It's not Snomageddon, but coming out of work I had to scrape out the inside of the car. Also, I need a new scraper, since the only way it works well is to hold it vertical, and even then it's a little sketchy.

I just called Mama. Shrewsbury and Worcester both had a really awful ice storm last night. There's tons and tons of trees down, and she reported that she could see flares where the power lines a street away snapped. A few branches fell on their house, but there wasn't any damage. So their power is off, and they say it will probably be Monday until the electricity comes back.

But they're armed with candles and caffeine, since one of the neighbors out to survey the mess and got her a few cups of extra large coffees. Papa was considering going out, but didn't want to mess with opening the garage door manually.

Also hugely glad that Gramie, my other grandmother, is at an assisted living center. Both for her health and the continued sanity of my aunt Noel.

One of my favorite things in the US - though it happens a lot in Canada and Australia too - is the unabashed stealing of place names.

I was driving home from work, and the announcer rattled off the names of a few towns in Illinois that had severe thunderstorm warnings. A few of the towns: Lebanon, Swansea, and Bayview.

And most of the counties listed were farther into Illinois so it wasn't adding to the flood waters. There hasn't been any rain here for a few weeks, but a town half way between Villa Ridge and St. Louis had their levy break and the town flooded in a few minutes.

Gisela, one of our neighbors when we lived in Wisconsin, sent my mother some photos of what the weather was like on the 28th. In Bloomington, it hailed. In Altoona, two inches of snow.

I loved Wisconsin, and I want to move back there. I am not, however, missing the weather.

There was an earthquake last night this morning! It was a 5.2. It happened around 4:30 AM.

I was wondering why I woke up around that time. I heard nosies, and it sounded like there was wind whipping around my room. But oddly, it sounded like it was whipping around the room next to me as well.

I just chalked it up to my computer making funny noises plus some wind gusts and went back to sleep. = )

One of my life's ambitions have is to witness a (minor) earthquake. So if I sound pretty damm cheerful, I am.

It's pouring out. The best way I can describe it would be the time I was in the begingings of a tropical storm: horizontal rain, high winds, and lots of both.

Dear Weather,

Make up your mind. Are you going to storm or not? Because it's been dark and windy since eleven, yet there hasn't been any rain.

No Love,
MSA

There's one small, tiny error about the new laptop over break.

The reason that I bought it - for my programing class - I can't actually get it to actually work for that class. As the software/program/environment that we use in class (Cygwin) is not actually built for Vista.

Sometimes the program operates correctly, and sometimes it doesn't. I'm in the process of trying to get it to work right, but at the moment I'm writing code in Wordpad as neither of the computers I have access to in my room work reliably with the program. For when the programs need to process correctly I'm probably going to end up going to the library.

Of course, I have to head to the library anyhow as I can't get the VPN connection to process properly either. In other words, Teresa is a really shiny notebook at the moment. But she'll get there eventually.

Though the REALLY exciting thing today was I was soaked to the skin the moment I stepped out the door to get to class this morning. I got across Sunset Street and started laughing hysetically as I was already soaked and walking to class I dislike in the middle of a thundershower. Then I started on the show tunes, because, really it's bad enough that I'm walking to class in the rain, why should I be creepily silent as I do so?

I'm not sure if anyone else appreciated my singing, as I could only remember half the verses to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" and "Night and Day." But again, singing > silence.

I thought I hated the rain before, but now I realize that was just a tantilzing taste for my now deeping hatred of the weather phenomenon.

And I still have to go out one more time today for council meeting. *headdesk*

Where Aunt Linda works, it was 115 degrees in the building were she worked. Managment "graciously" let them leave early. How did it get so hot? Apparently the air conditior broke, so not only did it not longer supply cold air, but it started blowing hot air. Hence why it was warmer than Phoneix in Massachutts.

And according to the International version of the BBC, it is hot enough in the UK to melt asphalt. And there was a rail line shut down, as the heat warped the tracks.

I forgot to mention: The Spaces in Between by commanderteddog. IT'S MAGIC VOICE FIC. Which is a big deal, as it's only the second to even acknolage that she really exists. (The first was nightcat_hekasu's Finding Your Voice, of course. Before that it was just roles in MiSTing series.