Whoosh

Posted on February 13, 2003    Posted by John Scalzi

Our house is at the highest point in a couple of miles around us — which is not to say that it’s all that high up (this is Ohio), merely higher up than everything around us. also, our land is fairly treeless, and while there’s a windbreak of trees to our east and direct north, from the northwest (which is where the wind usually comes from), it’s pretty much a clear shot from our house to the north pole. The upshot of this is that when there are high winds, we usually know about it pretty clearly. Most of the time we lose a few shingles, which is no big deal, but the other night we had a slightly stronger wind than usual, and we lost something else — about half the railing off the front porch. Apparently the wind just whipped around our house with sufficient strength to pull one of the railing post right out, which took the railing on either side out with it. That’s some wind.

The good news is that there appears to be no major structural damage — the roof wasn’t injured, just the post and the railing. On the other hand, you know, that’s still going to be a fairly pricey fixit job. We had a contractor out yesterday with the measuring tape and the estimating and whatnot. We’re waiting to hear what the damage will be on the damage we have. This right on top of the new computer and incident involving out furnace, its blower and a distressing lack of blowing on what was the coldest night in a year convinces me that the universe is under the impression that I have more money than I need right now. Well, note to universe: Quit it. Go bug Ted Turner. It’s hard for me to concentrate when the forces of entropy are conspiring to bankrupt me several hundred dollars at a time.

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Speaking of the universe, I got a note from my editor that The Rough Guide to the Universe is finally off to the printers. I got the note the same day scientists announced all-new information about the age of the universe and the unlocking of several big, big mysteries surrounding the big bang and the fate of the universe, which I found perfectly ironic. Fortunately, nothing in the announcement makes the information in the book obsolete, it just refined much of what’s in there.

This makes me happier than you could know, since the writing of this book was made harder by the fact that every couple of weeks, astronomers would pop up with something that would require me to do a rewrite to a greater or lesser extent (this is one reason why the chapter on Mars took three months). Now, as long as they don’t discover life anywhere else in the universe between now and May (which is when it hits the stores here in the US), I’ll be fine. It really goes against my instincts not to pray for major scientific discoveries, mind you. But it’s only for a couple of months. That’s not too much to ask.