A Day In The Life

I TiVo both "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" because I like to watch them, but don't like staying up late or relying on repeats. Plus, being able to skip through commercials or the unfunny bits is nice. So yesterday afternoon I was watching the first "Colbert Report" back from the break, and Stephen Colbert was happily eating his ice cream. And I wondered why I still haven't found the flavor at any of my local grocery stores. So I went to Ben & Jerry's website, clicked on "New Flavors" and found "Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream". I love the description:

Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream is a decadent melting pot of vanilla ice cream with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and a caramel swirl. It's the sweet taste of liberty in your mouth.

Down at the bottom of the info page is a "Store Locator" and I put in our zip code to see if anyone local is carrying it at all yet. To my surprise, the only local grocery that is carrying it so far is the one grocery I never go to (because it's a little out of the way, not because I don't like them). I told hubby-Eric about my find (he's on Spring Break, sort of), and we went about our business until a few minutes later when hubby-Eric was at a loss for what he needed to get done. "What am I doing?" he asked rhetorically, and I responded, "Running down to the store to get me some AmeriCone Dream!" He immediately launched himself to the garage, and while I stumbled up from my chair to go after him, I heard the car pulling out and the garage closing. He was gone.

I stood in the garage in shock for a moment, never having thought he would take my joke even slightly seriously. I slowly went back to my computer, wondering if he was upset at me. When he got back a few minutes later, triumphantly brandishing the ice cream, I was grateful and a bit meek. We ended up having the ice cream for dessert last night. It was REALLY good. Nasty calorie level, but I planned for it, so it worked out.

...

This morning I got up at my usual time and jumped in the shower. I was rinsing my hair when it happened. I cleared the water from my eyes after the rinse and realized I couldn't see anything. Well, not clearly. The power went out while I was in the shower. I finished my shower, thankful that the water heater doesn't instantly cool the water when power outages happen, and went about my normal morning business as well as I could manage. No power means cold breakfast, which wasn't too difficult. No power means no internet, so I couldn't check my e-mail/blogs/comments. Annoying, but I could survive. No power means no heat, and that was a mild problem. The house was already chill because I hadn't turned on the heat yet, and work wasn't for another couple of hours. Light wasn't an issue, I opened the front windowshade and was able to read just fine. But I got more and more cold as I did so.

I considered driving to work early, but the van still has no heat (every time I get it fixed it breaks again) and if there was no one there I'd be no better. So I wrapped myself in a blanket and read "A Distant Soil", "Gone South", and "Unshelved Vol 1". Reviews coming. Along with a bunch of overdue reviews for Illusive Arts that I really ought to do soon before they think I don't love them anymore.

But this morning... no computer, no reviews. Just reading in the cold house. I finally left when I realized I could see my breath. The drive was uncomfortable because I started out cold and the van didn't heat up at all inside. I got to work a little early, but there were a couple of people already there. I stood in front of the heater until I'd thawed enough to start working while my co-workers expressed sympathy for my frozen state.

...

On the way home from work, I visited the comic shop as normal on Wednesdays. When I saw the stuff in my pull box I realized the shop had been shorted. Once again, a box "went astray" at UPS, and so over half the books hadn't arrived, including three of the four books I was in to get. However, the Doctor Who TARDIS 4 port USB hub had arrived! So at least the trip wasn't a complete waste (I can't get the freakin' twist ties out of the bottom of the hub, otherwise it ROCKS). I also turned in the Apr/Jun order form.

I intended to stop by McD's for lunch and get another Happy Meal toy for hubby-Eric, but once I was on my way to McD's I realized I couldn't stomach the thought, and headed home to make lunch instead. But I was still in a junk food mood to some extent, so I talked poor hubby-Eric into ordering out a pizza for dinner. Papa John's has a tax day deal, large pizza for $10.40, so we pre-ordered one for the time Eric gets home from his night job (which is why he's only sort of on Spring Break). All of which takes us full circle from yesterday's ice cream run.

Happy Solstice!

Yes, I'm finally part of the cool kid club! My ComicSpace page.

Speaking of cool, check out never-done.com. I'm intrigued.

Let's Kirbycise!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I'm so jealous of Bully. And he even had a good flight. Perhaps I could handle it if I went business class, but I sure couldn't afford it. Bully got lucky, as Heathrow is crowded now that many flights have been canceled due to freezing fog.

Four minutes of the new Doctor Who episode airing on Christmas:

The price of Chocolate. A ten-part story of how a single company "makes" chocolates that sell for far more than their value. I found the article riveting. Your mileage may vary. Via MeFi.

Aaron Williams let's us know that sometimes the angle makes all the difference when taking a picture.

LEGO squid launchers. For the first time ever I'm tempted to get Bionicle just to have a squid launcher. And they aren't just any old squid, either... they're hordes of vampiric sea squid!

Solstice.

Getting rid of microbes will help lose weight. To get rid of them? Lose weight. *sigh*

For the next power outage, I'm sorely tempted to invest in one of these. Enough to run space heater, fridge, freezer(?), and computers... it would keep us home and safe. And they apparently run under $1000. Of course, I don't know where I'm going to get that much money.

I've figured out how to turn my new cellphone into an MP3 player now. I can also access the web with it, but it's a clunky interface so I'll save that for emergencies. I also know how to put video on it, but watching video on that tiny screen seems a bit silly. All in all, it's a cool phone for what we paid for it ($0.00 + the calling plan I would have gotten anyway).

My parents have their power back! I guess we're having Christmas at their house after all! Last night's predicted storm was a bust... lots of rainfall but very little wind in our area. Another series of storms is coming through now, each predicted to be weaker than the previous. *whew* Merry Christmas, Seattle.

Status: Netless

Still no internet. I drove up to the nearest library that has power and internet to get on-line. The three libraries closest to us don't have internet... the Bothell library still doesn't have power. Hubby-Eric and I have been cleaning up from the outage, but have amazingly little to worry about. We lost almost no food, and what was lost was stuff we were near throwing out anyway. The only exception is our ice cream, which may or may not still be good. We decided to try to eat it and find out. We also got the insurance claim in for the car, and have a dollar estimate. Much more than I expected, but let's hope it covers the repairs.

During the chaos, we also got our new phones. We have a deal for new phones every two years, and they were having a two-for-one on one of the best phones Verizon offers, so we snagged them. We ordered them right before the windstorm, and despite next-day FedEx (free shipping) we got them three days later. FedEx had a few difficulties making deliveries during the storm and aftermath.

My old phone was wonderful. It was a phone and an alarm clock and nothing else. The new phone (LG VX8300) has a camera, camcorder, MP3 player, bluetooth (which I still don't quite understand), custom ringtones, and a number of other features that I probably won't use. My only disappointment with it so far is that it doesn't have a quick alarm (pre-set number of minutes or hours) like my old phone, so I can't just set the alarm to go off in an hour, I have to program the alarm. It's actually annoying, because that was the one non-phone function I used regularly on my old phone. But I think the fact that my new phone has a camera will make up for it. Mostly.

I have been learning how to sync the new phone with my computer, and I'm very pleased that I can use a program called BitPim to create a calendar and upload it to the phone. The only reason I never used the calendar feature on my old phone was because it took me so long to type anything on the phone's keypad. But if I can create it on my computer then upload... well, that takes care of that issue.

So except for no tv and no internet, we're doing well. The water even heated up enough to do laundry and dishes. Yay.

Hopefully the 'net will be back on by the time I get home. Hey, I can dream.

Good News, Bad News

So we called up a neighbor this morning, who confirmed we have power at our house! Yay! So we packed up and went home. The heat was already on when we got in, and the house was comfortable, if not warm. We went around checking on things, plugging stuff back in, and resetting clocks. Then we checked the cable/internet. Nope. Nothing.

The good news is: We have power! The bad news is: We don't have internet access!

Oh well. I'm going to survive easy, but I just want to make sure that nobody misses me while I'm away. We popped back down to the in-laws' house to get on-line and return some borrowed stuff. After I post this, I won't be able to post again until our cable returns. Could be two hours from now, could be two days, could even be two weeks (though I really doubt that).

Until then, here's the links I gathered this morning. Enjoy!

Bully's Fantastic Christmas Part 10.

The Perils of Colleen final part.

Bully's Ten of a Kind, logos that evoke the spirit of The Spirit.

Greg Hatcher also endured the Seattle windstorm.

Back from Bothell

Just got back down to Seattle from visiting our house in Bothell and grabbing some more supplies. I also chatted extensively with three neighbors who are staying despite the persistence of cold. I told all three that they could take any and all firewood stacked up around our house if they need it. We tried to use our wood-burning stove, the smoke filled the room. We need to have it checked before we use it again.

All three neighbors were happy with the suggestion that they take my firewood, and I kind of half hope all the wood will be gone by the time we check in again. Especially since two of the neighbors helped us mightily with the tree in our yard. For that help, they can have all the wood they can burn. And I have a feeling we're going to have to take down at least one more tree, if not two, before we get around to fixing the stove. So it's not like we need the firewood.

I also got promises from the neighbors to watch our house. They would have anyway, but now they know my name and face. So I think everything will be alright. I feel a lot better about the whole thing knowing the neighbors are watching. And it's funny how, in all the years I've been at that house, I know so few of my neighbors. But now I've met three of them in one day, and I'm not even staying at my house right now!

Not much else to say. I'm exhausted. I've got a bunch of stuff to do now, some of it even fun, so I'm going to sign out for the night at get to it.

Refugee from the Storm

I'm currently at the in-laws as there is still no power in Bothell. How do I know this? The Seattle Times once again didn't print an edition this morning... and their printing facilities are in Bothell. I'm not looking forward to cleaning out the refrigerator when I get home.

Local news reports say that over 1 million people in Western Washington lost power. King and Island counties were the hardest hit, with everyone in Island county losing power. Bothell, Lake Forest Park, and Kenmore were hit very hard in King County. Annoyingly, the Snohomish county side of Bothell had power last night, but the King County side was still in the dark. I've been keeping an eye on my power company's website in the hopes that they'll report when they plan on restoring power to our area.

Time for some pictures:

The trunk of the car is damaged enough that we can't open it, but the lights seem to be ok and the car drives fine. Getting the tree out of the driveway required some assistance from a wonderful neighbor (THANK YOU!) who helped pivot it onto the lawn and off the street and driveway. We've already contacted the insurance about the car, I think we may have to contact them about the food in our fridge (apparently, most insurance companies will cover up to a reasonable amount for food that spoils due to power outages, so I'll be checking that later). All told, I think we're in pretty good shape. It was scary, but we didn't get hurt and insurance should cover most of the problems we've got.

Thank goodness for the in-laws! Being warm last night was a blessing.

The Storm

I didn't sleep much last night. The wind was howling most of the night, and various sounds, including the deep "vooom" of transformers blowing, kept me awake. At one point I heard a thump and the tinkle of broken glass. It sounded like it was right outside our bedroom window. I tried to not panic and just listened. Eventually, towards morning, I fell asleep.

My phone alarm went off at 5 am, waking Eric for his school day. He got up in the dark, as there was definitely no power in the house, and hunted down the wind-up radio. We both listened until they finally covered school closures. Northshore - closed. Eric wasn't going to work today.

Next up was a quick look outside to see what had made the glass-breaking noise last night. It was still very dark, but the flashlight showed us a tree in the driveway, and a slightly closer inspection revealed that the trunk of the car had been hit by the tree. It was too cold and too dark to spend much time out there, but it looked like the damage wasn't too bad. We went back in and back to bed.

Several hours later, I got up and got dressed. I grabbed my camera and went out to get some shots of the damage to the car.

It was a bit worse than we realized.

After a cold breakfast we went on a short walk around the neighborhood to check out the damage. It appears that we were the only folks with a tree down in our immediate area, but there were lots of branches on the road and sidewalks, and roofs and yards and anything else that tree branches could land on. Most were small, a couple were bigger. We didn't see any obvious damage.

Went home, listened to the radio. The storm hit the area hard, and over 1 million people were without power. The hardest hit area, according to the news, was the Bothell/Kenmore area. Us. Right here. The storm was supposed to go a bit further North. It didn't.

I'll write more and post some pictures later. At the moment, our house is still without power and we're at the in-laws enjoying heat and internet and TV.

Here's the links I was gonna post this morning:

Bully's Fantastic Christmas Part 9.

Heidi does detective work.

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #81.

New Animated Star Trek series? Cool.

Da Weather...

Heavy, heavy rain (and I had to walk down to the post office to mail something today) and just now I started seeing lightning and hearing thunder... and we've had a couple of strong gusts of wind. If I don't post again tonight, it's because the power is out.

ooop, lights just flickered...