Snowed in

Tuesday morning I got up to shovel us out so I could go get Ben and then head to work.myself.

Wasn't happening.  After an hour or so, I cleared the driveway enough to back out to the road.  I hoped I could get to the ruts in the snow where some SUVs & trucks had driven past ... but even in that I got stuck.  I managed to unstuck myself in only about 15 mins, then took another hour or so to finish the driveway.

Helped dig out neighbors, helped unstuck some of their vehicles.

About 10:00 Ben called to say a coworker's parent could get out of his drive and had offered to drop off stranded lifeguards at their homes.  About 10:45 the plow finally cleard our street.  Ben was dropped off about 10 minutes later while I was clearing the skred from the bottom of our driveway.

After helping a couple neighbors again I finally got back in the house just past noon.

Man, I am still sore.

Snow!

Ben needed to be picked up from work about 9:30ish tonight.  It's been snowing pretty fiercely all afternoon, so I figured I'd give myself a few extra minutes to drive slowly and left about 9:10.

I promptly got stuck at the top of our driveway.  And by "at the top", I mean 2 feet out of the garage.  But you know, especially on pristine new snow, it's deceptive how much drifting happens at the top of the driveway.  I cleared that away and sure enough, it was at least 12 inches deep there and less deep as you went further down the driveway.

So I got the car backing down the driveway ... and got stuck at the bottom of the drive.  I mean good and stuck.  Hit the snow on the road and slid right  into the curb in front of our mailbox.

As I was digging that out, Ben called from Tundra Lodge to let us know the hotel was putting up employees for the night because the roads are unfit to drive on.

Queue one of our neighbors getting stuck in the snow driving up the street.  Her brothers came out to help her get her car in the drive, then they came over and helped me.  By now Becky had come out to help clear our drive and dig our car out.  With the neighbors help we got the car half way up the drive.  I only stopped at 1/2 way up because snow had piled up on the rear window and, as I was backing in, I couldn't see where I was going.  Cleared things off, got back in the car, slid back to the bottom of the drive.

Ugh.  More clearing, got the car turned around, drove it forward this time and got it back in.  One hour in our driveway.  Ugh.

I'm really glad Tundra Lodge is putting Ben up overnight. I don't think I could have gotten across town to pick him up.

Merry Christmas!

Bob & Leeann hosted Christmas at their place.  Sherry & Ralph were there with all but two of their kids, Mike & Dana came with their kids and Becky & I were there with all our kids.  Full house.

Sam & Ben both had to return Christmas day due to their work schedules, so we went up Christmas Eve.  I actually worked Christmas Eve so Becky drove up early that morning and I left when I was done.

Christmas day was a wonderful time.  Opened presents, played with family, a big midday meal.  Then I brought Ben home while Becky & Tabby stayed with her parents until Sunday afternoon.

Christmas evening I had a great, long conversation on the phone with my parents.  Mostly I just kicked back & relaxed through Sunday.

Book Report: SeveNeves by Neal Stephenson.

You know a book is going to be good when one page in you're thinking, "Oh man, I can't wait to see how this turns out!"  I mean, first page of the book and Stephenson blows up the moon!  That first chapter is a perfect balance of the dumbstruck astonishment of an amature astronomer observing the event and scientific exposition of how it would actually look more like a fracturing than an explosion.

The destruction of the moon puts Earth on a very short clock.  Everyone is going to die that can't escape the surface of the planet.  So until that happens, there is a frantic effort to get as many of us as possible into space.  After it happens, there is an epic effort to arrive somewhere safe where human survival is possible until they can a return to the surface.  And finally, the book jumps 5000 years into the future to see what that return might look like.

It is every bit as exciting, as engaging as awesome as that first chapter promised.  The writing makes me wish I was better at writing myself just so I could appreciate more all the writing tools he uses that I remember learning about in my high school English class.  It makes me grateful that I had good teachers.  The prose flows flawlessly.  The characters are well developed engaging people.  The concepts he addresses are fascinating.  I love this book.

Neal Stephenson is one of those authors who I will always grab one of his books from the library and know I'm in for a good read.  This last year I read a book of his called Anathem that is easily the best book I've ever read.  Mind blowing.  If you read sci-fi, read that book.  Read anything by Neal Stephenson!

On the back of SeveNeves jacket there's a comment from the LA Times that perfectly captures what I think of Stephenson.  "For all of his achievements, Neal Stephenson's most impressive may be his ability to attract a following equal parts hacker and literati ... It's not just that his prose is smooth and often witty or that his intelligence is wide-ranging and speculative, but that he wrestles with concepts... in ways that would shame most 'literary' novelists."

Lost Friend Found

My family moved from Sandy, Utah to Wisconisin Rapids , WI when I was fourteen years old.  Instead of starting my first year of high school as a Jordan Beetdigger, I would be in 9th grade at West Junion High School.  It seemed like a big disappointment at the time.  Turns out it wasn't so bad.

That first day of school, for some reason, I had one of my Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks with me.  I guess that's how much of a dork I was.  In Mr Pittman's earth science class I sat at a table next to a kid who introduced himself as John Douglas.  Fortunately, he was just as much a dork as me.  He noticed the rulebook and made some offhand comment about also playing D&D.  We probably spent a good portion of that first class geeking out.  Then it turned out we were also in the same American government class, same English class, had the same lunch hour.

We became and remained really good friends until my family moved from Wisconsin to Arizona a few years later.  In fact, John was the last friend I visited before moving.  He still had one of my D&D manuals they day we were leaving.  I had to get it back.

The Summer after moving to Arizona I came back to visit Wisconsin for a couple of weeks and by happy coincidence, it was the same week of John's wedding!  One of the coolest things we ever did together was for his bachelor's party.  John's younger brother threw it for him.  Mostly, I think, as an excuse to convince Mrs. Douglas to turn a blind eye to him drinking.  Only four of us were there.  John, me, his brother and a friend of his brother.  They broke out the booze and sci-fi flick about a radioactive monster.  Neither John nor I drank, we weren't interested in the movie, so we ditched his party.

We drove from his place in Vesper into Rapids, stopped by Copp's to talk to another friend who was working.  Drove around a bit more then heading back to Vesper decided to stop and climb the water tower.  It was a beautiful clear night where we were, but there was a pretty intense lightening storm off on the horizon.  It made for an impressive lightshow.  We just watched it and talked.  For hours.

Then I went back to Arizona.  We lost touch.  That was easy to do in the days before e-mail and Facebook.

Sometime, I don't know, just after 2000 ... like 2002 or so, John somehow found my e-mail address and we got back in touch for a while.  I was in Manitowoc, he was moving to Minnesota.  We actually lost touch again pretty quickly.  Turns out that's easy to do even with e-mail.

Every so often, though, I'd wonder what John was up to and Google his name.  Last week I finally found his online presence.  I commented on his site, got his email address again and have got briefly caught up.  Maybe we'll stay in touch this time.

Band Concert

I sometimes play Magic with a group of folks.  We officially get together every other Wednesday night for a few hours.  It's a lot of fun.  Not everyone makes it every time, but somewhere around 6-10 usually do.  I'd like to make it every time, but realistically I shoot for about once a month.  Today was going to be that day for me ... but Ben had his Christmas band concert tonight.

The concert was good.  I mean, it was a high school band so it sounded like a high school band.  On the final number, a piece called Winter Storm, or something like that, Ben got to play timpani and he sounded fantastic.

The concert was really short.  In past years, each of the school's bands played about 15-20 minutes or so.  It would last a total of about an hour.  There's just not room in the auditorium to accomodate all the attendees, though. So this year they split it up.  The auditorium was a little over half full for the one band and they got to play for a full 1/2 hour.

Last year Ashwaubenon approved a school funding referendum to build a new auditorium.  It should be done by next year and will have the capacity to support a concert with all the bands again.  It'll be nice.

Yay Christmas!

We finally got our Christmas tree up on Saturday.  Bought some new strings of lights 'cause our old ones had too many burnt out bulbs.  I even got some extra lights to put on the bushes outside this year.  I've been waiting for it to stop raining to put them up.

Finally got some Christmas shopping done.  Most of it done, in fact, on Amazon.  There were some frustrating moments when I wanted my order shipped to multiple addresses.  Amazon didn't really make it clear that the "Next" button (or whatever it was called) actually sent the item.  I assumed it would direct me to a "divide up your order" screen.  Turns out I was already on the "divide your order" screen ... you just had to know where to look.  I guess now I do.  I also know how to correct an erroneous address.