A tangential rant

This has nothing to do with spinning or knitting or fiber. In fact, it has very little to do with my usual pursuits or content.

It started with this gift guide for Mom that I saw in the Huffington Post. It caught my eye because of the pink tool set. I posted it to Facebook and forgot about it. Today, I went looking for the value of a tool set that I added to our shipping items. I have to put a value on each item in case it gets damaged. Since I have a lot of expensive items in the shipping - like my Hansen mini-spinner bobbins and my lazy kate - I have been very diligent about this.

My modus operandi is to look for similar things on Amazon and use that to determine the value when I don't have a clue about the value. After all, I need to replace the item and this seems reasonable to me. Guess what my search for tool kits found?
This set for $19.99 and this identical set in pink for $24.99. This incensed me for some reason.

Why should women be ripped off because of the color of the tools? I know it isn't a big deal - it is only $5.00 but it still is a rip-off.

It is an extension of the idea that women and girls need special things like the BIC pens for her.

End of tangential rant

ESW update

I finished the second repeat last night. That is 372 rows. I measured it this morning and 372 rows only give me 129 cms. The pattern says knit till it is 148 cms. I also, very hopefully, wrapped it around myself wondering if 129 cms would be fine. Sadly, it isn't. According to the gauge I'm getting, I need to knit 54 more rows to get to 148 cms. I thought I could get away with 40 or so more. Fortunately, I'm not worried about running out of yarn. I had more than the 2 balls of Majestic (# 589) called for because I had some leftover from another shawl. If I had had only two, I'd be worried about running out of that color. It is a grayed out mauve and it is used a lot and blends beautifully with the other colors.

So on to more knitting on it. Did I mention I really want to wear it?

I also listened to and discarded the Socks in the City podcast. The content is fine, the length is fine. The delivery is driving me nuts. She uses a lot of 'umm', there are some mouthy breathing sounds, and the volume varies. I have to say that I am a very picky listener. I spend a lot of time on teleconferences and pauses in an of themselves don't bother me. But when people do the 'umm' and 'aaah' thing in between words in a sentence, it annoys me. Early in my career, I took a class on effective presentations. We were videotaped and critiqued and some common mistakes were pointed out. Jangling change or keys in one's pocket, not making eye contact with the audience, reading out verbatim from your slides, speaking in a monotone, and inserting sounds when one pauses to collect one's thoughts, were pointed out as things that irritate listeners. Since then, I have done hundreds of presentations to audiences ranging from a few folks to hundreds. While I don't consider myself to be perfect or even really, really good (some of the best are the motivational speakers, or management consultants, or probably ministers and other religious personalities), I strive to avoid the common pitfalls and it isn't that hard to cure oneself of the habit of saying 'umm' as one thinks. It just takes some work. I can understand a guest or interviewee making those mistakes but the podcaster his- or herself should not do this. They have plenty of time to practice avoidance.

I am on to Stash and Burn. I've only listened to half of one episode so I'm not making any judgment yet.

Decisions, decisions

I like to make sure that I have something to work on at all times. I finished the stole last night and wanted to pick something else up after I wove in the ends. I have a pair of socks and a wrap on the needles but both of them were at work. I needed to bring them home but I worked from home yesterday and so did not have the opportunity to bring them back.

So I took out the Wild Apple Bohus that I have wound into balls and am ready to start. I thought I could cast on and begin the neck. But, my 2mm circular needles are in the sock that was at work! I have lots of 2mm double points but only 2 circular needles as I prefer dpns. However, for a sweater neck, circulars are better. Therefore I could not start that. I only work on one item at a time so beginning another was not an option. I could have started something else but I really want to finish the wrap and start the Bohus. The wrap is my mindless knitting project while the Bohus will be a complex knit until the yoke is done.

I didn't start anything. I toyed with the idea of casting on to dpns and switching to the circulars after I bring them back but I decided against it.

I have a mini-rant today. Why is it that knitters think they are entitled to knit everywhere? I am a really long time knitter - at least 4 decades long. I knit everywhere I can and take my knitting everywhere I can. But I don't knit EVERYwhere and I don't expect to. I don't knit at meetings unless others are OK with it. I don't knit where it clearly says I can't and if someone asks me to put it away, I do. The latest debates seem to center around planes. Apparently there are some airlines (Quantas was one cited) that don't allow knitting needles so people are coming up with ideas on how they can knit on such flights including smuggling needles on board. Why? Isn't being part of a civilized society obeying rules? Anarchy results from people not following the rules.

What is really funny, though, is that this thread is interspersed with another thread about accidents involving dpns on one list. On the one hand we have people reporting how they ended up injuring themselves inadvertently on their needles, and on the other they are claiming that they should be allowed to circumvent security with their needles.