I came out of the office this evening and realized it was raining -- quite hard, with thunder and lightning and flooded gutters. Rain in October is not unheard-of here, but it isn't standard; we aren't in either of the two official rainy seasons, and pumpkin vendors usually feel comfortable setting their wares out in the open. When does rain here, it tends to come hard and fast. The drainage system, such as it is, is easily overwhelmed, leaving inches of water along the sides of main roads, and washes that have roads going through them because they're dry about 98% of the time are suddenly rivers again, which does unfortunate things to the connectivity of the road network. The parking lot of my apartment complex becomes a shallow lake, dammed by speed-bumps.
In other news, my Amazon package arrived today, and I finally found a copy of Jordan's Knife of Dreams at the campus bookstore. I'm still working on Mieville's Iron Council, but that might get temporarily put on one side.
And in other other news, I spent most of my workday designing graphics. There's an irony here. I failed art at school; I never could get the pictures in my head, or even right in front of me, on paper in recognizable shape. I gravitated to maths and physics and languages to avoid having to draw. In my corner of astronomy, though, it turns out that producing compelling and informative graphics is a useful skill, and with a computer I can bypass some of my artistic challenges, enough that I've become a sort of unofficial artistic consultant to the group. I spent the morning practising Photoshop without a licence, and the afternoon fighting mathematics to produce a smooth map of something that has unavoidable -- but not very interesting, and extremely ugly -- discontinuities.
In other news, my Amazon package arrived today, and I finally found a copy of Jordan's Knife of Dreams at the campus bookstore. I'm still working on Mieville's Iron Council, but that might get temporarily put on one side.
And in other other news, I spent most of my workday designing graphics. There's an irony here. I failed art at school; I never could get the pictures in my head, or even right in front of me, on paper in recognizable shape. I gravitated to maths and physics and languages to avoid having to draw. In my corner of astronomy, though, it turns out that producing compelling and informative graphics is a useful skill, and with a computer I can bypass some of my artistic challenges, enough that I've become a sort of unofficial artistic consultant to the group. I spent the morning practising Photoshop without a licence, and the afternoon fighting mathematics to produce a smooth map of something that has unavoidable -- but not very interesting, and extremely ugly -- discontinuities.
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