Snow storm photos

A few pics of the snow at my house can be found here in my Facebook album.

Weather

If you've been watching the news, you know we had a blizzard here today, with record one-day snowfall for the city and wind gusts up to fifty-plus miles an hour.

I'm trying to follow it via the web, but from my little house in the center of town it looks like a typical snowy day. I got out about 9:30 am and had breakfast, and all seemed pretty well. The ice storms of 2007 and 2002 affected me much more than this blizzard has.

But from what I hear, it turned to absolute pandemonium everywhere else by about 1 pm. There are reports of people who have been stranded on the interstates, turnpikes and in shopping mall parking lots for six hours or more. Traffic got so jammed up that the plows couldn't get through to clear the snow drifts off the streets.

My little cat Frannie got out Tuesday night and hasn't been seen since. I'm hoping she holed up under the neighbor's house or some other location, and I'll see her when the wind dies down.

Crap disposal update: I'm hoarding wall warts

I've filled two city-issued trash bins – 70 gallons each, I think – with crap I'm deleting from my house. Most of it has come from one room, that being the den. The recycling bin is also full.

I am now looking at a pile of 'wall warts' – those little black transformers that plug into a wall outlet to step down house current for USB hubs, CD burners, external hard drives and the like. Over the years, I have pitched out fried hard drives, CD burners that were too slow, USB v1 hubs and all sorts of other electronic detritus. But I have always kept the wall warts, and now I have perhaps fifteen of them that don't go to anything I currently own.

Years ago, I had one burn out, and I was able to replace it with one of matching wattage and amperage in my pile of leftovers. Since then, I've hung on to all of them, just in case I need to replace one again.

This is the kind of thinking that eventually led to me being knee deep in crap.

More crap goes away

Pitched a bunch more crap today, including old software manuals and dozens of CD-ROMS containing old software. (One was a copy of Windows 98.) I have a CD-ROM cabinet that was full this morning and is more than half empty tonight.

I still have a long way to go.

JohnX, I found another package of CD-ROM blanks, 16x write speed — it's never been opened. I put it in my car and I'll give it to you next time I see you.

Throwing crap away

I threw out some more crap today. Not enough crap, but it's better than no progress at all.

Random stuff

I'm actually a philosophical illiterate. I've never read any of the 'great' philosophers.

So I set about this week to read "Being and Nothingness" by Sartre.

I figured with a title like that, it would be right up my alley, but damn, it is slow going.

The truth is, I am just intellectually lazy. I'm not willing to make the effort required to satisfy my own curiosity.

I'm also reluctant to make the effort to clean up my own house. But I've had a burst of house-cleaning energy the past couple of days. I'd have to sustain this for a month or six weeks to get the house clean, and I probably won't last that long. But I have made progress in throwing some stuff away.

I have a tough time throwing away things that are still functioning, but that I no longer need. Today, for example, I threw away about eighty blank CD-ROMs. Some of them were seven or eight years old - 4x and 8x types. I used to buy huge packages of blanks, but I never burned enough CD-ROMs. I'd actually get rid of computers and CD-ROM drives before I'd use up all the blanks. So now I have CD burners that can use – I don't know, 56x, I think – but I had stacks and stacks of these ancient blank CD-ROMs. So, I threw them all out.

I also pitched four or five PC keyboards. I kept the best one I had, even though I no longer have any functioning PCs.

I have a chest of drawers I'm going to give away. I don't remember what I paid for it. I got it at Pier 1 several years ago, just to hold my overflow of clothes. It took up space I didn't actually have. I've decided now to cut back on the clothes and get rid of the dresser.

I'll mention briefly that the garage is still unfinished, 13 months after work began on it. I hope it will get done in January, but frankly I doubt that it will.

What do you do when you’re branded?

Not only am I tired of hearing about Tiger Woods, I'm tired of hearing about Tiger Woods' “brand.”

In fact, I’m tired of hearing about anyone's “brand.”

That meme has had ten years to run its course. Just let it go.

Also: I’m tired of hearing about “memes.”

Enthusiasm — I hate it

I'm not enthusiastic about much of anything. Moreover, enthusiasm in others frequently creeps me out. I have a friend who's enthusiastic about helping orphans in Africa, which has the virtue of doing some good in the world. The same is true of another friend whose enthusiasm is directed toward his vegetable garden and sustainable living.

But those two are overwhelmingly outnumbered by people who are enthusiastic about the NFL, American Idol or getting a Whole Foods here.

What the hell difference does any of that make?

I'd like this town a lot better if more people were like me — grumpy and apathetic.

But everybody wants to stay cranked up about all kinds of pointless crap. Anything to keep the adrenalin going.

Four cats and a dog

I've got four cats and a dog in the house. It's 19 degrees outside. Rollo is here, sedated by pheromones, along with the kittens, Frannie and Gastón, and their mother, Evil Kitty.

Evil Kitty doesn't even qualify as tame, but she always comes in the house when the weather turns cold and camps in the dining room.

I wish I knew where Grey is. I haven't seen him in several days. I hope the cat lady across the street has taken him in.

I don't like having this many cats in the house at once. They don't all get along, and the litter boxes fill up pretty fast. But I couldn't put any of them out to fend for themselves in this cold.

Rollo update — something that seemed to work

The pheromone collar seems to have really helped. Rollo is mostly back to his old self. He about bit Frannie's head off when she started pestering him, but other than that, he seems a lot calmer. He purred when I picked him up, which he sure as hell wasn't doing last night.

Rollo update

I saw my cat, Rollo, wandering down the street this afternoon. I ran out and grabbed him and brought him in, and boy, did he not like that.

He hissed and spit and growled at me, at the other cats, even the dog. He's never liked the kittens, but he never hissed or growled at me, and he used to curl up and sleep with the dog.

Rollo had a small 'hot spot' rash on his stomach which has grown and shrunk the whole time I've had him. I assumed he kept licking at it partly out of stress.

That rash is now completely gone for the first time ever. I assume that's due to a combination of cooler weather and what he perceives as a less stressful environment outdoors.

I went to the pet store and got him one of those pheromone collars, plus some cat treats. He growled and hissed while I put the collar on him, but he didn't try to fight me. The collar seemed to calm him down a bit, and he calmed down even more after I hand-fed him some treats.

We have a chance for some winter storm weather tonight, so I'm keeping him in. But I guess if it's going to completely stress him out to be inside, I'll have to let him stay out.

Transitions

Thinking about my artist friend whom I haven't seen in many months reminded me of some other transitions in my life and surroundings.

Dave, who I never wrote about here but who I saw almost every day for years, moved out of town months ago.

dzaster, who posted here regularly, left the state and was gone a couple of months before I knew she had left.

Ms. HRP finished my back yard and has moved on to other projects.

Rollo the cat has abandoned me. Sometimes I'll see him on a neighbor's porch or walking across a lawn across the street. If I pick him up and try to bring him back to the house, he growls and spits and hisses. He won't even come up on the porch.

I used to hang out every day at the Red Cup, but started going there less frequently this past summer. I haven't been there at all since mid-October.

Everything is temporary. Everything is changing. Nothing is permanent.

And there's no point or purpose to any of it.

I don't know. I don't care.

Actual headline on cnn.com this morning:

“Why has Paris Hilton disappeared?”

More pointlessness

Several years ago I had an artist friend who abruptly quit doing art, cut herself off from most of her friends and acquaintances, and occasionally talked of ending her life. Obviously she was depressed, but I think she had also reached a stage in her personal life philosophy that was similar to where I am now: pondering the pointlessness of the universe, and especially the pointlessness of the bustling human activity we are trained from childhood to revere.

I get a certain amount of satisfaction in thinking about the machinery of the cosmos being there just because it's there, and not there to comply with a party platform or an employee handbook or a story in the Old Testament.

But it makes it difficult to be motivated about anything.

I've lost touch with my artist friend, but I wonder what she thinks about this today.

Tiger Woods update

TMI.

Don't need to see or hear anything more.

Christmas music

The Christmas music now seems to be in full swing in restaurants and other public places. Time for me to go underground until New Year's Day.

Tiger Woods

I normally am not interested in 'celebrity news,' but I have to admit the stories developing about golfer Tiger Woods have caught my attention.

(Caveat: I don't know how much of this you or I should believe, since most of the info is coming from the tabloid press.)

First of all, I guess I just assumed that Woods had a pretty casual, 'nice guy' attitude toward women. The high school flavor of this stuff surprised me.

But what really caught my attention is the barrage of emails, text messages and answering machine messages that have become public. Did every one of these women collect documentation to eventually sell to the tabloids? Or to use to shake him down for money?

According to one story I read, even his wife demanded and got a $5 million payment.

I thought I was rather cynical about this stuff, but now I'm wondering if I was naive.

Two and a half years

I've spent about two and a half years now basically eating, sleeping and hanging out in coffee shops. And/or my back yard.

I'm wondering if there's something else I should be doing.

Probably not.

Blackout update

The power finally came back on about ninety minutes after my previous post.

Blackout

The power has been out on my block and the block to the east for about an hour. The utility company hasn't even shown up yet.