On the commute issue (since a couple people commented on it):

I think it's horrible that such a large segment of the population has these hellacious commutes. I'm lucky in that my commute is ~5 minutes, and I could even walk to work if I chose (well, also if people actually kept their dogs penned/chained or there weren't unfriendly dogs in my town). I really wonder how the folks with 1 hour+ one-way commutes manage - I would hate to, and fight like hell against, giving up two hours out of my life, especially if it was a non-public-transport commute where I had to be driving and couldn't read or knit or work or do something during the intervening time.

I wonder if - and I sort of hope - there will be a mass uprising (well, a non-violent mass uprising) among workers who are "mad as hell and won't take it any more" who demand either that work is closer to housing or that affordable safe housing is closer to work. Or telecommuting. Or something. Because I don't think it's healthy for people to basically spend what is their "downtime" either driving or crammed on a train or bus with a bunch of other people.

(One of the headaches I have in scheduling committee meetings is that several of my committee members are people with long-ish commutes, and so they set very tight boundaries on when they "can" meet. Usually those times are when the other members are in class. So it's frustrating.)

I will say I dealt with a trade-off in my work/housing deal. I could have gotten a place to live in one of the North Texas cities, and had a larger and more cosmopolitan community, in a state with no state income tax (but high property taxes), with closer access to good grocery shopping and other shopping, a more vibrant arts community, more weekend activities, etc., etc. But I couldn't face the thought of driving for an hour or more each day just to go to work.

(Still? A lot of people around me who have ~5 minute commutes like I do, don't cook. So I don't think the exhaustion of a long commute is the whole problem.)

On to happier matters.

This is the first of the "Dublin Bay" socks:



I'm REALLY happy with how it turned out. I like the pattern (free download here), and I think the variegated Regia is just right for it. And I love the colors in the Regia - it's color 5440 and I bought it here.

Here's a closeup, it's a little dark because I wanted to take it without flash so the colors would be more true:



I'm already up to the heel flap on the second sock. It seems to me that socks with a little pattern to them - where you're doing something different every other row - go faster for me than the ones that are (seemingly) miles of stockinette.