It’s a work-in-the-office day. I woke up nice and early, though about half an hour later than I was hoping. I had a lot of meetings on my work calendar today, the first of them being very early in the day. I wanted to make sure I could get through my whole morning routine, including 45 minutes of jogging (pronounced yogging) in place and making lunch and packing emergency protein snacks and all of that stuff while still leaving enough time for me to get to work a little early.
Unfortunately when I got out of bed I saw that we got a dusting of snow overnight. Not a lot, but enough to cover everything and guarantee a terrible morning commute. I was hoping to get out onto the road by 7:15. I made it by 7:20, but I had to cut my exercise in half to pull off that feat. That means I am going to have to yog tonight when I get home and I really do not want to do that. I wasn’t late to work, but it did take me an hour and a half to drive the 40 miles.
Now that it’s about 2:30 in the afternoon, I have survived two big meetings and I have a third coming up in half an hour. I’m stressing out, big time, but once I get through today I will not have to worry about this sort of thing for a while and I am happy about that idea.
Tomorrow and Friday I will be working from home. I am optimistic that I will be able to get a lot of music done before work both days. Fingers crossed for some guitar playing and car vocals and fun stuff like that. I’m also thinking it would be nice to mix a song or two over the weekend. Doesn’t that sound like fun?
For now though, I am really tired and can’t wait to get through my next meeting so that I can relax a little. Maybe if I can get my exercise finished right after dinner tonight I might be able to go to bed early and enjoy not having to stress over a work project for the first time in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed, right?
It has been a couple of years since we’ve had a snow storm like this. I don’t know what the official snowfall total is for my city, but I live in a spot that is subject to snow drifts and the piles of snow in my front yard were easily over two feet. Down the street from us, the accumulation appears to be a lot smaller. I don’t care about their driveways though. Mine was pummeled.
Last night I cleared most of the snow off of the three cars in the driveway, shoveled the driveway and the humongous plow snowbank at the end of the driveway, on the street. That was easily three feet deep and packed in tight. It was heavy too. Basically a shoveling worst case scenario. Finally, I dug out the fire hydrant at the end of our front yard. That involves more plow snow bank, just to add insult to injury.
I left a couple of things unfinished. I did not clean off the cars completely. They were still covered with frozen, packed in snow. It was less than an inch of coverage, but it was going to take an ice scraper to clean it off and I didn’t have it in me last night. I also did not shovel a path from the driveway to the door on the side of the house, which includes digging out access to the trash barrels.
My step son, Harry, was supposed to move from our house to his dad’s house for the week yesterday but the snow kept him with us for an extra night. I sincerely thank the snow for that gift of bonus Harry time. That means he is going to leave sometime this afternoon while Jen and I are working. I took a few minutes to fully(ish) clean off the car that was at the end of the driveway (as mentioned there are three cars in the driveway, our Mazda is on the end and Harry’s car is in the middle. The Mazda needs to move so he can get out) so it would be ready to go when he’s ready to leave. Further, that car was down to less than one gallon of gas so I wanted to fill it before I did anything else.
Fortunately, the ice wasn’t too bad. I started the car and scraped it pretty clean in a short amount of time and then headed to the gas station. It should be noted that the state line between Massachusetts and New Hampshire was, as usual, clearly defined on the roads. Citizens of Massachusetts pay sales tax and income tax. New Hampshire citizens pay neither. The state line is clearly marked by the spot where the road goes from snowy but safely passable (the Massachusetts side of the border) to barely plowed at all and a mess of snowy shit (the New Hampshire side of the border). You see kids, paying taxes means you get services from your government. Services like snow removal after a fucking blizzard. Dig?
Anyway, I went to the gas station which means I had to take pictures as if I were a youtube film photographer even though I am not a youtube film photographer and I took these with my phone.
Speaking of film photography, of course the morning after a huge snow storm had an absolutely glorious sunrise/golden hour which I was not able to take advantage of because mother nature is a friggin’ ass whipe.
130/365
The gas station and car clearing process went very quickly which meant I had more time available before I had to start getting ready for work. I was inspired to spend that time finishing off the last of the shoveling. I dug a trench around the side of the house so that I can get the trash barrels to the street tomorrow, and so I can get the daily trash bags out to the barrel from the house. I also dug out the stairs to the door on the side of the house. While in the process I took one final aftermath photo with my phone. This time to give an idea of how deep the snow drifts were. Marvel at the depth…
It was deeper on the cars last night, and I think it is deeper in some spots in the back yard as well.
Well kids, there you have it. The snow removal fun is done. Here’s hoping the temperatures climb unseasonably high over the next few days and most if not all of this shit melt away and never come back. Seriously. I’m making a command decision and moving the whole family to San Diego, pronto. I hate snow.
It’s snowing outside. We are supposed to get a big~ish snow storm starting late tonight and running through the whole day tomorrow. They are predicting about a foot.
Yippee.
I hate snow. I hate winter. I hate them with the fiery passion of 100 burning suns. You see the irony, right?
No word from the guitar shop today. The guitar looked finished in the pics he put on the bookfayce yesterday but I couldn’t really tell. There was likely some finishing work that needed to happen (file down, polish, adjust the new frets maybe?) that I don’t know anything about. Hopefully I will hear something tomorrow. I can’t pick it up on Wednesday as I’ll be in the office. I don’t even know if he opens his doors on any other days. His website books appointments on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Let’s see what happens, okay?
Two things that I need to do today. One, call a plumber to look at a leak in the old bathroom. Two, I have a doctors appointment after work. I also have 3.5 hours left in my work day. I am just wrapping up lunch now.
Harry is coming home this weekend. How awesome is that? Looking forward to having him around. Also really looking forward to Thanksgiving. The actual holiday we will travel to my sisters’. The following Saturday we will have Thanksgiving Part II (electric turkey boogaloo) with the kids and Jen’s folks. I am really excited about both. Not that I can eat like I used to, but I’ll still love every minute of both days.
When are we going to go Christmas tree shopping? We usually try to do that while the kids are home for Thanksgiving, but I don’t know how the schedules will work out this year. We’ll have to figure that out too.
Have I mentioned that I am absolutely freezing today? Stupid cold. Stupid winter (even though we’re still over a month away from the first day of winter, it’s basically winter already).
Okay. Lunch break is over. Get back to work, Robert. You have some custom code to deliver. Get to it.
According to the website almanac.com, Spring in the Northern Hemisphere starts at 5:24pm today. In my time zone, that’s 12 minutes from now!
Oh Happiness! Oh Bliss! Oh Rapture! The son of a bitch we call Winter is going to officially end in just a few minutes! 11 minutes to go!
Now if only we could just flip a switch and have warm, happy weather right on queue instead of weeks more of cold and dreary awful. Sure, Winter is ending, but the crappy conditions are going to stick around for a while. It’s Spring, how about no more ice at all until next December? Can we make that happen? Nine minutes to go!
Eight minutes to go now! I am so excited!
Seven minutes to go! I can’t wait! It’s almost here!
That storm was an asshole. I’d say we probably had 6-8 inches of snow, but it was never cold enough for it to stay frozen and it was soaking wet and weighed a ton. We might have had way over a foot if it had been five degrees colder, and it wouldn’t have been sitting on a city sized puddle.
When I finished work I was convinced that I wouldn’t be driving into the office tomorrow. Then I saw the forecast had changed some and the predicted overnight snow was now predicted overnight rain. Shit. I went outside and shoveled the driveway and cleared off the cars. If it is just rain tonight I’ll drive to the office tomorrow. If it’s snow again I’ll likely stay home.
We’re going to get spanked around by the weather today. Also tonight. Also tomorrow. It started last night with a heavy rain storm. That storm is supposed to merge with a nor’easter today and turn into a butt load of snow. Yippee.
It was raining like nuts when I went down to the cellar this morning. When I poked my head up a few minutes ago it was just starting to turn into snow. Hooray.
The forecast is calling for 6-10 inches of snow today. I’m not sure how much we’re supposed to expect tomorrow. It’s March 14th. It’s still Winter, and Winter is not going to go quietly… the prick.
Tomorrow is a work from the office day, and the snow is supposed to still be falling during the morning commute. Oh good.
Inside the Red Head's Head 