Kevin's Watch

Yay it's back!

Today is good.

I imagine this is the most snow we've ever had in October. Trick or Treat will be cancelled for the first time that I can remember. I lost power for 31 hours.

But Happy Halloween!!!

Yesterday was bad. Not "lorin bad". But bad enough for me. Kids couldn't sleep Saturday night, oak trees crashing all around us like a thunder storm that lasted all night, each one sounding like an explosion, making the house shake. Crack! Fwoosh! BOOM! The ones that are really close, you pray don't come through the wall. Woke to find the yard looking like those pictures from Tunguska. Power was ripped off the house, trees leaning against it. All the pear trees and shrubs we planted are flat. Oh and 6 inches of snow. We'll get things fixed up, but all those beautiful trees can't be replaced. Roads covered in debris, crews everywhere clearing trees from the roads. Last night was nicer, the Peabody Marriot has soft beds. Our insurance company took our name and promises to get back to us within the week.

Oh man, I'm sorry, WF. May your insurance company be nicer to you than lorin's was to her. Glad you and yours are okay, tho.

Wonder how lorin will feel when she hears that she's the new Watch standard for "having a bad day"?

Happy Samhain, all!

aliantha wrote:I spent a lot of time yesterday going to panels. The first one I went to was on YA fantasy. It was interesting, but the main attraction for me was Tamora Pierce, who is beyond awesome. Magickmaker had deputized me to get Tammy's autograph on a couple of books (one for her, one for a friend); then Batty texted me right as the panel was starting and asked me if I could get a book signed for her girlfriend. So, Most Awesome Mom that I am , I bailed from the panel, went to the dealers' room, bought a book, and went back to the panel.

Hahah!

I skipped an interview with Neil Gaiman, feeling kind of Gaiman'd out from the day before , and went to a panel about the line between genre fiction and literary fiction. Steven Erikson was supposed to be on the panel, but he has laryngitis (get well soon, Steve!), so he handed the moderator a manifesto on the subject that he had written on his laptop, and then sat in the audience.

Later, there was a panel on immortals as characters (Elizabeth Bear was the moderator), which was pretty good. Then there was a panel on using North and South American mythology in fantasy fiction, which was inadvertently funny -- William F. Nolan, who wrote "Logan's Run", was a panelist, and made it clear he didn't quite know what he was doing there (he insisted that aliens had created the Aztec pyramids and we should all go and watch the History Channel *right now* ). Then there was a panel on metafiction. During the Q&A, one woman remarked that "The House of the Seven Gables" struck her as metafiction; I very nearly raised my hand and said it struck *me* as 3rd person omniscient, but if you want to redefine that as metafiction, then whatever -- but I was too busy knitting.

Sounds interesting and fun! =) Glad you're there..

Glad to hear you're safe, WF. That snow storm was hell, eh? We got a little more than a foot up here.

We have power back. I had to drive to work Saturday during the storm because our shifts never get canceled. I made it there in one piece, but then my client's daughter and her husband lost power. They came over, and sent me home. In the dark. In the snow and wind. I made it home after much sliding and going 5 mph (in retrospect, I probably could have walked and gotten home faster).

I get settled in at home, and around 11 the power goes out. No biggie. But then around 11:45, our apartment building's fire alarm went off. I mean, the alarms outside the hall and the deafening BEEEEEEEEEEEEP inside every apartment went off. So until about 2ish am we had to sit in the car. At least it was warm.

Then yesterday we noticed a crack on the windshield. Who would have thought more than a foot of snow on a windshield would crack glass? Lame lame lame. That's about a $400 fix that we don't have. I'll have to pick up more overnights, I guess. Siiiiigh. And it's our only car and my husband drives to Wakefield, MA every day. And any place I call apparently doesn't have power back.

AND TRICK-OR-TREATING IS CANCELED

It was a very scary night to go out, Jazz!

Was the ice as bad up north? Sometimes when its a little colder you escape the ice freezing to the trees. Or maybe further north there was less folliage. Where I am, the folliage has barely started to fall, and of course oaks wait untl last anyway. So the ice built up on the leaves, and all the trees came down. Or are now permanently bent into an upside down U shape.

They cancelled trick-or-treat in our town as well. The girls are quite upset. It seems to be a big joke to some, but half our town has no power, and half of those have damage to their homes. Hopefully they'll schedule a backup trick-or-treat.

wayfriend wrote:Yesterday was bad. Not "lorin bad".

Ha!!! You funny guy!

lorin wrote:

wayfriend wrote:Yesterday was bad. Not "lorin bad".

Ha!!! You funny guy!

Isn't that tradditionally followed by, "I kill you last" ?

(... No? .... Commando, anyone?)

wayfriend wrote:

lorin wrote:

wayfriend wrote:Yesterday was bad. Not "lorin bad".

Ha!!! You funny guy!

Isn't that tradditionally followed by, "I kill you last" ?

(... No? .... Commando, anyone?)

Remember Sully, when I promised to kill you last? I lied.

LET OFF SOME STEAM, BENNETT!

We didn't get much ice where we are, but lots of trees are down and bent. The wind really did some damage, too. We are one of the few lucky towns that has most power restored. Which is a change from the ice storm of '08, when everyone was back on the grid, but we were out an entire week. Hopefully they get power back to everyone soon! It's getting to below freezing at night now.

Trick-or-treating has been moved to this Sunday in our town. I sincerely hope people will actually be handing out candy then. :/

Sheesh, sounds like a rough one all round. Still, at least everybody survived.

--A

Sounds nasty. You folks need to move somewhere warm and 25 degrees (Celcius...) and calm and sunny... aka Australia!

I was in Australia for a week once. (At least, they told me it was Australia, eh sarge?) Melbourne. Miserable cold, wet weather. Attended my company's user group conference. Customers seemed to like me. I kept getting invitations from guys to stay at their home any time I liked. Queer custom.

wayfriend wrote: I kept getting invitations from guys to stay at their home any time I liked.

well you ARE pretty cute!

wayfriend wrote:I was in Australia for a week once. (At least, they told me it was Australia, eh sarge?) Melbourne. Miserable cold, wet weather. Attended my company's user group conference. Customers seemed to like me. I kept getting invitations from guys to stay at their home any time I liked. Queer custom.

Hi wayfriend, Melbourne is it's own cup of weather tea. 'Tis my hometown and well-known as being a 'four seasons in one day' place. Non-locals often make jokes about packing a suitcase of clothes for a 24hr period.

Anyway, hope you're all managing to clean up okay and that those evil insurance companies come through with the goods. Wish they could replace the trees though eh?

StevieG wrote:Sounds nasty. You folks need to move somewhere warm and 25 degrees (Celcius...) and calm and sunny... aka Australia!

Yes, just don't come during the floods. Or the bushfires. Or the droughts.

P.S. StevieG, please don't report me to the tourism board.

Back home again. Thank goodness I had the foresight this year to extend my time off an extra day -- I was seriously jetlagged and stayed up way too late talking to Magickmaker last night. And also, today was the first day of NaNoWriMo, so I had all evening while Magickmaker was at work to get a jump on this year's word count. Yay!

With any luck, I won't be depressed when I go back to work tomorrow, like I was after WFC last year. We'll see how it goes, tho....

Oh, to follow up: At the awards banquet Sunday, I found myself sitting next to Steve Rasnic Tem, who was on the panel during the metafiction presentation. I made my "House of the Seven Gables" observation to him, and he agreed with me. Turns out he lives in Denver. He mentioned that he's part of a group of fiction writers there, and more or less said I should look them up if I ever get to town. So that's now two groups of fantasy writers I know of in Denver, unless Romeo's friends are a member of the same group as this guy.

Anyway, after the banquet, I went down to Old Town San Diego and bought souvenirs and had chicken in mole for dinner. I need to learn how to make that stuff. Mmmmmm.

I had an interesting day but all in all a good one. I guess I've already picked sides in the Derek/Sal war to some extent. For details see my blather blog.

Someone died at St. Matthew's. I gave a Rosary to her.