austin_dern

Sunday opened with the e-mail invite from Delta Airlines to check in for Monday morning's flight. The posted time was still the horrible 7:30 am, with no word of delays, either in the mail, or on the Delta or on the airport web sites. Maybe my reasoning about the flight would pan out. We'd have to print out our boarding passes at the airport, which was fine, given the mess printing out at home had proved on the way out.

We couldn't wait for the second movie to end; with some regrets and a last wandering around the hotel, we went back to our hotel room and got ready for bed. The last word we got, checking, was that there wasn't any delay or cancellation of our flight, despite the oncoming Hurricane Sandy, whose extremest outskirts of brisk winds and cold rain we are already in.

Trivia: The leek was for centuries a national badge for Wales; it wsa replaced as recently as 1907 by the dandelion, apparently following a misunderstanding of the Welsh word for ``bulb''. Source: The Invention Of Tradition, Editors Eric Hobsbawm, Terence Ranger.

Currently Reading: Star (Psi Cassiopeia), C I Defontenay; Translated by P J Sokolowski. Ah, protection from one's fanboys: Pierre Versin's introduction to this 1854 book pouts about the way American science fiction thinks American science fiction is the most important kind, and tries to play up this book was the original space opera. Except there's nothing space operatic about it; it's firmly in the exotic travelogue/nonfact anthropological form. I appreciate that Versin, who rescued the book from its obscure original publication to become an obscure DAW Yellow Spine quirky-selection book (and I love those DAW Yellow Spine quirky-selection books) wants people to appreciate the stuff he loves more, but he didn't have the needed perspective on a book that's pretty neat but not a neglected keystone of the genre.

bunny_hugger woke up earlier than I did Saturday, so she could sign up for the costume contest, and so she could go to a tournament of a board game she's got but rarely can play because it requires more than two players. I didn't think I was so tired but the fact I barely stirred for another hour or so said otherwise. What I did wake for was the second of the pinball tournaments, this one playing a full game. (This would be done in ``tournament mode'', though, with the random elements part of modern pinball games set to standard routines, for fairness to all players.)

Trivia: German forces in Italy surrendered to the Allies on the 2nd of May, 1945; those in north-western Europe on the 4th of May, with the final surrender of all German forces on the 7th. Source: History Of The Second World War, B H Liddell Hart.

Currently Reading: The Long Road Home: The Aftermath Of The Second World War, Ben Shephard. This is really gripping reading, about a part of the story of World War II that just never gets told --- given the incredible numbers of people just in Europe whose families were shattered, in areas that were shattered, in nations that were shattered, how do you put anything back together in any way that makes any sense or is just --- but it also feels like all the bits of doing some right to traumatized people have to be paid for with incredible agonies. It's surprisingly similar in tone to (grown-up) westerns, in placing a relative handful of people in a situation too big to be really tamed and doing what they can to make a fair situation of it.

bunny_hugger and I woke achingly early the Friday that FurFright began so we could get to the airport, and with the same Paul McCartney song stuck in our heads. And not one of the obvious ones, either, making her wonder how I had it in my head. I have no explanation. We stopped at the Quality Dairy for snacks --- I got a chocolate milk on something like a whim as one of the advertisements there just asserted, everybody likes chocolate milk --- and parked at the airport for what we estimated would be just a little less for long-term parking than taking taxis to and from would be.

As we got to the hotel, the lobby TV was talking about the imminent storm and the possible tracks. I mentioned to bunny_hugger that now that I'd seen front pages of New Jersey newspapers (through Newseum.org) dubbing the not-yet-present hurricane ``Frankenstorm'' I was much less worried about it, since what storm could live up to that early hype? One of the people sitting around the lounge said he was worried, and that airlines were already cancelling flights for Monday and Tuesday. A cancelled flight Monday would be a mild nuisance for me and a real pain for bunny_hugger. Thus as we did check in began my habit of obsessively watching, on the airline and the airport schedules, for signs of our flight home being delayed or cancelled. There wasn't anything yet.

Trivia: After several of the ``match girls'' at the Bryant & May factory were interviewed by the press in June 1888 about their atrocious working conditions they were fired, with their final pay (2s/8d, 3s/6d, and 1s/8d) received only after signing statements stating they were satisfied with their working conditions. Source: The 13th Element: The Sordid Tale Of Murder, Fire, and Phosphorous, John Emsley.

Currently Reading: The Long Road Home: The Aftermath Of The Second World War, Ben Shephard.

PS: Going Fishing In Pi, a fun recreational activity which I recommend.