Altivo

And snow is what it is doing. Started just after dark, coming down hard now. This could accumulate if it continues much longer.

Feels cold (partly psychological, I'm sure) so we are starting up the wood stove.

Gas prices dropping abruptly at least in Marengo. Down to $3.21 today, while Harvard is still sitting at $3.49. That's a 28 cent difference in the price of a gallon of gas. There can be no explanation for this other than perpetual gouging at those Harvard stations.

Woodstock is gearing up for Ground Hog Day, as usual. Last year nearly all their events were scrubbed due to the sudden blizzard we had on Feb.1-2. Consequently, no official ground hog forecast. I wonder if that's why the weather is so flaky this year. The last two days we've had temperatures up to almost 40F, including just this morning. And now it's snowing.

Good thing I have nothing urgent to do this weekend. I can enjoy the slowdown.

And I'm out of energy.News can wait until tomorrow.

I've just had a short story (which some of you may already have read on FurRag) accepted for publication. That's always a nice affirmation that what I do isn't totally pointless, even if it goes against the "usual" grain of furry fandom. Of course, I should also admit here that I've backed off quite a bit from really trying to get stuff published for just that reason.

Weird weather here has been a distraction today and last night. We went to bed with six inches of snow on the ground but rising temperatures. At about 3:30 AM we were awakened by a great lightning and thunder crash and then a rush of rain against the windows that sounded like July rather than January. No additional crashes, so we went back to sleep. In the morning, the roofs were dripping. It apparently rained much of the night. Almost all the snow washed from the barn roof, and little canyons were cut in the standing snow by the running water. Everything was slushy and wet.

Tempeerature dropped for much of the day after rising in the night. We had fog, snow, drizzle, and ice pellets at various times. Wind chills dropped down to about 10F by sunset. And, of course, the wet snow turned to slick ice everywhere we had made paths through the snow.

Woodstove going now, and almost bedtime. I have no idea what comes next, though memories of that January tornado a few years back keep popping into my head. The weather really does seem to be out of whack.

Books arrived in the mail: Duncton Wood by William Horwood, and The Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad by Scott Trostel.

Off cold meds for the last two days, but still feel as if I were taking them. Groggy, sleepy, out of it. Fortunately, not driving.

Red appears to agree with me. Aside from eating, he has been snoozing much of the day.

Bitter cold outside, and nearly bed time.

Here's a photo of my newest locomotive acquisition, from EBay. It's a GP-35 from the late 1960s and painted in the appropriate manner for a DT&I locomotive. Runs nicely too.



And here's a sample of some of those psychedelic colors DT&I introduced in the 1960s and after. Yes, they really had box cars in magenta and in sky blue I've seen photos of a few that had apparently been in service for quite a while, and were pale and dirty.



And so to bed. Still no snow here, though they are promising four to seven inches during the day tomorrow. Always fun when there's no excuse not to make it to work, and then it becomes dangerous and nearly impossible to get back home.

Ugh at Dell. First time they've made me really peeved at them. Not over the quality or lack thereof in their products, but over their sales tactics. They send me flyers and catalogs constantly. This week we selected something from one of those and wanted to actually order several machines. Went to their website, and it showed a sale price even lower than the flyer, with free shipping, good only for a few more days. Tried to place an order. "Oh, you can't charge this item to your premier customer account. you have to pay cash or open a Dell small business revolving account." OK, so we filled out the application for the revolving account, even though we would still pay it off immediately upon receipt of the order. "OK, your account is approved." Wait, what about the order? "Oh it's been received and will be processed within 24 hours." So, 24 hours later, still no confirmation. "Oh, it was probably suspended because you ordered seven units and you can only have five of those." Note that it does not say this anywhere on the web site or in the ad flyer. So give us a quote for seven anyway. "Well, you're a government agency, so you have to order at the government price." Which, it turns out, is almost double the advertised sale price. Jeez, just to spite them, I oughta order these on my personal credit card account and let the library reimburse me. But I won't. I'm mad now, and will look at non-Dell providers.

The non-con crud proceeds. Hope it starts to subside by tomorrow. I have the day off anyway, but my brother will be in town and we want to have dinner with him.

Clear out, and temperatures dropping into the single digits. Woodstove on. Bed calling, but may decide to sleep out here near the stove.

Sleepy. Dog asleep at my feet, cat asleep on my pillow, and I'm drowsing trying to read. Gary's busy assembling a switchbox to control power options from two separate operator controls to four blocks of model railroad track. My contribution was attaching the eight slide switches to the panel for him, since they are tiny and have even tinier mounting screws. (And I have more patience with such things. He had already laid out the panel and drilled/cut the openings.)

[Brief interlude while I find a better stripper and finer hookup wire for him to use...]

It was darned cold last night. Rapid temperature drop after sunset went from about 24F to 9F by midnight. Our heat pump system isn't much good below 20F so that means woodstove, which always works but requires regular tending. At dawn it was back up to 19F outside, so there must have been a wind from the south overnight. Kept rising to just below freezing during the day. Tomorrow they say 40F with rain. Crazy weather. There is still 5 inches of snow on the ground. Rain will quickly turn that to slush that will freeze to ice, I'm afraid.

Since yesterday was too scattered and distracted for grocery shopping, we went today. Stopped at Aldi and scored some good bargains, but even more than Walmart, they are unusable for regular supplies. They just don't have what we use, things like bread flour, yeast, and a wide range of fresh produce. They are good and cheap for canned goods though, and seasonal specials like turkeys or hams. On the other hoof, I can't buy milk there because they only sell gallons and we won't use that much up before it spoils.

This morning I made apple pancakes, one of my favorite recipes though I only do it a few times a year because it's fussy. There was one Roxbury russet apple left, and it was perfect in this recipe. Peel and core one cooking apple, and chop the flesh coarsely. Then sift together 2 cups of flour, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, and 1 teaspoon of salt. In a large mixing cup, whisk together 2 cups of milk, 2 egg yolks, and 2 tablespoons of melted butter. Beat the 2 egg whites until they form stiff peaks but are still shiny. Stir the milk mixture into the dry ingredients just until combined. Fold in the apples and then the egg whites, and fry 3 inch pancakes on an oiled griddle (about 375F or so.) They are light and very tasty with syrup or yogurt on top.

Snow didn't accumulate much beyond what it was last night. Flurries all day today didn't add much, but wind definitely made drifts. Now it's dropping down into the bitter cold range, as usual following a serious snow storm here. May get into single digits, so we have the woodstove going full blast.

Scheduled vacation time for FCN, and also for next Wednesday when my brother will be in town on business and we'll have a chance to see each other. He lives in MD so once or twice a year is usually all we get.

Agreed to make a fursuit appearance as "the book wolf" for the city expo in March. That will give me an extra incentive to go over Argos so he's in top shape before FCN.

And that's about it for today. Tired, sleepy, cold... Tomorrow a guild meeting and a trip to a model railroad show in Schaumburg, so must catch up on sleep tonight.

Steamrollered by the long day again. Forecast of 4 to 8 inches snow over the next 24 hours or so doesn't ring true. I'll be surprised if we get 4. Right now it's clear and 42F outside, and while I realize that can change precipitously, I just can't see anything to support a major snowfall in this.

Tone ring replacement seems to have done the trick for the car. No more warning lights, no more wonky braking behavior.

Gas prices dropping again. Down below $3.40 in Marengo and even Harvard has dropped 6 cents since Monday.

And I'm ready for bed, I think.

Three, count them, three shipments of books sitting on my desk to be processed. Not a few of them had release dates for tomorrow. A couple of years ago, the distributors were sending us best sellers well in advance of the release dates so we could have them ready for people to check out on the same day that the bookstores release them. In the last year, though, they've been arriving just a day or two before release and sometimes actually after it.

We got the fifth Harry Potter book two weeks ahead of the release date, for instance. I cataloged our copies and locked them in a file cabinet to keep anyone from cheating. Seriously.

I suppose they decided that too many libraries were letting the books out into the wild ahead of time, but we never did that as long as we were advised up front of the official release date.

Anyway, car is scheduled for maintenance tomorrow, and I'm just as tired as I was last night. We seem to have some sort of low grade virus here. No heavy symptoms, but sniffles and congestion, occasional cramps, and tired feelings. Wish it would run its course and go away.