Night Visions #1

Last night I dreamed of lightning. Again. There was a vast unbroken stretch of flat land, like a dead prairie or a desert. It was night, and there were no stars, no moon, just an unspecified glow that illuminated the unending vista. And then blindness, as a white sheet tore across the sky. The afterimage of the heavy clouds had not even faded from view when thunder broke the silence, assaulting my ears and shaking my every cell with a deep, echoing growl. No sooner did the ringing in my ears stop than a coiling, writhing ladder of blue-white bolts came crackling down from the clouded heavens and danced like mad faerie creatures upon the not-so-distant plain. This column of raw power shimmered and flashed as each bolt was replaced by the next, all the while moving slowly closer to where I stood, transfixed, deafened by each fresh rending of the atmosphere, unable to move, unable to look away. At some point, the wind appeared, the dead air came to life with a biting, swirling fury. After a few moments of dumbstruck awe, the column was before me. And, just as it reached me... it was gone. The wind stop, the clouds were silent. For the span of a heartbeat, and then a single bolt ripped through the dark clouds and struck me, square in the chest, just as the thunder began... and then I was awake.

Blizzard of '11

Lots of snow, some ice. Two days off work, one day snowed in because my parking lot wasn't dug out. Drove during the snow coming down bits and walked in the post-snowing drifts. All in all, not as much fun as I remember from blizzards as a kid.

Am I really talking about the weather in this blog? I need to retire...

a bit early, but still hopeful

twilight falls
on winter's stage,
tomorrow's dawn:
spring's first blush;
fresh dew falls
on icy page,
the cub, the fawn:
life's new rush

February?!? (on speed)

This has to be some kind of mistake. At this rate, it'll be 2009 before I even accomplish one thing on my Top Secret, Never To Be Spoken Of 2008 To-Do list. Time's sliding like my car on the not-so proverbial ice. Speaking of which...

Thunderstorms and tornadoes over snow-covered prairies, and now white fog blending seamlessly with the snowy horizons. Freaky weird winter weather rocks (when it isn't responsible for loss of life and limb and locomotion).

Lots of crazy thoughts playing bumper cars in my caffeine-addled mind, most all of which require some form of censoring and/or decrypting in order to be communicable (but not like a disease). As crazy as Dr. McCoy in "City on the Edge of Forever," which...

...inspired a trilogy of Trek novels called Crucible. I've recently started the first one (with McCoy as the major protagonist, the other two feature Spock and Kirk, respectively). I'm not far enough in to be sure, but I gather the author has hit upon something which I've missed my entire life!!! This is so cool, because it's so amazingly obvious... well, enough gushing. I don't want to drop any spoilers in my mania, so...

On with the show (not Trek, my blog, but that's kind of obvious.)

OH-- After a bajillion year wait, the animated Dragonlance movie was released to less than stellar reviews (see the Amazon.com page for the gory details.) Yes, the animation was less than inspired, and yes, mixing traditional animation with CGI looked goblin-awful. But... it was Dragonlance. That has to count for something...

Of course, it doesn't count for much (except to die-hards and collectors). Counting much requires numbers that go beyond infinity. Transfinite numbers, surreal numbers, and other mathemagical delights. Someday... ah, never mind. I'm way too lazy for that anyway ;-)