I Get by with a Little From my Friends

Wanted to share this amazing story about Leo Grand, a homeless man, an unlikely friendship with Patrick McConlogue and Logan Ury.

He's asked how he keeps such a positive attitude and his answer, FAITH and FRIENDS.  My mind immediately thought of the Beetles song, "I Get by with a Little Help from my Friends", thus the blog post title.

As I watched this video the 2nd time in order to get the names correctly, I wondered why the police didn't return his computer, how sad it is that a man not bothering anyone, sleeping on a park bench is arrested, and what happened to him since this story.

Here's the link to the mobile app, Trees for Cars, click HERE The app gets good reviews.  If you're living in or working in an area with lots of folks, car pools are indeed a good idea.  Reduce your costs, reduce the wear on your automobile, reduce your pollution and support Leo, a homeless man.  The app costs a mere .99.  I see from some of the comments, some folks have purchased the app, even if they can't use it because where they live....in order to support Leo's brilliance.  I work 4.5 miles from my house, I'm unusual, if it weren't for odd hours I could walk it; but most people spend hours in the car coming and going to work.  Please check it out.

Doing a google search I found that Leo Grand and Patrick McConlogue had been on the Today Show in 2013.  I also found that while he has earned some money from the app, he is still homeless...that was dated May of 2014.

Scarves, Neck Warmers, Mufflers and more

 Scarves, no doubt we all have several, to match or go with different coats and or outfits.  Started crocheting this scarf some time back with groups of different stitches and Buckeye Yarn.  Tossed it in the works in progress bin and forgot about it.  Spotted it the other day and thought ...hey I should finish that, but am not liking the look or feel of it.  The yarn is quite coarse..perhaps that's way I laid it aside?  Believe I'll frog it and redo...perhaps knitting it vs crocheting it will be less coarse and give a different/more pleasing look to how the swatches of colors end up.  Then when laundered, it should/hope be soft enough to be comfortable around someone's neck.

Look what else I found in my bin.  These were one skein scarves and as such are a bit smaller then I like.  The blue is workable for someone my size (5'4"), the multi-color is not so needs to be for a child or smaller teen.  Made these while out of town once with yarn I picked up at a local yarn shop for something to do.  Love the blue which is a bit more peacock in color then shows up here in the picture.  Both these scarves are wool and were made for a different purpose.  The multi-color was my first attempt at knitting cables, which I shouldn't have done using variegated yarn.  They need a good soak and blocking before I can decide where they go.  I sorta think I actually made the blue one for myself and forgot about it, lol.

Scarves have historically been called several names, Kremer, neck-wrap, and muffler.  They were originally made for warmth, for cleanliness and for religious reasons.  Dating clear back to ancient Roman times, called a Sudarium, meaning "sweat cloth", they were worn by men for cleanliness.  Literally worn around the head, neck, and or waste and used to wipe away sweat, and were made of wool.  At some point women began wearing them, but theirs were made of cloth, pashmina/silk etc.

According to our friends over on Wikipedia, The Chinese military wore scarves which marked their rank.  In Crotia in the 17th century they were also used by the military with the officers wearing silk and non-officers wearing cotton.  The word cravats meaning croat in French preceded the mens neck tie.

In the 19th century both men and women wore scarves as a fashion statement, and in the 20th century it became an essential clothing item worn again by men and women for warmth and as a accessory to almost any outfit.

The following are our donation numbers of scarves:
2011...................471
2012...................666  (increase of 195
2013...................622 (44 less then preceding year
2014...................590 (76 less then preceding year

Our average those 4 years is 587, so while our numbers were down for the 2nd year in a row, we surpassed the average.........just barely.

Are you currently working on a scarf?

All donations regardless of size and number are valued. All donations are appreciated. The Power of One is awesome, and when we work together The Power of One becomes The Power of Many.

Commenting on Blogs, and those Awful Captcha's

This is a screen shot of my settings page with regard to blog comments.  Please click to enlarge to see the details.  For some time we've been experiencing troubles here on the Bridge and Beyond with people who used to comment regularly having trouble.  Some of the problems were people who were now getting those awful captcha things.  I hate them so much, I typically won't visit a blog that has them enabled.  I've had probably 15 blogs over the years in several different blog mediums.  Spam has truly NEVER been enough of a problem that I felt inconveniencing my faithful blog readers was worth it.  It seems like inviting someone to your house and not opening the door when the door bell rings.  AND, it puts the work on the reader vs me the blogger, which I also believe to be wrong.  Working through many different blogs through the last 10-15 years, I've settled here on blogspot.  They've always had a very good filter, and weeded out 99.9% of the spam without my using the captcha.  However, it seems now even with my purposely choosing NOT to use the captcha it's there for many of you, who visit and comment.  This apparently is triggered by anonymous comments.  Sadly, we've lost many of our faithful and vocal supporters because of it.  I've researched this problem high and low over the last couple of months and it seems "they" (Blogger/Blogspot) have decided even if it's not enabled it might be used for some people when comments are made using anonymous.  I apparently can't control that anymore.  Looked at using other formats for blogs and find, many of the options are no longer free so will be staying right here on blogspot.

Moving on now to problem #2.  Experimenting around, as well as researching.......I find I am not able to delete anonymous as an option and keep the name and url option.  I've always suggested to people to not use the anonymous option, as their comments often end up in the spam folder; to instead use the name and url option and simply leave the url space blank if they do not have a blog url, or facebook or ravelry profile url.  In the past that worked fine.  Sally and Marjorie, two of our best supporters by way of comments have been two of the people who've let me know they're not able to comment and or if they do it takes multiple tries and they get the captcha.  I'm not clear how many others we've lost that haven't communicating directly with me to let me know; but I do know our stats across the board are indeed down.  Our comments are down, page visits are down, donations are down.  It would seem this could be all tied in together.  Though I know many people simply change whom they donate too based on a new interest so I can't completely say that's the only thing causing the numbers to decrease vs grow as they have every other year since beginning the blog back in 09 or 08.

My options are to do away with anonymous, but then it seems if our faithful knitters and crocheters who don't blog, or have an open ID (meaning they would still need to register somewhere) wouldn't be able to comment at all.  So, that doesn't seem like a good solution either.

My sincere apology to those who dislike the captcha as much as I do, have trouble seeing and or hearing it.  I've tried to get several people to test things for me, to let me know if they're a blogger, to let me know what they see, and whether or not they get the captcha; but haven't succeeding in getting enough people that's it's a valid test.  I've even asked that they do screen shots so I might see what's going on at that end, but many folks don't know to do that, so haven't received any.  For the time being, it seems the best I can do is to again ask people to use the name and url option if they aren't bloggers, to avoid the anonymous option and to keep communicating with me.

I've been making a few changes here and there on blog and will possibly be using a new template...though I'm not sure it will change the comment problem, it might help with more then just a new clean fresh look here on Bridge and Beyond.

Did you see the year end totals?  If not, click HERE
Did you read specific details regarding Afghans?  If not, click HERE
Please pop in tomorrow for details on stats regarding scarves and more.

All donations regardless of size and number are valued. All donations are appreciated. The Power of One is awesome, and when we work together The Power of One becomes The Power of Many.