Right now, I'm sitting in the Denver airport. Shuld I be sitting in the Denver airport? No. I should be sleeping in with my cats, at home.
I was supposed to arrive home last night around six-thirty. I should have known that there would be a problem when my plane (United) was delayed an hour even when I checked in. Apparently, there was a crew delay, and they needed more rest between their last flight and this one. My guess is that it's either an FAA or union requirement.
OK, fine, I had left an hour and a half between connecting flights, ready for just such an occurrence. In theory, an hour delay would still allow me to make my flight to Cheyenne. But we didn't really take off when scheduled. There was still refeuling and flight checks to do, so we didn't leave until an hour and a half after the original departure time.
We touched down five minutes before my flight to Cheyenne was scheduled to take off.
Still, I went to the next airline to see if there was a later flight. There would be, but all flights to Cheyenne were cancelled because of weather, but they could put me on the 9:10 am flight this morning. And they did.
United, to its credit, paid for a hotel room for last night because the delay in New Orleans was a "crew delay." So I slept fitfully last night and got up at 5:00 a.m. so that I could take the 6:00 a.m. shuttle to the airport, so I could check in at 7:00 for my 9:10 flight.
But that was cancelled, too.
A number of the Cheyenne-bound managed to get on the shuttlebus, but they didn't have enough room for all of us. So here I am, booked for a flight this afternoon, and (laughably) on standby for an 11:00 a.m. flight.
I'm exhausted, and worn out, and I just want to go home.
My world is currently being coated with a blanket of cold, white fluffiness. I have to say, I really appreciate the snow a lot more when I don’t have to drive in it. I even enjoy shoveling—so much so that I came home (during my lunch time) to do it again!
It’s funny: I know a lot of people who have trouble working indoors and want to go outside and play. For most of them, the summertime is the worst time. For me, it’s the precise opposite. I’m easily distracted by the falling snow that I can see from my office window. It’s not even that I want to be outside in the snow, though that would be great. I actually just love walking around in the stuff. But I’d be just as happy holed up in my house watching the snow come down.
Oh well, at least I have my lunch time. Now that it’s over, I have to walk back to work. Through the snow. Awesome.
I just finished the novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics. It was quite good overall. I've actually started it and put it aside a couple times, but like many novels, once I got significantly into it, finishing was not a problem.
There was, however, a different problem.
For those who haven't read it, the narrator is a young woman telling the story of her final year in high school, which was a year before the novel's voice. It is liberally peppered with references to various books and other literary works. Some of the references are quotations, others are simple analogies.
Anyway, at one point the main character's father, a professor who moves around each year or semester, threatens to move their little family (it's just the two of them) to the University of Wyoming. This would be fine, except that he identifies it as being in "[a] town called Fort Peck."
Now, there's apparently a Fort Peck area in eastern Montana, but that's nowhere near the University of Wyoming. It's not even in the same state.
I have to admit, the novel lost a certain edge for me. Granted, I didn't know too many of the references anyway, other than the most obvious (e.g., I know who wrote the novel Lolita). But the error certainly did affect my ability to suspend my disbelief.
Of course, I've considered the idea that the father character deliberately misstated the location of UW in the novel, but that just doesn't ring true. First of all, the location of the university is really immaterial to the purpose for which it was being referred. Second, the lead character is meant to be at or near genius. And the father was at least her equal. So I can't see the benefit of being untruthful about something that she could easily already know or find out without a little bit of research.
No, I think it was a mistake.
Not, of course, that the novel didn't have other problems--I had issues with the dramatic plot turns in the last third of the book--but this was a big something to jolt me out of the immersiveness of reading. It was unfortunate.
But in any case, I still recommend reading the book. It's worth it.
So, I'm watching the movie Six Degrees of Separation, starring Will Smith, Donald Sutherland, Stockard Channing, and Ian McKellen. What's funny is when Will Smith is doing a monologue and going off about the nature of imagination. He talks about various imaginary things, and mentions things like Star Wars, oranges on pork chops, how imaginative!
Just as he looks at McKellen, he mentions the Lord of the Rings (all those dwarves, running around). Given McKellen's recent film career, it's a rather odd coincidence.
Many law-trained people have trouble watching lawyer flicks. Things like Law & Order become so wildly inaccurate once you have an idea of the real thing. (I haven't watched the show since I started law school.)
I just saw the classic Jimmy Stewart film, Anatomy of a Murder. It was pretty good, and pretty legally accurate. The theatrical trailer was great. But there was one thing that bothered me.
The film involves a man accused of murder claiming temporary insanity after learning that the victim raped his wife. Much of the trial is devoted to proving that his wife was, in fact, raped. Those familiar with the typical "blame the victim" tactics can imagine what form this took.
But it seems to me that there's really no reason to prove that she was actually raped, that she was telling the truth. That's not particularly relevant. What is relevant is the defendant's state of mind at that time. In other words, if a prosecutor wants to show that I had motive because I believed my wife was having an affair, all he has to show was that I believed my wife was having an affair, not that I actually was.
Of course, proving that the wife was actually raped enhanced the dramatic possibilities, and maybe in real life it would get more sympathy from the jury. But still, it didn't quite ring true, legally.
I think I've decided that my new furniture priority is a dining room set. My kitchen is beyond complete, and (while it looks stark) I have little day-to-day use for a couch or other lounging furniture.
On the other hand, I do like to have people over from time to time. And fitting more than about three (maybe four) at the little kitchen table I have is pretty trying. I'd like to be able to invite people without worrying that I'll go over my three-person limit.
So, they're now getting my full attention on the Craigslist furniture page. Now I just need to figure out how I'll transport whatever I buy.
Interesting weekend. And by interesting, I mean my motherboard apparently melted down Saturday night, as my PC was fried when I got up yesterday. So my Sunday was spent re-assembling my old system and installing Windows.
My old box was meant to be a server, but I have to actually get the 50ft network cable so I can put it in the basement where it belongs. The reason, other than space, is that it's extraordinarily loud. Plus, the external hard drive that has all my music is also, independently, really loud. But, for now, it gives me something to work on other than my laptop.
It also gives me a chance to install Vista Ultimate (you can use vista without a license for free for a limited time). I'll probably end up upgrading to Ultimate on my main machine eventually, just because I'll need the extra networking capabilities and other infrastructure features. But the thing that amused me most with Ultimate is that it has these "Vista Ultimate Extras."
At the moment, the only one I've really seen is Vista's idea of a Texas Hold 'Em game. It's served its purpose of being a short time-waster, but it's just not very good. For example, if I want to raise a bet very high at all, I have to click and hold on the upward arrow for, sometimes, upwards of a minute instead of just entering what I want to bet. It's absurd.
Anyway, I hope to hear back from Asus today or tomorrow about getting a new motherboard, and then I'll be back with my old system. Believe me, if the warranty service experience is not good, I'll write about it here.
Oh, and comments appear to be back up. If they go down again, please feel free to let me know.