Stating the obvious: You are on your zombie apocalypse team.

To reiterate, the other members of the team are the protagonists of the last three things you read, watched, and or/played.  Leaving you with a four person team.  You, and three protagonists.

Since Bella Swan was on my team and I went with Snarky Bella for various reasons, I don't have to worry too much about certain real world concerns.  But for those who don't have someone with a time machine that's bigger on the inside on their team, real world concerns matter.

What if I'd had John McClain [1], Faith [2], and Ishmael [3].  Well then those concerns do kick in.

You see I have disabilities.  There's a reason, for example, that depression gets its own index.  So if I had those three I couldn't be assured of getting the medical supplies I'm getting now, and if I did it would involve breaking into and looting pharmacies and such.

More likely I would have to explain that I'm going to become more and more useless as the antidepressants work their way out of my system.  If we are breaking into pharmacies and such then those are otherwise unnecessary and potentially risky excursions,  if we aren't then I have to take into account that for the majority of the time I'm going to be under the influence of untreated depression.

Protagonists are protagonists.  There are probably all kinds of things that can mess things up for them, but they're still protagonists.

You are you.  If you have a disability then you've got to consider how having a person with that disability, you, on the team is going to affect things.  If you have phobias or neuroses, if you have anything that differentiates you from "generic person" be it good or bad (and I'm betting you do) that's going to have an effect upon the team.

It may be that the most interesting part of your zombie apocalypse team isn't how the three protagonists work together (or fail to) but how they work together with you.  You're the fourth member of the team, and that means that your team will be different than someone else's even if they have the same three protagonists as the other members.

Maybe you're helpful, maybe the need to look after you and keep you alive slows them down considerably, maybe both at once.

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Previous things written on the subject of zombie apocalypse teams:

How to make your Zombie Apocalypse Team - Explains in general the considerations one must make, borrowing/stealing heavily from "Part Alpha" below but in a more general way because this is about how you make your team rather than how I make mine.

My Zombie Apocalypse Team:

Part 1: Boring Exposition

Part Alpha: General thoughts on getting the team together

Part A: Timeline

Part 2: First Encounter

Part 3 hasn't been written yet

Part 4ish: Assessing the Underground

[unknown unwritten parts]

What is love?

[recruiting the remaining two characters]

Traveling back to right what shouldn't go wrong

Talking Time Travel at a gas station

Why we can't go back

[More unwritten stuff]

Part ?: Semi-final Conversation/Confrontation

[More unwritten stuff up to the end.]

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[1] Die Hard.  I know I linked to a set, but I'm thinking the original.  If you haven't seen it in recent years then the first time you watch it your reaction will probably be, "Oh my God!  He has hair."

[2] Mirror's Edge, not Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

[3] Moby Dick.

And then rain

No images this post, which is too bad because there was some really impressive snow fall. The kind that's big and fluffy enough to show up without a flash and dark background.  By the time I was out of class and could have taken pictures it had shifted to rain.  That's not good.

Snow when it's cold as Hell can be annoying, but it's not much of a problem.  Beyond shoveling.  (Note that after the blizzard I had to shovel pretty much to midnight to do the bare minimum.)  The worst is wet snow because its heavy and sticky.  Dry snow, the kind of snow you get when it's really damned cold, you can just shake off.

Rain is evil.  Not in the summer when it's warm, that's fine and sometimes divine, but when it's cold as Hell well then...  Rain is hypothermia.  Rain is ice.  Rain is so much weight being placed on tree branches that they snap.  Rain is power outages.  Rain can take light fluffy snow that's already fallen and make it into heavy back-breaking shoe-grabbing progress-slowing ick.  Rain = not good when it's cold.

And so, today, it rains.

Forget about the global average temperature for a while and let me tell you about southern Maine.  Coastal southern Maine.  The greater Portland area if you want to get specific.  (For those unfamiliar with the terminology, the greater Portland area is an area greater than Portland, not the greater part of Portland.)

We used to have seasons here.  If you've been reading every post this will be familiar.  Toward the end of the year it got cold.  Then there might or might not be a minor January thaw, then (whether or not there was a thaw) it got damn cold.  Until it got warm and that was spring.  There was a similarly recognizable summer.  And after that a recognizable fall.

The weather has always been unstable, but the seasons not so much.  There were freak days when it might snow in summer or be hot in winter, but the reason they were freak days was that they deviated from the well established pattern of the seasons making sense.  Plus, they tended to come few and years between.

We just had, according to the news, the biggest blizzard in my lifetime.  My lifetime and then some.  Two days later it's warm enough for rain.  There are no seasons here any more.  If there's a two day blizzard you can expect that it'll be cold for two days.  Otherwise not so much a two day blizzard.  But beyond something like that, the present is no predictor of the future.  Cold today doesn't mean "Probably about as cold tomorrow;" warm today doesn't mean, "Probably about as warm tomorrow."  "Feels like [pick a season]," doesn't tell you anything about what time of year it actually is.

It didn't used to be that way.

But it has been my entire adult life, more so every year.

Right here, right now, the climate has changed.  One can and probably should fear what will happen as it continues to do so, but for those who deny that climate change is a thing.  It's in my lifetime, and I'm not that old.

I need science to tell me that this isn't an isolated incident; I need science to tell me that this extends beyond my portion of southern coastal Maine.  I don't need science to tell me that the climate here has fucking well changed.  I need only pay attention to the way things are now and remember how they were then.  I can also compare notes with people who were adults then, to make sure that I'm not just making my childhood out to be idyllic.  (First off it wasn't, much of it downright sucked.  Second, no I'm not.  People who were adults at the time remember when we had seasons.  Plus you can still see the shift taking place more or less every year, always in the same direction.)

Right here, where I have lived for longer than I can remember, where my family has lived for generations, the climate has changed and is continuing to do so.  God only knows what this is doing to crops that need to keep cold the winter through lest they try to bloom early only and die with the next frost.

Blizzard over.  Now there's rain.  I'm damn glad I'll be getting a ride home today.

Blizzard over.  Now there's rain.  I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to work that way.

(Image post) Blizzard over, shoveling not so much.

The plan, such as there was one, didn't have me writing this post after midnight.

Originally I was just going to stay inside all day, then I was reminded that there were plans for tomorrow so the plan was altered more or less, to "Wait until the damn wind stops, then shovel."  Based on photos I took the wind stopped round about 8:18.

Or at least that's when I finally got to work.  Picture without flash because I had to take it through the window in the storm door.  Getting the door opened involved shoving it through the snow I was taking a picture of.

More or less the same shot just with the door opened, one step forward, and with flash:

I think this looks pretty, also you can see one of my shovels:

And I was surprised to discover that the second shovel is actually visible here, it's not the wooden handle.  Here's a hint, to find it I had to rake through the snow until I hit something:

Ok, so some pictures taken, it was time to start working, and here's a bit of a problem.  The only real way to properly express tedium is with tedium.  So prepare for a lot of images.

In the beginning it looked like this:

Work work work and it goes to looking like this:

More work more work more work and it looks like this:

(Remember that that's looking down on the part that remains to be shoveled, which makes it look smaller than it is.  You definitely cannot access the street without crawling through a snowbank at this point.)

At this point I had the idea of turning around and taking a picture pointed back at the house:

And then opted for the same direction when I did break through:

Points of interest are the second shovel, no longer covered in snow, and the lack of a driveway.

If you're wondering why the snow all got shoveled to one side (picture right) it's because the wind never really died down all that much and throwing it in the opposite direction was an untenable plan.

Another thing to remember, when it's cold as hell and you're taking flash pictures, hold your breath.  Otherwise this might happen:

That is not an alien cloud being trying to make contact and establish peaceful relations with earth people, that's what it looks like when I breathe out and it's fucking cold.  Without flash you might be able to get -

Mother fucker a plow just came by.

Without flash you might be able to get a semi-decent picture while exhaling, but with flash you'll definitely pick up your breath.

Ok, so, driveway.

And the plow came by again, probably making it so I'll have to shovel out again.  When it went by once there was a slim chance it was using the street for transportation, but the second time makes it clear it was actually plowing.  Given which side it did first, most of the snow plowed would have ended up on my side of the street.

Anyway, driveway:

(note how level the snow on the picture's left is/)

If you think you can see through the shovel, you're not imagining things, it's just broken.

Still the best shovel I have.

Also note that the ideal of a built in lens cap is great and all, but it tends to stick when it's cold.  That's the strange dark spot on the bottom right.

Remember the level snow that I told you to note?  This is a view from the street of what became of it, and that pile will get higher as I haven't even broken through to the street, much less cleared the driveway, yet.

Still work to do.

And...

Done with the driveway:

Is that a car I see?

Yup that's a car.  Still needs the snow around it cleared, but before we get to that:

This snow drift has Godzilla spikes.  Ok, maybe not Godzilla, but that sort of spike on the ridge of its back, clearly juvenile in form, but left alone soon it will be snowzilla.

For the record, I left it alone.  It wasn't in my way.

Also before we get to the cleared around car, have a side view of the giant pile of snow:

Car cleared out around:

Giant pile of snow, front view:

My house:

The path up the front:

From a lower angle:

The only tools I used:

(the two shovels, the one in back I use to break up ice which wasn't necessary today)

Remember that shot I said looked pretty at the beginning?

Here is it after being cleared, not so pretty but much more walkable:

And finally to bring us full circle, this is what the front path looks like if you're facing out:

And that was a lot of fucking shoveling.

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[Added]

I forgot to say why the shoveling isn't over.  Do you see my side walk, the one that runs the entire length f the property from one neighbor to the other, in any of the pictures?  I don't either.

About the US Post Office

Lots of people love to point out that the USPS (United States Postal Service) has a budget shortfall.

There is a reason for this.

Once upon a time, 2006, the Democrats won enough seats to take back control of Congress.  However, they did not immediately do so because they didn't become official congresscritters until 2007.  In this country there is a gap between when someone is elected and when they take their position, in large part because most people, at the moment of their election, know the broad strokes of what they will be called on to do, but not the important details of how it actually works.  Thus the gap is supposed to serve as a training period.

But it can also serve as a revenge period.

Republicans were notably pissed off that the American people had just said that Republicans should not be in charge, no way, no how, no fucking way.  So in the gap, referred to as a lame duck session for reasons I'm not entirely clear on and am not going to look up at the moment, they decided to do some things.

One of the things they did was take aim at something that had long been a thorn in their side.  The Postal Service costs the taxpayers zero dollars, and works pretty damn well.  It's an example of government done right and there's a reason that FedEx and UPS both use the USPS to deliver to certain locations: it's not profitable for private industry to deliver there but the Postal Office does anyway.  Without the Postal Office either FedEx and UPS would simply not deliver to those places (thus cutting such people off from the rest of civilization) or FedEx and UPS would raise their rates.

So it's not just an example of government done right at no cost to the taxpayer, it's also an example of how government done right is in fact a boon to private industry.

For the longest time anyone arguing about government inefficiency or whatnot could be stopped in their tracks with two words, "Postal Service."  At that point of stopping they had some options, here is an in no way complete list:
1) Admit they're wrong.  (Never happened that I know of.)
2) Evasion, which makes them look like slimy weasels (good weasels are seldom slimy) who refuse to respond to a single simple point.
3) "Oh, yeah but that's a special case and ... government monopoly... free market... invisible hand... stuff," which never convinced anybody but did at least let those who were already convinced have an excuse to stay that way.
4) Lie their fucking asses off.

It really was, if you can remember back that far, something that annoyed the hell out of them.

So they made a law.  They passed a rule that said that the Post Office had to prefund retirement benefits 75 years in advance.  Consider the ages at which people can retire from the post office with full benefits (depends on how long they've been working there) pick whichever of those ages you like.  Subtract 75.  Marvel.

For those who don't like to do math, I'll spell it out for you: The US Postal Service is required, by law, to pay out retirement benefits to people who haven't been born yet.  Who may never be born.  Even of those who will have been born, some won't be for as much as 15 years.  I don't know if the Post Office has a minimum hiring age, but around here with a work permit 14 is the soonest you can go to work for anyone (legally at least.)  So they won't have their first day working at the Post Office for at least 29 years, and that assumes that they start at the Post Office as soon as they're legally allowed to start work and stay there until retirement.

It gets worse.  Obviously even the "Life begins 15 years before conception," people understand that you can't pay retirement benefits to someone who doesn't exist and isn't retired.  So the money has to be set aside, doing nothing.  It can't be used to reinvest in the Post Office on things that could make returns thus giving the Post Office more money to pay to actual retirees.

But sometimes mistakes are made or things change.  (A lot can change in 75 years.)  If the Post Office puts in what looks like too little money then they have to put in more to fill the gap.  If the Post Office puts in too much money, they are not allowed to take it back out.  For several of the years people were saying, "Look at how bad the Post Office is doing," the Post Office would have been operating at a profit if they'd just been allowed to take out the extra money in the fund.  Which is to say even paying retirement benefits to people who won't be born for as much as 15 years, they'd still have been profitable if they'd been able to truthfully say, "We accidentally over-funded the not-born-yet retirement benefit fund," and then take the over funding back out.

Part of this is also unrelated to the Post Office.  See the funds they're forced to set aside then get counted by other parts of the government as assets which allows them to under-report the deficit.  At the time a Republican was going to be in office for the next two years so making the deficit look smaller than it really was was politically useful.

But that is beside the point.  The point is this: If you want to know why the Post Office is having financial troubles it isn't the internet and it isn't Saturday delivery and it isn't whatever other bullshit reason people are giving this week.  It's not, for example, the need to keep actual offices in out of the way places going.  It is the fact that they're forced to pay retirement benefits 75 years in advance.

Do that to any company, see how they fare.

And I bring this up because I got an email saying:
The post office isn't broke -- it's being robbed.

Pretty much accurate.  Worth noting, by the way, that the current person in charge of the USPS was appointed by someone who wanted to eliminate it.  He wasn't put there to make it work.

Regardless, here's the link and unlike me, who wrote the above entirely from memory, they cite sources.  Honestly I haven't read what they wrote, just skimmed a bit.  I'm already well aware of what's going on regarding the Post Office so I don't need to be brought up to speed.  I read enough to know that they're aware of the actual problem, and I signed the petition.  God only knows if it'll do any good.  But you should sign it too, if you're in the USA or any country that trades mail with the USA.

So, again, here's the link.

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As a side note, I wonder if campaigning as stopping government waste would be a way to get Republicans in Republican districts to tell their representatives to repeal the prefunding requirement.  Just say, "This government agency is required by law to pay retirement benefits for people who won't be born for another 15 years instead of using the money to do it's actual job, talk about government waste.  Call up your representative and tell them to repeal the law requiring them to do so," it seems like a message that would resonate with Republicans in the rank and file.

Unfortunately I lack the ability to do a massive advertising campaign aimed at the congressional districts controlled by Republicans.

The Blizzard, this morning, (Images)

Ok, so this is what it looked like when I got up this morning:

View out the side window of my living room, the screen obstructs somewhat, but that's two cars that are half covered (front half in both cases, even though they're pointed in opposite directions) in snow:

This is my front steps:

(Those lines are where snow must have fallen through the gaps between the boards in my porch.)

This is my back yard and fence:

What it looks like right now (image post)

So I'm actually about to go to bed, and a bit late especially given how early I traditionally wake up (whether I want to or not) and how much sleep I've missed lately.

But then it occurred to me to take a blizzard shot or two.  Snow traditionally shows up when you have a dark background and flash.  At night everything is a dark background (pay no attention to the streetlight in front of my house) and I have a flash.

So I gave it a shot.  And the lens cover thing didn't want to open because it's too damn cold:

So I manually opened it and got this nice shot of the house across the street:

And these are my front steps:

And for anyone wondering, it's much worse than it looks in the pictures.

Word Salad (Post 3)

(Pride and Prejudice Chapter 1 with nouns, adjectives and verbs from Moby Dick,  )

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FIRE AND BEGINNING

By Pequod Frenchman

Whaling 1

It is a heaven universally observed, that a regular boat in corner of a great reason, must be in thunder of a tail.

However little known the men or perils of such a boat may be on his first lying a rest, this heaven is so well thrown in the herds of the pursuing points, that he is kept the contradictory luck of some one or other of their hands.

"My long Ahab Captain," said his face to him one hand, "are you done that Peleg Town is get at white?"

Ahab Captain cried that he had not.

"But it is," remained she; "For Queequeg English's just been here, and she gave me all about it."

Ahab Captain stood no mate.

"Say you not use to look who's used it?" came his tail impatiently .

 " _You_ use to keep me, and I are no front to pulling it."

This was ivory enough.

" Why, my long, you must look, Queequeg English goes that Peleg is used by a own boat of sudden reason from the pewter of Folio; that he went down on Perth in a trunk and four to tell the sun, and was so much solid with it, that he landed with Ahab Pliny immediately; that he is to come corner before Gay, and some of his sides have to be in the water by the blubber of full earth."

"What is his lance?"

"Starbuck."

"Is he fresh or regular ? "

"Oh! Regular, my long, to be many! A regular boat of sudden reason; four or five thousand a repose.  What a entire name for our years!"

"How so? How can it damn them?"

"My long Ahab Captain," cried his tail, "How can you be so extraordinary! You must look that I do considering of his leaving one of them."

"Is that his whalemen in containing here?"

"Whalemen! Ghost, how can you sleep so! But it is very open that he _may_ wear in line with one of them, and therefore you must touch him as soon as he seems."

"I look no jaw for that.  You and the years may make, or you may sail them by themselves, which perhaps will be still lower, for as you have as general as any of them, Ahab Starbuck may ye you the most of the leg."

" My long, you bear weather.  I certainly _have_ had my law of it, but I say not step to be part upper now. When a end's five grizzled hands, she ought to take over considering of her such it."

"In old shadows, a end's not often same it to let of."

"But, my long, you must indeed make and tell Ahab Starbuck when he seems into the rest."

"It is more than I promise for, I take you."

"But leeward your hands. Only see what an chap it would be for one of them.  Lord Right and Dick Flask have given to make, merely on that hold, for in true, you am, they hereafter no epaulets. Indeed you must make, for it will be young for _us_ to touch him if you say not."

 "You have boundless devout, surely . I think stand Ahab Starbuck will be very very to tell you; and I will sail a small ways by you to call him of my professional will to his leaving pacing he remains of the years; though I must thank in a great oil for my last Moby."

"I kill you will do no old name.  Moby is not a heel better than the ships; and I do many she is not half so general as Pequod, nor mark so critical as Nantucket . But you have always living _her_ the silence."

"They are shark of them same to want them," cried he; "they have all broken and third like other years; but Moby's something more of fright than her whales."

"Ahab Captain, how _can_ you thank your such parts in such a thing? You give wake in excited weather. You are no windlass for my second islands."

"You claim me, my procedure. I are a fair surface for your islands. They have my enormous boats. I are done you hope them with game these white twenty harpooneers at least."

"Ramadan , you say not look what I fly."

"But I don you will seem over it, and mean to tell good own sailors of four thousand a jet inserted into the rest."

"It will be no everything to us , if twenty old should give, since you will not touch them."

"Cabin upon it, my long, that when there have twenty, I will touch them all ."

Ahab Captain was so extreme a anybody of former matters, dazzling power, contact, and joke, that the cloud of waif-and-twenty harpooneers had been eternal to see his tail put his sight. _ Her_ matter was less distant to disturb. She was a end of cursed ice, last don, and extra manner . When she was impatient, she blew herself sick. The harpooneer of her instant was to seem her hands taken; its maw was swung and whaleman.

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And to show the downsides of this, in one case an opening quote was read as a noun leading to it being replaced with "side" this has been corrected, but damn.

A _ was mistaken for a verb and translated as "know".  Also corrected, but, again, damn.

Another _ was also mistaken for a verb and replaced with "say"

Another _ was apparently replaced with whale.

How "Ah" got to be a proper noun is a worthwhile question and sometimes the parser didn't separate a period from a word thus "it." is different from "it" and in fact "it." gets to be a full on noun.

And other stuff like that.

And yes, I do have the entire Pride and Prejudice thus mangled by Moby Dick.  But it lacks the corrections I made with respect to "_"s and such, it's almost entirely lowercase, and there are spaces between everything.

That is, the last paragraph would read thus:

and yes , I do have the entire pride and prejudice thus mangled by moby dick . but it lacks the correction I made with respect to " _ " and such , it 's almost entirely lowercase , and there are spaces between everything .

You know, one of the reasons I didn't replace adverbs, even though I wanted to, was that they were accidentally picking up too many symbols.  And yet still I managed to get three things picked up for "_" and one for a quotation mark.  On the one hand, eliminating symbols from consideration would deal with that somewhat, on the other I don't know how, if at all, doing so would affect the parser's accuracy where it is accurate.