Dichroic Reflections

what's up and what's coming up

I finished my first glove last night. I just hope it fits - the fit is a trifle hard to figure out when the hand it's for is a few thousand miles away. I don't have any measurements; I could ask my dad to take some, but I'm afraid he'd measure to somewhere different than I would so all the numbers would be off. (Because really, how do you define the *exact* length of a finger? You could measure to the webbing between fingers on one side, or on the other, or to the knuckle, or....) I know he has small hands, for a man, so I've been trying to get the size somewhere between my hands and Rudder's. The only thing I'm not thrilled with is the cast off at the wrist, which looks great but is a little tighter than I'd like. Rudder was able to get his hand in the glove, so it's not too tight, but I may try to find a better way to redo it. (Technical note: I used a suspended bind-off, but it's still too tight. There's one from Elizabeth Zimmerman I considered, where you thread a tapestry needle and go through two stitches purlwise, then one knitwise and drop the stitch off, but EZ says it's not recommended for ribbing. I don't want anything ruffly.)

This all would have been easier if a needle I bought Saturday hadn't promptly broken on Sunday. Unfortunately I probably won't get to replace it unti the weekend after next because this weekend we'll be traveling.

I spent yesterday in a meeting up at the site where I used to work. It was an odd feeling: there were people I knew from each stage of my career with this company. Sort of a little "This is Your Life on the Job". Very handy for establishing contacts and picking up gossip. I also got to have lunch with a couple of my favorite former colleagues, and got some advice from one that may prove useful in dealing with my boss. (They're from the same culture, and apparently workplaces in that culture use a much more hierarchical model than is common in the US, which may account for some of the boss's quirks.)

This weekend we'll be going to San Diego for their Masters Rowing Camp - yes, Rudder and I are going to camp. Last year it was fun, though with all the rain and ensuing lake closures we didn't get to apply what we'd learned for a long time. This year that shouldn't be a problem, since we haven't had any rain at all since about October. (It's going to be a bad year for wildfires. Again.) I really need to decide soon how much racing I want to do, because if the answer is anything but "Not much" I need to ramp up my training. On the one hand, it's been so nice not to get up at 4AM and go out in the cold! On the other hand, Rudder is still doing just that, which means I get woken up anyhow, though at least I get to stay in bed until 5, when I get up to erg or go to the gym. I can can erg some days, but if I want to be anything like competitive, or at least as close to it as I can get, I need to spend more time on the water.

My cubiemate is trying to convince me to do the local erg competition, in February. Ugh. 2000 meters is an unpleasant distance, short enough to be sprinting as hard as you can, long enough to feel like it's going on forever. (Top female rowers do it in under 7 minutes; my best time to date for that distance is just under 9 minutes.) Very pukeworthy distance.

Posted by dichroic at January 11, 2006 09:23 AM