chaos i tell you.

1. my friends have been plagued by car accidents, which is not a normal occurence for these cautious drivers. thank goodness they're still around to talk about it.

2. one friend has had interrupted internet service at work due to the virus. this has subjected her to agonizingly long hours of meetings and budget talks.

3. our company's main database system, conveniently located amidst the power outage area of the east coast, has been spotty at best. today, it is down again, due to a "blow up" of the backup system, causing much chaos in our other local departments.

4. one of our planes, formed a crack in the landing gear, and is currently still docked in california. this twelve hour delay is certainly not making our clients any happier, not to mention all of the business we are losing. according to one of the managers, this sort of incident has not happened in many years.

apparently, throughout august and september we'll be suffering. displayed in this calendar, the shaded red boxes indicate a "shadow" period. this article clarifies:

From experience, it is clear that Mercury-ruled matters start getting weird some time during the Front-End Shadow, and continue being weird into the Back-End Shadow.

because of the "shadow" and the "storm", there should be, as noted at www.astroinsights.com:

Mercury also rules travel and the mechanism to get you there. It's not unusual to have mechanical problems during this cycle. Expect breakdowns and/or mix-ups with travel arrangements as well.

for further investigations of this astrological phenomenon, peruse this resource.

i'm now going to go prepare myself for more havoc.