THE ABOMINABLE SNOW JERK

Early Tuesday morning, I walked a mile up the road to a hardware store that was open, and actually had snow shovels in stock. This was a surprise because everything, including the Federal Government, was closed. I bought a shovel and began the three-hour process of digging my car out of he snow. It wasn't fun, but I finally got it cleared out. With the terrible condition of the roads, and the snow emergency that had been declared, I had no intention of going anywhere, but I just felt better knowing that I could get out if I really needed to. There were a lot of people helping each other shovel and push cars that were stuck in the snow. I helped a neighbor lady shovel her car out, and I also helped a nurse (who had just gotten home from the hospital after being stuck for three days) get her car into a snow filled parking spot. For the most part, what I saw seemed to be a nice display of neighbors helping neighbors... until later that night. Around 9:00 I discovered that the person with red car next to me, shoveled his way out, and dumped all of his snow in front of mine. That is just rotten! What kind of a jerk would do that!? I mean I, along with most other people, went to the trouble to throw the snow behind our cars, and this jerk blocked me back in. Well, I hope he got stuck in a snow drift somewhere! BTW, the storm has passed, and now we're just hoping that the snow doesn't melt too quickly and cause flooding. According to the Weather Channel, my area had a total of 27" of snow. Well, to that I say 'enough is too much'. How many days until Spring?

THE DIG OUT

It's day three of the DC Snow-In. We had the last of the snowfall this morning, and now we've all got to shovel ourselves out. Today the federal government is still closed and few businesses in the area are open.

Living in an area where we don't normally get a ton of snow means that when the snow does hit, people are not always prepared. Many people (including me) found themselves without a snow shovel. Even if you could get to a store (and it was open) you might find that all the shovels were sold out. I've seen a lot of clever items used to shovel snow, such as frisbees, pizza boxes and waste baskets. This was my solution to the problem. I combined a metal dust pan with a plunger handle, and voila - a mini snow shovel! This worked for a while, but dust pans just aren't designed to carry the weight of snow, and so eventually the handle started breaking off.

GUESS THAT CAR

Today begins day two of the DC Snow-In. We're at 19 inches and counting. Last night all roads were closed, with only emergency vehicles being allowed out. Since today is President's day, most of us in this area have the day off, which is good because it's going to take a whole day to dig our cars out. If you look closely, you'll be able to make out the form of a Volkswagon Beetle under that pile of snow.

This is not a minivan. It's my Jetta. I think I'm going to need a bigger snow brush.

THIS IS THE BIG ONE

We've been warned for days that the biggest storm of the season was heading our way. Well, they were right. It's been snowing for about 14 hours straight and it's a mess out there, especially for a city that isn't used to heavy snow. The news is saying that it could keep snowing for another 24 hours and when it's all over we'll have over two feet of snow on the ground. At least tomorrow is a holiday, because I don't think anyone is going anywhere.

VALENTINE SURPRISE

One of my coworkers got the Valentine surprise of his life when his wife sent a barbershop quartet to the office to sing to him. I expected the victim to blush, but instead, he just broke out into a sweat, because his gift for his wife didn't even compare to this.

THE LONG COLD WINTER

Last year at this time, I was feeling like it was the first time in my life that I had missed the winter season. Sure, it got cold, but it really wasn't that bad, and I think it snowed only once. This year has been another story. It's snowed quite a bit here in D.C., and it has been cold as hell. It still doesn't compare to the brutal winters I had growing up in Erie, Pennsylvania, but I'm ready for spring to arrive. This has also been the single busiest winter I've ever had. I worked far too many 80 hour weeks, and just two nights ago, in order to make another deadline, I didn't leave work until 5:45 a.m. Sadly, in the past four months, that's not longest day I had - the longest was 23.5 billed hours. Fortunately, things truly are slowing down now, and I'm going to take some time off to recover very soon.