Roadside Picnic

It's Thanksgiving Day. I'm heading to Liberty in a few hours, timing it so I'll arrive around 2:30. Going to be a full house - Mom&Dad, me, The Niece, the visiting aunt&uncle, and my brother and his household. And the dining table at the farm is sized for six, and that's bumping elbows, and for reasons I fail to understand, Mom&Dad are wholly opposed to buying a useful folding table to set up in the cavernous living room. But, whatever. In six hours, I'll be with my family and relatives I can tolerate and a whole lot of ham.

Had a slight freakout over the end of the semester work Tuesday night. Stopped looking at things a paragraph or a page at a time and saw the giant tower of stuff looming and it got to me. Shadow talked me down, mostly, and not going to lie, some bourbon helped.

With the arrival of Imperial Veterans, TIE Defenders are now very, very good. They're not unbeatable, but they're definitely the premiere Imperial starfighter now. Yesterday's tournament (so much for that pledge, it seems) saw four Imperial squadrons, all using some new Defender options in a Palpatine-on-a-cheap-shuttle model. I went up against two of them, losing badly to one and losing to the second by one point. Biggest difference: in the first battle, I went for targets of opportunity, and in the second, sicced my force on the shuttle and removed the Emperor's dice modifying ability.

Celebrated Independence Day with a couple of parades, driving and riding in Dad's F-100. Russell Springs' parade was a mess, and we spent more time sitting still while a marching band or flag corps or something performed. A nasty storm front was rolling our way during the parade, and when it ended, we raced a heck of a storm home (and lost). Tornado warning, rotating clouds overhead, sideways rain. But all things equal, we had a good time.

Dad texted me late Saturday night, letting me know that an uncle had died. Not one I'm at all close to, so not really something I'm torn up over, but, well, Mom. In fact, my first thought when Dad told me was, hey, Tudor's and Gino's! But, the funeral looks to be on Thursday, and I can't/won't miss market day without a really good reason, so I'll have to wait until Charcon, I guess. (I'm not a good person sometimes.)

The trip to Atlanta was good, but not without a couple of little hitches. We left the yard with the wrong trailer, and were nearly an hour on the road before we caught the mistake. The first invoice didn't list the cargo size, so we figured it would fit in the Conestoga; the return order did, and, well, had to switch to the drop-deck. Minor frustration. We thought we had a return load, but the engine had only just been removed from the plane when we got to Atlanta, so we headed home.

Holiday weekend and all, but the emptiness of the roads surprised me. Very little traffic on I-65 between Louisville and Nashville, and even Atlanta on Saturday morning was easy (and fast) to get through. At one of our stops, we wound up parked next to a truck with a couple of wing sections loaded; saw it again a few hours later when we were heading out of the airport.

WKU beat Marshall, and Louisville beat the other school, so it was a great weekend for football in the Commonwealth. UofL's postseason game should be announced on Sunday. I've seen predictions of the Pinstripe Bowl against Indiana; if the game is in Nashville or Memphis or somewhere similarly close, Dad and I are going to try to go.

Halfway through Netflix's Jessica Jones, and liking it a lot. It's a pretty damned dark piece of work, and Kilgrave is wonderfully hateable. The first trailer for Captain America: Civil War has released, and I'm eating my words as to this being Avengers 2.5. Also, there's Batman vs. Superman and Wonder Woman shows up, so yay! Arrow and The Flash still deliver, Supergirl is very good. It's a good time for superhero media.

We're in the final week of classes for the semester. Behavior and Biostats tonight, Environmental on Monday afternoon, first final is on the 9th, two on the 10th, one on the 12th (WTF a Saturday), and the last one on the 14th. Going to be a celebration of some kind. Christ, this has gone by so fast.

Mom's first cataract surgery went well. She saw her optometrist yesterday morning, and her eye is healing quickly. Procedure is repeated on the other eye next week, and she'll be back in the game.

I'm getting further and further away from Christmas, or at least modern American Capitalismas. All I want is time with my family. Now, Mom is having trouble understanding this, Dad a little less so, so I'm choosing my battles here. We'll give gifts (Mom already gave me mine, saying "Why should [I] wait to enjoy it?"). The Niece and I have an afternoon of football and food in mind for our holiday celebration. I'm hoping to get back to Lexington sometime over the Christmas-New Year's week and see as many of my people there as I can. And that's it. And it sounds so darn good.

Woke up far too early yesterday morning, and decided that instead of lying in bed (more likely, tossing and turning), I'd get up and go for a walk. Quite glad I did - I got to watch a lunar eclipse happen as I hoofed it around the block! Very short totality, and just a lovely thing to watch pass.

Also seen on the walk: a few Blackhawks on the ground across the street at Bowman. A few hours later, they flew over the house, and man, five of those things at about 250' altitude means a lot of noice. Shook the windows!

Took The Niece to Mom&Dad's for Easter and her Spring Break. We had a really good afternoon and eveing together. Making dinner as a family brings me a lot of happiness, for whatever reason. Just being together, y'know?

Drove back to Louisville shadow-casting-bright new moon. So beautiful.

So, the Hugo Awards this year. The Hugos are a popularity contest - buy a Worldcon membership and you can nominate pieces and vote on 'em. I don't think I've ever bought something because it won a Hugo or didn't because it, um, didn't. A few years ago, Larry Correia started some kind of movement to disrupt the awards process, and the worse elements of his fellow travelers ramped it up, and got a slate of writers and their products on the ballot. It's a big ugly mess.

I'll cop to my bias. I lean left, and while I won't read an author because of his or her skin color or national/cultural/ethnic origin or genitalia, I won't not read for these reasons. However, I will avoid an author that I consider a terrible person, by my own private calculus. The puppies (and they for-real call themselves that, either sad or angry, depending on oh hell I don't even know) are aghast that there have been a growing number of nominated and winning writers who are not white and male. Many many strands of pearls are being clutched, I'm sure. I've read part of one of LC's books, and I couldn't finish it. I guess he's gotten better at the craft, but those hundred or so pages started the poisoning, and a face-to-face encounter a few years later sealed the deal. Fortuneately, there is no shortage of things to read, and I can easily avoid seeking him out.

Okay, there's my preachifying for the day. I gotta do some homework and send out a flurry of e-mails. Happy Easter!