Lyn was the able chauffeur for myself, Miss Fee, and JP. It took us about 90 minutes to get to Mt. Keira Scout Camp, what with fairly heavy traffic through the Shire. The camp was gorgeous. We shared a cabin with Ness, Gemma, and Kelly. After dinner, everybody retired up to the lodge to sit before a roaring fire and get knitting. I think there were around 30 of us all together. Soon the wine was flowing…
And that was pretty much the pattern for the next 40 hours. On Saturday some folks did a dyeing workshop, but I decided to sit in the sun and work on finishing off Rusted Root. Miss Fee and I went for a run in the middle of the day. I bought the last set of Addi Click needles from the shop. (Interestingly, I paid a lot less than $150US for them!) That night, we all got dressed up for a Hawaiian-themed dinner. Then it was back to the lodge for trivia games, more knitting, and copious amounts of wine.
Yeah, we were all a bit hungover the next day. Sunday was quieter, with everyone in recovery mode. We made it back to the city by 4pm, where I was greeted by a very happy husband and pair of silly cats. It’s nice to get away every now and then and have them miss you. 🙂
Update: Donna, Bells, Mary-Helen, and Lyn have all posted photos!
Home again from the knitting retreat. I’m too tired to do a big round-up now, but suffice it to say I had a great time! Special thanks to Lyn for the ride to Wollongong and back…
Knitting retreat! Here I am in Wollongong, waking up to the sound of birds chirping and scouts stirring. (We’re at a scout camp.) A whole day of knitting awaits!
The latest Knitty Surprise is up, and wow, I kinda love these socks.
An Accident
No, it wasn’t me. I headed out this morning for a short jog around the neighborhood, and I headed up Wilson Street towards Newtown as I usually do. I felt pretty good. The sun was shining and it was cool but not cold. My hamstrings were a little sore from my workout at Spudds yesterday. (He made us do hill sprints.) I felt like I was moving at a faster pace than normal though. I came to the one big hill on Wilson and started powering up it. As I neared the top (and the next cross-street), I looked up to make sure no one was coming around the corner… just in time to see a girl at the corner fall to the ground hard. I tore off my headphones and sprinted up to her. A guy coming down the hill on a bike got there first. “Are you okay?” we asked her. She’d rolled herself against the wall of the house on the corner and was clutching an obviously bloody knee. She was in workout clothes, and she seemed pretty shocked and out of it. The guy said something about running to get a first aid kit, and I said I’d stay with her. He took off. So I stood there with her, dripping with sweat and feeling pretty useless. Other people stopped by to ask if they could do anything. “I think it’s cut really deep,” she said. “I swear I saw white. It could be bone.” I tried to be comforting and point out there’s no way she cut herself down to her kneecap on the sidewalk. From what I could gather, she wasn’t out for a run like I was; instead she’d been on her way home from the gym. I wondered to myself whether she might have been a bit dehydrated, or even have low blood sugar if she hadn’t eaten before her workout. The guy came back with the kit and set about cleaning her up with iodine. As expected, it was just a skinned knee. “I hate to leave you,” I eventually said, “but I’m going to be late for work if I don’t move!” She thanked me for staying with her, and with a wave I headed off. I finished the run and made it home.
I’ve read horror stories on running blogs about runners having accidents or getting hit by cars. I’m such a clumsy person in general, I figure it’s only a matter of time before it happens to me. Hopefully I got some good karma from the incident today, and if I’m ever in her situation, somebody will stop and help me too.
Christian Heilmann at Yahoo!
Well, that was fun! A few weeks ago I finally signed up for LinkedIn, after realizing that EVERYBODY else in the industry was on there. I found a few former co-workers, including Christian from Netdecisions in London. (I voluntarily took a layoff package in 2001 to save Christian’s job, which also allowed me to emigrate to Australia. The rest, as they say, is history.) Anyway, I added him, he added me, and then I visited his blog. To my surprise, I saw that he was now a fancypants “Developer Evangelist” for Yahoo! and that he was coming to Sydney this week! The Snook and I quickly signed up to attend.
The Sydney Yahoo! offices are stunning. They also won immediate points with me by not requiring me to sign an NDA just to walk in the door (like Google did). They had good beer too. There were maybe 40 or so of us there, and Christian’s talk was entertaining and enlightening. You can read my tweets from the event here. He succeeded in getting me to think seriously about using some Yahoo tools and libraries for my next site redesign. Afterwards there was food and everybody mingled, and we got to catch up a bit. Man, was it really that long ago? When Snookums and I lived on Rannoch Road with Alex and Condie, and we spent the cold nights in pubs arguing over the finer points of HTML? Good times, good times.