Hattie, her sister Phoebe, and I were shopping the other day when we were turned on to the latest “craze” in adult fitness – hula hoops – or “hooping” as it is called. This was something that I loved to do as a kid, and I am desperate to find something recreational I enjoy doing that doesn’t hurt all over. So I went to my favorite place, Google, and started my research on hooping.
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I had started out thinking I would have a running commentary about what I thought of the American Idol contestant performances this year, but that didn’t happen. It was very clear (to me) from the beginning that Adam Lambert would dominate the contest. He’s done that. Then there’s the twitter factor in that I did most of my right now rants in 140 characters or less. Usually less. Then there was the idea that people might not care what I have to think. <== I am getting over that.
Anyway, we are now at the top 3. Biggest disappointments for me? Alexis Grace and Lil Bottoms. Alexis was sweet trying to do dirty, and Lil never found herself. Biggest surprises? Kris, Allison, Matt and Anoop. All of these contestants brought their game. Biggest over-hype? Scott. Sure, the guy is talented, but I thought every song sounded the same.
From a “bankability” standpoint, I don’t think Idol would go wrong with either Danny or Kris. They are both strong musicians in their own right. Neither one of them has that over-the-top quality in that they will be inclined to have to tone it down. They are both Carrie Underwood quality performers, who BTW, has exceeded anyone’s wildest dreams in terms of bringing in the money.
Which brings me to Adam. There is no doubt that Adam is a star. He has been able to pull off what Constantine Maroulis was not able to do, which is bring a high level of theatrics into the performance. Adam has consistently had this over-the-edge look and over-the-top delivery, but it is so well-delivered that he isn’t alienating much of anybody. BUT Simon has alluded to the notion that Adam may need to tone it down a bit. I guess the question is whether America is ready for an unambiguously gay American Idol. We’ll find out next week.
This year I want to see how well I call the vote for Season 8′s American Idol, starting with the first week of the viewer voting.
I thought I would take a picture of my latest loom project that took an evening. This scarf was made using a little over a skein of Lion’s Bouclé in Lime Blue. The loom was the rose pink rectangular loom knitted every other needle both sides. This produced a K1P1 stitch that made the scarf reversible and flat.
My son, Craig, moved back home after his big adventure over the spring and summer. Along with him came his new favorite food – Ezechiel Bread. For the uninitiated, Ezechiel Bread comes from the verse Ezechiel 4:9. There are many variants on the internet, but what we are doing is the sprouted version, which involves soaking wheat berries and various beans and lentils, until sprouted, then grinding with a food grinder and mixing with oil, water, yeast, honey, and salt to form a dough. Then the bread is baked for a couple of hours in a 250 degree oven.
Right now I have a quart jar full of sprouted beans and lentils, and 4 cups of wheat in a strainer sprouting after being soaked and rinsed for the better part of last week. The wheat has been in storage as part of our provisioning plan for about 10 years, which probably delayed the sprouting process. We are planning to add spelt, millet, and barley to the mix eventually.
We are now looking to buy pails of spelt seed, barley, and oat groats to add to our bread.
I have been a machine knitter for twenty some years and have never taken to hand knitting. I can’t explain why – there’s just no attraction. However there are yarns out there that don’t do particulary well on the knitting machine – namely the fun fur, eyelash, and bulky flake types sold in 50 – 80 gram balls. The bulky yarns knit up so fast, but that still is no comfort for those of us who just don’t do 2 needles.
I have recently started feeling the urge to knit and have (so far) made 2 scarves for my daughter and daughter-in-law on my Pocket Knitter (by Bond) and have another scarf for Lucy about half done on the Pocket Knitter. That is a great tool for small projects worked in stockinette stitch, but it’s a bear to try and do purl stitches on. I’ve found some Knifty Knitter round and rectangular looms on Craigslist for a good price and I’ll be using those to make hats and scarves with all the fun yarns that were on sale after Christmas.
I’ve been part of the team in the “V” part of the AV at church for several years. Last spring I was asked to put together the visuals for the Men’s Southport Great Banquet, so I did and got a lot of favorable comments. I was asked to do the visuals for both men’s and women’s this fall and got some nice comments, but the best one was from a fellow AV guy from another church. We were talking about tools and he asked me what I used, which is MS Powerpoint. He said that he had even more respect for my stuff because it was amazing and even more amazing because it was Powerpoint. I do a lot with transitions and photos, but the secret to running services using Powerpoint is in phrasing the words on the slides from a singer’s perspective, and knowing when to advance the slides. I advance 3 words before the end of a phrase so the singers know what is coming up next, which has allowed us to eliminate the music stands from the platform and keep the singers eyes up.
The only bad thing about Powerpoint is there is no room for improvisation, at least the way the hardware is set up at church. I’m looking to show the other team members how to do dual monitors so that you can run in presenter view mode. I think once they got past the “different” part they would really appreciate the flexibility of using presenter view.
Well, I decided to go live with WordPress after only one day. I mean honestly, I don’t have to pay much attention to how the darn thing looks (and I think it looks great), only to what I’m writing. It’s not like I’m planning to write a book, or looking to be published. I just need a place to put my thoughts and one of those thoughts was how was I gonna do it?
This is a great little piece of software.
Right now I’ve got “The Millionaire Mind” on CD in my car. I’m on CD #7. The whole book is about what millionaires have in common (besides the obvious).
Most of them own their own businesses (and not particularly glamourous businesses).
They are relatively frugal.
They live below their means.
They are happily married.
This has been a really enlightening book and I highly recommend it. It’s a pretty easy “listen”.
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