over on facebook.

(Do spoons for specific topics exist? if so, I've used up all my spoons that would help me search for 'spoons')

So I've been telling local folks about depleting one's spoons, and wanted to give them a link.  I can't find the post (by piranha? porcinea? serene? firecat? someone else?) with the definition/description, and the link to the original.  By a woman who I think I've met, whose name I can't remember.  Someone want to help me out?

Must be a low-spoon day.

A perfect day!

Thank you, everyone who came and did marvelous work on the cabin, and hung out and made food and ate food.  It was truly splendid. 

(note: crossposting)

This looks promising:

http://wave.google.com/
(There's currently an 80 minute demo there, just so you know - I watched it in bits over a day)

I'm not interested in it for all the bells and whistles, or even for the largely open code and the hope that everyone and their grandmother will write cool programs that interface with it.  Although I'm sure all that will provide an endless amount of amusement, as well as some large bucket-loads of  functionality that I can't even imagine.  I don't have any idea if it will completely change the way we communicate, as they seem to hope/imply.

What I'm most interested in is just the ability to have conversations that aren't owned by one person.  Someone starts a particular 'wave', sure.  But anyone jumps in anywhere, and it seems to thread and branch pretty well.  I'm not sure how easy it will be to keep track of a 500-post conversation, and I didn't see anything specific about "mark as read" or a similar way of keeping track where you've been and where you haven't been (but I have asked them to look into it).  It looks plausible.  

Anyone with more knowledge of these things have comments?

Check out my friend Serene's new amazing magazine:

http://42magazine.com/

Actually, this is the first issue, and I haven't read it - but the cover is stunning (do click on the link), and if I know anything about Serene and her colleagues, the content is going to be equally amazing.  I'm looking forward to it.

Fairpoint took out my DSL.  I'm betting that, anyway.  Mom's is out, too.  When I called at 6:50, they said they were having trouble with my type of modem and they were going to try a "global fix."  And that I should call back in a few hours for an update.  I called back after about 3 hours (modem still not working) and they said they'd ship me a new modem.  They were doing a whole bunch of changes and "upgrades" over the past few weeks, and I'm guessing that at 5:30 this afternoon, they "upgraded" something such that it now refuses to talk to my modem.

So, don't expect me to be posting a lot between now and next week.  Not that I normally would anyway.....

Maybe I'll do some solid stuff for the next several days, instead of electron handwaving.  There's a novel thought.

So.  There's this Really Important Software that I was trained to use today, having to do with emergency stuff.  It will only run in Explorer.  Explorer, apparently, is no longer made for macs, and the more recent macs (OSX) won't support the older (available) versions of Exploder.  Or so some web page or other told me.

I could complain to the manufacturer of the Really Important Software, or to the people who have purchased said software and have disseminated it throughout the region.  And I probably will.  (Exploder?  Really??  Couldn't they have gone for a civilized browser?)  But complaining won't actually do much of anything, and certainly won't get me access to said Really Important Software before the next ice storm hits.

So, you net gods and goddesses - who's got a way for me to use Expldr on my mac?  Do I have to resort to Parallels (which I'm suspecting is, itself, a bit antiquated), and use a non-mac version of IE?

Of papers.  Not counting what's at the office at school.
This is what comes of not filing anything for over ten years.  Well, okay.  Periodically I've filed stuff, but the file folders are in the boxes and drawers too, in no particular order.  And I should go through all of the filed stuff anyway, throwing much of it away and combining duplicates.

So, who wants to bet what odds that I can overcome my packrat genes and burn at least 75% of it?  (Maybe I should offer prizes for whoever comes closest to predicting how much I get rid of?  What should the prizes be?)

First, I need to finish the pile of "do this now" papers, but that's down to a few inches, and mostly consists of the binder for the adoption agency.  Then... what.  Start on whatever box is closest?  

I guess I don't have to worry about kindling for the wood stoves for the rest of the winter.

From my friend debbiethedogged  - to my student friends who've struggled through the Writing Requirement ... and everyone else:

a story

Does anyone know how to get a username and password in order to comment on the change.gov discussions?  I've been trying to figure it out for a while, now, and I'm getting very frustrated.  I've sent them two queries, but not gotten any response.  There are places all over to log in, but if I don't have a username I can't do that.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Wondering who among students (and others) are sticking around through the winter break.  If you're just sitting around watching the snow pile higher and higher, maybe we should think about all getting together for an evening or something? 

Another Ice Storm bit of trivia:  Mom was delighted the other day to see one of the many line crews drive by with a Canadian flag waving out the window.  We got crews from all over the place (Ohio, North Carolina, Canada, Maryland...).  We're back up, now, so either they've headed home, or over to NH for more work.

Thanks, everyone!

The local power company reports via their web page (updated every 15 minutes, according to them) that there are only 4 houses left without power as of now.  They're all supposed to be back up in an hour.  That will be great.

Remaining will be individual homes that (1) the crews didn't know were out when they went by and (2) owners/renters didn't call in and say their power was out.  I'm not sure how to find those people, but Vermonters are resourceful, so chances are they'll all take care of their own problems.

Tomorrow: more phone calls to my list of 30 or 40 people in town who might still need some help.  Chances are, they don't.  Terribly self-sufficient, these folk.

And then, ten inches of snow!

Happy winter, everyone.

-AT
(note: when I said earlier and maybe elsewhere that this is what we do for fun, I was serious.)

Got back power at 7:05 pm.  Only 139.5 hours after it went off.  That was easy.

Well, actually, it was a helluva lot of work, I'm wiped, and I'm heading off to bed shortly.

But it was also a whole lot of fun. 

There are still houses in this town without power, I'm sure, and the town directly South is even harder hit than we are, I think.  But hopefully most of our town's residences will have power within the next 24 hours.  Then I'll check out our neighboring town and see if they need any help.

But first, sleep.  And then, a break! - going to have breakfast with lorres , where I will be out of range of the pager.

How are y'all?  Anyone in my neck of the woods without power?  (Do post, with your gas-powered computer.)

My dialup from the firehouse went down when I just tried to post.  Hopefully it'll stay up long enough..
Ice is still on all the trees.  Might melt off tomorrow.  Hopefully before the wind blows more trees across roads and tears down more power lines.
Power is making its way up the hill thanks to the power company.  They might actually have it to the college by this evening, but I wouldn't count on it.  
My house is nice and toasty... if I'm ever home (although I still don't have running water or lights - no electricity and probably none for a while).  The firehouse is good, although our DSL keeps crashing.

Anyway, I just talked to Ellen and she says the students who are still at the college are doing well.
I'll give you updates... when I can get online.

Hi everyone,

If you're thinking of coming up the hill to visit me, or the college, or anyone else in this immediate area, wait until Monday.  Or maybe Tuesday.  The local power company will have South Road closed for most of tomorrow.  They'll be letting emergency traffic through, so if we really need an ambulance we'll be set.  

I'll be running around all day, checking in with people around town to make sure they're ok and have heat, water and food.  I assume the power company will let me through.  Maybe I should by a huge light bar for my car?

Now I'm heading home to the warm wood stove and the dark.  Ta!

We've had a massive ice storm, and the power is out all over town (most of the phones are out, too) and not expected back for days.  Our intrepid road crew managed to get most of the roads passable by working all day (probably starting at 4 am, knowing them); they're just about to stop for the night (it's 7 pm here).  We've got our Emergency Operations Center open, though we'll close it for the night any minute now, and open it up tomorrow morning.  My connection is through dialup, stealing the FIrehouse phone line.  (Hey, is that legal?)

The college kids (I checked over there at lunch and at dinner, when they were likely to be in the dining hall) seem to be overjoyed that the power is out.  I hope they stay warm tonight.

I'm fine.  In fact, my house is delightful because, of course, we never heat with anything but wood anyway.  The oil lamps give a nice glow to everything.  And, there being no power, there's no reason not to sleep for a nice long night (I could really use it!)

But first, I have to go out and check on another older citizen - I can't find her, but suspect she went to her sister-in-law's house.

I hope y'all are staying warm!

Check back in with us in a week or so - we'll probably have power again.

An aside at fivethirtyeight.com:

"Technically, Obama will be sworn in January 20, 2009, but nobody disputes that an impotent George Bush has essentially curled into a fetal ball in the face of the massive economic crisis and that Obama is acting as de facto President."

Two ducks!!

A few of you might know that my ducks, who insist on living in the unsafe region of my pond, rather than up by the house, have been disappearing.  I've been pretending to myself that they've been flying south for the winter.  Last I knew, we were down to one male.  I'd seen him three or four days ago, and noticed that the food was disappearing once or twice a day, so I figured he must still be around.  I hadn't heard the female for a week or so (female mallards are very loud), and she always used to respond when I called down toward the pond, so I figured she was gone.

Then I heard a quiet quacking outside the door a few minutes ago, and went out with some more food - and there was the couple!  I don't know why the female is being quiet.  They ate a lot.  The male let me pick him up briefly (admittedly he didn't seem pleased).  They waddled the whole way down to the pond when they were done eating, which I find odd - wouldn't the time of year when you're supposed to fly south not be a good time to be unable to fly?  I'm moving the food closer and closer to the new duck hutch that black_muzzle  built, and hope that in the next day or two I can shut them in without overly stressing them out.

I haven't got three plump partridges, four Limbrick oysters, or eight elegant elephants, either.  And I actually have ten big fat hens (fat if you include their fluffed out feathers), not just one.

But the two ducks thing.  I'm very pleased about that.  And today it's raining (cue music: 'Pray for rain, pray for rain, pray for raaaaaain, because rain is a duck's kind of weather') - so they must be pleased as well. 

Time to stop procrastinating about that Important Writing thing.