Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Not sure whether I should've limited access to this post or not. I'll probably make up my mind after it's too late.

I just finished editing the abc file (and generating a PDF) for a tune I've been working on -- John and Jim helped me with the chords at Homespun Ceilidh Band rehearsal a few hours ago. It's called "Dishes in the Sink and a Song in My Heart (or, Thank You for Coming to Dinner)", and it's a jig. It's pentatonic, and the mode changed sometime during the time I was composing it, so I had a little trouble figuring out what key signature to use for making up the chords (though it seems so obvious now that I've got chords for it). I stuck the PDF in a temp directory on the web for my bandmates to grab it if they want.

Tuesday night on the way home from Thrir Venstri Foetr rehearsal, I saw a really impressive shooting star. It was a huge fireball rather than a streak, and it finished with a green and yellow *foof* in the sky. (Uh, that's a purely visual *foof* -- not a foof-sound.) First thought: "Wow!" Second thought: "I'm supposed to wish on one of those, aren't I? Such a spectacular meteor needs a really important wish." Third thought: "I want to be with [XXXXXXXXX]!"

Next thoughts: "Uh oh. I've been trying to not want her. I've been trying to get over her. If that's the wish that pops into my head, I'm obviously not succeeding. Wow. This is probably important."

That's kind of scary.

(Especially considering how confusing my current love life is, which is particularly odd considering that I more or less don't have one, but it manages to be confusing even in its absence. Jeepers, my life is strange.)

It has started snowing in Baltimore. This is predicted to be a fairly fast-moving storm, finishing around noon (IIRC), but dropping three to six inches (seven to fifteen cm, for my Canadian reader(s)) of snow on us. I'm not sure how much of that will stick in the city -- it felt like it was above freezing (maybe 276K, but that's just a guess) when I got home just after 23:00, while it felt like below freezing in Silver Spring when I got into the car. I'm sure the temperature's below freezing in Baltimore by now, but I wonder whether there's any significant difference in road surface temperature between here and the suburbs.

The other question is whether they'll declare a Snow Emergency in the morning. If they do, I'll probably sleep through it, so I should move my car to a side street now. On the other hand, they don't get around to plowing my block for a while...

I'm also thinking that it would be cool to photograph the snow falling on the Inner Harbour. Maybe a bit of flash to bring out the snow in the air near the camera and a long exposure for the night scene of the background. Which raises the question: if I run down there with a camera and a tripod, are the police going to want to ask me a bunch of questions again? Will saying, "Detective so-and-so already spoke to me -- call the Criminal Intelligence Division to check" work the way the detective said it would? How far away from the World Trade Center do I have to be for them not to think I'm photographing it? (Note that I was pointed so far away from it last time that even with a 24mm -- wide angle -- lens it doesn't show up in the picture, but they said they stopped me because I was taking pictures of that building. Also note that if I were to go out on my 2nd-story roof, I have a lens long enough to photograph the upper floors of the Baltimore World Trade Center from my house ... I don't think anything else obstructs my view of it from here, anyhow.)

This snow isn't expected to stick around long -- given the forecast for Saturday, I figure it'll all melt then. And I'm not sure just how badly it'll affect traffic -- salt trucks just went past on Fulton, and I figure Lombard might get salted before dawn; and plows are out there, waiting -- but at least one nearby school system has already cancelled classes. It is a significant amount of snow for this area in such a short time ... maybe not amazingly impressive, but more than enough to count around here ... and more importantly it's the first snowfall of the season, the time when lots of people act like they've forgotten that they somehow managed to survive last Winter and the Winter before that and the one before that. If it's three inches and the plows keep ahead of it, things could be just a little slow. If we get the whole six inches and not everything is clear at rush hour, it'll be a mess. Fortunately this is mostly idle curiosity for me -- the only place I have to drive will be the photo lab, and I can put that off one more day if the roads are really stupid.

Okay, I'm still not remembering what else I thought it was important to mention here, so I guess it's time to either go to the harbour with cameras or go to bed.