Welcome to Gaia! ::

"But I have more available to me than a normal Gaian day," Shiro quipped with a grin. "Besides, most of the projects are intriguing. It's just once in a while that I get one I can't stand."

He was especially enjoying programming for games - because he got to test them out, something Kaito and Ura loved to help him to do.

Shiro chuckled. "Someday I'll take a good long holiday. So far this is one, since I can't really do anything while I'm here except fiddle with my tablet. No projects on the go at the moment."

Maybe he would look up Cindy while they were out here, maybe she could help him a bit. She had studied magic quite a bit, as far as he knew - she even had her own little experiments.

Shiro thought about it for a moment. "Keep fiddling with the tablet, I suppose," he said finally. "On the one hand, I don't want to waste the battery, but on the other hand, the charger is solar powered, so it's not too much trouble to recharge. And there are some things I want to try out."

He smiled at Lin. "You?"

"A practical lesson in snow?" Shiro repeated, blinking. "What kind of lesson would that be? I mean, it's a bit cold and deep to be going outside in it ... how could you make a lesson practical?"

She wasn't actually talking about going outside in the storm, was she? Even she couldn't be that crazy ....

"Good point," Shiro smiled. He looked down at the tablet that was sitting on the table, then looked back at Lin. "Need an encyclopedia?" he asked her. "It's got everything you can think of ... well, nearly, there are a few topics that I left out intentionally."

He wouldn't say which ones, though.

"Of course," Shiro replied, reaching for his tablet. He pressed his thumb to one corner of the screen, and very quickly it lit up. He tapped it a few times, then typed a bit, and finally he handed the whole thing over to Lin.

"Here, it's on the entry," he told her. "To scroll just use your finger to drag the screen ... links to images are highlighted. Careful though, I think there's only about three or four more hours of battery life left, I was up kind of late last night."

Shiro grinned. "Just don't let her break it," he said, not really thinking that she would but warning her just in case. "I need that thing to last me, you have no idea how much it cost me to get it."

The parts had been incredibly expensive - then again, most military stuff was, for the every day person.

The snow stopped at the end of the day, and the wind ended overnight, and it was two more days before anyone could leave the house. Still, the weather had warmed considerably, and the snow was melting quite quickly, considering how fast it had accumulated.

The days passed, visits were made, and the countdown to the Old Year and New Year celebrations quickly grew shorter. Everyone was getting excited about it, and preparations were worked on every single day.