I have to pass these on this morning, in case you haven’t seen them already.

1. Prime Time America conducted an hour-long interview with Ayaan Hirshi Ali, author of Infidel, a memoir on her life in and out of Islam. Ayann is an intelligent woman telling a moving story about rejecting the principles of radical Islam.

2. I heard another interview last week, one with Mark Steyn, who has written America Alone on the threat of Islamic revolution and how liberals undermine their own freedom. I don’t like thinking about current events anymore. It makes me pray harder.

3. On the lighter side, two popular children’s books and movies are reviving the toy train market. Can you guess which books have done this?

I am the man. I’m half horse and half alligator. When I roar, mighty beasts flee.

After a white collar guy like me does a job of work like I did today (and last night), he’s entitled to beat his chest a bit, I think. Because that’s all the reward he’s likely to get.

Picking up last night’s enthralling narrative, not long after I posted yesterday evening I got a call from the school’s dean, saying they were canceling classes tomorrow (that is, today) due to the snow.

I went to bed earlier than usual, needing the rest pretty badly. I didn’t set my alarm clock.

I got up around 7:30, ate my breakfast, and went out to face the day and the evil thereof.

We’d had more snow overnight, and high winds as well, so there was a lot of drifting. I was tempted to think that all my work of the previous night had been wasted, but I think it would have been harder without it.

I had the idea that if I set up my rope-tourniquet differently, I could get a tighter hold and hold a seal on the snowblower tire.

I found that my rope wasn’t strong enough to do what I wanted it to do. It snapped.

So I reverted to Plan B, and took up the shovel again.

Briefly put, it took a long time. I rested frequently, and more often as time went on.

My neighbor’s wife came back from work around 10:00, because her office had closed too. She joined me when I was about half way down the driveway, and together we finished it up.

This is how it looks in my back yard today:

It’s snowed some more since, but I don’t think it’s going to interfere with me when I drive to Hutchinson for a Viking Age Society event tomorrow. It’ll be indoors, in a mall, but we’ll do live steel, so I’ll be able to try out my new shield(s):

I apologize for the egregious ugliness of the rawhide edging on the finished shield in the picture. It was the first time I’d worked with rawhide, and I went far astray.

I made a point of showing the back of one shield so you could see the handle. This handle construction is (I believe) my own invention, and I predict it will be a major success with live steel fighters, bringing me… nothing at all.

Archaeology tells us that Viking shields (which were made out of boards laid side-by-side, not plywood like these fakes) usually had handles made of wood. But sometimes the wood handles were covered by a gutter-shaped iron covering, making them stronger.

When I bought the wood molding (it has a precise name, but I’ve forgotten it) for my handles, I worried that it wouldn’t be sturdy enough. Finally I decided to buy some thin steel bar stock in a 1” width. I drilled holes for my fastening bolts through both steel and wood, and came up with a fairly light, pretty strong handle, based on the Viking principle.

I’ll see how it works tomorrow.

If I’m able to move after all this shoveling.

I never stop to wonder why I left the farm. I left the farm for many reasons, all of which I remember vividly.

But if I had forgotten why I became an urban drone, dwelling in a ticky-tacky house, this evening would have reminded me.

The storm we’d been told to expect began as promised, and it ain’t over yet. It started last night. I was worried that I’d need to dig out before going to work, but it had only snowed a couple inches, and I drove out. Then I spent all day at work worrying that I wouldn’t be able to get back home.

I did get in, though, and then I set to work with my master plan to get my neighbor’s snowblower (which, as you know if you’ve been following the last few episodes, he keeps in my garage in return for clearing the shared driveway) going. As you doubtless recall, a tire on the blower was flat last weekend, when he tried to use it. He took it someplace and got some kind of wrench that allows you to squoosh the tire down so that the bead seals, so you can pump it up again. He refilled the tire, but it went flat again. Probably a puncture.

And then he left town on business.

But I figured I could do the same squooshing thing with a length of rope and a tourniquet. And I have an air compressor of my own.

Story in short—it was tougher than I thought. I gave up at last. I took up my shovel and went to work. It took two hours, but I got it done.

And the snow was already beginning to accumulate behind me.

But I hope I can get out to go to work tomorrow, and then I’ll have the evening to repeat the process. We’re supposed to get up to ten inches more before it finally relents sometime tomorrow.

I could have taken a picture while the light lasted, to show you how much deeper the snow is, but I wanted to get to work before I lost the light.

I was also going to share a picture of my completed shield, which I finished last night, but Photobucket is down.

So you’ll have to settle for this.

It’s winter. We all have to make sacrifices.

Or if you don’t, I want you to feel guilty.

Nice weekend, all in all. The predicted snow came, and for once we got as much as was promised. I think it was about fifteen inches, and this is how my back yard looks today:

I got a call Saturday night that church would be cancelled. This did not break my heart, because (mea culpa) I go to church out of obligation, not desire. Suffering as I do from a psychological condition clinically known as “being nuts,” I don’t enjoy gathering with other people much. A guilt-free Sunday morning off does not cast down my heart.

I was in the basement Sunday morning when I noticed my neighbor’s wife through the window above, shoveling our shared driveway. This was curious, since my neighbor has a snow blower. He keeps it in my garage, and the deal is that in return for that accommodation he clears my side as well.

I could have pretended I hadn’t noticed, but I decided to pretend to be a responsible adult. I went out and grabbed my shovel. I found my neighbor out there too. He explained that the blower had a flat tire. So I pitched in and we managed to clear adequate paths. This is the kind of work where overweight, middle-aged men tend to fall over with heart attacks, but I dodged the bullet.

The snow in the picture, I can tell you with absolute moral authority, is wet and heavy. This was, in fact, the heaviest snowfall our metropolis has experienced in several years.

I think there’s a sense of satisfaction all over our fair state today, a grin behind the grumbling. With a few hiati, this winter has been pretty easy so far, and that’s bad for our self-image. Minnesotans think of themselves as the hardy folk who thrive in arctic conditions for half the year and like it—yes, like it, by golly! In our secret hearts, we think it makes us better than folks who live in easier climes. Now we’ve earned a little cred back, and we’re swaggering a bit.

I think I’ll swagger over to the thermostat and turn it up.

Sorry for the late posting. My wireless connection chose this evening to forget its way home, and all my blandishments and caresses were of no avail. Now suddenly, having come back upstairs from my shield project (of which more below) I find the necessary light back on again, and I’m able to resume communication with you, the Esteemed Reader.

I wanted to call Earthlink Customer Support about the problem, but I had to leave the phone line open, as a guy had made an appointment to come over and look at the room for rent tonight. Or rather, he was going to call to get directions tonight, and then come over. But so far, no action on that front. I have a suspicion he’s going to stand me up.

Which is only justice, in the greater scheme of things. I remember a couple times I did the very same thing to landlords, in my youth. When I’d decided not to check a place out, I never had the nerve to phone and tell the manager personally. Avoidant stuff.

But I was itching to finish painting my shields tonight, so I finally went down to the basement and worked on that, with the door open so I could hear the phone (haven’t got one down there).

I’d already done the blue base coat. Tonight I put on the decorations, and now they look like this:

I’m not entirely happy. I’d like bolder colors—ideally I’d have preferred the bright red and yellow I usually paint my Viking stuff with. But I’m trying to conform to the general standards of the big-time re-enactors, and they prefer muted colors, because bright was hard (and expensive) to do a thousand years ago. So I took somebody’s advice and went to a paint store and looked for “mistints,” which sell cheap. These were the most interesting colors I could find, but the reddish thing is almost pink, and it underwhelms me.

I’ll live with it, though. Better this than have an English re-enactor (should I ever chance to encounter one) get in my face.

The design, by the way, is based on the heraldic device of the island of Karmøy, where my great-grandfather was born.

We’re supposed to get a big snowstorm tonight, which will continue on through Sunday. If you don’t hear from me again, it’s because I starved or froze.

Or because my wireless has gone out again.