trying to grok

KNITTING MATH

I've long wanted to do a post on knitting math.

There's lots of algebra and basic math in knitting. Knitting is mostly just ratios: you do a swatch to find out how many stitches to the inch and then find the equivalent fraction for however many inches your knittery should be. I love scribbling out my little solve-for-x problems.

There are also times when the Pythagorean Theorem comes in handy. Like when you're making something on the bias and you want to make sure that you're knitting a true square. You are making a triangle and you can solve for the hypotenuse to make sure your real hypotenuse is hitting the target.

That stuff pumps me up on dorkosterone.

When I taught knitting classes, I taught a handful of homeschool kids. I always made sure to tell their mothers that knitting can be used for math word problems. I am sure the kids were thrilled that I made knitting into schoolwork.

I am always the first to pipe up with my knitting algebra whenever people repeat the dumb "wisdom" that once we get out of school we never have to use that math stuff again.

So when AWTM told me that Chuck Z wondered if I could make him gloves, it was just a matter of doing a little glorious math.

The backstory on Chuck is that an IED took part of his left hand. He lives in cold climes and can no longer wear store-bought gloves. What he needed was custom-made ones to fit his injured left hand.

Obviously, the right glove was just a regular old man's glove. The left glove took some math to adjust the circumference of the wrist and hand, to accommodate Chuck's bigger left wrist but smaller left hand. Chuck's wife took extremely detailed measurements and I scribbled out some ratios and knitting math.

And Bob's your uncle.

I am not entirely happy with the fingertips. The pattern called for cinching them, but once they were done, I wish I had tried to kitchener them instead.

But I did infuse them with manly awesomeness: I knitted them while watching classics like The Terminator, We Were Soldiers, and Death Wish.

Chuck says they "fit like a glove", heh.

I am completely chuffed that my knitting helped support the troops. I mean, this is something that only a knitter could do. Chuck needed me, and I was so excited to oblige.

Plus there was math.

STOP IT

Was logging off to go to bed and saw an article that got my blood all angered up.

Motorists are driving less and buying less gasoline, which means fuel taxes aren't raising enough money to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs.

That has the federal commission that oversees financing for transportation talking about increasing the federal fuel tax.

STOP TAXING US! Don't you take enough already? For the love of all that is holy, find the money to fix roads in the huge sum of taxes you already take from us.

The National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing, a 15-member panel created by Congress, is the second group in a year to call for increasing the current 18.4 cents a gallon federal tax on gasoline and the 24.4 cents a gallon tax on diesel. State fuel taxes vary from state to state.

In a report expected in late January, members of the infrastructure financing commission say they will urge Congress to raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon and the diesel tax by 12 cents to 15 cents a gallon. At the same time, the commission will recommend tying the fuel tax rates to inflation.

So the government takes 18¢ per gallon and wants to take 28¢. From TaxFoundation.org, "Today, U.S. consumers pay an average of 45.9 cents per gallon in gasoline taxes. The federal gasoline excise tax is 18.4 cents per gallon while the average state and local tax is 27.5 cents." The oil companies only make something like 10¢ profit on each gallon. And boy, do people like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi like to go on and on about the obscene profits Big Oil makes.

The dilemma for Congress is that highway and transit programs are dependent for revenue on fuel taxes that are not sustainable. Many Americans are driving less and switching to more fuel-efficient cars and trucks, and a shift to new fuels and technologies like plug-in hybrid electric cars will further erode gasoline sales.

According to a draft of the financing commission's recommendations, the nation needs to move to a new system that taxes motorists according to how much they use roads.

So we're driving less and saving Mother Earth, but now that's bad because we're not paying enough in taxes. Hey, maybe they can do this thing Neal Boortz wrote about: In 2006, Oregon was considering outfitting all cars with GPS and monitoring how many miles you drive, then taxing you per mile. Hooray for Big Brother.

Charles Whittington, chairman of the American Trucking Associations, which supports a fuel tax increase as long as the money goes to highway projects, said Congress may decide to disguise a fuel tax hike as a surcharge to combat climate change.
[...]
"Instead of calling it a gas tax, call it a carbon tax," Whittington said.

Oh no, you did not just say that out loud. You're going to use PC buzzword bullcrap to hide a new tax, making people feel good because they're paying some imaginary carbon offset nonsense.

Stop taking our freaking money!

The ridiculous part of all of this is that roads is the one thing I think government should do. Sadly, instead they've wasted all our money on bailouts and wool research and rum rebates to Puerto Rico.

Grrr.

Makes me want to go drink a Sam Adams and throw some tea in a harbor.

GRANTING THE PREMISE

Mark Steyn was sitting in for Rush Limbaugh today, so I made sure to tune in. I turned on the radio as soon as I was leaving work and was lucky enough to catch Steyn talking about something that irks me. He was talking with a caller about media bias and was saying that it only appears like bias to rightwingers because nowadays the left-wing position is actually considered the default. He used global warming as an example: the idea that global warming exists and is man-made is treated as the non-partisan, default position in American society.

I was just emailing about something like the the other day with a friend. I had pointed out CVG's post on Civil Discourse to make a point, and my friend countered by saying that CVG granted premises that he doesn't even grant, such as that the federal government should even be collecting income taxes in the first place. Thus, he said, she set herself up for failure in that argument because right off the bat she granted the Democrats most of their premises.

Income tax collection is what Mark Steyn would call one of those non-partisan positions. Not all of us believe the government should collect income tax, which gets us the label of right-wing wackos since that premise is nearly always granted.

The frustration I face vis-a-vis my worldview is that I reject so many of these so-called non-partisan positions. I don't grant the premises that everyone should have affordable health care, that global warming is a high priority, that college should be made more affordable, that guns should be more strictly controlled, that affirmative action helps minorities, etc. So in normal discussions with Democrats, I am always operating from a disadvantage, because "conventional wisdom" or "normal people" usually grant these premises. I'm always frustrated because I don't accept the underlying foundation of their arguments, which makes it hard to have a discussion because to them, this is the normal default position. To a Democrat, there's nothing left-wing about wanting to fight global warming; it's just an unremarkable given.

I believe that the Republican Party will never be a success if it keeps granting Democrat premises. It can't keep trying to find right-wing solutions to things that many right-wingers don't accept as the default. McCain let Obama frame the debates, which was infuriating to those of us watching at home and wishing he'd stop conceding that all of this stuff like health care and bailouts was even necessary in the first place. He was arguing details when he should've been arguing premises. Nobody I know wanted to vote for Democrat Lite, but that's what we were getting served.

True conservative/libertarian ideas can win if people would challenge the Democrat position as the default.

CHRISTMAS KNITTERY

Some more photos of recent projects. These are some of the little mitten ornaments I made this year. These two were for The Girl, who was the one who sent me that awesome bracelet, and my mother.

And these are juggling balls I made for my friend. I love how they turned out. Who woulda thought of writing a pattern for juggling balls?

LONELY

OK, so it's not just the dog who's bummed.

I think it was too soon to send my husband away again. I cannot remember a night during deployment when I felt as lonely and depressed as I do tonight. I have been on the verge of tears all afternoon.

But all these pants stories helped.

Is it bedtime yet? Heck, is it Sunday yet?

LAPGHANS

I like taking photos of the stuff I donate just because I forget how many things I actually make, and it's fun to go back and remember color combinations and styles. My mother-in-law mailed me some leftover cream and tan that I was able to match up with some other stuff. These are two blankets that will be donated to the VA hospital.

ALONE AGAIN

I called my husband last night a few minutes after midnight and said, "It's 2009 here; what year is it where you are?" He said, "2008. Are you calling me from the future?" It cracked me up.

I spent the evening with a friend, which was fun. I am home alone now, and it's surprising how normal it feels. Almost like my husband was never here. This is just how I lived for so long that it feels normal.

I think the dog is depressed though.

ANOTHER GOODBYE

So today I have to say goodbye to my husband again. It's just for the weekend -- he's flying home alone to see his family -- but I hate the idea of saying goodbye again so soon, of eating and sleeping alone, all that. Ugh, and I get to do it again next month when he goes to SERE school.

EEK

This is a really interesting example of selectively choosing correlation over causation: Does Global Warming Cause Rape Waves?

MORE JAMESES THAN DAGNYS

I never wrote a post when I finished Atlas Shrugged again, but this passage from Wizbang reminded me to blog it out:

While I obviously don't believe in exploiting the poor or the undereducated, I seriously have to wonder about a society that provides multiple safety nets for those who won't (or in the case of the mentally or physically challenged, can't) take risks and make sacrifices, yet treats ambitious, hard-working, self-sacrificing individuals as undeserving, or spoiled, or worse -- evil villains.

Unfortunately we still have a handful of robber-barons in the contemporary guise of crooked CEO's who reward themselves lavishly while building houses of straw. When those houses come tumbling down, the white collar professional, who loves his family just as much as the blue collar worker, who worries about his mortgage and car payments and retirement just as much as the blue collar worker, and who probably pays a lot more in taxes than the blue collar worker, ends up hurting just as much as the blue collar worker. Maybe some people think that seeing the white collar man suffer is payback or "justice" for the plight of manual laborers, but it isn't.

The part about the robber-baron CEOs reminded me of a blog post I saw right before I re-read Atlas and which stuck in my head the whole time I was reading:

Oh, how I wish I could be Dagny Taggart.

Oh, how I long for an enclave like Galt's Gulch.

It all sounds perfect. Utopia.

And it is.

But life isn't perfect and there is no utopia. There are only a few people who lead major corporations with the dedication and pride that the industry leaders in Atlas Shrugged demonstrated. Hank Rearden is my fucking hero. Seriously. If corporate heads were like him, I'd be [all for deregulation, too].

But they're not. For the most part they are slimy assholes who don't give a shit about their product. They don't value hard work, they run from it. The greed that they have is not the same kind of greed that is prevalent in AS.

I kept that post and its comments in my mind the whole time I was reading. The premises behind it have gnawed at me for months. And here's what I have to say about it.

I know a Hank Reardon. He is a man who risked everything to start a company that had an iffy chance for success. He continues to risk. And now that his company has done well, he gets emails and letters all day long about how greedy and selfish he is. His product should be cheaper, it should be made for the masses, it's not fair that some people can't afford it. How dare you set your price at a point above what I can pay? Oh, and by the way, your product is foolish and I wouldn't want one anyway. But make it cheaper, you bastard.

It makes me sick that he is beset by looters all day long, looters who don't stop for a moment to think about how hard he had to work to build the company in the first place and who couldn't care less if his company loses money during these hard economic times.

Norman Borlaug is a Hank Reardon. Everyone on Heroes of Capitalism is a Hank Reardon. You know that movie about the windshield wipers guy? He's a Hank Reardon. Anyone who's ever risked anything is a Hank Reardon.

Remember those train conductors in the book who stopped their trains in the middle of the night and walked away? They were Hank Reardons too. You don't have to have money and fame to be a Hank Reardon; most of the people in this world who take the risks and stand on their principles will be people we have never heard of.

Yes, some CEOs have made a real mess of things. But to dismiss the message and theme of Atlas Shrugged outright because not everyone in this world is Hank Reardon is foolish. What that blog post forgets is that Ayn Rand did in fact understand human nature; the majority of the citizens of the US in Atlas Shrugged were like James Taggart. There were bad CEOs and "slimy assholes" in the book, just like there are James Taggarts in real life.

To dismiss the book because there are more James Taggarts than Hank Reardons is to completely miss the point, in my opinion. It's like throwing the Bible out the window because there's only one Jesus in it. Well, he was perfect and we aren't all like him, so what's the point of this Bible book anyway? No one suggests we should roll our eyes at the Bible because Jesus is too perfect.

And no, I am not one of those Objectivist loonies who thinks Atlas Shrugged is the Bible. But I do indeed think that Hank Reardon is a character to be emulated, and the message of the book invigorates and rejuvenates me every time I re-read it. I think that dismissing the book because of its idealism is sad. When I read the book, I want to work harder to become more like its main characters, not reject it because it's too perfect.

The fact that Hank Reardons are rare in this world is the point of the book. There were only a few of them, but once they shrugged, the whole system fell to pieces. A company won't last long if it has an empty suit at the wheel, or at least it wouldn't if we actually lived in a free market. James Taggart would've failed on his own; it was the government regulation that kept him in business. The idea that "If corporate heads were like [Reardon], I'd be [all for deregulation, too]" is backwards because regulation and corruption went hand in hand in Atlas Shrugged. The Wesley Mouches of the world are the ones who gain power from regulation, not the Hank Reardons. As to the real world, it was the stupid government-imposed lending rules that caused our current bailout problem, and the piling on of government "solutions." The same thing happened with the New Deal: government meddling prolonged the economic agony. If we followed the Reardonesque idea of lending to people whose word meant a damn and who could pay the money back, we wouldn't have the mess we have. Sadly, it doesn't matter how many Reardons there are, if it's the Wesley Mouches who control the markets.

Regardless, it's enough for me to know that there is a handful of Hank Reardons out there. Our country and our system depends on them. And I refuse to lump them in with the bad CEOs and declare them all greedy thieves.

Anyway, to paraphrase one of my favorite SNL characters, Atlas Shrugged is a great book and if you don't like it, then I suggest you eat a bowl of hair because you are a dummy.

Heh.

LINKS

This morning's links, via an old friend:
It Turns Out Motherhood And Politics Do Mix
Using High School Debate Strategies for Political Campaigns

ARAN

I am knitting the hardest thing I've ever knitted before.
It sucks.

I have wanted an Aran sweater for a long time, so I started making one. So far I have done eight rows of pattern, four one day and four another. Four is actually too much for one sitting, at least at this point when I haven't really memorized any of the segments of the pattern yet. I have never had to concentrate so hard on a project before.

The pattern isn't available anywhere online, but I found a work-in-progress photo on knitting blog. She had let it sit for over two years and made it her New Year's resolution to finish in 2008. I wonder if she did.

I resolve to do two rows a day.

I also found a hilarious official photo of the sweater. No, I am not making the beret. Or holding a paddle.

LINK

Michelle Malkin:

Fit Republican president = Selfish, indulgent, creepy fascist.
Fit Democratic president = Disciplined, health-conscious Adonis role model.

DYNAMIC STAGNANCY

My husband finished his MBA three days before deploying. He took a full load of distance classes every term in addition to his full-time Army job. He was always busy. And he finished the program and deployed, so I was really looking forward to having him home and having him to myself. No more homework, no more projects, no more me sitting alone in the TV room all day Saturday and Sunday while he worked.

He sat me down last night and said that he wants to start a new Master's Degree. Or learn Pashto. Or both. Either way, he warned me, he will be busy again. There go our Saturdays and Sundays.

I admire him for taking his professional development so seriously. But I can't help but feel frustrated that the thing I was supposed to be doing -- raising a baby -- hasn't happened yet and I keep sitting around waiting for my life to start. I could relate to Heidi's recent post about being consumed with the way life should have been instead of what it really is. I don't know what to do with myself besides sit around and wait for baby to show up. That's my only major life goal, and I've been twiddling my thumbs on it for two years now.

Maybe I ought to learn Pashto too.

DOCUMENTING

I debated whether I should post that thing on sleep the other day. It seemed unnecessary to cash that chip on the blog. It also made us look like we had problems, and I never like to give that impression.

But if you asked me if we had any reintegration issues in 2005, I would've said that we didn't. A trip back through those archives reveals that we did indeed have a rough patch or two. If I hadn't documented them on the blog, I would've forgotten those tough days and said that we had no problems whatsoever. I wanted to document this issue too.

This reintegration, it is a tricky thing, even for solid couples. My husband is truly my best friend. We like the same movies, the same music, the same foods, the same TV. We're both stingy, both homebodies, and both love Krauthammer. I wanted to show that reintegration is hard even for couples who get along swimmingly. It's an adjustment. I wanted to document that, because to pretend like we weren't frustrated with each other was to lie, in a sense.

He's been home a week now, and we're doing much better. No more grumpiness. He's staying up a little later to be with me and I'm not asking him to stay up as long as I'd like to. We're meeting halfway and doing fine. I want to document that too, to keep a record of when we got back on track.

MORE TO GROK:

More thoughts at SpouseBUZZ.

TRAGICALLY HIP

We hung out together every single moment
'Cause that's what we though married people do
Complete with the grip of artificial chaos
And believing in the country of me and you

The husband is walking the dog and I am on teh internets. I am learning to not want to be with him every waking second.

But we did go out together this afternoon. The husband had a very Happy Boxing Day...

But, you know, technically it's mine because it was my permit. I plan to remind him constantly that they are both my guns but that he can borrow one if he wants to.

Heh.

Oh, and CVG got me a funny Christmas present. She was bored of getting me knitting books all the time and decided this year to focus on my second hobby. Her husband picked it out for me, which I find phenomenally cute.

My boys are back from their walk now. Gotta go stick to him like glue again...

I'VE GOT YOUR BACK

I never wrote about the shoe thrower, but Maggie's assessment is spot on.

I DON'T CARE WHAT YOUR MAMA SAYS

Today was great. My husband didn't fall asleep once! Heh.
We had a lovely day. And we just listened to this and had a good laugh.

SNL Christmas Song

BUD

I was just getting ready to head to bed when I noticed that my Christmas cactus has a bloom!

Last year, my uncle was trimming one of the plants that's been in our family for generations. I took the trimmings home and put them in a pot. The cactus has grown a little since I got it, but it has never bloomed before.

A Christmas cactus getting its first bloom on Christmas. Now that just makes me smile.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, MATEY!

I found the pirate ship online that I made at work:

It was actually not a terrible product. It was way too hard for "age 6 and up" like the box says, but it was made from better quality stuff than the other foam constructions I've done lately.

I think I am done with making foam things for a while now. At least I hope so.

Merry Christmas, mateys.

SLEEP IS A JERKWAD WHO'S RUINING OUR MARRIAGE

I watch you as you sleep
I'm jealous of the night
I'd steal you from your dreams
Just to buy more time

Yes, it's true: I heard a Michael Bolton song today at work and it made me think of my husband.

When your spouse is gone, it is easy to romanticize everything. We're the greatest couple that ever existed and we never fight and life is always flowers and sausages. And then he comes home, and you realize you had forgotten the little things that have bugged you for seven years of marriage.

My husband is a sleeper. He loves sleep. He is a soldier; he can sleep anywhere: in the hard metal chair of a tank, on top of a tank with no pillow, sitting straight up, in the middle of a conversation, anywhere.

I am an insomniac who only sleeps because it's biologically necessary.

How on earth did I completely forget this about us?

He came home, and I started talking. And wouldn't stop. So he just fell asleep while I was talking. Not exactly what I had envisioned. So he decided to sneak in his sleep at other times, like in the middle of a movie or TV show. I DVRed seven months of our favorite shows and couldn't wait to watch them together, and he is falling asleep during them.

His sleeping is driving me nuts.

I couldn't wait for him to come home so I could be with him. And I know he's not doing it on purpose, but it feels like he is choosing sleep over me. And since I hate sleep, I cannot fathom why someone would do that. So I get grumpy and frustrated.

Mostly I am just baffled at why I thought he would come home and want to stay up for hours talking to me. He never was like that before, but somehow that's what I imagined when I thought of our homecoming. He wants to sleep, and I want him to want to be with me enough that he doesn't want to sleep.

And yeah, I know, "at war" and all. But I cracked up when I read Sis B's post because it made sense to me. This time around, my husband got plenty of sleep at war. This isn't a catching-up-on-seven-months thing; this is just who he normally is.

I just somehow had forgotten it. And it's hurting my feelings. Which is dumb.

I have felt gyped so far with our time though. His commander gave him a project to work on that was supposed to be done by Christmas. Well, they came home three days later than expected, so that meant that he had to use his long weekend and our first few days together to sit at a computer and work for six hours a day. So he gets done and just wants to eat and then sleep. And I keep wondering when it is that we're supposed to get to be together. I am resentful that we spent seven months apart and then he has to hole himself up in the computer room while I sit and knit alone.

I'm tired of being alone. I'm tired of sleeping. I'm tired of making foam pirate ships instead of being with him.
I'm ready for togetherness.

LINKS

Times vs The White House
Popularity Isn’t Everything
Another Great Depression?