There seems to be a problem.

Click on any intralink and you get a 404.

Am looking into it.

07/20/09: All fixed. Was able to upgrade to the newest WP, so perhaps that was the problem.

Wool fiber is so resilient and elastic that it can be bent 30,000 times without danger of breaking or damage. Every wool fiber has a natural elasticity and wave or crimp that allows it to be stretched as much as one-third and then spring back into place. Its complex cellular structure also enables it to absorb moisture vapor, but repel liquid. No synthetic fiber has been able to combine all of these characteristics.

Sheep 101.info

Coming through the mail slot the other day was an envelope addressed to me from the Porter County Prosecutor’s Office. Contact of any kind with lawyers isn’t my bag, so I nervously opened it. On our return home from Michigan last month I was pulled over for speeding. According to the cop I was going 76mph in a 55mph-zone. My case is that I honestly thought I was on I-65, where the speed limit is 70mph, as I had just recently entered the great state of Indiana and isn’t every interstate highway in Indiana I-65 ? I guess not. I was on I-80, where the speed limit was a whopping 55mph, and even though I was keeping up with traffic, I got caught. And I got my second lifetime speeding ticket.

So this envelope from the wonderful county of Porter contained an “Infraction Deferral Agreement”, which reads as something you ABSOLUTELY MUST ABIDE BY, in scary legalese, listing off numerous sections of Indiana Code. It freaked me out so much so that I called the Porter County Superior Court and was all, “AM I BEING SUMMONED TO COURT?”

Turns out this “agreement” is totally optional, wherein if I agree to pay Porter County $249 (ON TOP OF the $123 speeding fine–$372 for those lacking the maths), and refrain from incurring any more “moving violations” for one year, they will very graciously “hold off” on reporting my infraction to the BMV, thus saving me from getting points on my driver’s license.

Do you believe this fucking racket?

My first-ever speeding ticket was again a 21-mph-over no-no, although that time I was hauling ass through a park area apparently, and my county only dragged about $90 out of me to not report it.

Two hundred and forty-nine flippin dollars?

I called up the BMV, talked to two ladies who were not at all qualified to work at the BMV (“I think it’s 3 or 4 points on your license,” and “Maybe it’s a year to come off your record?” were their responses), was then directed to call the main call center down in Indianapolis when I (amazingly calmly) asked “And who would could actually answer my questions?” The gal at the call center said it’d be 4 points and they won’t come off for two years. I asked what would happen if I got another ticket. She said if it was high enough to get more points, I’d have to take safety courses and retake the written exam.

Porter County I hate you. I got lost in you once, trying to get over to Hammond, and I didn’t like you because of that. This only adds to it.

Looks like it’s speed limit-abiding driving for me for the next two years.

I finished my first-ever sweater today. I knit it. I made it. With some string made of sheep’s wool and two (very–ouch!) pointy sticks. I made a sweater with my hot little hands, y’all. I was so excited I raced out of the house and to a local craft store to purchase some buttons. All I have left is to weave in the loose ends, sew on the buttons, and maybe, just maybe, block it. In the knitting world, or perhaps just in my knitting world, accomplishing a sweater is proof of one’s ability to knit just about anything. Except for socks. I’m not fucking knitting socks, because the needle size needed for socks is akin to toothpick-thickness. I’m not that crazy.

I knit a sweater!