Snowpocalypse
It’s been a while since I last posted, which is interesting because I have been trapped inside doing nothing for the past week. I would fill you in as to why that is, but apparently it’s been all over the national news. The average snowfall for Baltimore is 18”. This winter we have gotten somewhere around 5 feet. In other words, my attempt to seek out a quasi-milder climate has punished with a Sodom and Gomorrah-esque vengeance.
The first storm rolled in Friday afternoon and we just got pounded over the course of the next day. Things cleared up after something like 2 feet had accumulated. It was clear for a few days, during which the city started trying to regroup. My roommates and I had the pleasure of digging out their cars.
Saturday everything was shut down. One of my roommates, Vanessa, and I wandered about. There’s something sort of magical about a city buried in snow. The roads were impassable, so people were out wandering in the streets. There were a few folks out cross-country skiing, but mostly people were just mulling about dumbfounded. Most folks, myself included, had never seen anything like it. The local bar was serving free coffee to anyone who wanted to come in and warm up. Naturally, there were a few a-holes jabbering on about “Where’s your global warming now, Al Gore?” Never mind that the term is climate change and that we had just topped the annual average snowfall in a 12-hour period.
The city does not have its own plows and needs to contract out the work to private companies. Needless to say, they were not prepared for the workload. By Monday, the storm had passed, but there were large swaths of the city that still had not been plowed out. By Tuesday, the second wave of storms hit. School was cancelled for the entire week. Our non-profit uses the school schedule, as our work is so intertwined with that of the schools, so I have been home all week.
Needless to say, I have been rather stir-crazy. The whole week has been a blur of cheap beer, Netflix, snowball fights, shoveling, hibernation, wandering snow-swept streets late at night, board games, etc. The days blur together. On the days when it was too snowy and cold to go outside, I averaged about 10 hours of sleep at night and two naps during the day. It’s been fun, but it’s getting old. It was clear today, so I actually went into the office out of sheer boredom.
Regardless, it was pretty unforgettable.
Let’s about all I got. Work has been quiet. I need a new project to get me reengaged. I’m also resolving to explore more of the city once all of this mess clears up. Mass transit isn’t great, so I’ve been rather secluded. I need to get out and see more. I want to get into photography as well, so I’ll start posting pictures of what I see.
I can’t close without a quick political note. It seems to me like the bleeding has stopped for the Democrats. There are new polls out showing Obama’s approval rating back over 50% and some of the congressional races that were looking like they were going to be disastrous are starting to improve. Democrats’ numbers with Independents are pretty dismal, but that just means they have nothing to lose with health care. They need to pass the bill and then the liberal base needs to grow the f**k up and show some love in the midterms.
So says I….
