Snowpocalypse

I have never appreciated having electricity, running water and heat so much in my entire life. Within the last 48 hours, a freak snowstorm buried the Mid-Atlantic, -understatement of the year-, knocked out the power for over a quarter million people in sub-20 degree weather, shut down the nation's capital and made me a very uncomfortable guy. Final snow measurement according to my trusty meter stick is 26 inches on our deck. Predictably, school has been canceled tomorrow.

After two days of no power, running water, or heating in 20 degree weather, my parents, pet dog and I finally made the desperate drive home through unplowed streets from our Maryland house just in time for the Superbowl and the Saints destroying the Colts in probably one of the best games I've seen. In case you didn't watch it, I'd imagine that Youtube will be filled with highlights of the game very, very soon.

So, for those of you who did watch the game, how would you rank Superbowl XLIV?

Go Saints!!!

JP

An Epic Winter Tale

Do you remember going driving for the first time? Was it just a shopping trip to the supermarket with your parents, the time your older sibling snuck you out for a quick run without letting your parents know or for you adventurous few a full out joyride? (hopefully not). Well, while I'll save my first driving experience story for a later time and post, I did do something I felt was milestone-ish yesterday, and that would be legitimate winter driving.

Granted, it wasn't for anything that exciting, (heck, it's something that ranks near bottom on the exciting list), it still proved to be a day of excitement and in the end learning. I had to go pick up a friend to go to the library and work on a Government project and given the recent storm we had, anything that wasn't a main artery through the town is still covered in 3 inches of compacted snow and ice. Me and my Passat made it out of my neighborhood alright and the main road was okay apart form lanes being much narrower due to massive snow plow drifts along the side, the fun started when I pulled into her neighborhood. I was greeted by piles and piles of nasty grey-brown slush that I easily powered through but then I entered roads seemingly untouched by a plow or sand truck, heck, I could barely see the road. The neighborhood is really close by to my old elementary school and the roads are very hilly and by this point rutted by all the people who had tried to get out. I got down the main hill and entered the small road which leads to her house, the bumps made my car bump and slide a little form side to side and STC had to kick in a few times but I finally reached the final turn.

Now, if all the other roads ranked at about a 6 or so in terms of impassibility, this ranked as a 9. There was only one set of tire tracks leading down to her house at the end of the cul-de-sac. Obviously people were being smart enough to not venture out when the roads are doing their best to halt any progress. I made it down the hill okay but I realized the tizzy I was in by the time I reached the bottom (did I really just use the word "tizzy"!?). The hill was steep, or at least somewhat steep, I just drove down in a forward direction on a set of tire tracks with no where to even begin to turn without getting pitifully stuck, and my car was front wheel drive. After my friend got in, I tried the only thing I could possibly do, and that is reverse up a rather long slippery snow covered hill. I tried to follow the tire track and got about 1/3 of the way up when all progress stopped and a little yellow light on my dash started blinking. It was the traction control light and that meant I was stuck. First thought in my head - "Fuck, now what do I do" followed then by "well this is embarrassing" and finally by "okay, let's try his again". I repeated this process about 4 more times before I decided to start all the way over. further down the road my friends neighbor cleared off their driveway and a cable repair man told us to drive in, make a u turn and try going up the hill frontwards, so we did. This time around, we got a scare half way up but eventually, we got out of the hill of death.

So me and my friend went to the library and got our work done all fine and dandy and we were going to go to lunch afterwards but her parents were a little cranky so that plan was axed. When i wen to go drop her off again, i decided to not go down that final hill again and my friend agreed and said she would just walk the final leg to her house. After that, I went to Baja Fresh to get some lunch and headed home, completing my first winter driving experience.

So, what did we learn?
1. We need more snow plows to clear off the roads
2. AWD really is necessary sometimes
3. Drive slowly
4. New Englanders and Mid-Westerners must be part eskimo to be able to endure this weather four times over every winter.

Happy Holidays!

JP

Let it Snow, Let is Snow, Let it Snow

Mother nature has really outdone herself this winter as the region is expected to get quite a hefty amount of snow! With snow reaching an unprecedented 12-24 inches by the time this storm is all done, this could turn out to be one of the greatest snowfalls ever received this early in December! See as i will likely be stuck at home all day tomorrow I'll take the time to work on finishing up college essays and applications (boo!) but also take time to appreciate the beauty of the falling snow.

My ideal winter snow day would involve me, a cute guy, a crackling fireplace and lots of snuggling, but then again this is still during the school year so unfortunately this will have to be postponed to a later date.

I'm contemplating going out on Sunday and see if people will be willing to pay me to shovel their walkways. I don't know what to charge, but my coach recommended this to us as a way to get some good exercise and also make some cash in the mean time.

Overall this week has been a good, albeit exhausting one. I haven't gone to bed before 2:30AM this week which means I've been getting 4 or less hours of sleep each night (I know, shame on me) but teachers are really piling on the last minute tests and grades before winter break begins next week. Today for example i had a physics lab due, a physics test, Calc test and a 2k test. Last night i didn't end up going to sleep until about 3 (homework, studying, procrastination skills) and I was worried about both my tests today because I didn't feel like I understood anything, especially in calc where we essentially got notes and terribly vague instruction. Surprisingly, I found the physics test pretty easy and I was able to answer all the questions on the calc test. Hopefully I did everything correctly in the end. So after all the school tests were all said in done, all that was left was the 2k.

Now today was "Carnivore Day" in journalism which made my prospects of a successful 2k seem limited at best. Carnivore Day is pretty much a day where everyone brings in some food for a meat-based extravaganza - chili, hot dogs, chips, soda and baked goods galore. Not a vegetable in sight. It is usually recommended that you eat well before a 2k so you don't get bogged down because your body is trying to digest heavy and unhealthy food, but I find it terribly hard to resist a good, delicious artery clogging lunch when it is set up buffet style before me. So I enjoyed and immediately felt in trouble when I was sleepy soon after. Since it has been about two weeks since our last 2k, I hoped to cut ten seconds off my time, whether that was possible was questionable in my mind but I went in with high hopes and Lady Gaga blasting from my headphones. So, the result of all my worrying, poor food choices and fantastic music? 15 seconds chopped off from my last 2k time bitches! I'm only 10 seconds off my PR time so I really hope I can keep this track of progress for the rest of conditioning.

Have a nice weekend!

JP

Thanks, Mother Nature

A quick snapshot of my backyard this morning, read on to clarify

Once again I'm posting at 1AM, this seems to be becoming a habit of mine, posting late in the night. Well, last night was my friend's surprise 16th birthday party which actually turned out to be quite fun. My friend Nat thought she was going to go help out at a senior living community's annual Holiday Party at the local golf clubhouse but in reality, it was 40 of her friends plus her family ambushing her.

I left practice an hour early so I could send two people home and pick up some dry cleaning (it was semi-formal) before the party, but because of traffic, I didn't get to take a shower like I wanted to. I ended up just wiping myself down with a hot moist towel which worked in a pinch. I didn't have time for dinner either so when I got there, me and the other 6 crew kids were all starving half to death. Finally, when she arrived, everything got into full swing and food was brought out (cue angel chorus). There was dancing and the like but most of the people there were juniors and the only seniors there were me and some other people from the crew team, but we had fun. As always, the DJ though could have been better, he sucked at transitioning songs and he didn't listen to 3/4 of the requests which was annoying. Nat had a great time though, she got a tiara and a really nice *pink* cake. It was a pretty good cake but the frosting was sickeningly sweet and rich. The final song turned out to be "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz which was kinda odd mood-wise but we all got a nice good-bye hug circle going.

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In a rather funny bit of friend gossip, my friend Kevin has developed some sort of man crush on Taylor Lautner of Twilight/New Moon fame. On Friday he asked me "Is it gay for me to like New Moon and the Twilight series?" to which I responded "No, I've read all the books and seen the movies." This then developed into a three person coversation between him, me and another girl in our journalism class and into how hot Taylor is and how he had made so many people "change teams" in the whole Vampire-Werewolf debate. Later during crew practice I asked him what the whole thing was about in journalism and he just said he had been really obsessed with Taylor Lautner since seeing New Moon, to which I responded "Well, he is really hot and has the body of a god" and he said back "He is really hot, and I'm secure enough with myself to say that." Anyways, I find this whole episode kinda funny, I never really expected this from him, and combined with the fact that he likes Lady Gaga, Kesha, Taylor Lautner and to an extent Twilight (though he claims to never have read the books, something I question a little) and that he's not afraid to get touchy with people makes him quite an interesting person...

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Today, here in the DC area, we got our first legit snowfall. I measured about 3 inches outside our front door but some nearby areas got over 5 inches! It might not sound like much to some people, especially those who live further north, but that's a lot of snow for this area and surprisingly early in the season at that. Maybe this will finally be a good snow year. I ended up just working on an English project, French and college essays all day, boo, no fun. Tomorrow is going to be sunny though which means most of the snow and ice will likely melt away, but maybe, ever so slight the chance that some ice will remain that we might just get a delayed start on Monday. *fingers crossed*

I hope everyone has enjoyed their weekend so far.

Take care, and all the best,

JP