Today's Definition

UNCOMFORTABLE: Noticing while you're pumping gas that the guy pumping gas next to you is smoking.

Today's Out Of Context Quote

Me to the Universe: "Fly, my cooties, fly!"

Erupting Volcanoes Can Really Ruin Your Day

PROGRESS REPORT FOR 12/22/11

New Words: 1700 on Chapter 1 ("Those Who Came Before") Part 4 ("The Astronomers") of Arizona. The Talking Bird pueblo is obliterated by the eruption of what is now Sunset Crater, starting young Ahote on his path to becoming a Skywatcher at the Chaco Canyon astronomical temples.

Total Words: 50550. Slightly under three months to hit a NaNoWriMo total. :)

Reason For Stopping: Getting ready to go do holiday-related stuff.

Book Year: 1094. (Historical detail: There are some sources based on dendochronology that still say Sunset Crater erupted in 1064, but recent magnetic studies of the lava fields place it decades later, possibly as late as 1150. For story and character purposes I wanted it in the early 1090s.)

Mammalian Assistance: Nobody; I think Vegas was basking elsewhere.

Exercise: Walked down to campus.

Stimulants: None.

Today's Opening Passage: Ahote's earliest memory was of the mountain that shot fire to the sky, a god's burning arrow into the clouds. It was also the night before he discovered the stars.

Darling Du Jour: Nothing springs out at me--much of it is running from lava and flying molten rocks, then countin casualties.

Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Baxter; Cather; Benford.