I promised a couple of pictures of the deer I saw in the yard this morning… so here goes.

There were two of them in sight, but the other one was perfectly placed behind the cover of the trees so that I could only see her tail when she swished it.  Otherwise she was perfectly hidden.  As for the pictures, they looked really dull so I tried to brighten the colors a little using Picnick via Flickr.  I probably made things worse.

Welcome to November.  It’s time for National Solo Album Month, or NaSoAlMo to those in the know.

The idea is to write and record about 30 minutes worth of music all by your lonesome with no one helping you all within the month of November.  I’m not getting psyched up for this the way I do for the RPM Challenge in February (why is that?  I don’t know… RPM has a bigger community, that’s probably why) so I am not going to feel bad if I don’t finish, or even if I don’t do anything at all (the way I did when I planned to try this two years ago).

I updated my account on the project website, but I have not yet set up the album.  I won’t do that until I actually have something to upload.

Maybe later today.

Here’s the site, if you want to play along.

Looked out the window and saw a deer right at the base of that tree.

Pics coming later.

Okay, I get it.  We had a bad snow storm in October.  It was freakish and the snow was wet and really heavy and most trees still had leaves and the leaves plus the heavy snow equals branches breaking off.

I get it.  Really, I do.

But the storm was on Saturday.  Today is Tuesday.  I still had to go through a detour due to a downed tree.  Last night the traffic was horrible.  As bad as it’s ever been, even during real snow storms.  There were road closures that weren’t there yesterday morning.  How?  There is no snow left on any of the trees.  What would cause new trees to come down?  It wasn’t very windy, there was no added weight, what was it?  There were stop lights with back ups that stretched for miles… and this is 48 hours after the snow fell!  My brother’s family is still without power.  Still!

Then to top it off, I was going to pick up my wife at her office last night and I got stuck in what I assumed was a car accident induced traffic jam on 495 north.  Over a 35 minute stretch of time I moved about a mile.  I had already been in the car for 90 minutes when I reached the jam up.  It was almost 8:00pm when I reached Jen’s office in N. Andover, and I left my office in Framingham at 5:40.  It was just adding insult to injury.  Urgh.

Anyway, the last place Bruins play tonight.  Can they cheer me up?  Probably not.  They suck almost as bad as the traffic did.  Halloween in Methuen has been rescheduled for Wednesday and I will be able to take the kids out trick or treating.  I just hope our neighborhood gets the memo.  Last year our neighborhood was flooded with kids.  It was awesome.  Hopefully the snow won’t put a damper on things this year and it will be awesome again.

A stretch of maybe one mile on route 495 North took about 35 minutes tonight…

For no discernible reason.

I saw things like this in a few places this morning, but only one affected me.

Well if you haven’t heard, the northeast got reamed by a winter storm last night. Last night being October 29th for those of you keeping score (as I sure as hell am). A pre-Halloween snow storm. My sister and brother’s homes are both still without power. Their families are staying at my parents’ house tonight. My mother in law’s home is also without power. They have a generator, but if they need to they can come here and keep warm.

The one and only upside of this ridiculous situation is that the city of Methuen has moved their Halloween Trick or Treating from Monday to Wednesday. Monday is actually Halloween, but Jen’s kids are at their Dad’s house that night so we were supposed to miss out. Wednesday they will be at our house so we will get to participate. What’s more, I’m on call tomorrow night, so by Wednesday I will have a little bit of comp time available so I will be able to leave work early and get home in time for the fun!

The storm did some good after all!

Anyway, I took a few pictures of some downed branches as well as the puddle in the woods behind the house. Enjoy.

I picked three out of four winners in the division series. I picked both winners in the league championship series, and on Friday night the Cardinals won their 11th World Series, making me correct in that round too. That’s six out of seven picks for those of you keeping score (as I sure as hell am) and that’s an 85.7% success rate. I think this was the greatest post season in history, my personal prognosticationally speaking, of course.

Granted the price I paid for this ability to see the future seems to be the Boston Bruins sucking up a storm this year. Yeah, we are in last in the Eastern Conference. Stanley Cup winner last year, dead last this year. Sweet! (sarcasm)

Go Bruins!