POST ODYSSEY

Late again. I was going to draw a comic depicting my adventures last week, but when I sat down and tried drawing up some of the characters, I realized I was not equal to the task. I also neglected to take any pictures. I don’t know why I used to be ok with whipping out the damn soul snatcher at social gatherings, but these days I can’t bring myself to do it.

I really wish I had taken some pictures, because now that I think of it, I saw some really cool things. Driving up Rt. 34 from New Haven to I-84 was spectacularly New Englandish. Snow-blanketed New England hardwood forests are so thoroughly un-Californian. Dark craggy stems and rocks breaking up a field of white. It’s odd how snow seems to look quiet. Maybe it doesn’t to those who have never spent time in a snow fort. 34 also had some beautiful riverside scenery with dams and ice and the works. Also plenty of run-down old brick factories and mill remnants, which seem so much more endearing than revolting in the snow.

Jess and I had drinks in the Tunnel Bar in Northampton, also worthy of a picture. The lame flashed-out image on that website doesn’t really do it justice. It’s a bar/lounge in an old tunnel underneath a train station. It’s very long and bricky. I think maybe I like bricks.

Finally, Andy, Colleen, and I witnessed some interesting atmospheric phenomena over Boston known as sundogs, or parhelia. These are sort of mini suns that appear to either side of the sun on cold days. They’re actually part of a halo formed around the sun, which is caused by hexagonal ice crystals in the atmosphere. Since a hexagon is a segment of a triangle, these crystals act just like prisms, refracting light at a set angle (~22 degrees), forming the halo. Since planar ice crystals tend to fall flat side down, most of them are refracting light along the horizontal, forming the brighter sundogs to either side of the sun. This site does a much better job explaining things.

Yes, I also saw people. Wonderful, wonderful people. I could gush, but since this post has already become an unillustrated, unphotographic, and completely uninteresting online diary entry, let me just say that I had an excellent time and now I miss my old friends even more.