indiboi.com

While I find myself caring not at all about my aquarium, I do find myself hardcore into knitting. I especially like to watch reruns of The West Wing on Bravo while knitting away. I’ve decided that I want to learn how to knit many more things than just scarves and hats. Of course I have also made a couple of hats and a scarf, but I find myself fixated on socks. I’ve made two pairs of worsted weight socks, fantastic for the cold weather I have to say. Socks allow me to use interesting or otherwise bold yarns that I would not otherwise wear. I splurged the other day and bought a whole bunch of sock yarn while it was still on sale at knitpicks.com.

My most recent project is a pair of toe-up socks in actual sock weight yarn on fairly small needles. Unfortunately I goofed a little when I was measuring just how many stitches were in an inch of my knitting suffered some sort of complete inability to properly use a measuring tape. It turns out that I made this current sock too big, by about ten stitches in width and length. It is wearable, but really quite loose. As I’m at the juncture of whether I rip out days of work and start over, or continue on making a matching loose sock, I’m quite torn as to what to do. It’s a significant amount of work to abandon if I’d choose that path, but making a second sock that fits poorly seems equally silly.

I called the Jo-Ann store that I originally bought the needles from. They were unable/unwilling to help unless I’d come in. I asked about going into the local store and was told they’d be able to help me. Okay, fine.

So, the first thing the woman at the local stores says is ‘why should we fix their problem?’ ….gah!

Then she was all ‘well, let’s see if it’s really on sale.’ …gah, again, as I followed her to the back of the store.

Finally she did a return and then I repurchased them at the corrected price. I should point out that the needles didn’t ring up for the correct price at that store either. The whole procedure was ridiculous.

The cashier’s bad attitude negated my buying the rest of the needles I was interested in. I was so disgusted when I left that I doubt I’ll go back. I thought about just buying them online, then I discovered that the free shipping coupon had expired. So, screw it, I’m done with you Jo-Ann! I’ll just buy what I need with 40-50% off coupons at Michaels, or AC Moore!

I bought two knitting needles tonight at the Jo-Ann’s in Hagerstown. I didn’t really look at the prices, seeing as they were allegedly on sale for 25% off and I was going to get them regardless of the regular price.

Unfortunately one of them didn’t ring up at the sale price and I didn’t notice it until I was already at home, points against me for not paying enough attention. In my defense I was headachy and hungry at the time.

The difference in price isn’t that great, only $2.25. It’s not enough to go back to the store, gas would cost more than that. The thing is, though, if I didn’t want to save the money then I’d not have waited until they were on sale.

I hate this position, where I’m going to be frustrated by a mistake that will cost more to fix than to just live with.

I was hoping to hold out until after my monthly budget reset, which is only a week away, but I ran out of Flourish. At least there was a $5 off coupon for Drs. Foster & Smith.

I’m going to try to update about the aquariums a little more often, but things have been sort of in a holding pattern in that regard. All I’ve been doing lately, aside from water changes, is making sure the surface of the 75g isn’t completely covered with floating plants. Just that task is a bit of a burden lately, heh. I’ll probably find some motiviation in a week or two to do some clean out. I haven’t really wanted to because of it being so warm, I’d much rather sell the plants than throw them away. I’d also really rather the plants arrive healthy and not a green/black slime in a ziplock bag.

Having earned enough Amazon Rewards points to purchase a Topeak Turbo Morph I’ve been anxiously awaiting the delivery of my fancy new portable bike pump. I got it today and a little bit ago went outside to fasten it to the bike. I removed my old pump’s holder, attached the new one, and then much to my horror discovered that the new pump is just a wee bit too long to actually fit inside the frame. I recall measuring a long time ago to make sure the pump would fit, as the top tube is dramatically sloped on my 19″ frame Hardrock, but apparently didn’t compensate for the mount.

The side mount of my old (and craptacular) pump won’t work as it has two differently sized clips. The old pump does fit very nicely in the new mount though, heh.

I suppose I could use the provided zip ties to position the new mount sideways on the seat tube, but I’m not too thrilled with that proposition. I don’t really want to return the pump either, eventually I’ll get a road-oriented bike that’ll have the space for it. In the interim, if I take my backpack I could put it in there, or in a rack bag whenever I get one of those. Perhaps I just need to order a side mount for the Turbo Morph.

After further examination, even if I wanted to, the pump is too large to mount sideways at either bottle mount position, it interferes with the cranks. Using the zip ties won’t really work for the same reason.

I really wanted this pump to fit inside the frame, instead of alongside it. The Mini Morph would fit, but it lacks the gauge. It’s just one of those bummers and I’m not sure what to do about it.