We like to make fun of the New England weather forecasters. They're scientists but we often accord them the same bemused respect as we give that weird uncle who means well, tries hard, and spills soup on his shirt and your new carpet. This was a very tough forecast, one that started out with 10-20 inches of snow and is now rain with a couple inches of snow at the end. "There is very little chance that this storm will miss the region," said Tuesday's NWS report. It's very tricky to get the timing right with a storm coming from the west and a cold front coming from the northwest. The storm got here before the cold, so we got rain. This is a pattern that we often see in late winter and spring, one that can give us a good soaking or two feet of snow in May.

Sandra and I brought our laptops home, expecting to be snowed in. Now it looks another commute to another day in the office.

The DNS servers at our ISP are having trouble this morning, so it's slow going as I try to communicate with the outside world. DNS (Domain Name System) is an essential feature of networks, converting familiar network addresses such as queenlake.com to and from its numeric equivalent, 65.108.234.145.

Woody has been calling from the island every morning. Usually he calls around 7AM (8AM AST). Phone calls at that time of the day usually bring bad news, news of death or serious illness. It's good that the calls are bringing good news, but we all jump when the phone rings. (When a call comes in, all of the phones in the house ring. We have distinctive rings, basically an old-fashioned party line. One ring for the Hakkarainens, two for the MacGregors. When my mother lived here, she had three rings.)

This morning's entry for the Almost a Good Idea Dept. is here. Even the conservatives are squeamish.