Year 50 Day 289

Me leaning against a doorway, wearing a black shirt with tiny white skeletal hands.

Day 289: An unexpected work conversation:

“Michael! My computer’s on fire!”

“What?!”

“I can’t touch it and it smells like burning!”

The computer hadn’t gone to sleep properly when unplugged and closed before being dropped into its computer bag to sit for an hour while class was being taught…so it just sat in its bag and overheated itself.

Thankfully, after a couple hours of cooling off, it booted, apparently none the worse for wear (or, at least, not enough worse as to prevent it from working).

I’m used to being the office ad-hoc “so we don’t have to call IT” IT person. But I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear “my computer’s on fire” when I came in to work today.

📚 Aftershock by John Vornholt

15/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A few years after the first book in this TOS Starfleet Academy trio, McCoy is at the Academy’s medical program and ends up being paired with cadet Spock for a disaster relief mission. But somehow these earthquakes don’t seem to be entirely natural…. Not bad, though both McCoy and Spock perhaps felt a bit too much like their adult selves rather than less mature versions.

Me holding Aftershock

Year 50 Day 288

Me in my office at work, sitting in my chair with my feet up on the desk. I'm wearing a black short-sleeve button-up shirt with white X's and O's, black jeans, and bright pink Converse shoes.

Day 288: Got a number of compliments on both my shirt (X’s and O’s and the occasional heart) and shoes (bright, all-over pink Converse) today. Just right for Valentine’s Day!

Year 50 Day 287

Me wearing a black short-sleeve button-up shirt with white line drawings of donuts.

Day 287: I got asked today if the design on my shirt was donuts or bagels. It’s definitely donuts. Nothing against bagels! I like bagels. But as a fashion choice, I definitely go for donuts.

Year 50 Day 285

Me using a piping bag to drizzle white chocolate over pretzels already dipped in milk chocolate.

Day 285: Y’all can have your superb owl. We woke up, had breakfast, went back to sleep for a while, and then after some minor home chores, made ourselves some treats by dipping things in chocolate (Ritz crackers and pretzels, to be specific). Now we’re going to find something non-superb owl-ish to doze in front of for a while.

📚 Clarkesworld Issue 209 edited by Neil Clarke

13/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Standouts this month are “The Enceladus South Pole Base Named after V.I. Lenin” by Zohar Jacobs, “Kardashev’s Palimpsest” by David Goodman, “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim, and “Lonely Ghosts” by Meghan Feldman.

Me holding Clarkesworld 209 on my iPad

Year 50 Day 284

Me in a glass-walled elevator overlooking the outside of the DoubleTree Seattle Airport hotel, with several of the hotel wings and the lake visible in the distance.

Day 284: Back at the DoubleTree for today’s Norwescon planning meeting. In addition to much better weather than last month, we had heat in the meeting room as well! Much more comfortable all around. And since we usually meet on the top floor of the hotel’s tower, the elevators have a really nice view of the hotel property.

Year 50 Day 282

Me standing in a long hallway of college offices with no one else in sight.

Day 282: After much of the day had a lot of noise from an event going on in the conference room on this floor, the quiet of the afternoon after they left was almost eerie.