We had a committee meeting today to plan our halloween party. We have good halloween parties at work. One year we did the Wizard of Oz and last year it was a hospital with plenty of blood and gore. I missed that one but I did see the pictures. This year it looks like we'll have a space theme. Sort of a Y3K type of thing. This will give people a wide range to be horrible in.

I read Sharyn McCrumb's book of short stories, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown". She is so good at atmosphere. Her mysteries are a great combination of common sense and Appalachian tales of the unexplained. I also enjoy her "Bimbo" series on a writer of bad science fiction, which are very funny.

I enjoy stories set in the Appalachians, using Appalachian lore and myths. There is something very mysterious and foggy about them. I like fog. That's one reason I like San Francisco. I have a feeling that I would get a bit cranky and depressed if it was always foggy, but sometimes it's like walking in a fairytale.

When I was a child my fantasy adventures always started by walking through foggy woods or misty moors. I didn't really know what a moor was, but it was definitely cool and wonderful adventures and quests always came of it. Because of this I have always had a fondness of rain and fog. Through the years I've realized that I don't really want to walk through wet woods all the time, because you can get very cold and miserable, but it's great for a while.

We need more quests and adventures. I don't mean packaged "Adventure Travel" but adventures where you just go and don't know what is going to happen. That's hard to do in two weeks of vacation though, and harder to do if you have plenty of time but no job. We often have to settle for little adventures and little stretches of our comfort zone, and, no, buying a lager instead of a wine cooler does not qualify, though they are both good.