starmalachite and I got home a little while ago. We were one of the houses that didn't lose power; when thelongshot called and offered to check in on the cats we invited him to camp out at our place if so (which we didn't know at the time). He tells us the cats were clingy and glad for the visit.

The con was a lot of fun, but I'm too busy falling asleep to comment on specifics.

We had a very interesting drive (no real close calls, fortunately) home from Friday night gaming as the snowstorm (now projected to be somewhere around 2 feet and among the top-ten recorded winter storms) began. Now, we're set to hunker down at home for the next few days.

I hope everybody else in the area is safe.

PS on the new-computer stuff: I removed and started to gradually reinstall the Firefox extensions and turned off auto-updates (in case that's causing a conflict with the antivirus or the "OMG THIS CODE WANTS TO CHANGE SOMETHING" user notifications); so far the lock-up problem hasn't recurred even under the conditions (start Firefox after the computer's been inactive for a few hours) that triggered it before. So far, so good.

We had a little adventure* on the drive home Sunday night when a pothole flattened both tires on one side of the car. We were able to pull off the road without further incident, and eventually** got through to our auto club. When the tow truck arrived (they were fairly quick after the auto club finally got its act together), it stopped off at a nearby Holiday Inn so we could retrieve luggage for the night, and then went on to the operator's shop. It took until yesterday afternoon for the shop to find the right tires and put them on; we finally got home late last night.

( FootnotesCollapse )

Yesterday was the last day at the office for the year; today is going to preparation for getting on the road to visit both sets of relatives in Pennsylvania. I may or may not get online occasionally (both places we'll be staying are in the Dialup Hinterlands).

The cats have figured out that the humans are getting ready to leave, so at least one of them is always underfoot.

Happy Holidays to all (with wishes that Santa delivers "a life" to everybody who gets all exercised about the so-called "War On Christmas").

We got back from OVFF late last night. As usual, there was more activity at the con than I could really absorb and I hardly got to see half the folks there/ That's especially true since I have a tendency to fade into the background, a la Matt Keller's "Plateau Eyes" in A Gift From Earth. Sometimes, this comes in handy, such as the moment in the banquet buffet line when the rest of the Conterpoint core group was batting around the question of who will chair the next one. (Briefly ponders redacting the previous sentence because it's sort of self-negating when the rest of them read it; decides to step up and take his chances fair and square.)

All in all, it was a good con, and kudos to the concom for making it happen. I recall too many good things to single out any in particular, but one personal highlight was staying up for the dawn patrol and breakfast buffet with the group around Kathy Mar -- lately, I'd had a tendency to get tired more often than usual. Finally, starmalachite put her foot down and got me to have a doctor check into it; it seems to be an allergy to something or other that's causing occasional wheezing. The prescription she put me on seems to be doing the trick so far.

The bad news after the con (other than the general bad news of having to readjust to mundania) was that the furnace igniter seems to have quit; we called for a repairman who may or may not show up sometime today. Satin seemed a bit listless when we got home, which alarmed us since she's 18 going on 19; fortunately, she seems to be more or less herself today.

I'd already arranged to take today off and get some extra rest (the fact that it was still morning rather than mid-afternoon when I woke up for good, and without feline intervention to boot, surprised me a bit) and smooth the ruffled fur of the shamefully attention-deprived kitties.

From IdeaSandbox post, by way of punkwalrus:

( Disturbing Burger King placematCollapse )

I'm not sure whether to be stunned that Burger King would print such an inappropriate placemat, or congratulate them for printing one that is all too appropriate for the experience of modern air travel....

On the way to our Friday night gaming group with starmalachite and thelongshot, the right rear wheel suddenly decided to quit facing forward. Fortunately, this happened in stop-and-go local traffic just a few blocks from our destination -- it could have been nasty if it had happened a few minutes earlier on the Beltway. We pulled off and called for assistance; thelongshot continued ahead on foot and let the rest of the group know we weren't going to make it.

After a bit of waiting, we got a tow truck (kudos to both Better World Auto Club and M&M Towing for their service) and dropped the car off at our garage (we have 50-mile towing coverage) and returned home.