Return-Path: Received: by inigo.Data-IO.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA06403; Tue, 24 May 94 08:11:43 PDT Message-Id: <9405241511.AA06403@inigo.Data-IO.COM> To: kp@acdca.itt.com, shiggins@ucsd.edu, rfloyd@cs.duke.edu, moriarty@fluke.com, jon@guest.apple.com, burns@latcs1.lat.oz.au, hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu, cdr@livingston.com, sjgavula@css.itd.umich.edu, flynn@icd.teradyne.com, luoc@rpi.edu, km4j@andrew.cmu.edu, tgryn@andy.bgsu.edu, dani@netcom.com, prisoner@eclipse.its.rpi.edu, keulen@csuvax1.murdoch.edu.au, omalley1@husc.harvard.edu, traci@amc.com, carla@cs.duke.edu, goodman@bright.uoregon.edu, elf@halcyon.com, punkboy@u.washington.edu, lunisea@netcom.com, crimson@ihz.compuserve.com, zonker@asylum.sf.ca.us, lynn@coral.cs.jcu.edu.au, jf2z+@andrew.cmu.edu, ajm@wag.caltech.edu, MCSSENCT@cluster.cc.dundee-tech.ac.uk, RQDMS@lims02.lerc.nasa.gov, mwasson@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu, jane@stratus.swdc.stratus.com, alaric@netcom.com, turner@reed.edu, jw63+@andrew.cmu.edu, jwbirdsa@picarefy.picarefy.com, kaitem@sco.com, john@inigo, Paul Brownlow , gregb@inigo, steveb@inigo, dietz@inigo, davidj@inigo Cc: li@inigo Subject: A Three Miracle Weekend Date: Tue, 24 May 94 08:10:01 -0700 From: li@inigo Though some are tempted to call it a miracle, sunshine in Seattle in May isn't that uncommon an occurrence. May is usually pretty clear. June is usually very cloudy and possibly thunder stormy, though the thunderstorms are rare. July and August are the hot months, but September and even, sometimes, October can be very clear. This last weekend was clear and bright and warm enough to run around in the topless 109; and John was in the mood to Do Things. So, besides completely clearing out the recycling room and all the garbage that we'd accumulated in the last several months AND getting rid of all the clothing that we wanted to give to Goodwill, I managed to wash a couple of fleeces, and get some brilliant dyeing done after my dyeing class at the Weaving Works. I did manage a fine wine colored yarn, and some deep rose, and a couple of pretty brilliant yellows. Friday night's game was pretty solid as well. We won something like 4 to 1 even with two of our fastest team members switching sides to the other team to make things a little more even. It was a challenging game, even, with those two on the other side and a lot of fun joshing back and forth. Cat was the lady that swapped sides, she's as big as me, but has excellent ball handling skills and good speed if she's running flat out; and she played wing opposite my playing fullback. I find that when our team clearly outclasses the other team I'm far happier at fullback because then I don't feel guilty about trying to score. I'm still funny that way. I also know that I can play really solid defense, and so I just flow with the job and have a good time reacting to the ball. Cat was *fun* to play against as well, as we were well matched strength and speed wise; and she needed her extra skills to try and get by me when all I had to do was poke the ball away from her. All in all a fun game where I got to think a bit, had the time to work things out and react really well. Certainly a fun game, but not a miracle. Saturday was spent doing all the things listed above. PLUS John decided to finally put in the window frames in the new room. He also put in a beautiful garden window box for one of the large pane windows. It was a *heavy* sucker and we spent quite some time trying to figure out how to wrestle it into place. After managing that, I was walking back inside, when I noticed a tiny hummingbird lying with a crooked neck, on its back on our patio, clearly, the little guy had run into one of our windows by accident. I didn't want to deal with it, so told John about the poor guy. John, who's always nice about taking out dead mice, catching spiders, and putting out moths, just kinda nodded and went over to where I said the body was. Next thing I knew, John walked into the house and in a quiet voice said, "Look! He's *alive*." And, sitting on one of John's fingers was the tiny hummingbird. Now I know why they call hummingbirds hummingbirds... the little guy, even while sitting 'still' was vibrating with the speed of his heart and breath. The tiny creature had his eyes closed and his wings spread out for balance (?) and his claws were so tiny they didn't even span the width of John's finger. John's hushed voice went on, "He was just lying on his back... so I turned him over, and when I nudged his legs, he stepped onto my finger. I think he's just stunned and will be just fine..." We put him on a stump out in the yard, where we could watch for his safety and went back to work on the window. By the time we were done, he was gone. I saw him yesterday morning, hovering over the stairs to our patio and then he disappeared in a blur of color. That was miracle number one. Miracle number two started about two months ago. The Green Tiger called me at work one afternoon and told me about an ad he'd seen that offered a custom-made, solid walnut, four-harness, counterbalanced loom for $700. Both of us thought that full height floor looms were in the thousands of dollars range, so we both got real excited about the possibilities, as both the JF and I had been thinking about getting into weaving... maybe even to lead, someday, to a yarn and fiber shop that the two of us might run. Maybe not. Grin. Anyway... I called the lady, asked for more details, and then queried the Net on both rec.arts.textiles and the knitting/yarn-arts mailing list as to what a good price on a loom of this sort would be. I got half a dozen different, and widely varying answers from the knit list, and only one from r.a.t. and I learned a *lot* more about looms than I'd known before. So, armed with a little knowledge I went out to see the loom and I fell in love. One of the things that I learned was that the price was a good one for the loom involved, about twice that would buy one new, and used ones could be had for less than half that price. But the half price looms were ones that wouldn't be finished nearly as well, wouldn't have the same lightness of action that this one had and wouldn't be nearly as conveniently constructed for constant and good use. They also wouldn't be made of polished walnut, most of the cheaper looms were made of pine. So I bargained a little and bought it for less than was asked for. That wasn't the miracle. We went to get it in the topless 109. The bed of the truck was a good 58 inches wide. The height between the top rim of the bed and the top of the rims for the soft top was about a good 30 inches. The height between the bottom of the bed and the top of the rims was 50 inches. Finally, the length of the truck bed was a good six and a half feet. We didn't really discover those dimensions until we tried to figure out how the loom was going to fit into it. A loom that was 56" tall, 60" inches wide at the widest part, and 32" thick at the thickest part. Luckily, the widest and thickest parts were mostly due to just resting feet, they could be worked around. But even *that* wasn't the real miracle. The real miracle was getting the loom up into our loft, past a bend in the stairway that goes like this: start here And then add stairs. Try it, |<--35"-->| it's my second miracle. I still | |--------------------| can't *quite* believe that we did | ^ | it, especially as that line in | 34 1/2 | the middle | V | |--------------------|<--33"-->| <--- here, | end here | was about six inches thick at the | post that was there. Oh, I'm sure it's mathematically possible... but it's kinda strange sitting there, measuring and the passage is getting smaller and smaller and the loom *really* looks like it's going to be far too big... while I'm supporting most of the downstairs weight and finally getting by the wall with absolutely *no* room to spare... As far as emotions go, that was my second miracle. Sunday night was our other soccer game, the one with the really competitive co-ed team. We didn't win. For most of the season we've been playing short. Only two or three women show up for the game, so we're behind to start. We did field an entire team this week, but that wasn't a miracle, that was Chris Mackey asking a friend of his to play for us, and all the people that said that they were going to show up showing up. That was cool. We had *exactly* enough people, so there weren't any subs for the women, but that was normal for us. No complaints and no problems. I asked to be put on the front line, as I knew that I'd probably be able to do more there and the Cheryl that Mackey had asked to play really wanted to play half-back. I also knew how all the folks on our front line played, something Cheryl couldn't know, and the team moved up to a level where it's actually somewhat important for the front line to be able to anticipate where the others will be without too much verbal communication for their defense to follow. Huh... I just realized that it's been a *long* time since I've written about soccer. Most of the improvements I've been making for the last year and a half of two-times-a-week soccer have been small, incremental improvements on the surface. Being able to *run* for a whole game, getting incrementally better at heading a ball to someone's foot, figuring out exactly the right position to drive an offensive person nuts, finding the open moment/spot/velocity on a full-fledged run up the field, and discovering, with some astonishment, that I can outrun about 60% of the people on any given field. O.K. back to the miracle... The sweeper (Nick), from center fullback position, cleared the ball out along the right side. The entire field started moving towards their goal. I stayed out on the wing to spread the field. As we neared the goal I automatically headed in towards the goal as my half-back swung outwards to cross in any balls that headed towards the sideline. My striker (Mackey) moved to the right side of the field as I came into the goal area from the left. The right wing (Laurie) ran the ball down, crossed the ball in, nearly without looking, up into the air, and it landed right on my foot. The ball bounced off my foot, at a velocity that took it three feet ahead of me. One step. The fullback that had followed me in was half a step closer than I, but her legs were shorter. We hit the ball at the same instant, and it squirted just left of the goal post. Sigh. O.K.... Another run down the field, and their fullback tips it away from Laurie, and it goes beyond the end line. Corner kick. I line up outside the penalty box. The right half-back (Matt) takes the corner kick. As he's moving towards the ball, I'm moving into the goal. My fullback isn't even *watching* me. The ball does this beautiful, graceful, lazy arc... and it's going to go over my head. I back pedal (John later says that it looks nearly like slow motion, and he can see *all* my body weight going forward as I desperately try to go backwards...) as I watch the ball come down and I can tell that I'm going to get a head on it. I glance at the goalie as it comes down and I see his eyes go wide, I see him hesitate, I see his body weight go forward as *he* moves back towards the goal and I know that he's going to be too late if I can *just* get it over his head... I watch for the last inches as the ball comes down, and the contact is solid, but not perfect, I haven't been able to get quite far enough... and it goes just left of the goal post, yet again. Soft snarl... This time it's John that clears out one of their attacks, straight, flat-bang, up the middle. The center-half back (David) brings it to mid-field, where he's accosted by a rather nasty being that's bigger than him. He passes to his left, to my half (Cheryl) who pops it up to me. I take it two steps and shoot at the goal. It bounces off their sweeper, to the fullback that's been pounding in on my tail. She swings and misses. I touch it away from her and, in slow motion, pop it up towards the far corner of the goal. I watch it float up... and see Mackey right in the center, in front of the goal... and I can see, behind him, the goalie diving for the spot that my shot is going to be. Mackey goes up his two vertical feet of lift, and flicks the ball with his head, right into the net... And there was much rejoicing. This was my third goal/assist for the last two season, which is a bit of a record high for me as I usually play back or in the support position of half-back. Grin. It was also a goal that felt very good against the team we were playing against, as they were really physical and pretty good as well. So it felt good to have a clean goal against them. Especially after one set of plays where our front line bounced *four* shots in a row off the goal posts. We hit all three posts and the top one twice... So that was my third for the weekend. Monday had its share of three small disasters, but all three are now pretty much fixed up, and that felt kinda good to get that all out and done. ----- Liralen Li | "Remember, science is talking about the universe in a li@inigo.Data-IO.com | way you can understand it, magic is talking to the aka Phyllis Rostykus | universe in a way it can't resist hearing." Neil Gaiman