Short Notice And A New Year

So, I was insane and went to bed after 7am this morning, under the impression that I'd probably get about 5 or 6 hours of sleep, which is pretty average of me. But I received a call from my friend this morning at around 9am. I am supposed to go to his parents' houses today for belated Christmasses since the original dates were iced out.

However, I had been under the impression that these events were to be taking place in the evening. Actually, he had been under that impression, too. But I guess he just found out that his dad wants him at his house at like 1pm. So I am rushing around doing all these things that I thought I had practically all day to do.

So today is that, then tomorrow is the friend's birthday, then the day after that, is New Years Eve, I should be attending a small social event. And then a dinner on Sunday. Or lunch or something. With my other friend. Back here Sunday sometime. Picked up Monday at 8 or 9am. Go to Madison, Wisconsin. I'll tell you the plan from there when I'm there.

By the way, sorry about my sentence fragments, but my brain is partially sawdust this morning.

Happy 2005!

A PhotoTour of Sorrow and Doom

So it has been a few days since we in this region of Ohio had a big Ice Storm of Doom. That night, Wednesday night, I think it was, between 20 and 30 trees in our yard uprooted, snapped, or were otherwise damaged. We live in a forest, though, so we do have trees still standing. I took pictures:

Welcome to the Wood Family's Icedeath Extravaganza!

Yes, that is where I live. It is a nice place, really. Living in a forest is pretty lovely. That is, until there is a massive ice storm, or when it is very windy. Then you wind up living in terror of a tree hitting your home. It had never happened to us before, strangely. But we weren't so lucky this time!

You see, a rather tall tree in our back yard became insanely top-heavy from all of the ice and decided to give up the fight. It uprooted in a spectacular way and crashed into our back deck and kitchen at around 4am, catapulting us out of our beds and nearly pitching us head-first into Heart Attack Canyon. A terrible canyon indeed.

Surprisingly, the roof didn't cave in around my head, killing me in the process. In fact, the roof doesn't seem to be particularly damaged at all. Really, all this Killing Tree did was break a part of the railing, and the little sun-shade thing where my mom hangs up her potted plants in summertime. It also hit our satellite dish and broke a few decorative trees. But it could have been about nine hundred times more tragic.

But the back yard was not the only victim in this ice storm...

I am not sure if you can tell there, but that is the view out of the front porch, looking down the driveway. However, you cannot see down the driveway. That is, unless you have the ability to see through fallen trees! And for all I know - you might!

Three trees fell across our driveway, crushing the gate (as seen in the photo above) and snapping no less than THREE pine trees, much to my mother's dismay. My mother, you see, really loves her pine trees, and planted all of the ones on our property on her own.

Oh, poor little sad and broken pine trees! I think that one to our right is actually weeping for its dead friend. Sorrow!

Now, some of you from more reasonable regions of the world might not even be able to comprehend an Ice Storm. Even I can barely understand, but, essentially, instead of snowing, the weather decides to rain. Even though it may be 20F outside. Then the rain freezes instantly upon landing on anything. It coats all the limbs and twigs of each tree, it even coats each individual blade of grass. I assume it also coats animals and may even kill them if they stop moving. Freezing rain.

But I also noticed that there were times when it wasn't raining - but it wasn't snowing, either. The sky was spitting out what I can only describe as Ice Pellets. Little spheres of ice which were not exactly hail. They stuck to the ice that was already there. Also, it sleeted some. Which is along the same lines as everything else I've mentioned.

Here, at least, the ice accumulated until we had about 5 inches of the stuff over everything.

And as it is only December, and like a week ago it was in the 50sF, the ground is not frozen. So the trees get all of this weight up on the branches and simply overturn and DIE. It's so sad. But here, look, here is a picture of a sample of what all of the tree branches looked like.

Actually, the branches STILL look like that, as it has only gotten colder since that day. Last night, it was even -10F - without a windchill to make it colder. Although, I am certain that there was a windchill. I just didn't hear what that temperature would have been.

Anyway, this is certainly long enough at this point. So I shall thank you for reading this far. I am traumatized by the sounds of trees falling. And I am looking forward to springtime.

The End.

The Ice Will Kill Us All

I have decided to blog right now to take my mind off of the sounds of tree limbs snapping off and falling to the ground all around my house. It's somewhat harrowing to live in a forest at times like these. Windy weather gets scary, and today - the Ice Storm is upon us!

A few blog entries back, I mentioned that Wednesday the 22nd of December was going to involve me going out to a nice dinner with my friend and then getting dropped off in Cincinnati to stay with my other friend for a few days. Well, apparently Fate decided that my plans were not important and convinced Mother Nature to send a freak winter weather system my way. Cincinnati is getting hit with several inches of snow - they say anywhere from 8 to 16 inches of the stuff, I believe. And for some pleasant reason, outside of Cincinnati, in the direction I live, is getting fucked in the ass by hour upon hour of ice falling from the sky.

For those of you who have never been in an ice storm, I will describe it a bit for you. First, it's kind of pretty and neat. Everything is absolutely coated in ice, every blade of grass, every twig, every pebble. It's just really nice looking. But then, the trees begin to sag under the weight of it all. If the ice storm last all day, as it has here, there can be one or two or three inches coating everything, which is really quite heavy.

This is when trees snap, which they seem to be doing here. In fact, just then, I heard a tree hit the ground, a whole one. I can tell this because the house shook somewhat. And yes, I live in fear of the day when a tree decides to fall directly on our house. That would probably hurt. Also right now the electricity is flickering fairly often. I am guessing that the tree limbs are starting to hang low and hit the power lines, or maybe even the power lines themselves are getting stretched out of true by the weight of the ice. Either way, I may be plunged into darkness soon.

This would be a bad thing.

We rely on electricity to work our furnace which gives this house heat. It is 25F outside right now, and the weathermen say that it is going to be a high of 20, and the day after, a high of 11F. I expect that it would get very very cold very very quickly if this happens to us and we have no heat.

And we cannot realistically drive anywhere that does have electricity, because, as you can imagine, it is hazardous and not advisable to drive on roads that are covered with bunches of ice.

Ice is slippery.

We may be doomed!



...

Wow, I did a very good job keeping my mind off of the weather with this blog entry. But, I guess it serves a purpose. If you don't hear from me for a while, know that I am plunged into darkness. And if you don't hear from me ever again, assume that I got crushed by a tree.

:(

Christmas Has Come And Gone In Amandaland

I kind of like having Christmas before everyone else. My days of frantic gift-finding and such are long-gone during this week of everyone else scrambling heavily. Also, my sentences are probably going to be structured terribly because I woke up not 3 seconds ago. But that's not really surprising OR important. The two days leading up to the Wood Family Xmas were a bit frantic, really. I painted my fingers to the bone. I made these two paintings, one for my aunt and one for my grandma. Paintings of scenery. Not the most exciting subject, I know, but I make gifts to please other people. That's sort of the idea behind gift-giving as I understand it. Also, I like to have all kinds of skills. So it's nice to know that I can actually paint really nice landscapes and such if I need to.

Among the gifts I received, one stands out as the one that will probably kill me through sheer addiction. And that game is Sim City 4 Deluxe Edition. I have this weakness for sim games. And, actually, I have this obsession that has to do with someday establishing my very own city, as I feel that is a noble endeavor and not really done as much as it used to be. So, this Sim City is the most detailed and amazing Sim City to date, and I can't really imagine it being able to get any better, which makes me worry because I know that it will. And they will release the new Sim City exactly when I have shaken the addiction to this current one.

In summary: When I close my eyes at night, I can see little roads being built and little residential, commercial, and industrial zones being laid out.

I also received the usual heap of art supplies, which makes me glad. And DVDs of such classics as a Mighty Wind, the Royal Tenenbaums, and others. And also the new They Might Be Giants CD that I didn't even know was out at all. But I like it, so hooray. Also, I got a giant octopus stuffed animal in the mail that is simply amazing, and it sort of freaks me out. My friend and OMGJ reader, Scabs, got that for me. So nice of him!

Among my burning interests of late is the complicated act of Personality Sorting. I got the books from the library. It's the type of sorting that categorizes people into either Extrovert or Introvert, Sensing or Intuiting, Thinking or Feeling, and Judging or Perceiving. I personally am an INTP. Draw your own conclusions if you want to. I have also been administering the test to the other OMGWriters and Personalities. Perhaps someday I will make it known what they are, too. But it will have to wait until I figure them all out. It's no fun to just pepper a few here and there.

Well, maybe it is, but the slip of paper I have been using to figure them all out is across the room, and I am not inclined to getting up for it right now.

I think that's enough babble for now.

This Will Come As No Surprise To You

Tonight, I am leaving the Internet once again and going out of town until Friday night or Saturday morning. While at my friends' house, I hope to get 2 or 3 more paintings finished for our Christmas which will be on the 18th.

So, while I'll be back on Saturday, I won't really be back until later that night. And then, I will be too busy with my plentiful xmas bounty that I will be all busy and such. But I'll still be around the Internet again until midday next Wednesday, the 22nd, when I will be whisked away to a dinner and then to my friend's house until Friday when I will be attending Christmas Eve celebrations with that friend and his family. I may return the 25th or 26th. And then I will be gone again near New Year's Eve, as my friend's birthday is on the 30th, and then I will be leaving for Wisconsin on January 3rd.

Once in Wisconsin, I will be at various friends' houses for an untold length of time. But I think I will be allowed Internet Access, so hopefully I won't be completely missing forever and ever and ever. I am excited for this trip, and also for the upcoming celebrations and the upcoming new year. I hope to be in Wisconsin long enough to be involved with the Chinese New Year times, as I loves me some fine Chinese Lion Dancing. And the Kung Fu School up there that I know does excellent lion dancing.

I also hope that some of my friends will be able to visit with me while I am there, because I have recently realized that I might not have a great blast of fun during the 8 hour blocks my Wisconsinite friends will be working. Strangely, all of my friends up there are gainfully employed, and will likely be going to bed early since they have to get up early.

Bizarre. Unheard of!

So I am hoping that maybe some of my other friends would like to have a vacation in Wisconsin this January, so that they, too, can weep at the harsh, harsh winters they have up there. It will be all cold and terrible, that weather. But that's okay. I mean, WI in winter is my least favorite place in the world that I have been to, but at least I will be seeing my friends whom I miss dearly.

I sicken of this babbling!

End blog transmission!

Taking A Break When A Break Shouldn't Be Taken

So I am back from the stay at my aunt's house. Times were fine there, although I was a bit upset by the fact that I was near a computer with a high speed internet connection for four days, and yet I was severely restricted around it. For some reason that is completely unknown to me, everyone in my family believes that I routinely break computers. They believe that if I am left unattended on a computer owned by one of them for more than a few minutes that I will have uploaded several programs and viruseseses and their computer will be a smoking heap within a week. I have no idea why they think these things and it is endlessly frustrating when your family arbitrarily doesn't trust you like that.

So by the second day, I was finally allowed to check my email. But wouldn't you know it - my mom and aunt hovered around in the room until I was finished. Once, maybe the third time I checked, they did leave the room for about 45 seconds, as they were getting bored because I had several emails to respond to. However, immediately upon their return, the first thing my mom said to me was "You haven't been adding anything to that computer, are you? Betty says that your uncle will havea fit if you make anything go wrong with it."

I don't know how I kept my temper as well as I did. I believe I just responded in a very angry tone and she suggested that I need not "get snippy" at her.

The rest of the time spent there was relatively nice, however. I hadn't ever visited that house before, so it was new to me. I liked it.

I brought with me one of the paintings that I need to get finished this week, but I am a champ and forgot my paintbrushes. So I had to borrow substandard ones that didn't fit my needs, so I didn't work on it very much.

I really should be working on it now, but I decided that I should blog for you all since the others are still being pretty slack about it.

I think we might have to set fire to xv bones. Blogging isn't so difficult. He needs to get his shit together and just write something in there.

A Terrible Panic

Well, it seems that Xmas is approaching much too quickly. Especially my immediate family's xmas, which will be on the 18th. I have about 8 more presents to discover and purchase until then. I have been painting like a fiend. I think I'm on the verge of getting the carpel tunnel if I don't start letting my Working Hand relaxing more often. It seems to ache when I type. Or color. Or hold a pencil or paintbrush. Or turn a page in a book. Things like that. It hurts on up to my elbow in a slow, dull aching sensation.

Today, in a matter of minuites, really, I am going to Columbus, Ohio, to stay at my Aunt Betty's house until Sunday, I believe. I am not sure just how much access to the computer I will be having while there, but I do hope to be able to finish some of the 23595 paintings that I must do. And maybe, just maybe, I will be able to do article things --- ON ORDINARY NOTEBOOK PAPER.

Guilt can make a kid do astonishing things.

I must finish packing. See you all later.

PS - excuse my retardations in verb tenses and other grammar sorrow, but I don't feel like correcting them. I choose to leave them all in place to show just how tired I am. What with my going to bed at 6am and getting up at 10:30 and wishing for some sort of blow to my skull so that I might be able to be unconscious for at least a little while longer.

Gadzooks

The days are flying by. I thought I had blogged like 4 days ago, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I am thinking that the other writers here are stuck in a similar horrible time vortex, too, judging by the incredible lack of new material we've been providing. I think Jeremy and XV have been eaten by video games. Looking at XV's blog, he seems to have been dead for about 2 weeks or so maybe. I hope he resurfaces. With awesomeness. And Billymark. He has been a bit quiet lately, although he was never really known for contributing at a high volume. Trev has been keeping up with the blogging lately, which is delightful. But I can't even remember the last time he submitted an article or story. He should again. I should again, too. But my brain goes through these phases where it is sluggish and just wants to hibernate in a dry cave for 7 months. And things like "humor" and "intelligible sentences" and "paragraph breaks" just do not come easily to me. I'm not sure what it is about certain days. But on those days, hitting the Enter key for a paragraph just seems like too much work.

So, rather than working, I have been coloring in this coloring book for about 2 days now. I just can't get enough of it. It's called Pumpernickle the Pony at the County Fair, and it catalogs the events of the day when the pony untied himself and had a great day at the fair. He causes some pony trouble, and has some pony hijinks such as joining in a circus which also happened to be there because it was clearly the best county fair ever. Anyway, he eats some vegetables by mistake, not out of malice, but then this angry old lady is all "MY VEGETABLES!" and then starts chasing poor Pumpernickle possibly with the intent of making pony pie. I don't want to ruin the ending for anyone though, so I won't go any further. Suffice it to say that it is a great coloring book that has taken over my life and it's strange because I don't recall having any interest whatsoever in coloring books since I was maybe 7 or 8 years old.

I want to color some more again. And I DO keep meaning to write an article or something. But I don't think I can do anything at all until I completely fill up this coloring book. It controls me. I can't even play nethack because the coloring book controls me so. I am even reluctant to take breaks for bathing and eating and sleeping.

It is killing me.

But I love it still.