Journeyman

Good morning.

Hah, easy for you to say. For me ... it started just after midnight. But I digress.

Yesterday we had a storm, which continued into the evening. Started as snow, turned to rain. Along with the rain came wind, and more of it, from many directions. And more. So much so that we did not turn on our usual small fan to move air and make white noise against the coyote howls but instead opened sevral windows to slits to let the warm (40 degree F plus!) air in with the sounds of

Last night at 12:20 or so I woke up to the sense that things were flickering. Indeed the nightlight in the hall was flickering and then it went out, and the several UPS within hearing began screaming for us to save their computers from electron starvation disease.

Sharon did not wake, so I rushed off in all directions to make the UPS stop beeping and calm the cats, who wanted to be right with me since *something was happening* ....

Something continued to happen; the wind's roar was variable as was the lashing of the rain; several times the wind rose enough to flutter the curtains despite the fact the window was only about an inch open by that time.

Come 5:30 a.m. darkness was still incumbent upon the world but the damn alarm clock was going off anyway so we used various of our flashlights and such to pull together a start to the day, and wandered off, each in our own vehicle, to Eric's to have breakfast. On my way in I saw numerous downed branches starting immediately, and houses with lights starting about 4 miles from home. In Winslow more or less proper the seafood stand, which consists mostly of a canvas shelter over various equipment, was turned on side within inches of the road -- and it usually isn't located there, having drifted a number of feet and inches,in the wind.

At Eric's we got coffee and sat at the high table in the front window where we disscussed the overnight storm, vigilante heroism in fiction, the people we recognized but couldn't put name to in the restaurant, and the cat's reaction to being lightless in the night. I'm convinced that Hexapuma's vision is not good at all; he seemed reluctant to try the stairs to the basement (see catbox, below) and finally put one of our LED lanterns at a propitious location at the foot of the stairs that cast light up and downtstairs and into the cat box room. Our cats share a catbox room with the oil tank; there are three cat boxes and various cat supplies there ... and usually there's an overhead flourescent light lit.

Also at Eric's we heard folks discussing trees down in the night, roads blocked with branches, and saw across the road a barn-turned apartments that appeared to have siding so hard it took a window with it. We shared that the little stream that usually overflows in spring thaw ... was overflowing into the field by about 10 or 15 yards. No ducks there yet, though.

I see that the PO ought to be open now; I've brought some SRM packages that need mailing as well as the Fedex package of the page-proof corrections for Duainfey's small paper edition, going back to Baen.... yes Toni, going in today!

Our VPN connections to home from the office are still not working; I may need to buy ice to help keep the frozen dinners frozen...

Yes, this may mean another set of delays. But hey, the weather was really great!