Michael's Meanderings

I just checked my last post and the details of landing and getting home were missing.. So I left you hanging while I was trying to sleep, I failed and spent a while playing on my iPod. We were served a rather pallid breakfast an hour or so before landing. Touchdown was 6:55 and I found that it was foggy and snow was all around the verges. I got through passport control quickly, and had to wait quite a while for my bag to get ejected from the carousel. After a 20 minute wait it appeared at 7:45 then straight out through customs to the shuttle bus, (the connecting train between north and south terminals is being replaced) then to the train station. My train arrived a bit late at 8:23 and I got home just before nine. D then let me know that the UK had been under a foot of snow since I'd left. No traffic had moved until the thaw started two days earlier. There had been a leak in the kitchen, so it was a good thing he was around!

I was totally fried, not having slept much on the plane, and went to bed for 6 hours. I would probably have slept longer but I had a chiropractors appointment and had to get there by train and given the weather... In the event the trains ran on time and I got seen early.

On my return I hoped to have my normal Friday Fish and Chips supper, but my local chippy was shut ;-( So I had a microwaved shepherds pie instead! While in Atlanta I watched a number of episodes of NCIS, there are multiple seasons running on different channels there too. I did see the two most recent ones, so when I discovered that while away I missed one, I went searching on the net and found and watched "Faith", this year's Christmas episode.

It rained all day, which melted most of the snow, but I decided to stay in (especially as tomorrow's forecast is better). My Dad phoned to confirm that they had been snowed in and had to survive on food on hand. He also indicated he had suffered from a kind of snow blindness.

Most of my day was spent reading, but I also discovered that "Guards Guards" by Sir Terry was being serialised on BBC Radio 7 (and I was able to listen to the first 2 episodes via iplayer). The next one is on Monday. I also discovered that Wyrd Sisters was ending, unfortunately Episode one had expired, and I think I'd heard this version before.
If anyone has a paid LJ account and can create a bbc_radio_7 rss feed from http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_7/popular please let me know, so I don't keep missing these sf&f gems.

While in Atlanta I was told that Pat C Wrede had started blogging, so I've added her rss feed pcwrede_feed to my friends list and am now plowing my way though her archive material. Well worth checking out at http://www.pcwrede.com as she writes on the process of writing and being a writer in an insightful manner.

I really and truly did intend to post over a month ago but getting a round tuit proved difficult.

My Sky+ box has been playing up for the last few weeks, often when trying to change channel I get a blue screen, instead of the programme I want. It's intermittent though, some channels work some of the time and others don't.

September 19th was my niece's 17th birthday, I bought her a WiFi network extender (and set it up for her, how geeky) She's now started driving!!! I went to visit the weekend after her birthday.

Due to the issues with Sky+ I've been watching a lot of BBC programs via the web an iPlayer, which is very handy as it gives a 7 day window to catch programs.

Stuff I've caught up via this method include Strictly Come Dancing, Merlin, Charlie Boorman: By Any Means, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Dirk Gently (Radio4).

In the last couple of weeks my back pain has migrated down my left leg. Today it was particularly painful, but my chiropractor should help later.

Yesterday was the 5th week of my juggling class and we managed a Z pattern with clubs, which was very cool while it was working.

I've got a lot of theatre planned over the next weeks so I'll try to post a bit sooner.