Moving on

All things must end. Not necessarily the content of this blog, but perhaps its home. I decided to go over to typepad and try their web hosting for a while. It's nice. I've been tooling around with it. See what you think.

Help!

I spent most of this night trying to add a third column to my blog. All attempts failed miserably. I'm aggrivated at too much time up with too little results. If anyone has any advice it would be much appreciated. Even a solid template that I can re-add all my current information to would work. You'll get all the points if you can help me in this venture!

White Death

The snow fell and fell Wednesday night into Thursday. The "white death," as the media termed it, paralyzed most travel in the region. The airport basically shut down. The state transportation department declared a Level 3 snow advisory. Basically, this meant, stay the effe off the road or when we extract you from your vehicle with the jaws of life we will then ticket your ass. The "up" side to all of this frozen rain water falling from the sky came in the form of a phone call Thursday morning. A fellow employee called and told me that the powers that be, after the state declared the level three, told workers to stay home. At first I reacted with, "Ah, sweet!" Then two things occurred.

1. My mother handed me a gas can, the snow blower, and a shovel. I spent hours not only cleaning off the cars and the driveway, but also steps and a sizable portion of the street in front of our house, preparing for the eventual snow plows that would have left a sizable snow bank and really created a huge mess.
2. Me skipping a day of work is not good. My job does not allow a shrug of the shoulders and an "oh, well." Eventually, somehow I knew I'd be making up the missed work on deadline and under huge pressure. Typical deadline pressure good. Boss severely criticizing and jumping my shit at a time when I'm under review and not pleased about the approach used to criticize me, bad. So, anyway, after cleaning up the driveway I called a few sources and ventured out to the office around four to finish up some things I started

I lived through my illegal travels obviously. And I did get some satisfaction in at least trying to stay on task with work. I also waded through snow banks and ended up with soggy socks since road crews cleared nothing beyond the main roads yesterday. And I got to wake up on Christmas Eve morning and look at the back yard, glistening with hard packed, frozen snow being very thankful that I didn't need to go to work today and that I get to spend this holiday at home with mi familia

Winter Wonderland -- or hell froze over

The snow came. Precipitation still comes in the form of sleet then snow then sleet then more snow. It may not be a lot to the mountain people of Utah but the weather man predicts up to 20'' by morning. We just hit the half-way mark. I personally find the drifts and kids playing in their front yards to be endearing. All day today at work I sighed and wished I stood out there making a snowman. Instead I watched as the white stuff came down harder, and yes, at one point a fleet of police cars surrounded the bank next door. A fleet of police cars surrounding the bank next store!?! Some desperate man decidedly took the wrong approach to holiday shopping. Armed and with a ball cap on he made a withdraw. Like a complete dill-hole, I walked outside with a notepad to see what was up. A police officer I kind of knew sternly told me to turn around and go back in. The suspect ran around "at large" in the neighborhood. Dogs sniffed and police cruisers cruised. The dude is still out there, somewhere. Eventually I felt safe enough though to get into my parents' four-wheel drive SUV to go eat some lunch. They felt it safer for me to endanger their vehicle over my own. Very sweet of them. Smack. Some young dude hit it while, we'll pretend, sliding into an intersection. I think he actually ran the sign, but no proof, it's the holidays, and my parents' vehicle only received a smallish ding. His bumper of course nearly ripped off the frame. I mean posts and all. I did hurt for the young high school student though. He nearly fell to tears as he read and I wrote the tag number off of the temporary tags (I also got the VIN and insurance card info and blood type) . Early Christmas gifts that get smashed before Christmas, um, suck. I came home early to avoid driving on top of yet another layer of sleet/snow/sleet/snow. Plus city and county officials are going bonkers trying to keep the roads clean. Level two Snow Emergency and all. One more level and it becomes a ticketable offense to be on the road. Wonder if I'll have to go work tomorrow? We were told to do so under conditions just short of dying. And the folks just informed me I'd be venturing out without their four-wheeled-drive, new-car-terminating machine.

Snow and stuff

The forecast is calling for mucho snow here over the next two days. I am excited about it, much to the disappointment and bemoaning of family who view the weather as sinister and evil. They'll hunker down for the holidays. Perhaps this is wise, but my reaction tends to be go where you want to go. Just drive slow and lightly tap the breaks. In preparation for the three days off I get this weekend I went to B&N to get a much anticipated book before going to a late city council meeting. I took Christine's list, perused those and also looked at a few others. The Booker award winning novel Scott mentioned also seemed interesting. I wanted to definitely choose the best, so I gave myself enough time in a big cushy chair to read first chapters. I did not get far. Appearing the ass I do not doubt, I found myself startled awake by the realization that I was asleep. Crap. I looked at my watch, leapt up and barely made it to city hall for meeting. Perhaps me needs to settle down more than me thinks.