1000 buffalo stampede

Once I was hooked on Tolkien’s work, and fantasy and science fiction in general, I discovered how much I enjoy reading maps of fantastic lands. Gamers reading this will get a chuckle (gamers as a rule love maps). When I was a kid, my favorite maps sets were those of Middle-Earth, and there was no finer collection than The Atlas of Middle-Earth, by Karen Wynn Fonstad.

I spent countless hours pouring over those maps, at the library and at home when I was able to check it out (as usual, indulged by my Mom). For the longest time, I wondered why Mrs. Fonstad didn’t do atlases for other places – and then, in time they arrived: Pern (another favorite of mine from way back), the Forgotten Realms, and The Land (from the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant).

Imagine my unpleasant suprise when I discovered that Mrs. Fonstad had passed away earlier in March

Writing is an art – a great writer can bring a scene, a person or a place to life with only words on text. Likewise, artists and illustrators work their magic in images. If you’ve ever read one of her Atlases, you’ll know that Mrs. Fonstad was able to do all of this with maps. We should be grateful for the cartographers who bring us a sense of a place, and help us find our way to them – even when those places don’t exist anywhere but in our imaginations.

In addition to other items and chores, I decided to upgrade the PowerBook some this weekend. The overhaul consisted of bringing up the Ram by 50% to 768mb, as well as the installation of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The increase in memory certainly makes the TiBook a bit snappier, as one might expect. I tend to have a lot of apps running in the background to help automate things or remind me of other things.

I also spent some time working on Gmail, learning some tips off the Gmail wiki (like using Gmail for Notes and for web clippings). Since I check email from work and elsewhere from time to time, pushing more into Gmail helps make me a little more efficient. I’ve gotten into the habit of using it for reminders lately.

Inbetween all that, I managed to get some data cleaned up on the laptop (you’d think 60 gigs worth of drive would last longer) – after installing the SW: Knights of the Old Republic onto the external drive, I moved the other games to the drive as well, and freed up about 4 gigs on the laptop. Later this week, I plan to reorganize my data, and delete some old, rarely used applications.

The start of Spring here’s been less spring-y than the greeting card folks would have us believe. Not only was yesterday’s start gray and cold (bear in mind: I like rainy days), but today’s news wasn’t good weather either: my Dad’s in the hospital, mainly for observation and diagnosis. He was having some back pains that were moving around to the front of his chest. The initial bloodwork and testing didn’t turn up anything, but the Doc felt it wise to have Big Moe checked into the hospital until they get things sorted out.

He’s in relatively good spirits (I spoke to Mom, then Dad) and calm. He seems to think it’s his heart or arteries. I’m still hopefull that it’s lack of him stretching and he hurt a muscle overdoing it with his tennis game. Either way, he’s in the right place for care right now, and tomorrow’s some more testing. They came in to take some blood when I called, so we ended the conversation a bit quickly

At the risk of being needy, if anyone might be able to spare a thought for my Dad, I’d really appreciate it.

Love ya’, Dad – get well soon, please.

Friday shortly before lunch, they locked down the building for a little less than an hour do to a police action at the intersection of 12th and Broadway. The police, we were informed, had guns drawn. Heading over to the proper street-side of the building, I looked out to see a white tractor cab (as in a tractor trailer without the trailer) sitting at the light on Broadway, with a very angry man shouting from the driver side, shaking his hand and slapping the side of the truck. The police had blocked off traffic with their cruisers for several blocks in either direction – the plaza below the building was cleared. I also noted several officers with pistol drawn, a shotgun, and a few rifle positions.

I had missed the police slipping the spike chains behind the rear wheels of the truck. The perp was pointed away from the waterfront, so there was speculation that he had come off the highway. There was a negotiator with an umbrella (yea, it was a gray rainy day out). It lasted less than an hour, and eventually the perp (look, when you’re surrounded by more than a dozen plus cops with weapons drawn and a negotiator, you’re a perp, even if just for the moment) got out of his truck and was apprehended without further incident.

Oddly enough, there was no mention of the event in any news source that I found, but a search of the Oakland tribune turned up the following summary:

A man angry at the way he had been treated by the criminal justice system threatened Friday afternoon to kill himself by crashing into a downtown office building with his big-rig truck. Alonzo Evans, 61, gave up after police agreed to let him speak to Oakland Tribune reporter Heather MacDonald. No one was injured. “He wanted us to shoot him,” said Oakland police Deputy Chief Pete Dunbar. The standoff, which lasted about an hour, forced police to shut down …

Very odd.

It’s Sunday morning, and the rain has decided to fall again, cold and thin and driven by the wind. I’m in the coffee house, looking out the window, drinking my tea as Cat Stevens plays. It’s a slow morning, my toe a bit sore still, and I’m getting some writing done on QuestWorlds as I ride out these overcast ides of March.

The rain starts coming down with intensity, and the cars depart in either direction, casting sprays of water along the pavement.