Amit's blanket

I made this blanket (afghan) for Amit. i borrowed the idea from Martha (thanks, girl!!), but decided to go with shades of blue instead of a very colorful blend.

the hexagons are crocheted one by one, and then assembled together. suer, i had to improvise a lot -- that's my first ever big project like that, but that was the fun!!
ben and i call the hexagons "blenkles" - blanket elements, just like "pixels" are picture elements. they are all different, no two blenkles are the same! [theoretically, there are 7!/(7-4)!=840 possible permutations, with 7 colors and 4 rows in each blenkle, so it's not so hard to do]. i did consider writing a code for that though ;)

the hexagon pattern was easy to pick up after i looked at some pictures online (i am more experienced with web searches now -- google 'granny square' and you can find many many free patterns!)

the blanket turned out a bit too thick than i intended, probably because the only yarn that i could find wasn't thin enough. but hey, it's my first time!! i had a lot of fun making it, and i hope that it will be useful :)
now i'm thinking of making something with fall colors. i really like all that crafts-work. more fun!!

i'll see if i have any pictures of the blankles in the making.

Sushi dinner

we had some sushi, wine, beer and a baseball game with Chris a couple of days ago. Gray was sure that i'm rollong just for him. mmrrrriuoo smoked salmon!

action

one of the nice things about living up here above the street is that you can sometimes see some action.
1. cab crashes into a street light
first guy at the scene: our local homeless guy. (wearing a white cap)
2. a few seconds later, police car arrives.
3. ...followed by fire fighters...
4. ...and an ambulance.


looks like both the cabby and the passenger (!!) left the cab walking.
the street light didn't seem to be doing just as well.

new project

last night i went with Kari to an arts&crafts store in chicago. i had a lot of fun going through the colorful aisles, and left the place with two big shopping bags full of yarn. not sure what the project(s) will be (maybe throw pillows? another blanket?), but it's going to be fall colors.

hurray!

the shelf

 

Gray scrooge loves his new shelf! he can jump all the way to the top, and it seems like having the shelf there cured his habit of climbing on any open window.

 

 

hebrew

we spent lunch today speaking only hebrew (except for ordering of course). it started when i wanted to say something nasty about someone who was in hearing range from us, and the conversation had a life of its own from there... it was a lot of fun!
we mostly told each other what we did this morning. ben thought it was hilarious that in hebrew we call all types of cereal "corenflex", and that if you ask for a "soda" in you get sparkling water.

his hebrew is improving a lot. he does his homework every night (well, sometimes he falls asleep during the boring lessons...), and can now say complete sentences! i'm so proud!

work stuff

i've been working on this problem for a while now (won't bore you with details, but it has to do with this pretty picture).

many people have tackled this problem in the past, and nobody came up with a very good solution so far.

this morning i read in the most recent paper that came out about this the following line:

"a detailed model of this system, including the... and... and... and a detailed understanding of the uncertainties will be a challenge.... The record of models for this system is discouraging."

sigh.