Footprints (not the Jesus version) - Part II

My sister asked for a photo of the strange footprints. I told her there was no accounting for the veracity of a photo in these days of AI slop. However, I felt I owed her the opportunity to share in the holiday creepiness. I stood in my bedroom window overlooking the deck in the early post-Solstice darkness that evening and decided, believer in the supernatural or not, no, I wasn’t going to take a picture of those footprints still facing my window other than in bright sunlight. I didn’t want to see something in my camera that might make sleep impossible.

Late the next morning when it was indeed bright, I snapped a photo of the snowy, yet rapidly melting, deck with my Android. But when I went to send it to my sister, the photo was only a pure, white, undifferentiated square. I’ve never seen that before. An all black photo because of a stray finger, pointing it at the floor, a pocket picture, or because my case has a flap to the cover the camera that’s pretty loose... Absolutely. But all white? Maybe it had been slow to snap and I’d caught the textured ceiling. I pointed my camera phone out the window again and could clearly see the deck and footprints and the backyard full of squirrel and rabbit tracks leading off to the neighbors’ yards. I took another photo and, when I went to share it, again...all white. I looked carefully at the lens and the case, giving both a soft wipe and took another photo. Again. Solid white.

I stared at the photo and realized it wasn’t as completely white as I’d first thought. I could see my deck, barely see it, in the photo. It was as though it was in the middle of the densest snowstorm I’d ever seen. Or at least comparable to some of the big ones. Only a shadow in the swirl. I stared more intently, trying to make out the edges of the deck and the footprints and, as I did, I felt like I was looking into one of those magic eye photos. That if I stared and stared, the white would become a pattern and would take on movement, like a real snow storm, and the deck would clearly come into focus under the overwhelming white and between the sheets of flakes.

But it wasn’t just the deck. My eye caught more. Something else was in the snowstorm. On the deck. Wrapped in the densest of the swirling white. I couldn’t tell what. But with a dawning uneasiness, I realized that it was absolutely something I didn’t want to suddenly snap into focus. It felt like it was trying to see me as much as I was trying to see it. Like the snow storm was on both sides – me looking into the photo and whatever was in there looking out, and I wouldn’t know what that meant until the moment we could see each other. I flipped the camera off, breathing a little faster. Maybe I was imagining all of it. Seeing things where there was nothing to see.

I owed my neighbor Ted a beer and realized maybe that was an opportunity for a sanity check. Grabbing an Arbeiter from the fridge, phone in my other hand, I walked the 50’ to his door and hoped he was home. His dog barked loudly from the other side of the door, nothing new there, and after a few minutes Ted appeared. He was appreciative of the beer and we took a moment to chitchat, as we always do. I held up my phone, the photo called up on the screen, and asked if he could discern anything unusual.

He stared at it and after a joke about an old guy and his Android said, “Is this some old photo of your deck? I don’t think we’ve ever had a storm that big since I’ve lived here. Definitely not since you got the deck within the last two winters. Was there a wind storm kicking up the snow back there, or are you playing around with some Instagram filter?” He didn’t hand back the phone immediately, but continued to stare at it, moving his head a little with small tilts, as if trying to looking between snowflakes. I assured him it was a new photo and I’d taken it only that morning.

He started to tell me that was impossible. And then he hitched. Mid-word. He looked shocked for a moment. I would have almost thought scared, although if you’re like me, you don’t know your neighbor well enough to make that call. You OK?” I asked him. Ted shook his head. Not with a no. But like he was trying to shake off something or shake something out of his head.

“I’m fine,” he replied. “Thought I saw something, but it’s just the deck and you standing here screwing with me.” I shrugged, having gotten nowhere with the photo. I wished him a happy holidays, particularly now that he had sixteen ounces of extra beer, and took my leave. I deleted the photo as I walked back to the house figuring I’d take a few photos later and see if my camera was misbehaving and due for a replacement.

...

I’m back...it’s 12:30 a.m. Ted texted me. He wants to know if I’m walking around in his backyard and on his deck. I looked out the bedroom window, trying to see his backyard from my angle where our houses align. I can’t get a good view of the area near his house. But I can see one thing. The footprints, which had ended facing my window, now loop back to the edge of my deck on Ted’s side and disappear off the edge. I wonder what Ted saw in that photo. I wonder if something saw him.

Footprints (not the Jesus version) - Something for my Sister

Last night after family fondue and a Christmas eve movie, I was tried and hit the bed around 11:30. I fell asleep right away, but woke up after what seemed only a short time. One of those situations where you feel like your body forgot to do something as far as nighttime prep goes and is saying, “Not yet.” I looked at my Garmin with the light up watch face and it had only been an hour since I’d hit the sack. I thought maybe I had a full bladder after the holiday movie Scotch and that was what had popped me awake. Alcohol doesn’t sit as well as it used to these days.

But then I heard snow crunching outside. Loud enough that I assumed it was what had interrupted my sleep. I listened for a moment, trying not to move or breathe too loud and miss the specifics of the location. But I couldn’t tell if it was coming from the side of the house, the neighbor’s back yard, or our back yard. It seemed like it might be a midnight bathroom run by the neighbor’s dog, Odin, although usually he gives a finishing flurry of barks. Or maybe it was someone taking a late night short cut home through our yard after a party at one of the houses on the cul de sac. That’s happened before, although usually it’s kids avoiding a long walk from the bus drop. That clearly wasn’t the case after midnight. I thought it would pass right away. And it seemed for a moment as though it had, as if my attention had caused it to stop, which I’m sure we’ve all experienced with a strange, nighttime noise. But then, right as I was starting to drift off again in little cycles of eye-closing microsleep, it came back, intermittently crunching in the snow. Enough noise that I started to worry someone was messing around behind the house.

We just had new windows put in, including where I was in the upstairs bedroom that looks out over the back yard, so there are no blinds to keep the noise out. Perhaps I was hearing something from much further away than I suspected. Amplified Christmas eve squirrels chasing each other through what’s left of the berried trees, or some of the other neighborhood dogs doing their late night business. It was still worth a check despite there being likely, even common, sources. Who knew if someone had decided our new windows and doors were worth a “security check” while we were asleep. So I rolled out of bed for a quick look, not even bothering to throw on the nearby robe. I stood framed in the back window, attentive in nothing but underpants, scanning for the source of the noise.

Nothing. No noise. Not even a squirrel bouncing between trees. The only disturbance I could see were footprints in the snow on the deck. Which was strange. Because we don’t use the deck in the winter. And because there’s no yard access to the deck. We didn’t have steps put in when it was built the year before last. You can only access it through the full season porch. Which was locked. Wasn’t it? We’d last used that door in the fall, before the snow fell. It was locked, I told myself. Of course it was.

The footprints started on the side near the neighbor’s house and were directed toward that … locked … porch door. Strangely, they ended halfway there. Had someone tried to get in the house, changed their mind, and backtracked? Some drunk neighbor who thought they were sneaking home after a bender? Or again, one of those local kids, maybe out past curfew and confused trying to skulk home after curfew?

If they had – although I found it difficult to believe someone would assume a stairless deck was the entrance to their own home, but alcohol can play some unusual mind games – they would have left a mess of the snow on the deck rails and presumably used the little table in the back patio area to get to the deck, likewise leaving a mess of the snow there. But I could see the deck rails and I could see the small table five feet below the deck and both were undisturbed, covered in a layer of pristine, although slightly melted, snow without so much as a squirrel print. While I was standing there in the window, thinking about how someone could have air dropped onto my deck, I heard the crunch of slightly melted snow again. This time there was no question where the noise had come from. It wasn’t from next door, or a distant sound across the expanse of the dark back yard. It came directly from in front of me and below. From the deck.

There were two more foot prints in the snow.

But these prints weren’t aimed at the door to the porch or two divots in the snow I had missed leading back off the deck. These were pointed directly at my window. Like someone had turned while taking a slow step forward to face me from the center of the deck. This is where, if this was a horror story, someone inevitably says, “I couldn’t see anyone, but I could feel the weight of invisible eyes watching me.” That’s how you know it’s not real. Because that’s absolutely not how it felt. Despite the obvious presence of feet, it didn’t feel like an invisible human was there, doing something as human as watching through human eyes. There was only the impression something was there, I’d caught it’s attention, and it was waiting, pointed directly at me. Ominous? Yes. The unknown always triggers a bit of fear. My presence in the window. Its presence on the deck. Waiting. For what? Did it want inside? Was it out for a walk? Was it dangerous? Was I as much of an enigma to it as it was to me?

I stood there for a good five minutes, although it felt much longer, before backing away. I gave the deck a second glance to see if my movement was reciprocated and, when it wasn’t, lay down in the dark room again wondering if that would be a catalyst for some sort of action. I waited for the crunch that might indicate it was moving toward the house or going away now that I was no longer holding its attention, or the rattle and scrape of the porch door which would tell me for sure whether it was locked. But that crunch never came and eventually I drifted off, feeling safe with locked doors between me and the presence on the deck.

When I awoke this morning, I looked out the bedroom window again safe in the bright light of day. The footprints are still there and it’s even clearer they start on the deck and end on the deck with no visible disturbance of nearby snow. Two of them are still pointed directly at my bedroom window as though someone stopped to look up, caught in their secret walk midjourney. I don’t feel it out there the same way I felt something standing there last night. I don’t know if something is out there waiting. Or what it’s waiting for. Besides me.

The Monsters of Christmas

This is primarily for Kyle as we've been exchanging posts about Krampus.  Atlas Obscura has a post on Monsters of Christmas including Krampus, Mari Lwyd, La Befana and Baboushka, Perchta, Straggele, The Tomten, Belsnickel, Pere Fouettard, Gryla, The Yule Lads including peg-legged Sheep Cote Clog (not to mention the horribly evil Sausage Swiper - Swiper, no swiping!), and The Yule Cat.

Atlas Obscura is great if you're like me and want to learn about Leprechaun museums (where they have Leprechaun lore, not as in it's run by Leprechauns) and strange statues.  Just my sort of thing.

Guest Link

Kyle pointed me at this article about Krampus-based erotica.  That's a whole different world of strange.

"So if you've ever wondered what the glamorous life of an Internet comedy writer is like, imagine spending the better part of a Saturday reading a book about a woman blowing a Christmas goat monster while taking notes. Truly, I am living the dream. A very, very specific dream."

Let It Snow - Picard Style

Captain Picard sings "Let It Snow!" with supporting cast.

Heavy Lifting

I keep our Christmas tree up in the rafters of the garage.  Not the pine variety.  We got rid of that a long time ago in favor of a fabricated tree.  Not to avoid mess.  It still sheds needles.  But to avoid the trip, selection, return trip, and maintenance of a real tree.  I miss the smell a little, but there are pine trees near my house I can visit if I need a fix, and I can even haul some needles back if I need the smell.

According to my tree, which seems to get heavier every single year (I'm sure it is, it must be picking up something from the air or the ornaments), standing on a ladder and shoving it around on my own is not recommended.  In the past, I didn't think too much of this warning.  But this year, with the plated/screwed hip, standing on a ladder, balancing slightly backward while I gave it a shove onto the hanging planks, my leg gave me a warning that my years lofting it up there might be numbered or, at the very least, that I should heed the sign and come up with a new storage location.  I don't think I'm in any danger of breaking the hip unless I fall.  But I do suspect I'm in more danger of falling given that my leg seems to have shifted length a bit and I'm not as balanced as I once was.  It's very seldom an issue.  However, shoving heavy boxes over my head, and vigorously hopping out of bed in the morning, seem to be edge cases.  The bed statement might be perplexing, but picture hopping up and getting going before your brain and body are really ready, which is often how I get going because I long ago convinced myself half the lying around in bed issue people seem to have is just not popping up as soon as you can.  The result is a lean against the wall because my balance doesn't autocorrect quickly enough to tell me where my shoulder is in relation to the wall.  Coupled with a malfunctioning Marvin the Martian anamatronic art hanging that sticks out a few inches that I now bump into now and then, I know for a fact I lean a little when I get up more than I used to (although the odd klutzy moment in the past had me bumping it, so it's not a unique experience, only different in terms of frequency).

I notice as well that I should get entirely different people to lift my tree box, because both of those guys seem to be much younger, more coiffed men.

The Death of Christmas

At one time, I considered photographing all our ornaments.  But there are a lot of them.  Too many.  We add 3+ per year, so there isn't enough time. Ever.  However, I will be keeping track of those ornaments that die a horrible death during each season so they can be remembered forever.  Their passing may be due to broken strings and no standard eye to rethread.  Broken or shattered bits.  Plain old ugliness.  Or a failure to ever remember why they were sentimental in the first place.  If you gave us the ornament and you're irritated that it has been retired, remember, the cat broke it.  It wasn't our fault.


It looks fine, but all the edging is worn off.  You wouldn't give a present wrapped that way to a friend, so you shouldn't hang it on your tree.  All you think about is a shabby Christmas.

 

Poor jigsaw Santa.  His hat defined him.  Now he's just some fat man trying to hug children without their permission.

He probably should have died 20 years ago.  He was just persistent.  He's been punched in his eyes made out of coal so many times they've become diamonds. Who puts legs on their snowmen?  That's not even in the Frosty cartoon or Doctor Who Versus the Snowmen.  Maybe I should have painted icicle teeth on him and added a snowglobe nearby and told Eryn it was a Doctor Who theme.

Passing the torch (for the tree)

This year Eryn decided she was in charge of setting up the Christmas tree.  She's familiar with the color coding scheme involved in our fauxvergreen, and she's plenty tall, so she didn't want any help. As a bonus, she's much more conscientious about bending the ends of the fronds so they're fluffed out and ornament ready.

Level one!


Getting taller.  The glasses had to come off.


The top!  She does still need the step stool.


The tree.  Not yet finalized.  I'm sure my shoddy lighting work is evident in this picture when you check out all the non-lighted gaps.  Our old lights are slowly burning out and I'm too lazy to fix them by investigating them one at a time, so I moved to some LED lights last night but didn't get enough.  Two strands was at least one strand short, maybe more.  And I still have to remove the old lights.  Some rework is necessary.  But I'm on agile projects, so this is just Iteration 0.

That large package is the very first Christmas present under the tree.  I ordered it early, so now Eryn has to look at it for a month.  It's driving her a bit nuts.

Here's Eryn at work:
and stage 2...

Secret Santa

I was amused to see a Secret Santa app out on The Code Project: Drawing Names (A Christmas Name Drawing Application by ZachCox).  I too have a Secret Santa program.  But it's in VB.  Not VB.NET.  But actual VB - I wrote it in...checking...November 2000.  I've never brought myself to update it to a new language because it works fine in VB and I never felt like updating the code to handle the new style of dynamically creating controls which worked really well with control arrays in the old VB COM world so you could easily add new rows to the UI.

The programs look suspiciously alike.  Mine worries about who your spouse is as well.  And it worries about who you had last year and avoids duplicating your match up two years in a row.  It also relies on an XML configuration file (savable year to year).  And it mails a notice to every participant (via Outlook, I was lazy).  But it doesn't have nearly as much code as ZachCox's - I think 20% of my code is loading the XML and 20% is testing code, and 30% is the automated VB form code.  The primary code file is all of 19K.  The compiled app is 32K.  The most important bit of code in my opinion is the following...

     Do Until indivSecond <> indivFirst 
          If iTrys > UBound(people2(), 2) + 50 Then . . .

Yep, bit of hardcoding.  Basically, if it gets through the whole list, and is on the last match, and it just can't make it work after 50 tries plus the size of the list, it scraps everything and starts over from scratch.  So it can run for a very long time if it has to start over repeatedly, or you set it up to fail by making someone the spouse of everyone.  But in thirteen years of running it, sometimes repeatedly for testing purposes, it's never taken more than  a few minutes to run my whole family plus any guest family attending Christmas that year.  In this case, brute force of the logic works like a charm.

That said, every year I ponder rewriting it in C# and perhaps making it so people can log in and create lists.  And every year I realize it's the holidays and I'd rather go Christmas shopping, visit Christmas displays, and do anything else.  Just more proof that I'm a very utilitarian coder who uses  code solely to solve his own problems.

Santa and a Very Giraffey Christmas

Santa left Eryn a giraffe hat.  A giraffe pillow.  And a half-eaten cookie.



At Grandpa Larry and Grandma Geri's, he showed up in person to deliver additional gifts.

I wanted an iPhone...

Felicia Day pointed me at these links via Laughing Squid:

Disgruntled people complaining about their Christmas gifts on Twitter... Compiled by Jon Hendren.

 Below, Jonathan Mann turns it into a song...WTF?! I Wanted An iPhone!!!

Santa...

...apparently stays at the Grandstay Hotel and Conference Center when he's visiting Burnsville. And he likes to promote that fact. And he's sponsored by Buck Hill and John Adamich's Dodge of Burnsville. John needs to change his logo, because his d backed to a b (dodge of burnsville) looks like two balls and a wang shooting a small o of jizz out the end.  Apparently, it's been worse than just a visual (link to blog).

It's a Chuck Norris Christmas

It's a Chuck Norris Christmas.  He and his enemy, the Red Ninja, have found common ground on our Christmas tree to celebrate peace and goodwill.  Well done you two.  You give hope to humankind.

Kyle's Christmas Sake Cup - 1750

We got Kyle another sake cup for Christmas this year, so now he officially has a collection.  The way I figure it, if he ever wants to go on some sort of midlife bender, a collection of historic sake cups won't lose their value and should be able to fund a nice vacation. Or perhaps he can impress a mail-order Japanese bride with them. And they look pretty on a shelf until then.  I suspect they're cool for drinking sake from as well, although perhaps he feels nervous drinking out of something older than the United States.  I would.

In case his nephew isn't suitably impressed, he should point out that this is a mystical cup that appeases Gojira and keeps the world safe.  Then again, maybe not.  Depending on how much J. wants to see Godzilla in person.

I wanted to put the details out here, so Kyle can find them if he ever needs them.

Blue and White Ko Imari Soba Choko Cup Mid 18c (see below - estimated 1750).


"The size of Soba Choko: 3" Dia x 2 3/8" High. Japanese Blue and White(Sometsuke) Porcelain Soba Choko Cup from 18 century. The Soba Choko cup is made from finely made porcelain body with straight line. It has Ichimatsu pattern and mesh design pattern. It is simply yet attractive design. The condition of Cup is very good, there is no crack and no hairline, except noting there are some foot rim with some Kamadashi Ato(original kiln flaw spots when removed from kiln) and old nicks. You can see from photos. Otherwise excellent condition. The age of Soba Choko from mid 18 century around 1750 (Horeki Period, Middle Edo) which we guarantee the age."

Some late Christmas tunage

Nathan Fillion (of Serenity) shared this link for North Point's iBand:


Which in turn led me to this post at Fandomania about 12 Songs for a Geeky Christmas. I like Chris Hardwick's hair band tune "All I Want for Christmas (is to Rock) by Sniper" (very Jack Black), the microphone with Christmas Balls and the Axel Rose shimmy are nice touches.

And I think Kyle's nephew will appreciate the Doctor Who cast singing a Christmas Carol:

Cool Christmas Present

My secret Santa gave me a Chris Sells bobble head doll!


See?

Christmas Present

She Says sent us some Christmas presents. I thought I'd model mine:

Almost Merry Christmas

My family celebrates Christmas eve tonight. I'm pondering how that's going to go down with the kitchen still full of ornaments, wrapping paper, sewing machine paraphernalia and guitars. Maybe we'll just do annual fondue on the floor.

Here's some Christmasy cheer from Jed Whedon and Maurissa (Mo) Tancharoen (Jed's wife, and cowriter on Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog):

Happy Christmas

Courtesy of a tweet from Felicia Day. Eryn thought it was hilarious.

Happy Holidays from DANIELS on Vimeo.

It's a Nice Day for a Spock Wedding...

If targeted marketing really worked, this would have shown up on my front step with a bill from Hallmark, because they would have known I'd buy it, even at a semi-ridiculous cost. What do Spock and Kirk fighting have to do with Christmas? Absolutely nothing...but it makes me happy and it will find a place of honor on our tree next to Eryn's Harry Potter pensieve ornament.

As a bonus, if you've never heard this before, I'm offering it up for everyone's enjoyment. I don't know who made it because I can't find it anywhere on the web and, according to the file date, I downloaded it in 2000. It may have actually been before that - 2000 could just have been the day on which I moved it to the "new" computer when we lived in Richfield.
Spock Wedding

Scooter's new Hallmark ornament: