(If you’re wondering what this is about, read this.)
My five random words for today’s exercise are estate, whistle, gang, riot, loft.
Chosen word for free association: loft
balcony, toss, float, high, left, lift, luft (German)
Exercise:
Lofty Himalayan peaks stand
Silent, snowy sentinels
Reminders that we humans are
Merely temporary.
When we are gone, they will remain,
As will our damage.
So far, I’m really liking the new blog format. I’ve been able to customize it some to get rid of the stuff I didn’t really want, I’ve been able to add other things, and I’m considering playing around with the default skin to incorporate the blog into my regular site design. First, though, I should probably see if I can import all my old blog entries into this one. There’s not much future in continuing the exercise if I can’t do that.
I’ve also been working on websites for a couple of other people, and I’m pleased to say that I’m really happy with the way they are turning out.
I did just notice that my timestamp is an hour off. I must have specified the wrong time zone somewhere …
We’re supposed to get another half a foot or so of snow tomorrow. We just dug out of the one-two punch of what has become known as the “Holiday Storms of ’06.” I don’t mind the snow, personally. It’s nice to have it again, frankly. I grew up with lots of snow in Durango, and it brings a smile to my face to see piles of snow taller than I am in my front yard. This is Denver, though, and snow never hangs around here for long. By this time next week, I suspect that all of the snow from tomorrow’s storm will be gone, and much of the snow still on the ground from the Holiday Storms will be gone, as well.
As one of my resolutions from a few days ago, I pledged to write every day. Although I haven’t been writing in this blog every day, I have been keeping true to my self-assigned task. Just before New Year’s, I purchased a book at West Side’s Book Annex in Denver. The book is A Writer’s Book of Days, by Judy Reeves (1999, New World Library, Novato, CA.) It consists of many essays about writing and the lifestyle changes that come with a commitment to heed the muse, as well as writing prompts for each day of the year. I’ve been dutifully using the prompts for the first four days of the year, and I’m surprised to see what has come out. So far, I have an essay, a self-reflective journal entry, a prose poem, and a piece of humor written in the style of the old Zork text adventures. Where the hell did that come from?
At this point, none of the above are suitable for publication, and I probably won’t even develop most of what I write in these exercises. But it is nice to feel the juices flowing again; it’s been a while.
Well, I’m off to do my homework.
At this point, with the war coverage dominating the airwaves, perhaps half of the U.S. has heard that Denver got its worst snowstorm in nearly a century during the past week. It started on Monday night, the 17th, and continued in earnest on Tuesday. My work released us early on Tuesday, and I got home at about 3:00 to find 18″ of snow in the common driveway of our town home complex. I drove the car in as far as I could, then dug myself into the garage from there, as well as digging two neighbors into their garages.
The next morning, we had a fresh 24″ of snow, with a 48″ drift behind my garage door. The pictures below offer a roughly chronological document of the period from Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning. (Apologies for the capabilities of my cheap digital camera.)
“Doot-doot-doo looking out my front door …”
The mess I made Tuesday getting into the garage.
Wednesday morning at about 5:00 AM. The snowflakes reflected the flash.
Wednesday morning again, snow is about 30″ at this point.
Split branch on the tree in my neighbor’s front yard. This branch hangs over my side of the fence, and is about 6″ in diameter.
The view from my garage Wednesday morning. The drift behind the car is about 4 feet high. Remember, I had already shoveled this the day before.
This is the same driveway as above, with the ruts from my car covered in fresh snow.
Wednesday afternoon, after I had shoveled out my driveway and my neighbor’s.
A neighbor attempting to negotiate the narrow path we cut to the street.
Some neighbors and I cut this path so we could get out late Wednesday. No one showed up to plow the driveways until very early Friday morning.
I slacked off today. The only things in my day that resembled creativity were fixing a co-worker’s home computer and playing Literati.
We got a lot more good rain today, and that’s always welcome this summer. When I was going in to work, I thought I saw a light dusting of snow on the mountains right behind the Flatirons, but it was just an illusion. Some wispy clouds were snagged on the tops of the mountains, and it looked like snow from a distance. Pretty, but it would have been cool if it had actually been snow.
It’s ironic; this has been the best summer for bike riding in many years, but I haven’t gone riding at all. That’s pretty lame.
