Big day

Well, I got a taste of how things happen from here on in ... I got up to campus at 10am, and within an hour was asked by the department chair to take part in a grad student's advising team, and then asked to to participate in a thesis defence that's scheduled for the end of September. And then when I checked my mail I found that about half of the exams from the course I'm still technically teaching at Western had arrived ... and then the grad chair dropped off the aforementioned grad student's working draft of the thesis thus far. Whew.

Things happen fast.

And in somewhat more sensational news, I was woken up last night by the sound of a droning car horn out in the parking lot behind the parking lot behind my place. I looked out the window to see that a car was on fire! Seriously! It was blazing away merrily. I called 911, to be told a firetruck was en route. So of course I sat on my sill to watch the show.

Interesting thing -- movies would have you believe that once a car catches fire, it blazes for a few minutes before exploding in a massive fireball. In real life? Not so much ... Every few minutes there was a loud bang and a small gout of flame burst from the car. It burned for about ten minutes before the fire truck arrived (not comforted by that response time). I was looking forward to seeing the fire put out, but unfortunately it was not to be ... the fire truck parked itself exactly between my view and the car. Robbed of further spectacle, I went back to bed.

I still have no idea what exactly happened -- I checked the paper today, and saw nothing, and there was nothing on the news. Hopefully this isn't a common occurence ... I'll keep everyone posted if I hear anything.