Tag: Snow

Snow Sucks

It’s been a busy morning so far.  Busy and freakin’ cold.

I spent some music time.  I redid the rhythm guitars on song #12 and also did the rhythm guitars on song #13.  I actually did that one twice too.  After I finished it I listened back and didn’t like it, so I just did it again.  I then did the lead guitar on song #12.  That one is about two measures of drums away from being complete.  I wrote 12 and 13 at about the same time.  I had listened to 1 through 11 and decided I was lacking in dumb rock songs.  12-14 were meant to fix that oversight.  Unfortunately, 12 and 13 sound really similar.  I might glue them together.  After making a nine song, 34 minute suite in November, I wasn’t going to do anything like that this month.  Now I think I am.  Song 14 was supposed to rock too, but after adding the drums it feels a teeny tiny bit funky.  About as funky as a fat, white, Irish American can get at least.  I might make that one acoustic.  We shall see.

After the music was done, it was time to watch USA play Slovenia in men’s ice hockey.  After one period it was Slovenia 0 and Phil Kessel 2.  I thought I’d run outside quickly and clean off some of yesterday’s snow.  In one of those happy magical events, a plow dumped snow just off the side of our driveway.  In doing so, the driver completely cleared the snow bank.  Thank you, oh blessed plow driver.  You made my day 100000 times easier.  I will forever appreciate your kind gesture.

So after I shoveled and cleaned most of the ice off of the cars, and dug out the fire hydrant again, I went slightly crazy.  The previous owners of our house left one of those roof shovel things in the garage.  We had major icicles hanging of the gutters.  We also have ice dams.  Yippee.  At first I thought I’d take that roof shovel thing and just knock down the icicles.  After I finished the front of the house I went nuts.  I couldn’t reach too far up onto the roof, but I dragged down as much as I could.  There is still an ice dam that seems to be located mostly in the gutters themselves, but there is a lot less snow on the edge of the roof itself.  I did the back of the house too. In some places I sank knee deep into the snow.  I’m something like six feet five inches tall.  Knee deep on me is chest deep on normal people.  There is a ton of snow out there.

So team USA won their game against Slovenia.  They are 3-0 in the preliminary round.  Amazingly, Russia and Slovakia are scoreless in overtime right now.  If Russia loses again… damn.

Later today we are going to go to my nephew’s third birthday party.  I am still not feeling terribly well, and my wife woke up with the same bug today and is really feeling sick.  Therefore we are going to go to the party, but we aren’t going to stay very long.  We need to go home and let my love get better.

In unrelated news, I started a backup of my Flickr account yesterday afternoon.  It’s about half way done.  I have so much stuff over there, you can’t even believe it.

I might try to do some more recording later today.  We’ll see how the day turns out.

Go Team USA!

I’ve Had It

That’s it.  I’m done.  Screw you, winter.

I shoveled out the whole driveway yesterday, as well as the fire hydrant in the front yard.  When I finished the street was more or less clear too.  Just before going to bed I looked outside.  There was a two foot snow bank at the end of the driveway.  Apparently a plow came by and tried to widen the already wide road. 

I got up a little after 5:00am and went outside to shovel the snow bank.  It was 34 degrees out.  The snow was melting a little, and it was drizzling.  Never in my life have I shoveled heavier snow than this morning.  I was already hurting from all the digging last night, but this was just insult to injury.  There was also some slush on the two cars so I cleaned all of that off too, and I dug out the fire hydrant once again.

At 7:00am the kids and I left the house.  The car was covered in a thin layer of fresh snow.  Are you kidding me?  I cleared it off again.  If you’re keeping track, this is now three times that I’ve cleaned off the car, and I haven’t even driven it yet. 

On top of all of that crap-ola, while Jen was driving to work this morning a rock hit her windshield and cracked it a little.  Again, are you kidding me?  Kiss my ass, winter!  She told me it isn’t cracked badly, and it’s safe to drive.  If it starts to grow, as cracked windshields often do, we’ll have to replace the damn thing. 

Enough already!  I want Spring back RIGHT NOW DAMN IT!

Oh, and did I mention there is more snow in the forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday?

Snowing… Yet Again

This winter just won’t leave us alone.

Here are two views across Canobie Lake, just as the storm was starting. The first pic comes complete with an ice fishing hut.

And now the obligatory front and back yard pics. It is snowing like a frozen end of the world right now. At least I saw a woodpecker in the back yard this morning.

I hate snow. I hate winter. Mother nature is a big fat stinking jerk face.

Snow Recap

Last night when I left work at 5:30pm it was snowing like crazy.  There were a few inches on my car and in the time it took me to brush it off it was already nearly covered again.  The highway going North was slow.  When I reached the 128/Mass Pike junction it was crawling.  Five miles per hour, tops.  By the time you got through Waltham, MA it started to ease up.  There were actual bare patches on the pavement.  When I merged onto route 93 it slowed down again, but at worst it was around 15 mph.  Once you reached Wilmington, MA the road was about 75% snow-free and the speed picked up to about 40-45. 

This morning, after the winter storm warnings and end of the world forecasts, I expected to look out the window and see a foot of snow.  I also expected that Jen and I would be working from home today.  Not quite.  What I actually saw was the same mostly bare driveway I pulled into last night at 8:00pm.  We didn’t get anything at all.  I checked the news and saw that to the South of our home the storm dumped a lot of snow.  Over a foot in some places.  I figured up North in the Merrimack Valley the highways would be okay, but at some point between home and work I’d get stuck in some serious snow traffic.

Not even close.  I left the house at a little before 7:00am, stopped for gas, and then hit the road.  The CRV was out of washer fluid so I had to stop once to clean off the windshield.  I stopped at the rest area on 128 South that is just before route 9.  Have you ever driven a Honda CRV?  Last night Jen tried to add some washer fluid but couldn’t find the hood release.  I looked around for it this morning before I left, but I was still expecting a two hour drive so I didn’t look long.  While I was at the rest stop I found the latch.  It is the tiniest little thing and it is located in the weirdest, most illogical place.  I probably spent 10 minutes trying to figure it out.  In the end, the entire drive (including the rest stop) took slightly less than one hour. 

The forecasts yesterday were calling for my neighborhood to get hit with as much as 8 to 12 inches of snow.  We ended up getting a dusting.  With apologies to folks living on Cape Cod (who got bombarded with snow overnight), this is exactly the kind of weather forecast screw up that I like.  If you folks are going to get it seriously wrong, the very least you could do is get it wrong in a way that benefits us.  Not like last weekend when we got snow accumulation when none was predicted.  That screw up sucked.  Today’s screw up is fine with me.

I Hate snow

The snow showers we were supposed to get yesterday turned into a few inches of wet, heavy, awfulness. The 30% chance of flurries we were supposed to get turned into about three hours of constant snow. A little of it stuck, but not much. That’s good at least.

I hate snow.

Winter Wonderland

I just shoveled the end of the driveway. Pardon me a minute while I die of exhaustion…

…okay, I’m back.

The yard is most definitely a winter wonderland today. I saw three deer playing in the snow in the woods. Of course, they may have been bouncing around because the snow was too deep for them to walk. That would mean they weren’t exactly playing, but possibly struggling for survival. Still, they looked like they were playing.

I’ve seen two of my favorite back yard wilderness birds today. Cardinals and woodpeckers. All we need now is an owl and a red tailed hawk and the day will be a jackpot all around.

Apart from the horrors of the snow removal, of course. I’m going to take a fist full of aspirin now. Talk to you all later.

Snowmageddon!

Jen had a training in Boston today. When word of the traffic nightmare trickled in she booked a hotel room to avoid it. Going to Boston cut my snow drive in half, so I joined her. 22 miles in 2 hours and 15 minutes or so. I was stopped enough in town to snap a few pics.

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Bestsy done good tonight, despite the wiper issues.

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And one more from the sidewalk.

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Another Day of Snow Sucking Up the Place

I took the kids to their Dad’s house this morning so that they could catch their rides to school.  I was a little surprised by the state of some of the roads.  The snow ended yesterday morning, but it still was a little sloppy here and there.  Route 93 North seemed to be much icier than I had expected.

I’m working from home today, so I didn’t have to deal with my long commute.  My wife, however, has to go to a training in Boston today.  She left the house at 6:30am.  She called me at 8:00 and she’d only made it about half way, if that.  As of 8:15 she still wasn’t even remotely close.

Why?

Is this a case of the state dropping the ball on cleaning up the highways, or is it just an example of a phenomenon that occurs each year where most drivers react to the first snowfall of the year by completely forgetting how to drive in the snow.  I would guess that it’s a combination, but frankly the snow fell yesterday and both things should have been cleared up by today.

Hang in there, my love.  Be safe.  I love you!