Best video you'll see today

Presents!

I had an AWESOME day today.

1st out, a big huge Thank you! to Liz, my sockpal! Although your parcel came at the end of last week, I wasn't home yet and couldn't get it until today! Without further ado:


The world's most beautiful kneesocks! They're made of handspun merino, which is softness itself. I adore pink, and these socks just shout out to the world that they're pink! Not weird Barbie pink either, but just a bright, cheery pink you see in wild roses and cherry blossoms. The pattern is so nice too, I just love it! I need to know the stitch pattern.


Another picture of the socks. Aren't they gorgeous?


You'd think that handspun pink kneesocks, would be enough, but my Sockapal went above and beyond! She gave me a little skein (45g) of (I'm guessing) her own handspun, which I'm sure I'm going to knit into a little headband for the fall - or maybe a little neck scarf. There's also two presents from LUSH, the French Kiss bubble bar in the picture, and the You've Been Mangoed! bath melt that is solidifying in the fridge (it got a titch mushy in the car today). I got a cute change purse that will also fit a lipstick, and a bunch of postcards! Thanks Liz, you are the best pal EVER :D

I also got a present from Sean today, as a "yay! you're back!" type gift. He took me to Build-A-Bear Workshop, and I made this:

His name is Sean, and he's wearing khakis, stripey button-up, argyle sweater-vest, and leather shoes. He's asthma and allergy certified, as long as you freeze or wash/dry him every 4 weeks. He makes me squee every time I see him :D

And lastly, the presents I got to send to MY sockpal! Her things are going out tomorrow, in a mass mailing I need to do.

I tried to go Canadian in the package, without being TOO stereotypical. We have my favourite Munsch book (for her kids), a soap made in Winnipeg, two Canadian teas (Maple and Icewine, both made in Toronto), maple syrup candies, and some postcards! I can't wait to mail it off tomorrow.

Today was a great day! I got to go out and do soil sampling, which meant riding on the ATVs (woohoo!) and spending time outside (double woohoo!). Most of our soil was very clayey, but that's to be expected because we're in Northern Ontario. I found some Creeping Snowberry



and gave some to Jeff to taste. It was amusing, although he thought the flavour was OK (usually snowberry tastes like a sour minty flavour) the texture was definitely not to his liking.

We had an enjoyable lunch, and while we were at the creek side taking a sample I found some wild mint!



I picked a quick bunch before we moved on, and while we were waiting at the ATVs for Blaire and Leye I found another massive cluster! So I picked it all and now they're drying on papers on my other bed, drying out for a nice treat this winter. I might go out with Sean in the evening once he gets here and pick LOTS more, it would make good Christmas presents. Wild mint tea is much more flavourful and wonderful than bought tea, and is very sweet.

I can't wait until Sean comes up! He'll be here in two nights, on Thursday. We've also potentially found an apartment, though we need to be approved and sort out a few things. It's got gorgeous hardwood floors though, and is closer to the University. It's much smaller than our current apartment, so we're already working on getting rid of some stuff, and more will be on its way out once I get back to Winnipeg.

Now, I really need to clean up this room in preparation for Sean. No time tomorrow, Wednesdays are for Bingo!

Pictures

ipod cozy I made for Nesha, she just got a new nano for logging core. My own pattern, Bernat Sox "Hippi" on US 0 needles. ~40 sts cast on, k2p2 pattern with 6 stitch/8 row cable, 3 needle bind-off for base.


Socks I'm knitting. Unfortunately the pictures is bad, because I don't know how to work Nesha's camera very well! Socks are in Patons Kroy, using 2.75mm needles and the pattern is "Charade" (marvelous pattern, you'll have to google it!).


Out on the lake eating lunch, on a rock sampling day earlier this summer.


Geoteching core before it's logged with Jeff. It was very, very hot these days.

Sockapalooza 4

Ha! At least the sockapalooza socks are up, so that there's proof I really did finish them! They're waiting to be sent out until I get back to Winnipeg. My pal already knows this and is fine with it *phew!*

Specs:

"Mermaid Pearls"
Sockapalooza 4 socks
Yarn: Bernat Sox "Hippi"
Needles: 2.75mm DPN
Pattern: "Gull Wing Lace" from Socks, Socks, Socks!

OK so I tried to upload pictures of my Sockapalooza socks, new x-mas present FO, and ipod nano cozy. Nothin' doin', unfortunately. The sucky, sucky internet here keeps dropping and I can't get a consistent signal in order to load a picture.

It'll have to wait, maybe in the morning it'll be better.

Sooooo hooooooooooootttt...

Oh. My. God. It is sooooo hot here. We are in a humidex warning, this afternoon it got up to 41 with the humidity.

The scary thing? In the upstairs of the mill (where we work, it's completely unventilated) it was so ridiculously hot that outside at 41C felt cool. Knowing now that it felt like 41 outside, I'd wager that it's at least 50C upstairs. It was so hot, that less than a minute after turning off the fan, we felt violently nauseous and dizzy. Because of the high humidity, you can sweat properly either, so there's no particularly good way to cool off. I'm already wearing just a tank top and shorts at work, not sure how to cool off any more!

I finished the sockapalooza socks, except for grafting the toes (no darning needle or crochet hook) and blocking them. I noticed that I somehow wound up with two less stitches in one sock, but I checked and since this is stretchy lace they fit the same.

I also spent my spare time today (during scanning, between changing maps) graphing out the yoke of this sweater:



It's one of Hermione's from OOTP. It took me FOREVER, some tears, some photoshopping, and finally good old paper, pencil, ruler, and tracing paper to get it right. I wanted to make sure I accounted for the decreases properly, since I wanted it to be a proper yoked sweater. I think I've got it now! I'll try and post a picture or something soon.

Not much new

Not much new here, more work going on in the outrageous heat of Red Lake. I've being working on my sockapalooza socks some more (sorry Linz, no pictures still!), especially while I'm scanning.

I also want some suggestions for first dance songs for the wedding. Sean and I are wanting something older, like 40's-50's. Sean is not really a fan of Elvis Presley, nor of Frank Sinatra, although I'm not sure on his feelings about covers. My ideas so far:

"Fools Rush In" - a cover if I can find it
"Love Me Tender" Norah Jones
"LOVE" Michael Buble
"Fever" Michael Buble


As you can see, two are Presley and one is Sinatra :P Any other ideas?

I also need ideas for the Processional and Recessional. No wedding marches! Sean's a fan of Pachebel's Canon, but I really really don't want to use that one. I'd really like to use something by Bach and or Handel.

The new Interweave Knits Fall 2007 is up, and there's a few things I want to make: Dickinson Pullover, Tangled Yoke Cardigan, Cobblestone Pullover, Snowflake Socks, Sweetheart Vest (I'll add sleeves), possibly the Mirepoix Bodice once I can see the schematic. In all, enough patterns to make it worth my while to buy the magazine.

What would YOU like to make?

PS The last dance? "Moondance" by Michael Buble. :D

Arrr - ye be warned! Pirates: At World's End spoilers ahead!

Hi Linz! No pictures yet because my camera is on the fritz, and is consequently left at home. But soon!

As for the after-credit clip, some writers explained it thus:

A scene was cut from the movie which explained that if whoever took over the Flying Dutchman had a lover who remained true through the 10 years, the obligation to the sea and the escort of the dead would be broken, and he could return to land again. Therefore, when Elizabeth waited her 10 years faithfully, Will could come back and live with her again. It therefore doesn't cut them out of the storyline completely if the actors want to come back, but it DOES solve their storyline if they don't.

I liked the end clip, because it showed that Elizabeth and Will got to live happily ever after with one another. Plus, Will got SUPER hot this movie.

I am waiting anxiously to go home Thursday night, and miss Sean so much it's driving me round the twist (great Oz expression).

As I said....

Yeah, I haven't blogged in awhile. But a shout out to Linz who's rejoined the blogosphere and even posted on my blog!

I didn't post while on vacation in Winnipeg, because I was just spending as much as possible with Sean. We spent our time hanging out together, watching some movies and painting. We also planned out some stuff, which included:

-Going to the Manitoba Museum and eating some street dogs
-Sushi at Meiji
-Going to Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End
-Going to the Assiniboine Park Zoo
-Walking around Polo Park
-Eating dinner with his family

After getting back to work, Leye and I were alone (everyone else was on their holidays) and spent our time scanning. We had some nice days as the rest of the crew came back, and got to do some more good field work, but then two things got in our way. The first was weather, in which Red Lake once again bowed to the Weather Network's Summer Outlook Forecast and became incredibly rainy. The other is that I developed some strange chest infection, which kept me from scanning and bush work. However, the drill has started up again, so now I'm assisting Nesha in logging core.

I've been knitting, my first Sockapalooza 4 sock is done apart from grafting, and I'm up to the heel flap on the second. I also knitted a Gryffindor bookscarf for myself, which I can't put fringe on until I get home to a crochet hook. I've realised that the bookscarf is not really particularly useful for me, as I never put down a new Harry Potter book until I'm finished reading. Oh well, it's fun anyway :)

My next break starts Thursday evening, and I won't be posting much during that time off either. The week involves a trip to Dryden to visit and renew my license and get a bite splint made, picking up HP7, going to OOTP, and hopefully confirming a wedding location. Wish me luck!

Yeah, I've been posting less. It's partly because I forget to do it, partly because I have a facebook I post on, and partly because it can be discouraging when no one comments :D Not that I expect them, I think I just need to put a hit meter in the sidebar so I know if anyone is actually reading and whether to try to post more often or not.

In work we've been doing more boating, as well as doing a lot of scanning. There is a whole room full of old mining and geology maps that were left in a leaky old shack and are nearly destroyed by moisture and mildew. On scanning days we take those maps and feed them through a wide scanner (it's 54" wide), and save the pictures so that we have at least some preservation of the maps. It's an OK job, a little monotonous but gives us a chance to chat (2 people need to do it together, to support the maps as they run through and be able to feed the maps in) and a chance to listen to some music.

I also learned how to use the log database. After Judy (or later on, us) has logged the drill core from a hole, we use a program within Microsoft Access to organize all the data (sulfide veins, ultramafic horizons, that kind of thing) so that it can be easily searched if something important comes up. For example (HYPOTHETICALLY!) if geochemistry showed us that, say, quartz-feldspar veins with green alteration were associated with gold in certain areas, we could plug that parameter in and it would show us every horizon in our drillholes which had those veins. Makes targeting easier.

Today is more boat work, since it's beautiful out. I've loaded on the sunscreen, and am going to throw some lemon juice in my hair to help it bleach more evenly in the sun.

I've also been doing some more wedding planning. I'm thinking that the colour will be purple, with pink and gold accents. I like the idea of the men having Dendrobium orchid boutonierres:

The bouquets would be those orchids along with possible irises, since they're orchid-like in appearance.

I also looked for some wedding bands, and I liked these ones:


Except that the bottom heart would be an emerald - making mine and Sean's birthstones. I think it's really pretty and some nice symbolism - they're both lab-created stones, since this actually makes them more beautiful stones for a much lower price


I love this band, I have such a thing for amethyst - it's so pretty!

OK, well I should get going. I have 10 minutes before we leave!

Just in time!

Today was all about being Just in Time. Waking up this morning I got up with perfect timing for going to breakfast, and we started on our boating geology. We had a beautiful morning, calm and sunny. I was the only person with any boating experience, so I sat in the back next to the drivers chair and helped everyone who needed it through the start-up sequence and then learning to pilot the boat.

We explored the first lake, then went through a marsh to the second. The channel was fairly shallow, and we ended up having to paddle through with the motor raised, since it couldn't be locked into a slightly raised position. I paddled from the back a good deal of the way, which was very enjoyable. I wish we could do all our work from canoes!

We explored our outcrops, taking samples and describing the rocks. We were careful to watch the skies, since we knew that it was supposed to rain and thunderstorm in the afternoon. Our second example of "Just on Time" was deciding to leave when we noticed some darker clouds moving in and the barest drizzle starting. It began to rain as we paddled back through the marsh, and soon began to pour. As we put in at the dock, we heard a large rumble of thunder. Some quick moving on our part and we had the boat shoved up and shore, and we were in the truck (and more importantly off the lake!) before the storm set in!

Dinner was alright, acceptable as far as cafeteria/contract food goes. But the last "Just on Time" instance happened as I settled onto my bed for some TV after work, and discovered "Krakatoa" just starting on the Discovery Channel.

Ups and Downs

Today was more a day of ups and downs, as some days are.

Ups:

-Went for a lovely long walk around Red Lake this evening, in the dusk

-The soup for supper was delicious

-Got to sleep in a bit

Downs:

-Watched a bear cub run frantically onto the highway in the path of a Purolator truck. Said truck swerved to miss him, which scared the cub who dashed closer to the truck and smacked his muzzle on the back bumper. The cub dropped to the ground and lay still for 30 very, very long seconds, then got up and fell over a few times. He barely got off the road, dipped his nose in the water in the ditch, and then seemed better and gamboled off into the woods.

-The mine managers smoke inside the building, making office work difficult.

-Other seasonal workers (likely drillers) have returned and are smoking in their rooms in the hotel, which comes into our rooms via the gaps around our doors.

-It's supposed to rain for two days, which makes it difficult for us to do the boating work were supposed to do.

I'm very, very upset that people are allowed to smoke inside the hotel. It's harmful to everyone else, causes problems for people with asthma, allergies, and migraines, and makes everything stink. I have no understanding for why it's legal or acceptable for someone to (essentially) poison me and others around them. If you chose to smoke that is YOUR decision (and presumably your right), but I should also have the right to a smoke-free living situation. I feel that the rights of a non-smoker to breathe freely trumps the rights of a smoker to smoke - because the non-smoker is not causing serious health problems to anyone else by not accepting smoking in their area.

Red Lake, Ontario

Red Lake's "Mascot" and namesake of my hotel - The Norseman Plane


Well, I'm in Red Lake! It's quite beautiful here, a little different from home. Less topography, more muskeg, and VERY different rocks. Lots of volcanics and fewer granites. It's extremely wet here right now, due to the continued deluge they experienced for about 3 weeks before we got here. It's very livable and even a bit enjoyable, but the dirt churned up by the drillers and skidders makes more mud that slops up past your ankles.

Claude Resources, and especially my boss Judy, rock so far. Claude pays for our rooms, all food (and anything we want to use to make lunches, pretty well), flies us in and out (and we're paid for those days), buys things we need to be more comfortable (fans, comforters), and also lets us keep our handlenses and things. Judy is awesome at explaining things, is very understanding, and has a great sense of humour.

We're working at Madsen Mine, picture below:



We're basically doing everything it says on that page, and looking for new and historically known gold locations. My job will rotate between field mapping and rock/soil sampling, scanning old maps of the area (most are gorgeously artistic from the 1920's), and logging drill core. We get to work using ATV's, and doing some lakeshore geology from the motorboat as well.

Today we went out to look at outcrop examples of the local rock types. We saw mafics, ultramafics, talc schist, quartz "tuff", and a few other things. We also ran into the following NOT rock things:


Wild Columbine


Vetch


Canadian Bunchberry


Marsh Skullcap


Spring Azure


Canadian Tiger Swallowtail

I love my new hiking boots so far, and we'll see how they work out tomorrow. Hopefully well!

Hi all, tomorrow I leave for Red Lake. I will have internet there, so I should be doing some posting (especially since it's an easy way to keep up while I'm away!).

Posting has been scattered because of attempts to spend as much time together as Sean as possible before my leaving, and I'm not sure when the next post will be. Red Lake should be good, I have my own hotel room and I get to keep it all summer.

See you soon!

Back from Field School

Well, that was one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life. Highlights include:

- Day 2 was a 16 km traverse through rough bush (no roads, trails, etc. barring one short logging road), and at least 6 bogs/marshes, one of which was thigh high.

- Day 7 was 12C, it poured most of the day, and it was very windy. By 10:30 AM my clothes on my bottom half, including boots and socks, were soaked through. We didn't have anwhere to get out of the elements until 4:30 PM

- My old hiking boots no longer fit and I had 7 blisters on one foot alone.

- I didn't take the 3rd year Metamorphic Petrology course, and therefore had a very hard time understanding our area. Thankfully my partners were helpful in explaining it.

Lessons learned?

- Take a GPS, it makes mapping easier.
- Buy proper rain pants, hiking boots, and backpack.
- Ticks are less frightening after you've found over 50 of them on you in one day.
- Ticks can be more easily removed if you gently pull while turning clockwise - this is the opposite direction to the way their mandibles grow.
- Blackflies really love the colour blue.
- Khaki is not the best colour in a hat. It's hot and attracts blackflies.

To prepare for my season in Red Lake, I'm going to replace my rain pants and get new hiking boots. I'm also going to go get a new hat. I LOVE the one I have, barring the colour. It's an old Canadian Forces hat, with great little ear flaps that fold up into the cap when you don't need them. I want to get one in tan, but it seems they've stopped making this style, as far as I can tell. Nor would I have been able to get it in tan in the first place. Too bad, because the hat rocks my socks. I guess I'll be off to United Army Surplus!

Field School

Well, I'm off to field school today, hoping that I haven't packed too much, that I've packed enough, that I've packed the right stuff...I guess for the 4th year field school they don't feel you need a list of items to pack any longer, since they give you one in third year. The only problem? I did my field school with U of A, and therefore have no idea of what the U of M field station is like.

I guess I'll bring my big rolling suitcase along with my giant backpack and look like a dork.

Oh, and I put purple streaks in my hair. Just for fun.

Finish the following...

"We're tiny, we're toony..."

"We're the Animaniacs..."

"Do the Carebear countdown..."

"Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart!..."

"Ch-ch-ch-chip and Dale's - Resuce Rangers!"

"Duck Tales! Woohoo!..."

"Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo Inspector Gadget..."

"Heroes in a half-shell..."

"They're Pinky, they're Pinky and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain..."

"In West Philadelphia born and raised..."

If you can finish these, you grew up in the 80's and 90's.

Send good thoughts!

My Grandpa is having heart surgery on Tuesday, so please send good thoughts our way! I'm sure he'll be fine, and this way he'll be a lot more comfortable.

So far I've gotten two marks back, both B+ :( I worked hard in these classes, and I wish I'd done better, but I guess it wasn't to be. No big worries yet though, as the marks to come back still are the classes I should do very well in, and as of right now my GPA for the year is still a 3.9.

Something to ponder...

#1 song on the US charts the day I was born: "Maniac" by Michael Sembello
#1 song on the UK charts the day I was born: "Red Red Wine" by UB40

Life song US (#1 on 18th Birthday): "I'm Real" by JLo
Life song UK: "Mambo #5" by Bob the Builder

Well, not sure what to think of the first US one, and I really, really hate that second US (and the UK Life) song...:P I like the the first UK song though!

Check yours here.