I've been REAL lazy with updates. The last was after the Holiday Party... Uff. I actually meant to update on a daily basis! Anyway, here's whats been up.

Snow.

Clearing Snow.

Work.

Drama at Work.

Reading! I've started the Sookie Stackhouse series- you know, the stuff behind True Blood on HBO. Better than I'd expected, even if there are WAY too many vampires. I also reread the Otherworld series, and the latest of the Jane Yellowrock series. There is a collection coming out in February with a previously-unpublished Dresden story, and in March the next Dresden novel comes out, as does the next Mercy Thompson book. Woot!

Gaming! Slow month here, we skipped this last Sunday due to plaerus nonattendus, but we finished the Western Campaign arc the run before. I'll try to get it written up before the next meet.

MMO's! I played City Of Heroes with the Going Rogue expansion for a month, and had fun. I'll prolly go back again at some point. However, I'm doing DC Universe Online now, and its a lot of fun. I had MASSIVE trouble initially (totally different controlset from what I'm used to, little bits of stupid in the game, little bits of stupid on my part), but now I think Its gonna last. IF Sony backs it like an MMO needs.

I get to clear snow tomorrow after work, which is gonna suck but shouldn't take too long.

And that's about it for now. Off to work!

About a half hour ago I got back inside from clearing snow off the roof. I had ice dams building up, and had to get the snow off them so they'll melt clear. The snow up there is deeper than the vent pipes, so I'll prolly have to go up again to make sure those are cleared as well. I'll do that tomorrow. mirrdae assisted in getting the ladder in place after I discovered that the snow rake wasn't worth a crap with the heavy, sticky snow up there. I salted the dams (screw the lawn!), and hopefully they'll break up over the next few days. I think in the future, regardless of the inconvenience, I'll clear the snow right when it first comes down. :P

Other than that, today is quiet. I'll probably shower here in a bit, and I get to work later. Yay.

I got off work and came home, and immediately went and dug us out with the show blower. Migod- done in 45 minutes! When that stupid thing decides to work, it really works! iatro finished up by shoveling off the front steps, as I was fried by that point. Right now I'm doing laundry, and as soon as this first load is in the dryer and the second is in the washer, I'm going to bed.

I'm sore now, and I'm gonna be more sore later. Oh well- I made a good breakfast at least. French toast and sausage links with orange juice.

If you've not heard, a SECOND snow emergency started tonight. So, no parking on either side of snow emergency routes tonight. Tomorrow, no parking on the even sides of residential streets and no parking on parkways, and on Wednesday, when all this shit may start over with even MORE snow coming, no parking on the odd side. In case I have this slightly wrong (the even/odd stuff I'm sure of), call 612-348-7669 for the recorded message.

Time for me to get ready for work- that is all.

I've got the back dug out, which is the first pass. I'll have to do it again later, as the snow is STILL coming down and probably won't stop til well after 8 PM. From what I've seen, we've gotten about 8-10 inches where I am. Minneapolis proper has about 7.1 inches or so.

The front is NOT done yet. I'm kinda hoping one of the neighbors has a bout of self-loathing and decides to run their snow blower up and down the length of the sidewalk. :P

I honestly don't know if I'll be able to get in to work tonight- its pretty bad. The Snow Emergency was declared while I was working on clearing the back, but its Snow Emergency routes and alleys first. Tomorrow is even side, which means me and khirsahdrgn have to have our cars moved one way or the other by 8 AM tomorrow.

At least if I DO get in to work, I get to park in the garage.

I crashed last night around 3, and woke up at about 6:30. There's a fair bit of snow out there, and in a few hours (when people here are awake) I'll go out and use the blower to clear the back. After that, I'll either shovel out the front or see if I can't recruit someone to do it for me. In the meantime, I've started on the first editing pass of the novel; mostly I'm making some notes on the printout and thinking about how to expand things. There are a LOT of little bugs and odd bits that fail to precisely fit, so this is going to take a while.

Also... I think that my cough might not be my asthma. It was STARTED by the cold and the asthma, but I think I've got a touch of acid reflux. I have a slight burning sensation at the top of my stomach, and the coughing happens even if my breathing is utterly clear. So I may go to the doctor about it, after maybe trying the over-the-counter version of prevacid. I'm not throwing up in my sleep or anything, so it might be just some damage from all the coughing... Which causes more coughing. Biology sucks, sometimes.

Other than digging out and editing and such, I may do a little housecleaning as well. Plus I really need to get some actual sleep- I do work tonight after all.

Well, the LAST time I posted I mentioned that I'd gone to the ER and such. To update that situation, everything is now coming out all right. And that's enough of that.

Sunday the 31st we played the 7th Seas campaign, and a good time was had by all. We played off by a week due to the GM not being available on the regular day, and we play next on the 21st. I have all these points to spend, and can't decide on what...

Monday night (February 1st) I realized that I had to take the trash and recycling out. Rather than rattle-and-bang my way down the stairs and out the garage, waking khirsahdrgn and mirrdae, I decided to go down the back steps. This was a mistake, as I've not shoveled them out for some time, and they're a mass of snow and ice. The inevitable happened, and I now have a bruise and nasty scrape on my shoulder. I'll dig them out sometime this week so that this doesn't happen again.

Thursday we did the Furry Night Dinner thing, eating at the Blue Fox Inn. Philly cheese steak and onion rings and bheer. Yay!

On last Friday, I made a big batch of chili and had joshuwain, foeclan and feezlekahn over. It was a good night, and we gabbed about various things while watching "Varan the Unbelievable", one of the poorer Toho Kaiju entries from the late fifties.

Saturday had me chiseling out the snow and near-ice on the front walk. Yick.

Monday, I got two of the three movies I ordered- War of the Gargantuas and The African Queen. The first of these was a 'prestige' package, including Rodan and a documentary on Godzilla- very cool. The copy of The African Queen I got... Well, it seems to be a Japanese-language edition, at least from the packaging. It DOES have the English vocal track, so I don't care- but it IS a little weird. That wasn't mentioned when I ordered it! Remaining to arrive is Frankenstein Conquers The World, of which War of the Gargantuas is actually the sequel.

We had yet another big snowstorm too- I think here in the Cities we got about 6-8 inches, but I know that other areas got 11 inches or more. I spent the morning digging out the front, doing the bak with the assistance of mirrdae. As an additional bonus, Mirr let me know that the drain in the washroom was backing up some- fortunately this time we caught it before it flooded to the hallway! I'd scheduled Roto-Rooter to come out and clear the thing, but as the driver couldn't get into the alley (and barely understood English- I tried to have him bring the drain-snake in through the upstairs, but he seemed to think I was continually talking about bringing the VAN around) that's been rescheduled for tomorrow morning.

That brings us to now. I've a trio of pictures of out front, and here they are:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4495325/

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4495339/

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4495347/


I think that this Friday I'll do another bad-movie gathering, showing Frankenstein Conquers the World and the documentary. Just have to decide on the food!

I left for work last night and there was about 4" down by that point. Right now, there's at LEAST twice that, but I've not checked to see just how much. I know that it's at the level of the undercarriage of my car though. I've gotten us dug out, but while the alley is clear to Monroe Street, the streets haven't even had one plow-pass through yet. We ain't goin' nowhere today.

Not that I'd planned to. :)

So now I'm unwinding, and likely later I'll have to lather-rinse-repeat on the snow-removal. At least the 'new' blower works! Its got a fuel flow issue, but I was still able to get the back done with it.

Tomorrow, if the local roads get at least a pass through by the plows, I'll be going to the folks for Xmas. Happy Holidays all!

Hm. Well, it seems some higher power REALLY didn't want me at work tonight- we'll have nine inches of snow by midnight. :P

I really could have appreciated that more BEFORE Christmas.