R.I.P. Chiller :'(

It's been ages, I guess I've been lost in the bad mojo. I'm still frustrated as hell I can't make a sock. I got to the heel of those Socks of Kindness and figured the short row heel wouldn't be a big deal...WRONG! Frigged the whole thing up, got really pissed off and frogged it. The next night,I started again and distractions caused me to screw up on row 2 so being annoyed as I was...I threw the whole damn ball of yarn away. Umm, I don't know how to apologise to the knitting gods for attempting a cat bordhi sock but I swear I'll never try that stunt again...just please smile on my bleached blond head and let me knit socks again. please?

Yesterday I guess it was I sat on the sofa and cast on big ass needles with worsted weight yarn and attempted to knit JUST a short row heel. Wouldn't ya know it, sonofabitchin' thing turned out perfectly....large enough, in fact, to become a hat for my cat. I got photos but need to edit them else they'll be monstrous in size.

SO on the knitting front, I've cast on for yet another pair of fingerless mitts since I can't work on the denim sweater at night...the yarn is too dark to see well and the lighting in this house is shit. I've told Chris that if I ever become homeless, I'll be the best dressed hobo in the city with all these fingerless mitts.

On a lighter front, Chris renewed our season passes to Great Adventure. YAY!!!!! Just a little over a month the park opens for the season and we can once again go riding the rails. I think that'll help me jiggle things back the way they should be and maybe I can once again knit socks? However, this season is very sad for me.

I don't know how many of you are coaster fans or if you have a favourite over all others but this is the first season my beloved Chiller is no longer standing. Great Adventure decided at the last minute to remove it. Yes,it suffered an awful lot of down time, there were problems and even a couple accidents. I think a large portion of it was due to neglect. Prior Six Flags management did nothing but throw up coaster after coater...higher, longer, faster...and let the older ones rot. Sadly, Chiller was one. Other coasters took priority and they neglected Chiller. When new management took over last year I guess they just decided enough was enough even tho they said up until the end, and I quote, We are not giving up on Chiller. Well, lying bastards did. I was in shock when I heard it was coming out and didn't beleive it untilI saw most of the track gone.

Yeah,I know it's just a roller coaster but it was so much more-if you ever rode it you know it was more than just another roller coaster-it really was something special. The utter raw power of it was unreal...it launched you from 0-70 mph in 3.5 seconds through a cobra roll on the Robin side or into a unique inverted tophat on the Batman side, through a zero gravity roll (replaced with a dumb hump last year) and up a 200 foot spike only to stall out and drop back down and you got to do the whole thing all over again.... backwards. Chiller was unique in that it was the world's only dual tracked LIM launched coaster...that alone should have made them do more to save it. Throughout the entire park you could hear its roar. Some complained it was the most obnoxiously loud coaster but it was comforting to hear it roar. We never did get to ride the Batman side as it was open very rarely and Chris didn't ride the Robin side much with me...the G forces were very strong and he said it crushed his chest...so I often rode it alone which was fine with me. I'm not embarrassed to admit I have choked up and shed tears over this. I don't know what it was about Chiller but I loved it. It only lasted 42 seconds from start to finish but what a 42 seconds it was. I'm not even sure I can walk to Nitro, our second favourite, as you have to pass by where Chiller once stood and it's too hard for me. I can't even begin to put into words what I felt on this coaster other than crazy, intense fun. I'm surprised it has affected me the way it has but I loved the damn thing. While Nitro is equally as fun in different ways, I will miss taking my first ride of the season on Chiller...hearing the electricity sounds as you enter the queue, walking up the dark ramp into the launch house, sitting in the train knowing in seconds we're gonna blast off at crazy speeds,hering them count down and feeling the juice feed the LIMS just outside the train, the train would give a little shake and you were sent off into orbit. I can still remember my first ride, how nervous I was and as soon as it launched a big grin plastered across my face and I was in love. What made it even more intense was you got turned upside down and had nothing but a lap bar holding you in-there were no shoulder harnesses...they took them off six yeas ago.

I hope one day soon another park that will take care of it properly buys it and gives it new life..a park close by because I will be there to take the inaugural ride. I miss my Chiller.....

Front row P.O.V.



And off ride footage showing it in action:



And finally...both running together two months before the accident...nobody was hurt-the train just stooped abruptly on the track on the return trip. This was a very rare but beautiful sight to see both running:

Hallo?

Jerry --

[noun]: An alien

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

That about sums it up....

Its been a while, hasn't it? Not much really to say I guess? I got my roots bleached today and am really happy with it-she's making it look so good and no more 3rd degree burns and clumps falling out. Platinum doesn't HAVE to destroy your hair if they know what they're doing.

SO I decided since I'd be sitting there for quite a while to take a pair of socks to knit. YOu remember I had trouble after that damn Cat Bordhi book? Well....It's BAAAAAAAAAACCCCKKK! I decided to do the Kindness socks (Google Kindness socks, the pattern is on Flickr) in the cool orange/black/grey halloween yarn I got from Yarn Pirate. I was cruising along until round 12....the last round of the repeat. Came up one stitch short...counted and recounted, ripped back the round and did it again...still messed up. Took the needles out, ripped back a few rows, counted my stitches...all 64 are there...was truckin' along again until round 12. And again 63 stitches. SO I put it back in my bag and after supper I ripped back to the ribbing and started over...all went fine until Round 12.

At this stage, I'm through knitting socks. Not a friggin sock has turned out since I tired knitting from that fucking Cat Bordhi book. I was reading on the Yarn Harlot's blog that Ms.Bordhi delights in coming up with difficult ways to do things. Let's see if she delights when I give her a piece of my mind after I calm down. My suggestion would be for ms. Bordhi to move to a major metropolitan city which would force her to get a real job thereby decreasing the abundance of time she seems to have. harsh? No, I don't think so...knitting isn't supposed to be rocket science. If that is what she wants then she should seek employment at NASA. I am so sorry I wasted the 30 bucks on that book..TOTAL waste of money. I swear she has cursed me...I have not had a SINGLE sock get much past the ribbing since I attempted one of her goddamned socks. Can you tell I'm her biggest fan? :-/ Her bio says she was a math teacher...I hope she explained math to her class better than her knitting patterns else there's a lot of not so good at math people walking around. Me thinks she's just a little too into trying to be clever.

This has really thrown me because I've been knitting for 30 years off and on. I am NOT a beginner and have tackled socks more difficult than these Kindness socks. It's pretty bad when I'm left looking at "Patrick", the Rowan jumper I knit last year-just to reaffirm that Yes, I CAN knit and intricate stuff at that 'coz this sock shit has really rattled me. Now I am left trying to figure out what to do with $120. worth of beautiful Wollmeise sock yarn because I'm done with socks. Claudia has a nice Mobieus on her blog I will try to do..the thought of 420 stitches makes my head hurt but it's better than letting the moths get to it. As to the rest of the balls of sock yarn I have....what do you do with fingering weight yarn? I have A LOT of it.

No more socks for me...I'm spending too much money to keep my hair white...I don't need this crap giving me dark hairs. Stay tuned...when I return from New York I am going to burn the book...pictures will be posted here.

Now that I'm thoroughly aggravated, I'm going to go to bed.

PS...I see the spell checker isn't working again, I'll have to use my computer's spell checker. I just love all the mediocrity...thank god Blogger is free. This is what my friend Lorraine refers to as your mood going form shit to fuck. Amazing how fast that happens.