Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

When last we heard from our intrepid thumb-monkey, Hurricane Irene was on her way…

Irene dumped a lot of rain on us. We were very, very lucky in that we only lost power overnight Saturday. Cable/internet was out until Tuesday though, which is more frustrating when everyone in the house works from home. Homes less than a mile from us were still without power at the end of the week and lots of the side roads were closed while utility and clean-up crews dealt with downed poles, lines and trees. The latest inundation of rain this week has not been helping and we’ve had some intermittent power outages. The ground has surpassed the super-saturation point and the little creeks are now rather enthusiastic rivers. I’m glad my little Clubman is a heavy car because there have been some rather large puddles in our way of late! Still, very, very lucky.

For Labor Day weekend, we hopped up to the Poconos. Last-minute travel on a holiday weekend means last-minute room availability. We stayed at a resort with an indoor water park, which was more fun than I expected it to be given I’m not allowed to go on water slides right now. There was this awesome Rube Goldberg machine apparatus with 2 water slides attached. You could climb all over, squirt water from, etc. Every 5 minutes or so, the enormous bucket up top would fill to a tipping point and dump a ton of water onto everyone below. Just awesome. There was also some impressive shopping done at the outlets. And general hanging out. The bed was terrible, unfortunately, so I probably came home more tired than I should have. Despite that, it was a lovely way to spend the weekend. From the web research to find an inn or resort with rooms to the actual experience, I’m left with the impression that most resorts in the Poconos were last redecorated in the late 80s.

Work has been busy – I feel like I’m staring down the inevitable feeling of “never going to ever catch up again.” There have been too many days of barely keeping up – being sick after Pennsic, internet outages forcing me to work from Starbux, etc – so I’m considering declaring it a wash and starting over with a clear conscience. Perhaps as soon as I get one more thing caught up…

We did pick over the bones of our local Borders the other night. The employees still seemed really pleasant given their impending unemployment. Everything was 70-90% off with an additional 15% taken off at the end if you bought more than 6 items. We didn’t have any trouble hitting that goal. I found a couple books for gifts, some entertaining silliness and a few books on topics I’m vaguely interested in but couldn’t justify without the deep discount. The Fop found more (he picked through the SciFi/Fantasy section, which I skipped) and we ended up leaving with a big box of books that we paid, overall, 23-24% of full retail for. Not bad. Of course, the savings is less impressive when you consider that most of the books are available from Amazon or the like for a deep discount. Still, some quick comparisons show us paying about half what we would have if we’d bought the books on Amazon. Now I just need to find more time to read.

Oh and…

Dear Apple,
My iPhone 3g is now 3 years old. I love it dearly but it’s really slowing down and starting to fail. Please hurry up and announce whatever it is you’re coming out with next so I can pre-order it.

Dear AT&T,
It’s been 2 weeks since Hurricane Irene. Please fix your stupid cell towers. Trust me, the crappy coverage I get at my house is even crappier when one or more of your nearby towers is malfunctioning. I’m a patient customer and all, but you are now having an impact on my stress levels.

This weekend was not as productive as I’d hoped… in part because I’m not as energetic as I think I am and we needed to work on the basement in the old house. I did get some pressing errands done. Laundry is on-going. I dumped a bunch of coffee in my keyboard, and while most of the keyboard works… I’ll be picking up a new one tomorrow because the top row of number keys all the way across to the “-” key is not working. The numbers I can mostly substitute with the number pad, but underscore, the at sign, percentages, all those good characters? Not as quick a compensation. Not to mention parentheses and exclamation points both of which I’d like to use here… I clearly started this post BEFORE the keys decided to go on strike. And I’m addicted to tabbed browsing and moving among tabs by hitting command+number, which has made for a very strange day of waiting for tabs to switch, getting irritated that all my browsers are so slow and then realizing it’s just that my number keys are borked. Le sigh.

Sadly, it was good coffee wasted too.

books, hurricane, iphone, random, retail therapy, technology, travel, weather

My Winter is apparently a series of photographs of my car under snow. We got 4 or 5 inches of snow last night which I find delightful. There’s just enough to make the world bright and shiny for a day or two before the warmer weather melts it off again. Spring is definitely coming but Winter isn’t through fighting yet. Before the snow, I had bulbs starting to come up. I’ve been assured that they’ll be fine with a little snow on them, which makes sense, but they do make me start looking forward to Spring and seeing the results of the planting I did in the Fall.

In random photography news, I’m considering getting an Eye-Fi card for my camera. (These are cards with built in wireless networking that can send image files directly to your computer via your wireless network.) They’ve come down significantly in price and, ultimately, yes, I am lazy. My biggest concern is that I will be constantly reconnecting it to the network or that it will be finicky about when it does or does not connect. Have any of you used an Eye-Fi card extensively? In the meantime, I have a practically-new-but-old Polaroid SX-70 to play with, thanks to a visit with Lisa this weekend.

A mere hour and forty-five minutes later than the top picture, the sun is doing an excellent job of clearing the snow off my car for me. It’s still below freezing outside, but we always get amazing afternoon sun on the front of the house. If only my car would stay that shiny and clean-looking.

Speaking of weekends, I had a great weekend visiting with Lisa in NY. There’s something fabulous about looking at killer traffic and saying, “Well, handily we’re not in a hurry and it’s not like we’ll get bored talking as we inch through the construction zone.” There was shopping, eating, closet-cleaning and general conversational glee.

See, truth in titling: this was a post of little content.

gardening, photography, snow, travel, weekend

I’ll admit it: I’ve made more intelligent travel plans.

The photos here are from the New Jersey Turnpike yesterday afternoon around 2 p.m. I can attest to the fact that the Turnpike was like this all afternoon because what should have been less than an hour turned into a multi-hour ordeal of messy snow and slow driving.

Maine:
The Fop and I were in Maine, at my parents’ house, for Christmas. Christmas was lovely, with a surprise guest star and amazing food and wonderful gifts all around. However, looming down the coast was a snowstorm that was paralyzing the Southeast U.S. and heading our way in all its snowy glory. Many meteorological sources were consulted over the course of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, rather constantly to the point of me getting mocked for my obsession. But, it became obvious on Christmas Day that we had two options: leave early Sunday morning and drive straight at the storm and hope to get home before it got too bad or stay in New England until Tuesday.

We opted to get on the road early Sunday morning. A long shot, perhaps, and somewhat risky since you can see by the dash picture that we were in the Mini Clubman. We packed the car Christmas night, went to bed early (for us at least) and I set my alarm for 5:45 a.m.*

Remarkably, I woke up with the alarm, hit snooze but didn’t bother to wait for the snooze to go off again before I was back on my iPad looking at the weather for various points between Maine and Philadelphia. The forecasts looked good. The worst of the storm, wind and snow and all, was going to start around 3 p.m. in Philly and Nyack, NY. We could totally make it home at a reasonable hour, maybe in 9 hours, if the storm started that late. I started getting ready, complete with making a big pot of super strong coffee, most of which I left my parents to drink. (Sorry about that… but you have to admit it was really tasty!) Last bits of stuff got packed, the Fop was mobile if not fully conscious, we piled into the Clubman and we were off at 7 a.m. on the dot.

Yes, we were off to play chicken with a blizzard.

For the record, this feat of departure on time and at that hour should win major and prestigious awards. Who knew blizzards could be so motivating?

Perhaps I should also point out here that before this day I hadn’t driven my Clubman in any serious amount of snow or ice. Sure, it handles well and its a heavy, little, low to the ground car. However, usually we take out the Fop’s Durango in adverse weather.

We had a minor gas station failure on the way to the Maine Turnpike – the station closest to the highway was out of gas. After a quick flip back to another gas station, we were off!

The easy part – cruise control set to “felony”:
Getting out of Maine and through New Hampshire was easy. We hit the first flurries on 495 in Massachusetts. By the time we got to I84, snow was light and fine but steady. We were still making good time! I was fully in denial that this might be the leading edge of the storm because the leading edge was going to come in from the Atlantic and hit the whole coast at once. This couldn’t possibly be that snow! It had to be snow from the small system ahead of the big storm! Even I95 in Connecticut was reasonably tolerable. It’s usually the worst part of the drive but it was actually pretty decent for a change.

New Jersey or “WTF were we thinking?”:
I’d like to start by stating, again, for the record: I hate driving in New Jersey.

We got over the Tappen Zee bridge and stopped at the top of the Garden State Parkway for a quick break and gas. Like a good daughter, I checked in with my parents to let them know where we were and how things were going. The snow was getting heavier but, at that time, 1 p.m., I was still cautiously optimistic that we’d get home before dark.

Foolishly, I underestimated the NJ Turnpike.

The Turnpike backed up shortly after we got on it. It hadn’t been pre-treated well enough and snow was falling quickly. We spent hours staring at break lights and going between 2 and 12 miles per hour. We got as high as 30 once. My traction control warning light only came on a couple times. This was quite comforting.

One problem with such slow traffic is that there’s no chance of a plow truck getting through to clear the road. As we crawled in traffic, the accumulation started to increase and the road got worse. The hours were boring, uneventful and generally demoralizing as I contemplated the PA Turnpike, the bridge and the hours between me and not driving anymore.

A Yellow Bug in the snow:
The VW Beetle was actually quite comforting to see. “Hey look! At least we’re not driving that in the snow!” Its PA plates gave it away as probably having just as far left to drive adventure as we did. This didn’t fully counter the, “Wouldn’t it be nice to be driving the Durango now?” sentiment but it did help.

Pennsylvania or “Well, we can’t stop now, we’re nearly there”:
At some point after we got off the NJ Turnpike and before we got through the PA Turnpike tolls, we stopped and the Fop cleared the ice from the wipers, lights and windshield. That bridge into PA that I was worried about? The one high over the river and perpetually under construction, too narrow and too exposed to winds? I actually had to ask the Fop to confirm that we were on the bridge because visibility was so low I couldn’t tell for sure while focusing on driving.

Somewhere in there I had a despondent moment of “I don’t think I can drive anymore” as well. I was fried and tense and ready to break. Always fun but it passed as the roads improved. The PA Turnpike was bad for a bit, though not as bad as the NJ Turnpike, we pulled over again and the Fop cleared the ice again, and then it improved. By the time we got off the Turnpike onto 476, the roads were in much better shape.

The last leg of the drive, once we got off the highway, was relatively messy but mellow. Other than a woman completely unable to control her SUV, everyone was being rather sensible.

At 6:20 p.m. we pulled into our driveway, I turned off the car and called my parents to let them know we’d made it. My right heel was very unhappy and sensitive last night thanks to gently playing the accelerator for hours. It’s better today, thankfully. I slept for 11+ hours, which seemed appropriate for recovery from an 11+ hour drive.

Lessons learned:
- If you’re going to play chicken with a blizzard, leave earlier.
- Fog lights light up snow roads quite well.
- The Clubman is really quite the trooper in snow.
- The Clubman does not like to crawl in 1st gear and much prefers 2nd gear.
- Sometimes it’s ok to make your own lane but keep an eye out for others doing the same thing in different parts of the road.
- I miss my Subaru.

*5:45 alarms have a special chant that to go along with them in my head thanks to the Dartmouth Outing Club: 5:45! 5:45! We’re going to wake you up at 5:45! And by “special” I mean annoying.

blizzard, driving, mini clubman, snow, travel

Bonus music today! Random Acts of Culture! The Opera Company of Philadelphia and many area choirs got together to sing in Macy’s. The organ featured in the event is the Wannamaker Organ, a National Historical Landmark and an impressive 101 year old instrument with 28,500 pipes. I love events like this and I’m reminded that I miss singing.

Tasha is snoring as she sleeps in the sunbeam on my desk. Even though she’s no longer technically a kitten (and never was, according to Monster Cat), I still think of her snoring as “little kitten snores” and, of course, adorable. The other two tails… er.. cats are sacked out on the chair.

Yesterday, I survived the grocery store! I went over early afternoon thinking that it would be less chaotic. I’m sure it was less chaotic than it will be today but the store was still rather packed. Lines were short at checkout at least! But I have everything I need to make pies and such for the holiday.

I have a rather serious book problem. Putting a book down is difficult, even if it’s not a terribly good book. I found a new feature to using an iPad as an eReader last night: the battery can run out and kick you out of your book thus making you go to sleep by 3 a.m. I think, perhaps, I should never start reading on my iPad unless there’s less than 20% of the battery power left. Sure, a real book doesn’t run out of power and cut you off in the middle of a page… but I think I might need the harsh cut-off to stop reading sometimes.

I’m not sure why I resist the holiday season up until Thanksgiving every year. I try to deny the inevitable and then, when I finally accept the holidays are upon me, it feels like there’s so little time left between “now” and the end of the year. I’m starting to consider what I’ll be baking for holiday gifts and feeling like I’m already behind. Some of that feeling is legitimate since I need to take at least 2 quick trips down to the office in VA before Xmas.

Lastly, if you are offended by the TSA’s latest, ineffective and intrusive security measure, please consider signing the ACLU’s privacy rights petition. There are better, more effective security methods out there. Let’s train TSA personnel to interview people (such as they do in Israel), let’s pay them a little more, and let’s stop taking off our shoes. I guess I’m lucky we haven’t had a “bra bomber” yet, but I’m thoroughly uninterested in being groped by a stranger or scanned by potentially unsafe technology. No, I won’t be flying this year.

books, cats, ereader, holidays, ipad, random, travel

I haven’t packed for my quick trip to Virginia yet. To be fair, I haven’t unpacked from the last trip so I think technically I get half credit since my toiletries are totally packed. I have a ton of work to do tomorrow night so I’m not going to get together with anyone while I’m down there.

After a complaint last week about Firefox needing constant restarts, a friend got me to install Chrome. I’m using it for about 10% of my browsing but I’m working on closing out the windows in FF that keep me chained to it. Yes, part of the reason FF requires restarts so often might have something to do with the sheer number of tabs I have open on a regular basis.

So, in honor of my supreme procrastinatory skills, I bring you random links!

First, if you haven’t heard yet, last month they postponed the end of the Earth.

Somewhere in my world, this remote-controlled beverage cooler should exist.

Chicken potpie Epanadas just sound super yummy.

In the kerfuffle of explaining “fair use” versus “copyright infringement” to so-called industry professionals at Cooks Source magazine, I enjoyed seeing this realization in print:

In the age of social networking, sometimes any publicity is not good publicity, especially when it exposes an egregious wrong by way of insulting an underdog.
— “Copyright for Dummies,” Josh Jasper, PublishersWeekly.com

links, procrastination, random

We drove approximately 8 hours each way to Vermont for Crown Tournament. This is farther than we drive to Pennsic. Weather reports were dodgy earlier in the week and implied cold, wet and miserable. Luckily, that didn’t happen.

The day was bright and cold and breezy in somewhat equal proportions.

For the record, it takes a while to pare 1200+ photos down to 377 – i.e. the big set. It also takes time to make them upload to Flickr. But, at the end of the sorting and upload, there are a ton of Crown Tournament photos over on Flickr. I had way too much fun taking pictures of people and fighting and generally gorgeous, bright day.

Fear not, for those of the faint of heart, or just not looking for hundreds of Crown photos, there’s a shorter photo set that features lots of people and highlights. And, of course, there’s a version of the shorter set on Facebook as well, for your tagging pleasure. I am terrible with names, so please do feel free to tag or label people!

crown tournament, east kingdom, photography, sca, vermont

Northern Vermont was gorgeous.

Lake Champlain looked chilly.

The trees were amazing.

And the full moon was fabulous.

And I slept really well.

The North Hero In was comfy, cozy and lovely.

It was a great trip with friends in the car, friends at the Inn, and friends at the event.

Eight hours driving up.

Eight hours driving back.

It was a great weekend.

autumn, lake champlain, photography, travel, vermont

Extra tunes in honor of Halloween! A different sort of monster today… with Lego.

The work trip to Virginia was productive… and provided more reasons to go to Virginia for more work. Figures. It’s a 2.5-3 hour drive depending on traffic and time of day. I may try to do down and back in one day next Wednesday.

I came back last night to a very sick Fop. Poor Fop.

For the record, 2 years ago I worked for Pfizer and I’m still trying to get my spam filter to recognize the pharmaceutical spam again.

I have many photos of Crown… I will get them sorted and put up a couple of sets (the short set for quick browsing and the extensive set for procrastination). I had a lot of fun taking pictures with the big lens and the day was gorgeous. The final fights were disappointing and did not, from my personal perspective behind a camera and as a non-fighter, seem clean, decisive or honorable on the part of the victor. As a former coworker was fond of pointing out, with a certain wise tone, “This too shall pass.” I was impressed by most of the rest of the day though. I saw some incredible fights and watched people with great skill have a great deal of fun. (For the uninitiated, this Crown event was the crown tournament for the East Kingdom in the SCA. The fighters wear medieval and renaissance reproduction plate, chain, leather and plastic armor and compete with various rattan weapons to become the next King or Queen of the East. When I post photos, this explanation will make more sense.)

halloween, monster, monster mash, music, random, work

So, in addition to an idyllic weekend in Massachusetts on top of a mountain out of technology’s reach, we also went to the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival. We wandered around for 6 hours, had some warm cider and cider donuts, and generally enjoyed all the awesome sights to be had on a gorgeous autumn day. There was also kettle corn (which sustained us as we tried to get out of the parking lot) and maple cotton candy (which is an amazing invention). I came home with a couple skeins of fun yarn and lofty project plans, of course, as well as some local wine and super-tasty hot sauces.

The hour sitting in the parking lot was spent calling stores looking for pumpkin Woodchuck cider. We eventually caved and reserved some at a store that was not on the way home. Pumpkin Woodchuck is very yummy but not what I’d expected. It’s fruity and bright and lacks the cinnamon and other spices of the pumpkin beers. Yum!

autumn, ny, photographs, rhinebeck sheep and wool, travel

Last weekend I visited autumn, the season not the person, and J & t up on their mountain in Mt. Washington, Massachusetts. Autumn is my favorite season to begin with so I was giddy to get up into New England in mid-October. There are some pictures of pretty colors and trees here. The colors and trees aren’t as spectacular as they could be since a blustery storm came through Thursday evening and Friday before I arrived. And the colors aren’t quite as spectacular as the colors in the photos my mother keeps sending me from Maine.

Driving up the mountain, my driving lights on the Mini paid for themselves once again. Fog lights, headlights on high beams, and driving lights make for a much easier drive when you’re heading up an unfamiliar mountain on unlit roads late at night. With all the lights on, I can light up the tops of the trees in front of me and half the planet in front of me!

J & T have a great house, no cell coverage and no high speed internet. It was an ideal spot to spend a weekend AND they cooked me dinner and breakfast all weekend. Pancakes! Two mornings in a row!!! It was a glorious weekend!

autumn, colors, fall, photographs, travel