Prior to dawn, Beatrice barked to be let out of our bedroom. My wife, half asleep, let her into the main area and went back to sleep. I heard the sound of Beatrice
lapping up her water from her bowl.
Today we faced a 20% chance of sleet and snow, but we had no precipitation. It feels cold here--a few degrees Celsius above zero--but when I looked up Winnipeg on the Weather Channel app. the temperature was much colder.
Around 11something a.m., I felt a slight earthquake. "It's a 2 or so", I said to myself.Sure enough, the radio broadcast said a 2.6 had been centered near Dallas' Love Field. When we lived in Los Angeles, little earthquakes were common enough that one got a feel for them. I was only in one major one--the Northridge--but in dozens if not hundreds of tiny tremblers. I remember that telltale rattle of library books on library shelves jostling or an office building gently rolling on its rollers.
Earthquakes are not common in north Texas. The ground here is built on inactive granite. Some theorize that water injection, a by-product of fracking, causes the issue. Tests are underway to sort that out.
Tonight I discovered that the classic computer game Telengard is available on Archive.org for free play through one's browser. It was great fun to play. I had recently tried to run it in Linux through the WINE program. I could not get it to work. But this alternative seems like sufficient fun to me. This game was a precursor of more complex dungeon games. I played several games tonight, if "game" is the right word for my characters being defeated by monsters.
Throughout the day today, I followed the effort by French police to apprehend the terrorists guilty of the Charlie Hebdo murders and the murder of a policewoman. Last night I found myself emotional while listening to a radio program about the cartoonist victims in a way that reminded me of the aftermath of 9/11.
I am glad to have a weekend to rest and relax. We are watching the 2006 edition of "Casino Royale".