Tag: Weather

Snow Day

The kids are super excited for the snow today. They’re calling for 4-8 inches. These kids have really never had a good snow. They were either too young or not yet born for Snowmaggeddon and we’ve been setting records in the DC area over the last couple years for our lack of snow.

Unfortunately, The Wife and I both have work we have to do, even though OPM closed the federal government. And I have to get a bike ride in for Freezing Saddles.

Also, for the record, it is nearly 9AM and The Wife is still in bed. I’ve already been to the gym, made coffee, done some work, and fed the kids breakfast.

This is why I live close to work, Part 2

A friend once told me that, when considering two more or less equal candidates for a job opening, you should choose the one with a better commute. Wait, where was I? Oh, right. Today my commute involved tiptoeing past my daughter’s room, hoping not to wake her, and sitting down at the table to get to work. There’s, like, a blizzard, or something, going on out there. I have no meetings, and no one is really expecting me in the office, so I’m staying put. Daycare is opening three hours late, and since the snow is still coming down hard, they may not open at all. So I may have to watch her this afternoon anyway. If you’re going in to work today, or going out anywhere, be careful.

This is why I live close to work

A friend once told me that, when considering two more or less equal candidates for a job opening, you should choose the one with a better commute. Is it really bad where you live? The hardest part of my commute was coming down my own front stairs, which we didn’t shovel at all, and are now covered in ice. Sure, it was a little slow walking to the bus. But the roads are fine. I got in pretty quickly. When I arrived, I found all sorts of people out of the office. One coworker had a meeting this afternoon postponed because 2/3 of the attendees didn’t make it in. Another coworker had a 10AM meeting cancelled (at 9:45) because the person he was meeting didn’t come in. I have a 1:30 meeting, and the two people who work in this building that I expected to attend are not here yet, leading me to believe that they won’t be here. This meeting is going to be really difficult to do over the phone since it’s supposed to be a presentation of various things. Maybe I’ll pretend I live out in West Virginia or something, too, and just call in. It annoys me when people shirk their job responsibilities due to the weather. Sure, I understand not wanting to come in. But when these people took these jobs, they pledged to get to the office when they were needed there. You can choose to live far away if you want, but don’t use it as an excuse. When I was in college, I never missed a class due to drinking the night before (except the day after my 21st birthday, when I made an exception, and still made my afternoon class) or weather, even when I lived off campus. I skipped class when I didn’t feel like going, but never because I had made a personal choice about where I lived or how much I drank. I’m not sure most people make that distinction, but I do, and so I can be smug about your failure to come to work today.

I’m going to punch Mother Nature in the Face. And also WMATA.

In what I’m sure will be a recurring theme for the day for DC bloggers, I’d like to take a moment to complain about the cold. I don’t get cold easily. In fact, just last night the wife and I were discussing that it would be awesome if I could sell my excess body heat – I certainly don’t need all of it, and others (including the wife) would be happy to have it. In any event, I bailed on my usual walk to work after less than a block. Most days I enjoy the walk. It gives me time to think and prepare for the day at work. But not when it’s this cold. Weather.com tells me that it’s 11 degrees out, and it feels like -4. That would explain the frozen snot in my nose. So, I took the bus. Not usually a problem, except that I was on one of the really old models, and it broke down at V Street. The driver didn’t announce anything. We just sat for a minute, and then someone got off, then another person, and soon the whole bus had cleared. Luckily there was another bus right behind, so we didn’t have to wait. But tell me – have you ever been on a bus that broke down in pleasant weather? I’ll bet you haven’t. Then I find out that they’ve opened the roadblocks for Obama, and my normal bus stop is back in use. Except I was on an S1 instead of an S2/S4, thinking it didn’t matter due to the road closure. You got me again, WMATA. And then, just as I thought things were picking up, some woman tried to run me down on while I crossed H St. I didn’t have the light, but there were no cars except this woman, pulled over and letting someone out. So I crossed the street, at which point she started to drive. Now, H Street is four or five lanes at this point. I’m not that big a guy. She could quite easily have worked with me and let me cross (In the crosswalk, though against the light) without making me stop. Did she? I think you know the answer to that question. In any event, I’m at work now, and inside, thankful that my job doesn’t require me to do otherwise.

My pants are wet for you, Barack

More “as a result of you”, but that’s not such a snappy headline. As many of you may know, they have closed off a bunch of streets downtown until the Inauguration. I hear it’s because Obama has moved into the area earlier than expected, so there wasn’t a spot for him on the White House grounds. I don’t know if this is the case, and don’t really care. My problem is that they’ve interrupted the S2/S4 bus route, and I had to get off at 16th and K NW this morning. In the rain. And now my pants are soaking wet from the walk. And WMATA is no help – it took me 20 minutes last night to find any information about the detour beyond “there is a detour”, and I still don’t know what the next stop after 16th and K is. It’s somewhere near 13th and H, I think, but I generally get off at the stop I know rather than hope that the next one is better. In any event, this is just one more reason that January 20th can’t come soon enough.

Terrifying acts of god

The wife and I were just sitting in the living room, watching the Orioles game and taking a break from Sunday chores, when the chimney of the building across the street got hit by lightning. I have a perfect view of the chimney from my spot on the couch, and I actually saw the flash when it got hit. The wife and I both swear we could feel it when the lightning hit. There was a loud crack of thunder and a big flash, and now a few of the bricks on the corner of the chimney look like they could come down in a heavy wind. I think we’re going to stay inside until the storm passes.

The weather around here is whack

Two hours ago it was sunny. Half an hour ago, it was raining hard enough to fill up the entryway to DCUSA (With people trying to escape the rain, I mean). Now the sun is coming back out. Normally, I wouldn’t care too much, but we got my company’s Nationals tickets tonight, and they’re the newly upgraded seats with access to the Stars and Stripes Club, whatever that is. Last time we tried to go to a game, we got rained out. And tonight the game is delayed an hour and a half, but is scheduled to start at 8:30. So we’re cooking dinner (read: I sautéed some vegetables and now the wife is putting them on a pizza) and getting ready to give the game a shot. I find it a little ridiculous that I’ve had tickets to two games this month, and both have been affected by rain. Although while the first game was one that I chose months ago, these tickets were handed to me this afternoon because no one else wanted to go. Perhaps the weather report had something to do with that. In any event, John Lackey is scheduled to pitch for the Angels tonight, and he’s having a fantastic season (When he’s not on the DL) – his 0.92 WHIP means he’s pretty much not allowing any baserunners. And while Vlad Guerrero is having an off-year by his standards (.289/.348/.506), he’s in the middle of a 13 game hitting streak. There are probably going to be some Nationals players involved in the game, too.

Wet socks

Sad in the rainAt the wife’s request, I did not take the bus this morning. She might not have made the request if she had, as I did, gone outside to take out the trash. If she had taken out the trash, she probably would have decided that it was raining too hard, and that we should take the bus. But she didn’t take out the trash, so we walked. For those of you not in or near DC, it’s been raining for a while now, and things are starting to flood. Not serious floods, but minor property damage and hydroplaning cars kind of floods. So, we bundled work clothes and lunch and whatnot into bags, put on our raincoats, and set off. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. There weren’t that many people walking, so there weren’t too many umbrellas to avoid. Umbrellas and puddles are the scourge of the city rain walker. Especially those giant golf umbrellas that take up the entire sidewalk. So I arrived at work, slightly damp but okay otherwise. I changed my clothes, and realized that my backpack is not entirely waterproof. The two things that got wet – my laptop power supply (Although not badly – I wiped it off and it’s fine) and my brown socks. So now I’m wearing brown slacks, brown shoes, a brown belt, and little white athletic socks. Oops. Perhaps the brown socks will dry, or perhaps I will just wear these all day. Only time will tell.

Icepocalypse!

Sometime last night, the DC area was hit by the lesser-known Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, freezing rain. I imagine the city has shut down. I didn’t bother to go outside, although we’re supposed to celebrate my dad’s birthday tonight in Annapolis, so I might later. Last time there was “inclement weather”, on Wednesday, I went to pick up the wife and visit my grandmother in Arlington. It was some of the worst traffic I’ve ever seen in the city. Things went okay down 14th Street until a block before the circle. Then we stopped. And waited. I forget which circle that is, but it’s just south of 14th and N NW. Traffic in the circle wasn’t moving. About half the cars waiting with me on that final block turned around before we started moving. I got most of the way through the circle before I decided to bail out onto Vermont, which I’ve never done before, but it goes in more or less the same direction. That was a mistake. I ended up turning right on K instead of I St. If you live in the city, you’ve probably driven on K. It’s prety much a disaster all the time. I was almost killed there on the way to my rehearsal dinner, following the then-fiancee and making a right off K without using the stupid access road (Who knew you couldn’t go right from the main road?). The problem I ran into was that you can’t make a left from K during rush hour at all. And I needed to be on I St. I ended up going right on 18th, going around the block and coming back down Connecticut. I probably should have gone right on 20th and came down 19th, but I wasn’t sure I could do that, and I like to do my experimenting with new streets when it’s not 6pm and I’m already late. Looking at Google Maps now, it looks like it would have been fine. Anyway, going left on 19th from I St was a mess, too. Luckily I told my grandmother we’d be later than I originally thought, so we were still on time. All of this is basically to explain that I didn’t go into work today and am planning to do some work from here. I don’t expect anyone will even notice (Except one of our team leads, who reads the blog. Hi, Andy!). Edit: Just noticed that DCist used the same “icepocalypse” in their title as I did. I’m gonna sue. Jerks. I mean, it’s not possible that they came up with the same thing I did. I’m just too clever for that. They must have stolen it.