These cute kid items were knit by Uta Hayward for her son. I'm completely tickled to see the blanket because it's the pattern I published on For the Love of Yarn. It looks very different in the multicoloured yarn chosen by Uta's son, but it looks terrific. I like the way the colour pooling forms little arcs because of the decreases, and that the little arcs are separated by the yarn-over columns. Maybe I'll knit the pattern again myself in multicoloured yarn!

Happy Independence day. Then again, I'm working today -- I've got IETF stuff scheduled tomorrow with people who aren't in the US and they'll be prepared.

I would have said Happy Canada Day three days ago, but I was travelling home from Canada on that day. There were nice people on the plane with maple leaf body paint or temporary tattoos or something. Even nicer, the man who switched seats to give me more room for the baby, and his wife who held the baby while we switched.

I am having fun despite the work (hey, work's fun too). I just discovered the FireFox plugin Tab Mix PLus, which I have used to set it up so that each new tab opens to my local home page which has quick links to stuff I use a lot. Yay smoother work processes!

I was also sucked into Facebook last week by my cousins and siblings. I initially felt too old but then a bunch of people in my class in grade school and high school contacted me immediately so I already feel like I belong a little. We were making fun of Facebook at work recently. One jibe was that it's a classic force multiplier: it allows you to form cliques and shun people at great efficiency! Before you could only shun people in sight, while out socially -- but now you can shun people anywhere, anytime!