Yet another weather report

Friday was bright and clear and 20 below with a windchill of 40 below. It began to warm overnight. This morning it was 17 above and snowing. Patrick and I went to the Mall of America to do some mall walking. He is feeling a bit sick, maybe in response to his flu shot, so we walked slowly and did not do the full mile and a half tour.

After we got back home, I loaded some fiction in the little Acer netbook computer which Pat is loaning me; and I am currently at the local coffee house happily tapping away. The Acer is smaller than a college notebook and weighs maybe two pounds. It is a genuinely portable computer.

There's a show at the coffee house, photos people took of the Republican National Convention. They are snapshots blown up to 8 by 10 or whatever, not art, but my first real view of the convention. The demonstrators look pretty normal -- a mix of young punk people, older peace and justice types and the occasional "Get the US out of the UN" person. The cops look terrifying -- armored, helmeted, armed and grim. This is not community policing. It is the naked might of the state.

Well, I promised myself I would lay off politics. Time to get back to the stories in the Acer.