On a frigid early morning on November 18, 1999, the annual Leonid meteor shower, which gets spectacular every 33 years—the last Big Show was in 1966—put on a magnificent display known as a meteor storm during which we saw hundreds, maybe even thousands, of shooting stars per hour. The show looked something like this, but here, the streaks and trails are definitely not of celestial origin. Rather, these mark the passage of snow flakes—the sun-like blaze in the upper left comes from the floodlights by the basement door—as Winter Storm Quinn, the second nor'easter in a week, begins making mayhem in our neighborhood. The winds are starting to kick up, and while the precipitation from this gale is hard to predict, save that there'll be a lot of it in some form, it has started out as heavy, wet snow—the kind that brings down trees and power lines. Whatever happens, I'm ready... once again.