today was an adventuresome day. i left the house at 9:30am, on foot. just as PSU was supposed to have made its decision about whether or not to open for the afternoon classes. Using a brillant plan, their website had no closure information but rather said to call the recorded message line. At 9:25pm all their phonelines were flooded. I am going to leave the house today anyways so it doesnt really matter right now I thought.

It was a bright, snowy walk. i thought about how the reflections on the snow were making up for the general lack of lumens during the winter that precipitaes Seasonal Affective Disorder. Once I was up to gateway, I rode the MAX into town. I made a beeline for the PSU library, which was closed, then went to the linux lab and found out school was closed for the day. yea! I did some dailywireless work and hungout on the #ptp chatroom. I asked Tom about coming over. Soon I was hungry for lunch. I left the building and realized I didnt fix an important dailywireless issue that Sam told me about. So I went to Sam's apartment and chatted for a bit. He's very friendly and outgoing. I fixed the password problem and headed for Tom's.

I thought about getting a trimet ride over to the east side where Tom's place is, 30 blocks or so from where I was. But it was clear and I wanted to spend more time walking in the snow. I went over the hawthorne bridge and under the overpasses. In my way was a moving freight train that I got up close to. About one in every ten blocks had a sidewalk that had been shoveled. Once I got to Tom's house we chatted about PTP stuff as usual. I tried to get Jason to come out to see a movie but the roads are pretty bad. Instead I bought some beer and stayed put. A delightful dinner was provided by Tom and his wife Dawn, Daughter Heather (11), and son Ben (1). I also checked out Tom's "Mr. Beer" homebrewing kit. Ive been reading from howtobrew.com and hope to make my own attempt soon. We burned a Knoppix CD, talked about Fidonet days, and about being a parent. It was getting late and I had a long trip home so I said goodnight and got my coat and boots on.

Having been entertained, medicated, fed, and dried out, I was well prepared to start the journey home. I walked from SE belmont and 29th over to Burnside and 39th. Just as I walked up to the bus stop a trimet bus pulled up. It was great timing. I got a ride along burnside to 97th and walked through the gateway business district. I got another short lift of about 10 blocks down 102nd. Once in my own neighborhood, the roads were 5 inches of snow under 1 inch of ice. A lot of it was wet and it was very slick. I had to scoot my feet in short steps almost the entire way home. A downed tree limb served as a walking stick. On the last street all the street lights went into power-save mode or whatever it is they do and I was alone. Alone in the powerful stillness and quiet of the night. The view from that part of the street is incredible - a hundred miles of riverfront over 240 degrees are visible. It was just what I wanted for tonight.