hi everyone! i just realized that the contact form on my website was sending inquiries to an old email address that no longer works! it was spam prone and i had to shut it down. this means that you may have tried to contact me in the past few months via the form and never received word back from me which is entirely regrettable. my apologies to you.

please know that the problem has been fixed and everything should work as planned now. so sorry!

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due to a lack of knitting (i'm chugging away on the sock and that's it) and the fact that i'm knee-deep in a new freelance project, i bring you... filler. some of you may find this interesting, others may not. if you have a blog of your own, though, i highly recommend reading through. i'll keep it short on words, high on graphics.

as of today, gleek.net's stats are as follows:

holding strong at 412 entries (this entry is 413) and over 3000 comments! i'm glad i'm taking the time to post more often now. it's good to be back in touch.. and it also seems that posting more often brings more traffic to my site. let's take a look at my visits stats (all of the following are from my mint installation):

as you can see, january gave me my largest spike in almost a year. i have a feeling that i have a lot of new readers! i love how the day breaks down on the left.. 10PM ET seems to be a popular time to surf my site.

looks like the patterns page and the index get the most traffic around here. i wish i was a little more diligent about putting links into del.icio.us. my ravelry queue has taken over there. still, i think that my vino arm warmers bring in a lot of traffic (see below). after that, i'm glad to see the peanut is well-loved! and so is the gallery.

i was surprised to see how many people searched for "arm warmers" and ended up on my site. possibly as surprised as seeing people search for "oreo pizza" and "care bears". mint is great. really, i'm still awed by it every time i come to look at my stats. the little image icon next to some of the searches like "gable" means that the person did an image search (either on google images or a similar image search engine) and ended up on my site.

now let's talk about browsers because i'm sure that's what most people want to know about. IE still seems to dominate the scene i'm sad to report. please switch to firefox! i'm happy to see firefox's numbers so high. they weren't like this a year ago. i recently read about record numbers of FF users in europe so that might have something to do with it. seriously, folks, IE is not secure. it's riddled with bugs and will certainly force you to reinstall windows a hundred times because it's been hacked without you knowing it. firefox is the bomb! just today i installed a great add-on called greasemonkey that allows me to add enhancements to flickr. so cool!

no real surprise here. windows is still leading but mac is catching up! who's been accessing my site with a wii? i would love to see what it looks like! we access gleek.net at home with our playstation 3 every now and again. i'm happy to say it works like a charm.

this one blew me away. i had no idea that google reader had such a following! i knew that bloglines was top but i always thought that newsgator would come in second. guess not.

speaking of RSS readers, here's a quick look at my feed subscribers. looks like i'm averaging around 145 daily scribs per week. nice.

this panel is a little hard to read (i wish there was a better way of showing this information) but it looks like most people view gleek.net at a window width of over 900 pixels. there seem to be a lot more people out there with smaller monitors than i would have hoped for. i guess i shouldn't make my site wider, eh?

and last but not least, my favorite panel, locations. check out india! turkey! korea! holy moses. my favorite: lithuania. did you know that my husband is part lithuanian? it's where our last name comes from.

anyway, i hope you all find this interesting and useful! i hope to do it every year and take a look at trends. chime in if you have something to add or, dude, if you're reading from india! turkey! or korea! say hi :)

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now you don't. bu-bye charade sock! it was nice knowing you.

taking a page from laura's book, i decided that these charade socks were just not going to work out. this has nothing to do with the pattern (the pattern actually rocks hardcore) but with my execution. man-sized socks on 2.5mm needles would take me FOREVER to knit and the 72 stitches that i cast on were just not enough. i had KP try them on last weekend and they were tight and damned if i'm going to rip and re-cast on more than 72 stitches. looking back on my progress it took me months to get where i am (or was before i ripped). so my plan is to find thicker sock yarn that i can knit on US4 needles and make faster man-sized socks. any suggestions? i have nothing in the stash except for this that might fit the bill.

so socktoberfest has started and i thought, hey, now that i don't have the charade socks maybe i should gather up my sock yarn leftovers and make baby socks for the peanut! i have quite a few leftovers...

a little leftovers can go a long way

and i think that i can whip them up during october. i really want to try and do it seeing as i failed so miserably at project spectrum. at least i've been mainly knitting from my stash! what little i've knit..

except for this.. (you knew there was an "except" coming, right?) but it does lie within the rules. we're getting the nut baptized in late november and i thought it might be nice to make her a christening gown. one that i can dye when said christening is done and turn into a sweater for the winter and a keepsake for all time. i bought some filatura di crosa 501 on elann.com for a steal and have been knitting this up.

me, a model?

hard to tell in this photo (the peanut is not a good model.. she cries whenever i put this on her!) but it's a top-down raglan-type sweater dress. i got the basic idea from the february sweater and the rest i'm making up as i go along. don't ask for a pattern. i have no idea what i'm doing.

and in regards to my miters, they are just sitting on my couch. i'm enjoying the fairly mindless stockinette of the christening gown while watching "heroes" on DVD. oh god, i'm in love with that show! it's a nice cross between "LOST" and "the 4400". i'm glad i'll have something to watch this fall since none of my shows are coming back till 2008. i was smart enough (amazingly) to start recording this season on the DVR while watching last season on DVD. i should be done by the next week, methinks.

oh, and i'm thinking about starting a project for myself once i get through the majority of this christening gown. i'm thinking flair in artfibers ming. mmmmm, can't wait!

yes mommy!

the peanut approves!

p.s. i'm making adjustments to the full text feed RSS. admittedly, it's changes that i've wanted to do for a while and i'm just now getting around to it. i put comments in the RSS feed about a year ago as an experiment and i think that my experiment is now complete. if i were answering more questions in the comments, it would be a "value-add" as we call it in the business, but it's not. i generally write people back via email or amend the entry if there were more questions to be answered. so, as of today, the comments have been pulled from the full text feed. it will only update when the entry has been updated. i will still occasionally break up a long entry and make you click-through for the full entry but otherwise, you'll get it all! i'm sure this will come as a great relief to many of you ;) no need to thank me.

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why is it that time is flying so much faster as i'm getting older? the other day on the F train back home from work, i was sitting and staring into space because i had finished my book and was too tired to knit. it's these occasions where i notice the people around me and have my "new york moments". for example, i was eavesdropping on this trio of youngsters, a couple (boy and girl) and their guy friend. the girl says, "i just turned 15! i can't believe YOU'RE 17. god, that's soooooo OLD!"

*silence*

really, i nearly burst out laughing but stopped myself because that would have indicated that i was indeed eavesdropping. the inanity of that statement left me speechless. i don't feel old and yet i'm twice her age! kids. geeeeez. i can't believe that i'm going to have a baby that in a few years time is going to think that i'm OLD and so uncool. it makes me laugh.

so january is almost over and i'm almost at 34 weeks (with a due date of march 15th) and time is flying. just to keep you up-to-date and all, here's a quick state of the knitting recap.

almost done!

the EZ february sweater will be done before february! amazing. it was so quick and took just over 1 ball of cashsoft DK (it was exactly one ball for the body and then some for the sleeves.) here the sleeves are blocking and tonight i will seam them up and weave in the ends. if i'm lucky, maybe i'll sew the cutie-patootie buttons on that i bought at the point on friday.

getting closer...

the 3-hole shawl is chugging along, of course. i'm just about to start the repeat where i put in the 3rd and final hole. then it's 7 repeats of the pattern, the garter stitch border, bind-off, and block.

the pirates hat is blocked and it looks ok to me but definitely will not fit my dad. it fits me nicely and fits KP very snuggly which means it definitely won't fit my dad as my dad's head is bigger. on to plan B which is a hat and mitten set made out of the lovely chocolate brown debbie bliss merino aran that i have left over from this project. i plan on casting-on for mom's mittens later this week. let's hope that i get both parent projects done before the end of february.

over the next few weeks, i'll be updating you on the state of our apartment as well. i'm a big fan of apartment therapy and have decided to take on revamping our apartment in anticipation of the peanut's arrival (don't freak.. we've been working on it for weeks and i just decided it was probably a good idea to take pictures and document it. i'm not tearing down any walls or anything. just switching out furniture, moving it around and making room.) stay tuned for before and after photos and what i've bought on my budget to get everything in order.

on a blog related note, mint 2.0 came out yesterday and i immediately installed the upgrade and screwed a bunch of things up as i usually do. i think that everything is back in working order now but you may have seen a lot of RSS updates and corrupted feeds over the last day or so. my apologies. we should be golden now.

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i hope that everyone has been enjoying the holiday season whatever holiday you happen to celebrate! christmas is over and i'm back at work through thursday when i get off again for the new year. i'm sure many of you are on vacation or just have the time off. just think how lucky you are not to be sitting in your office right now.

i managed to get some great christmas knitting booty this year! look what i got!

mmmm, lace

i only hope that i can actually make something from them in 2007! time is swiftly winging away from me and before i know it i'm going to have a baby and no time for knitting for a while. i'm trying to get in some things for her first before she's born and then have some mindless knitting standing by for when she appears in our home. regardless, i'm happy to have these books in my collection. they're gorgeous and full of beautiful patterns.

well, my christmas knitting went off without a hitch. i finished all three hats i wanted to make and gifted them to my family members on the 23rd.

i used up most of the disney wool/acrylic blend that i bought in japan last year for these hats. yes, there is a disney brand yarn! and it comes with little tags that you can sew into your garments with pooh or mickey on them. very cute. the hat for my FIL was made with knitpicks swish i had leftover from the first pair of glittens i made and then the pair of glittens i am making for myself right now. i made up the pattern for my BIL's hat, the hat for linda is just a generic baby cable hat, and the FIL's hat was made with this pattern from fig and plum.

now, i'm still working on the noro 3-hole shawl. a row here and there adds up to a repeat here and there and now i'm more than half way between the 1st and 2nd hole. it's pretty mindless knitting so i work on it whenever i want to just watch TV and not do much thinking.

i made some stash enhancements recently which i have to take pictures of and add to the stash page. i bought 4 balls of dale of norway falk (2 black, 2 white) for the pirate hat and mittens for my father and 3 hanks of noro cashmere islands (yum!) for the hat and mittens for my mom. i'm loving this yarn! the noro is just gorgeous and i'm looking forward to doing my first fair isle with the falk. i'm going to practice with the last of my disney yarn (which is roughly the same weight and gauge as the falk) as soon as i've freed up the appropriate needles.

these appropriate needles are currently engaged in make some glittens for myself! i figure it's gotta get cold around here soon and i'll need some gloves/mittens when it does. i think that i made them a little too big but i have a feeling they might shrink up a bit when i wash and dry them.

swish glittens galore

this time around i've devised a new system of knitting them where i pick up stitches between the fingers and then decrease them away on the next round to close up holes. it works really well and the joins feel a lot more substantial. i'm sure i'll be done with these before the weekend. they're so easy! then i'll get started on the hats and mittens for my parents and some baby knitting.

can you believe that i'm actually thinking about buying another set of denise needles? gosh, i love them. i have a set of the new ones and a set of the old ones, but the old needles don't connect well with the new cables and i've not always been able use them for projects because of this. i could really use another newer set. have you seen the pink version? $5 goes to breast cancer research. sounds like a good plan to me!

some blog news: i've decided to discontinue doing book reviews on the reading blog. i know it doesn't get much traffic and i was doing it mainly to remind myself of the books i've read but i just can't keep up with it. i've got to let something go because i've taken on a rather large and consuming project outside of work and home life (and this blog) that requires more of my attention. i'll still keep you updated as to what i'm reading on the sidebar but that'll be it after the last two reviews of 2006.

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yes, i'm going to rhinebeck with the majority of spiders tomorrow. i will be wearing kyoto so if you see me before i see you, please introduce yourself! be warned that i am HORRIBLE with names but much better with faces :)

i decided to upgrade and actually use my flickr account. i'm only keeping photos there of completed projects, some yarn p0rn, and my favorite non-craft photos (mainly from around town and on vacation.) i hope that this will encourage you all to make me your contact! flickr is such a fun and amazing site that i can't not participate. the tagging schemes and flickr pools are enough to warant the pro upgrade, but this is what really got me going. i'll be buying mine next week, i think!

just so you know, though, all photos on this blog and MORE will always be available in my gallery.

have a great weekend!

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had some time. decided to update the gallery design to better match the gleek.net main design. it was fun. looks better. can't complain.

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thanks to KP i just realized that i had blocked pretty much all of europe from reading my blog! OOOPS! i got a little out-of-control with banning IP addresses because i was getting so much spam and blocked all of the 195.*.*.* IPs. KP, though, informed me that i was blocking hundreds of thousands of people from looking at my site (AND sending me spam.. just so you know, the russian ISPs seem to be responsible for most of it as they register their companies with RIPE and then wreak havoc on me.) so, so sorry, europe! i will ban less blocks of your IPs in the future.

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so i have today off from work! huzzah! i decided to make this weekend four days instead of the usual three because of all the things that had to be accomplished around here. saturday i had a production meeting and then carrie's bday to attend. sunday was slated for a day in the park and i even managed to twist kaitlyn's arm into coming with lovely little MJ.

kaitlyn and MJ enjoy some time outdoors

monday KP and i were off to NJ to see my family... and then wow, the THREE DAY weekend is over. so i had to put another day on just so that i could do stuff around home. and i did. i cleaned pretty much all day and finished pimping out the gallery. there were many points this weekend where i thought that i would have certainly given up on the gallery upgrade if i didn't know what the hell i was doing.. and it's a good thing that i do know what i'm doing because if i didn't i would surely have screwed this thing up and all the images would have been lost and/or broken.

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i'll be upgrading the gallery all weekend so the old gallery layout will look quite wacky in the meantime. all the images should still work but all of my gallery v1 formatting will be blown away while i upgrade it then migrate to gallery v2. please excuse the mess for the time being. thanks.

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to all who knit with karabella aurora 8. your project will grow. EXPONENTIALLY. i knew when i blocked this scarf that it would grow. i didn't think that it would end up being SEVEN FEET LONG! it's the longest scarf i have ever knit! and it wasn't intentional.

one long ass scarf

i've done a lot of updates to the site lately so hopefully everything looks normal now. i've added a bit of code to the site to highlight any comments that come directly from me so you'll know when i answer a question or enter in a conversation. i'm going to do more commenting here and less email responses to people (unless it's something i don't feel like sharing on the internet or it's personal or not really pertinent to the conversation or just a thank you) so if you want answers to your questions, i would suggest subscribing to my RSS 2.0 feed which includes comment updates, if you haven't already. i realized recently that i found it frustrating to go to a website, read about a topic in the comments, and then not see the answer because the blog author chose to email the answer instead of posting it so i'm setting a good example and all that.

some of you may have noticed that prince andre's world (the iguana at the top) was broken on tuesday and that's because the weather RSS feed went down. NOAA, i guess, has outages too. so i slaved over the PHP on tuesday and wednesday and have that fixed now. it will update the feed twice an hour (as opposed to once) and there will be no more weird errors on the page should the feed not be available again (turned off error reporting). i also fixed a problem with the updates when a new year begins AND i have the script use an older RSS feed if the new one isn't available. phew! i did some other PHP stuff too but most of you will find it boring. i, on the other hand, have a new found respect for PHP.net. why was i depending on my o'reilly book?! there's so much more on PHP.net to use and it's all free. lovely.

ok, back to knitting content next post. the second sockapaloooza sock is almost done! will probably finish it up tomorrow and will be washed and blocked over the weekend.

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on march 31st, i decided that this website needed a little pick-me-up. it was feeling a bit stale and, besides posting about knitting, i hadn't done any real maintenance to it in a while. i had been using webalizer stats on the site since i launched everything back in 2003. unfortunately, i didn't realize that all of my domains (all 4 of them) were rolling up into one log file and i was getting skewed results. i contacted my ISP and changed the settings so that i could see just what gleek.net was getting in the way of traffic but it just wasn't good enough. why? because of spam. yep, you not only get spam in your email inbox and on your blog, you can get it in your logs too. i have no idea how it works but referrer spam is a really pain in the keester. here's a big MIDDLE FINGER to all you spammers (again.. i'm sure this is about the milliionth time i've done it.) the only way to stop referrer spam is to install a website tracker that uses javascript to track users.

guess what i found?

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i've made a few updates to the code on my comments form because i had heard from a few readers that my form didn't remember them on a regular basis. if you've had trouble with this in the past, can you try it now and see if it remembers you? if it doesn't, can you please tell me what browser and platform you are using so that i can try and replicate the problem? i got this newest code straight from MT so hopefully it works out. thanks for your patience and cooperation.

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some people dread going to the dentist, but not me. i've had good relationships with my dentists since a young age (thanks mom and dr. sonne!) i guess i'm lucky on this one. KP hates going to the dentist and i have to twist his arm constantly to get him to go. what i dread the most every year is tax time. i HATE doing my taxes! and this is coming from the grandchild of an IRS man. my grandfather worked for the IRS for most of his life and by his account, the government NEEDS your money. "don't cheat the government!" he says every year. well, i just don't get it. why does it have to be so complicated? a million forms to fill out. you either have to buy software to do it or pay someone to do them. it sucks. KP and i agree that the government should just pick a percentage and everyone should pay that. 20%! 30%! whatever, just take it. stop making me fill out these forms! stick it to businesses. make them itemize! this IS a capitalist society, right?

i pay my taxes.. a lot of taxes. so why do i owe every year? i have no idea. i've made a bargain with KP so that he'll do all the taxes this year, and it's probably the best bargain i've ever made because the first couple of months every year, i'm so busy. excruciatingly busy! i even gave up doing my regular freelance job this year so that i could hang a bit but no luck. i have inadvertantly filled that void with more work. between the production company and working on a friend's website, i have barely had time to sit back and enjoy myself. i'm not complaining but damn i've been busy!

so that's my excuse for not being a good blogger. i can only hope that the spring and summer will be better around here (i haven't even updated the reading blog in forever! and i've been done with brave new world for at least two weeks now) when i don't have japanese class anymore (taking the summer off again) and the play will be over and the websites will all be launched.

in the meantime, i've managed to finish my first vino arm warmer!

one arm warmer down...

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well, i've learned some new tricks around here. i've long been a fan of RSS feeds that include comments so that you can follow a conversation without having to click back to the site, and i'm also a fan of feeds that encourage you to click through to an extended entry.. so i've done both of those things to the RSS 2.0 feed on this site. from now on, if an entry is long or has lots of photos i will be using the "extended entry" field so you'll see "continue reading" and will have to click through. if i just have a few short things to say, i won't use it.

you'll also see comments hit the RSS feeds which means that the feed will update more often but only with the 8 latest entries. if you don't care to have comments, you can always subscribe to the RSS 1.0 feed (i will be adding an atom feed in the future.. as to whether or not that will have comments is entirely up to how this whole shebang goes.) links are in the sidebar.

i've gone back and updated the last month's worth of entries using the "extended" method but probably won't bother to go back any further. it's sort of a here-on-out venture. please let me know if you absolutely hate it.. but i doubt i'll change it since i am the supreme ruler here at gleek.net and this blog does what i tell it to.

good blog.

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