Anyhow, I shut it down manually and tried rebooting. The BIOS loaded fine (meaning the motherboard and processor were okay), but it wouldn’t load any further than that. The OS would not load and thusly the computer wouldn’t get past the very basics of booting. That, combined with the WHUNK-WHUNK told me one thing: my hard drive was dead.

So, after cursory inspection of the inside of my machine, Nate removed the deceased HD with a bit of effort. Giving it a little shake caused this bizarre squeaky noise not too dissimilar to a DJ scratching on a record. Hard drives aren’t supposed to sound like that.

Now, I could have easily just decided to trash the whole thing and just buy a brand new computer entirely, but I didn’t feel like spending that kind of money so soon after getting all the stuff involved in the construction of Nate’s new monster rig… and I’d kind of like to wait for the core i5 and Windows 7 to come out before I get myself a new system of any sort. Soooo, I bit the bullet and once again turned to Newegg to order myself a new hard drive and, consequently, OS disc because my computer didn’t come with one when I bought it. Convenient.

We chose 1-Day delivery service and it did, as promised, arrive today. Nate set to installing the bugger, which went over pretty well until we had an issue with the Windows installer not wanting to recognize the new hard drive even though the BIOS said it was there. Turns out, with some quick Googling (When I wasn’t having a mini panic-attack about potentially losing my computer and wasting money on replacement items which would go to no use), XP does not have native support for SATA drives. Nate set it to IDE instead and it installed. It’s slower than SATA would be, but at least it works.

I ended up losing, well, everything I had saved on my computer, but nothing terribly valuable. At least I have more space now.

On another, unrelated note, my dear brother sent me a small package containing some cute sugar cubes and two absinthe spoons.

We rushed him to the vet (thankfully just down the road, so the trip was short). I carried his 42 lbs of corgi (he’s slightly chubby) into the lobby and basically said, “My dog’s having trouble breathing and I don’t know why.” I’m very eloquent and descriptive when I’m just this side of panicking.

That was somewhat a fib; I had a good idea about why he was having trouble breathing. When we got back home, bleach fumes filled the portion of the house closest to the front door. It was being used for cleaning in a little hallway/alcove near our room door, and Spider being in his crate near our door was subjected to any undiluted fumes which snuck under the door itself.

Anyhow, after a short but agonizing wait for the vet techs and vet himself to get ready, we got Spider into the exam room where he was given the once over and the vet said there was obviously some labored breathing and his heart rate was a little slow, but could not conclude from just a physical exam that the bleach fumes were the cause of such a severe reaction. He suggested he admit Spider to run some tests: x-rays and blood work to rule out things like heartworm. We agreed and were told to come back in a couple of hours.

The wait at home was even more agonizing than the one in the vet’s lobby. We tried to nap to pass time, but sleep was hard to achieve due to the amount of worry and stress we were experiencing. Around 2pm (approximately two hours after we left Spider at the vet), I called and they said they’d done the x-rays and blood test and that there were no life-threatening issues immediately present. He was negative on heartworm disease and his lungs looked mostly fine, but he was positive on Lyme Disease. They gave him an injection of cortisone to reduce his respiratory inflammation and said it was probably a combination of him having allergies (to pollen, mostly) and exposure to the fumes which triggered a severe asthmatic response. He was going to be put on a prescription of Prednisone for the respiratory issues and Doxycycline for the Lyme Disease. I was then told to give him a couple of more hours to let the cortisone work and then the vet would inspect him again and we could come in to pick him up.

Around 4pm, we went back to the clinic and talked with Dr. Wolfsthal about the causes of the problem, the Lyme Disease and the medications. He showed us the x-rays he took, explained what was what and what was wrong and generally covered all the immediate bases.

After that, Spider was brought to us, had a little piddle accident on the examination room floor (a thank you to the vet, I suppose) and we loaded him up and took him home.

He’s on his meds now, is pretty drowsy most of the time, but slowly doing better and better. We finally got him eating again, so it’s a good sign he’s recovering. Here’s hoping this is a continuing trend and he’ll be pretty close to full recovery by his next appointment in three weeks.

This week’s theme: “Contagious”.

Zombies like to give it, but can’t take it, apparently.

To “celebrate”, we grabbed some books from the UMD library, then we hung out with friends after Nate’s final final. Old Country Buffet and browsing around Barnes and Noble, GameStop and BestBuy.

We ended up with a pretty decent haul and didn’t actually spend all that much in the process.

From the library:

From Barnes and Noble:

And we grabbed Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume from GameStop and then Empire Total War from Best Buy.

Aaaand, here’s an FO!

Pattern: Drawstring Bag
Yarn: 1 ball Peaches and Creme in Licorice
Needles: US 10.5/6.5mm
Started: May 14
Finished: May 18

Once I started knitting, I began to use the bowl to hold my yarn as I worked with it. Then, after spying some yarn bowls made from ceramics, I had an idea involving my modest little bamboo bowl and my dremel.

I first went at it with the cutting disc, making roughly a 5mm deep cut into the side of the bowl, just to give the small sanding drum a bit of a catch to guide it. I then used the sanding drum to make the actual slit into the side of the bowl, going straight down for a little, then making a gradual curve to the left, finally making a small catch to help the yarn from jumping up and out of the gap when being used.

Ideally, I’d like a finer grain sanding drum to finish, but I don’t have one in my kit and don’t feel like going out to get one right now. Maybe soon. I’d also like some laquer to coat the inside of the gap, but I don’t have any of that on hand either. Really, this is just an experiment, but considering the bowls are really well priced and easy to mod, I might make some of these for sale eventually.

First, a Mothers’ Day gift finished early:

Pattern: Book Sweater
Yarn: About 25% of a skein of Caron Simply soft in Autumn Red
Needles: US 7/5.0mm
Started: Apr 6
Finished: Apr 29

I recently got into the world of exploiting Ebay for deals on yarn and supplies. I managed to grab two skeins of Lane Cervinia Calzetteria for less than $4 total (plus $3.60 shipping).

I also ended up getting a lot of 12 sets of bamboo DPNs (sizes 1-11) for $9.99 with free shipping. They’re not a name brand and shipped from China (so it took a while for them to arrive), but for that price, it was a steal until I can find occasion to obtain something like a Knitpicks DPN set or something like that.

Additionally, I got a set of bamboo circs separately and a while before I got the DPNs from Etsy. I’ve been lazy about taking pictures of them, so here’s one.

And, finally in unrelated news, here’s my first submission to Illustration Friday: a quick digital painting. The theme for this last week was “Theatre“.

And here’re a couple of recently completed pieces (sorry, too lazy to make thumbnails):

• Ammonites (Buy a print or mousepad)
• Hannya

OH! Dudes, I found an awesome site featuring badly drawn pictures of Spock from Star Trek. I will be submitting a piece or two of my own to the collection soonishly.

Aaaaand on a teeny tiny side note: I’ve changed some stuff around on the blog. Nothing major, but I like it more now. Just need to slap a favicon up there and fiddle with some minor things here and there.

Pattern: Just a 2×2 rib
Yarn: 1 ball Cascade 220 heathers purchased at The Wool Patch
Needles: US 8/5.0mm straights
Started: Feb 1
Finished: Mar 25

- CO 20 sts.
- Work in 2×2 rib (k2, p2 every row), sl the first st of each row for nice edges.
- End when desired length is reached or you run out of yarn.

This one ball of yarn produced a scarf longer than I am tall. It’s skinny, but I’m okay with that because my neck isn’t that long anyhow and it’s long enough to where I can wrap it around 2-3 times and have plenty of slack left to dangle and show off while still being toasty.

I’m working on a second for Nate with minor modifications. Basically, it’s twice as thick (cast on twice the number of stitches, otherwise it is worked the same) and it’s in Patons Classic Wool instead of Cascade because Patons was on sale at Joann’s and I liked the smooshy grey yarn.

It’s growing nicely.

Here are some sneak peek thumbnails of pieces I’m working on to slap onto items for sale.

Massachusetts doesn’t seem to understand it’s supposed to be spring and the weather is still averaging around 37-40 degrees at 2pm, usually with a breeze that brings it down to 25 degrees at best. As a result, I continued working away on my 2×2 rib scarf (which I call Dusty Bones because it’s an ecru color and uses ribbing, haha) and finally arsed myself into getting it over and done with this week.

I’m also working on an adorable, easy and mindless Golden Compass Hood for myself, using the three balls of Lion Brand Landscapes I bought off someone on Ravelry. Dunno if it will be done by the time the weather begins acting appropriately for the time of year, but I may get lucky.

Also working on a scarf for Nate (affectionately titled “The Professor“), based on the same 2×2 rib pattern I used for my own, but this one is twice the width and uses Patons Classic Wool instead of Cascade 220. This very well may not be done in time for him to put it to use this winter, but it can always be put away until the next one.

Another OSJL bargain yielded a king size comforter for $13 (it was marked $15, too!). You can see it in the above photos. Go us! I also discovered the bag it came in is excellent for storing yarn.

Art post coming soonishly.