Other stuff September 19, 2008
A bit of this and that…
It’s the time of year to submit your finished scarves to the Red Scarf Project. If you need a free pattern to knit, there’s a pretty cabled scarf pattern available over on Knitting Daily.
Ahoy, mateys. 
It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day! Cap’ns Chumbucket and Slappy have two books out: The Pirate Life and Pirattitude. Shivver me timbers. If you upload a new avatar image to Ravelry today that has the word “pirate” in the filename, it’ll show up in the forums sporting a parrot. Arrr.
This looks quite odd, doesn’t it? I had to go to Berroco’s pattern page to find out what in the world this thing is supposed to be. Turns out it’s a cover to go over an ice scraper handle, so your hand doesn’t get quite 
so cold when you’re scraping your windshield. The pattern is called Ember, and the official description is: “Keep your fingers warm with this simple scraper mitt.” It still looks odd to me. Now, this may simply be because I no longer live somewhere where there’s a daily ice-scraping ritual in winter, and haven’t in quite a whle, but I don’t get the reason for this. If it’s cold enough for ice, wouldn’t you be wearing gloves or mittens anyway? Wouldn’t those serve to keep the ice off your hand?
I am at once ecstatic and depressed about the opening of the new, completely rebuilt Academy of Science building in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. I’m happy, because the old building was desperately in need of a face lift. It appears that they did an incredible job. The old building was razed, a new one raised (funny language, English). The new building, opening on September 27, 2008, earned a platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council—a fabulous achievement. The photo spread in Sunday’s Travel section of the O.C. Register shows the building from top to bottom, from the rooftop garden planted with 1.7 million California native plants, walls insulated with recycled blue jeans, windows that automatically open and close to heat and cool the building, the new planetarium with a 75-foot diameter screen—larger than the one in Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory—a new coral reef, a 100,000 gallon tank that simulates the Farallones National Marine Santuary, a rain forest complete with a clear tunnel so that you get a ground-level view of Amazonian inhabitants. It all sounds fabulous, doesn’t it? Next time I’m in San Francisco, I definitely want to go. Definitely. One of the very few things that they kept from the old building is the pendulum. This is what the newspaper said about the pendulum:
Foucault pendulum: On exhibit in the original Academy, the pendulum is back to demonstrate the earth’s rotation with a 30-foot steel aircraft cable that swings 220 degrees each day.
I’ve never been quite sure how the pendulum “demonstrates the earth’s rotation,” but it’s fascinating to watch. Mesmerizing.
The depressing part? To build this new eco-wonder building, they tore down the old one. Had to. It went in the same spot. And the old building was… old. The original Steinhart Aquarium was built in 1923, the Morrison Planetarium in 1952. And I loved them. I grew up going to this building regularly. The old aquarium had this totally cool circular tank that was huge. You’d walk along a circular ramp up to a central platform that was surrounded by the tank. It was no doubt horribly boring for the fish that lived in it, some of which were huge, Huge!, as they were stuck swimming in circles forever. But oh. It was fabulous to see. Then there was the old crocodile pit. When I was a kid there were always at least 15 or 20 crocodiles and alligators down there. For whatever reason people would make wishes and throw change down on the animals. I never understood that one. Understandably, the money wasn’t fetched out very often, and at times the floor absolutely sparkled with change. The pit was surrounded by smaller reptiles and amphibians in small cages. I’ll never forget visiting the spotted tokay gekko, and other odd creatures. With the old building and the old exhibits gone forever it’s the end of an era. One that I will definitely miss.
Angela September 20
Well that cover for the scraper would be quite handy. I have one I bought similar to that one.)
I can’t drive well with mittens/gloves on. It makes the steering wheel hard to grip. And many times I have just jumped in and gone to get somewhere to come out to frosty windows, and having not brought mittens/gloves been there with beet red hands trying to scrape the windows. I don’t leave mittens/gloves in the car, as they can be frozen, and who wants to put on frozen mittens?
Anywho- As you scrape the ice goes up the scraper, so you scrape and shake, scrape and such, to keep it from going up your hands….. This cover makes it faster and more comfortable.
Speaking of scrapers, we’re having some frosty mornings already. I should be checking the conditions of my “winter tools”… the snowbrush, scraper, and so on. :)
Robin September 22
The ice scraper thing, wierd, you’re right. I wear gloves or mittens when scraping. I’ll save my yarn for something else.
It’s understandable tha you’re sad about the tearing down of the old building but totally cool that the new one is eco friendly.