Dress Shirt Pillow

I am just so excited about this pillow I just finished, I had to share it! Michael wore through the elbows on one of his favorite dress shirts and rather than throw it away, I made a pillow cover. I'm sure I've seen this online before (not sure I would be that creative without inspiration) but I didn't look up any specific instructions - I just started cutting away, using a pillow cover we already have as a guide. It was super-easy, since the buttons provided the natural opening/closing location so I didn't have to make an envelope closure or sew in a zipper. The most time-consuming was ironing in the interfacing (I wanted to stiffen up the fabric since it was a rather thin dress shirt). Then zip, zip, zip, zip, four lines super quick, turned the pillow right side out and zip, zip, zip, zip again and it was done. Awesome! Michael better keep a close eye on his remaining dress shirts - they might just start disappearing! ;-)

In its designated habitat - note the parrot artwork above

Please ignore the wrinkled pillowcases - I didn't feel like ironing them for this shot. In fact, I never feel like ironing them. Who does that?!

Money shot with better light. Isn't it purdy?

High Speed Rail for All?

Recently, a dear friend of mine posted an image on Facebook that shows a map of the US crisscrossed with high speed rail lines. She commented on how such a system would be awesome, if only "big oil" were not it the way. I would LOVE a nationwide network of high-speed trains. Train travel in Europe is one of the highlights of of visiting there. However, to blame "big oil" for America's lack of viable rail transportation is simply not fair or accurate. Why not blame "big ag", that sued to prevent the building of the California Bullet Train? Or how about, "big air", that is faster for cross-country trips than even these high speed trains would be? What about "big rail" itself, that wastes its government subsidies to make needless cosmetic upgrades instead of fixing infrastructure that could actually make trains faster?!  Or, most damning of all, "big collective American consumer" who clearly prefers the ease, convenience, and/or economics of air or road to rail. If the American public were truly clamoring for rail options, Amtrak wouldn't be losing $1B/year (not a very good investment of tax revenue, if you ask me!).

We recently traveled to NYC from Washington, DC. We had various travel options:
Air: $115 roundtrip per person, ~4 hours (house to hotel).
Personal car: $150 roundtrip per person (including tolls and IRS standard mileage rate of 55.5 cents, $50/pp if you count just gas and tolls), ~5 hours (house to hotel).
Bus: $54 roundtrip per person, ~6 hours (house to hotel).
Train: $200 roundtrip per person (if we wanted to not leave at 4am - absolute cheapest with terrible times is $100), ~4 hours (house to hotel).

In no aspect of travel does rail win that trip. Certainly not cost - it's the most expensive. Not time, it's no faster than taking a plane. You might point out that there are fewer security hassles, but the same ease of travel is true for the bus - and are the 4 hours saved round trip worth $150? It's worth pointing out that the East Coast public clearly does want options besides air or personal vehicle - and has found it in busing. Hence the explosion of alternative busing options besides Greyhound. There are at least 5 additional bus companies servicing the DC-NYC route, at a variety of price points (and, correspondingly, amenities). Not surprisingly, we chose the bus option and had a lovely, stress and hassle free trip.

One last point - it may seem to be common sense that "big oil" would be opposed to increased rail usage because it would decrease their profits. It is true that decreasing automobile usage (which is already happening, independent of rail expansion) has contributed to decreased margins for the refining industry. However, consider a few items:
1. High speed rail service would affect only those commuters traveling between city centers - a demographic that is largely served by airlines now. Would actual miles driven decrease by that much? Consider that folks are still going to need to get from the city centers to their actual destination, which, in most of America, is accessible only by road. To truly reduce miles driven, better to focus on commuter transportation between cities and their suburbs.
2. High speed rail would not change the amount of commercial goods shipped via trucks - 70% of America's goods are shipped via truck versus 15% by rail (remaining 15% by air, water, and pipe).
3. Trains require energy to run, which comes either from diesel - provided by "big oil" - or electricity - provided by "big coal" or, yep, you guessed it, "big oil". Oil companies in the US are heavily invested in natural gas, clearly betting on increased domestic and international demand. (Which brings up the issue of fracking, but I'm not even going to open that can of worms right now.)
4. There is a lot more to "big oil" than just automobile use - it's called the petro-chemical industry, not the petrol industry. Even if we could flip a switch tomorrow that made all cars run on solar power, we would still need (admittedly, much reduced) "big oil" to provide all creature comforts we've come to enjoy (one word: plastics).

So, ultimately, high speed rail service isn't the "big oil" killer that some make it out to be, which also means that to assume that "big oil" is behind its non-starter status is naive at best and disingenuous at worst.

OK, one more point. Freakonomics recently polled several rail industry watchers, both liberal and conservative, on whether Amtrak could ever be profitable. Not surprisingly, viewpoints differed wildly, but they all offered analyses of why Amtrak is such a disappointment in its current state. No one, conservative or liberal, points to "big oil". So yes, "big oil" may be making it possible for us to live without a high speed rail system - but it is not the cause or instigator for railroad's demise.

P.S. Is high speed rail all that great? The Cato Institute doesn't think so. I know it's a conservative think tank that "big oil" detractors aren't going to give much credence to, but it does bring up some interesting points . . .

Valentine Craft Win

So my last (and only) craft post was about the total mess I made of a Halloween wreath. It was epic. I even made it on to Pinstrosity and they rated it a 4 out 5 on their failure scale. Ouch! (You better believe I was loving it! ;-P). So, you might think I would have wised up and stuck with cooking or needlework, my more successful endeavours, but I was bound and determined to make a wreath! Fortunately, this one turned out much better than the first!

My initial inspiration was the wreath found here, but I hadn't pinned that image and couldn't remember the details or initially find the post when I went to make the wreath. Fortunately, my good friend Crystal who was visiting all the way from CO found the following pin and we went after it!

http://www.clumsycrafter.com/2012/03/deco-mesh-wreath-tutorial/

We shortly stopped going after it when I realized I didn't have all the appropriate supplies (namely, pipe cleaners) and after the fiasco last fall, I've learned my lesson - no half-baked substitutes! We actually tried fabric strips as well as floral wire - that actually might have worked but I could tell it was taking too much time. So the next day, after dropping Crystal off at the Metro, I picked up some pipe cleaners and made it happen. Bask in the awesomeness.

Isn't it pretty?

Captured in its natural environs - it's huge!

I am so happy with how this wreath turned out. Even though it is much bigger than I expected (that deco mesh really poofs out!) it still looks so lovely on the door. I love leaving the house and coming back and seeing it - it just makes me smile! :-)

Crystal Visits

We were so fortunate this weekend to have my good friend Crystal visit. We are friends from college and she was one of my bridesmaids. She is recently engaged herself so I was super-excited to visit so I could ooh-and-ahh over her ring and talk all matters wedding! Crystal is in the area until Monday, but she has another close friend in Baltimore, so we had only until Saturday afternoon together, but we made the most of it!

Thursday evening I picked her up and she joined our bowling team for the night. Michael had pre-bowled as he had a previous engagement (and his pre-bowl was awesome! 199, 205, 158 for a 572 series!). With Crystal's help we were able to take one game - something we couldn't have done with only 3 bowlers.

Friday morning was spent catching up and wedding shopping. We were looking for various items for the wedding day including shoes. She's found an awesome wedding dress that doesn't require any alterations (!!!) but it does require flats. Neither the options online or in the stores were particularly inspiring, but we did find a plain white pair at Payless that we thought she could paint. Like these, only less detailed and less costly! Unfortunately, we weren't able to do the painting while she was here, but I know they're going to look awesome!

Friday afternoon we headed over to Manassas to visit the Manassas National Battlefield Park site of (surprise!) the First and Second Battle of Manassas during the Civil War, also known as the Battles of Bull Run. Side note, I was in a one-act play in high school called The Battle of Bull Run Always Makes Me Cry. I was Amy. In the play Amy mentions seeing a Civil War documentary where a gentlemen who knows he's going to die writes a letter to his wife and how watching that documentary makes her cry. I don't know if there was a specific documentary the playwright had in mind, but let me tell you - the documentary they showed at the visitors' center had just such a scene and I certainly cried!

All crying aside, the documentary, vistors' center and park were all pretty awesome. There was both a short walking trail and a longer driving trail to visit all the important sites. We didn't do the walking trail because it was a) cold! and b) getting close to dark. We did do the driving trail. Crystal was a far better picture taker, but I did take a picture of the stone house!

Hmm, my photo looks almost exactly like the one in the link, only not as good. See, this is why I firmly believe in using postcards as the trip photographs! ;-P

Second side note - on the way to Manassas, we passed a sign saying "Entering Prince William County". I have passed that signs many times, but maybe because a close girlfriend was with me, it was the first time that it clicked that Michael grew up in Prince William County - so I did get me some Prince William after all - Beca will be so jealous! ;-P

Saturday was spent in DC, visiting the U.S. Capitol, Library of Congress and National Air and Space Museum - in that order, which meant we were pretty worn out by the time we saw the space stuff! Still, we had fun visiting all three spaces while trying to stay inside as much as possible. Like I said, it was COLD - even Crystal thought so.

Money shot of the US Capitol on the gray snowy day

The Apotheosis of Washington - in the dome

What we looked like most of the tour

General George Washington Resigning His Commission

Charles Marion Russell - Stark Museum of Art had several of his works

John Swigert, Jr.

Our first attempt cut off his head

Our tour guide had no idea what this putti represented - I, of course immediately noted the gear and declared he must be an engineer. The LOC website says he's a mechanic - I say pfft.

Had to get a picture with the baby engineer

The honest-to-goodness actual 1903 Wright Flyer