Ramblings of a Technology Addict

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Storm

Dave and I sat on the porch for dinner tonight, the air was pleasant and cool as we enjoyed our steaks. I had heard we were in for a blow and a good storm, but I couldn't feel it like I usually could. The clouds were rolling in from the southwest, moving slowly, leisurely even. I checked the radar about an hour ago and so the pace of the limpid storm headed our way, splotches of orange and a red eye peering out from a cushion of green.
We slid the windows mostly shut, checking our cars and doing the dishes. The storm hit about 20 minutes ago, first a single rumble of thunder in the distance, then a flash and some more rumblings. Before I knew it we were deep in that red eye, full of blowing trees, the rumble of thunder not quite so distant any longer. It began to rattle the windows a bit. One bright flash and our power was gone. It flickered a few times and came back again, but all the clocks had gone back to blinking twelve and the mute was off the tuner in the main room.
Getting my bearings again, I picked up my book and kept reading, listening to the ever growing rumbles of thunder and watching the forking splashes of light bouncing in through my window. Then the rain began, all of a sudden, like a curtain of small chain links bouncing against the street, clinking their short clinks and scattering on the pavement. Soon it felt like the entirety of the pebble beach at the mouth of the Beaver River was slowly being poured on to 18th Road, the rain was deep and reverberant and angry as it came in the small gap I left in my window to allow for the sweet sound of the rain.
This marks the beginning of the thunderstorm season here in DC, one of my favorite times of year.
11:14:21 PM comment []

Quiet night

A quiet night at home tonight, Dave and I have cooked steak over fire and are now cooking chicken on the very superb fire. It's been a good day, and the details of it are too mundane to mention.
I will mention that I may have a new client for my DVD service. If anyone out there is interested in moving old movies from VHS, VHS-C or MiniDV to DVD with some fancy touches in the process, please let me know, I'm available for hire.
I'm also going to be doing some freelance tech support gigs in the near future, as well. Neat stuff.
More importantly, I've had the opportunity a few times over the past few days to talk real tech with people in our offices. I've had a few people come to me with questions about replacing their home computers and about wireless networking, and I've gotten to explain how it works. That's the part of my job I truly love: explaining things to people. Making their lives better with technology is what I truly enjoy.
9:50:46 PM comment []