Kathleen Sharon Ervin Booth's Journal

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Not the usual scenery in the morning.....
Come out of my house to walk to the bus stop (across the street). There's cop cars blocking the roads north and south of the bus route. A TV camera is pointed at one of the cop cars, then the TV car drives off. An SUV comes by asking if I'm "waiting for a bus or a ride to a warm bus". Well, that's most odd, but he looks happy I'm waiting for the bus and drives on.

I ask the cop next to the bus stop what's going on. He's "not at liberty to say" but it's on "the block over there" and I should be "safe standing here". Well, I never before considered if I wasn't safe at the bus stop!

When the bus comes I find out they have the entire couple blocks across from our house cordoned off with cop cars sitting in the cross roads. (From Silver to Brighton, the focus seems to be on Mitchem in the middle, for those familiar with the area). Also, the shopping center near where we are? Yeah, caution tape, 3 MTD buses (which I find out from the driver are called out if they are expecting evacuations or similar--ie, a warm bus is a warm place to go), at least one SWAT vehicle and supposedly 2, and a couple ambulances.

I didn't see anyone near the vehicles, so my guess is they're over in the block across from my house. The only thing the web has is an "apparent standoff", but it's been going on for 3+ hours now, since the bus driver first saw it a bit before 7.

What a way to start the morning!

Update 1: Chatting with Jon from work, as he's home sick, he thinks he saw another law enforcement van go by. A black unmarked van w/lots of radio antennae looking like folks with badges inside that was let into the area. One of the cops also peered in a car trying to leave the area.

Update 2: Sunnycrest looks to just be a staging area, and it's a domestic disturbance call where someone might be armed. http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2009/12/11/police_block_streets_in_urbana_on_report_of_domestic_incident

Update 3: 10:30 Jon reports the cops are gone.

NaNoWriMo Validated!
Finished NaNoWriMo. Almost made it before Thanksgiving. Didn't make it before I had to take a pause to prep for family.

Good time at Thanksgiving, went well, and I was close enough I finished it off tonight. Well, the word count. Despite the fact my word processor was at 53K before NaNo's would admit to 50K. Grr. Now to finish the story....

Samsung charger--yours?
So...we found a Samsung Travel Charger in our den. It could have been there a very long time.

Is anyone missing a cell phone charger? Or a charger for something else? I emailed the likely suspects who all claim they aren't missing a charger. So now I'm broadening the audience...

4 years....
I kinda missed posting this on the date, but well, I don't feel too bad about it. :P

A little over 4 years ago I got to have a great big party with lots of friends and family who came in from all over.

A little over 4 years ago Jon and I stood in front of all those friends and family and promised for the rest of our lives we'd be both friends and family.

So far, so good!

I...have joined a club
I have found a club at Uni I have joined. I knew of this club, but previously it did not meet in the library and it did not meet upon the day I eat lunch alone.

I found out last week it meets on my good day. I now attend...Manga club.

The entire club meeting is time to read manga. That's it. With the donation of the outgoing manga club president's library of manga (100ish volumes) there is much to read in the library.

One also gets to eat in the library. As long as the club cleans the table and the librarian doesn't see anyone getting food on books (because food brings bugs and bugs eat books then books are gone).

One hour a week, structured time. Structured to read manga.

I have joined a club.

Flip Camera PSA
Flip Cameras are becoming very popular. They claim ease and simplicity.

If you use a Mac, and plan on using anything but the Flip software for editing (which is highly limiting, and, well, a Mac comes with, y'know, iMovie which is better...) *please* do some research first.

iMovie '09 only works easily with some Flip cameras. (And not with the Flip, which is what we have. There are rumors it works with Flip HD. I cannot deny or confirm. Also rumors iMovie '08 works. It wouldn't surprise me for Apple to have broken something that worked). S

The codex that ships with the Flip (since it's format isn't read by anything as far as I can tell) I don't suggest. I don't know if it's still a security-hole not good, but I know it's a crashes-Final-Cut not good. I didn't try it with iMovie.

These nice simple easy cameras are proving to be a major pain. They are requiring the conversion of the files into another format before they can be edited. Adding that step makes them not the simple, easy, no training required cameras they make a fuss about being.

Just a warning.

I am awake. This is not happy.
I have to be up early to get to work early to set up for an all day event with 190+ attendees + vendors for which I am one of 6 people running it. This is the first time it's been put on, we'd really like it to be recurring.

Yet I can't sleep.

I suppose the need and the block are probably the same thing.

Radon Mitigation - Know anyone?
So, unfortunately, our long term test results came back, and we HAVE to do something about the radon in our house. It's not a margin of error thing, it's just bad. Next time I see our neighbor's I'm going to suggest they get their house tested (and if they have pick their brain for how they fixed it).

Anyone have any recommendations for people who work in the C-U area? They may work state-wide, I'm unclear what's a "normal" range for such companies.

Thank you!

Whew, what a couple of weekends
( Labor day )

( Motorcycle! )

( basement. Ick. )

( and funerals. )

And...that's the current state of the me.

Car Saga - finished (at least, I hope!)
Picked the car up from the body shop last night. Nice and shiny and non-damaged looking. They put the bumper protector strip on in a slightly different place and it no longer says "Twin City Honda" but that's the only differences I see.

Other guy's insurance paid for the entirety of it. No problems, no hassles. Closest hassle was the other insurance company couldn't figure out our contact info so had to wait for us to call them. Went more smoothly than I hoped, actually.

So, all good!

Fit, Fit!

(Sorry, no pictures. It's raining out there! I suppose I could just re-use the first one.)

Boom Boom Boom
Mother Nature says Hi! (And lights up the place for good measure).

It's a good time to go snuggle down in bed and listen to the storm.

D&D book listing?
Does anyone know if there is a complete (or close to it) listing of D&D RPG books over the years? The gaming books, not the novels.

Wikipedia comes the closest, but I know modules are listed on at least two different incomplete pages. I am not sure if together they cover them all or not. One of them is also formatted such to make it hard to cut & paste a non-space-intensive list to print out & mark up. I can if I need to, but it'd be easier to not be pulling from 5+ pages and hoping they fill in each other's holes.

I found such a listing for the Star Wars D6 books, so I am surprised I can't find it for D&D.

Someday, I *will* have a new stove
We have been supposed to get a new stove for the last two years. Thanksgiving approaches.

( Saga of stoves )

Why is it so hard to buy things?

WAAAAAAAAAHHHH!
@10 days and 2 hours.....

(No one was hurt. I was parked at the time. Coming out of a friend's house just in time to see someone back into me. *sigh*

If the insurance company explains to me AGAIN in very small words that they cannot pay for a rental car because I did not pay for that option on my insurance I am going to beat the phone on the table. We really don't need it explained 3 times. We KNOW. We aren't going to yell about it. It's FINE.

We did at least track down the tick-tick noise Jon kept hearing, since the dealer couldn't. The circle you can see? Yeah, it covers the emergency tow. It also doesn't stay put any more. Flaps out and dangles and hits the bumper. Tick tick tick.)

Voom Voom!
Or, as Jon says--Fit Fit!

Has anyone run these statistics?
As I mentioned before, we're looking for a new vehicle.

I have come to a conclusion about modern cars.

VISIBILITY STINKS.

On the MPV, I have nearly a 360 view. The driver's side blind spot (if you take into account glancing over shoulder and the mirrors) is tiny--smaller than most cars. I can see what's around me, I can see what's coming, I can see where I'm going in all directions.

On the new vehicles, visibility is much worse. I'm only talking around the car visibility. I expected (though I don't like) the lousy visibility due to losing height. Out the driver's side I can only see the closest window--the back window isn't even visible around the pillar, let alone visible out. The blind spot seems huge. I am not comfortable merging or passing because I can't see where I'm going out the sides. The mirrors, while larger respective to the car, aren't any bigger than those on the MPV.

These cars all have significantly better crash ratings than the MPV. I suspect part of that, especially forroll-over, is due to them shrinking the windows, fattening the pillars between windows, etc.

I wonder, though. Is the expected damage/injury actually lower? IF a crash occurs, these cars are safer. However, does the crappy visibility increase the chance of an accident enough to offset that?

Kittens!
Our current batch of kittens.

Scooter: (The active one. If there is a tabby, I am convinced the active one will be a tabby)

Daisy: (The calm, people-cat. Cautious, but likes people)

Yeller: (A cat person would describe him as "talkative". I wish I'd had a picture a few days ago--he's starting to look like more than "ball of fluff". Not by much, though!)

Tinkerbell: Mom. Barely not a kitten herself. INCREDIBLY demanding of attention. Jon had to hold her so she'd stay far enough away I could get a picture.

New car?
Despite the fact our car came back with a clean bill of health (ok, admittedly, I'd have felt better if they'd found a leaky hose or something) Jon discovered the government is offering rebates on buying cars with better gas mileage. To the tune of several times the value of our car. So we're car shopping. Him gleefully, me grudgingly.

( Car musings )

Last Weekend -- wedding & Cars
Went to St. Louis last weekend for

poppins17 and

aabassplayer's wedding. It was an adventure!

( weekend )
The wedding was BEAUTIFUL. The weather was actually great--nice cloud cover to keep it cool and no rain. The ceremony was so them. The men wore hoppies (I hope I spelled that right. Short kimonos with pants) which were neat. There was purple everywhere! I didn't know Jess had such a wonderful voice.

( more weekend )
I actually relaxed enough to stop stressing about the car. I don't do well with problems like that when I'm not in my home-place. It was nice to quit worrying about it for the evening and just enjoy friends, some I haven't seen in years, others I met that night. Now if I could just figure out who the C-U folks were we met & maybe how to connect....

( just a bit more )
While the weekend didn't go at all as planned, we at least made it to the most important part--the wedding, and had a good time.

Oh, and "sushi" appetizers made of gummy worms w/rice krispie treats around them and wrapped up in green fruit roll-ups rate as one of the most awesome favors I have ever seen. Tasty too!

We called them schleges, but....
Uni went "on lockdown" this year. All the kids got access-card IDs and have to card in. This is the result.