Thursday, January 30, 2014

Snow Day


[Geeks of Doom - Facebook]

Yeah, I know. We aren't used to snow around here. We have no plan to deal with it. And, since the roads ice over, we're slip-sliding all over the place in large vehicles weighing several thousand pounds.

I'm a 100 miles southwest of Atlanta, and the roads here were iced over. That means when you travel at a snail's pace, foot off the gas, but have to press the brakes for a stop sign or a pedestrian or another car or something, you start sliding and skidding, traveling forward at about 20° off-center. Not a good feeling, particularly if you're not used to it.

Schools closed, many businesses and agencies closed, and a lot of people had a vacation day. Some of us worked. And, because a lot of people didn't show up (some nearby counties closed all their roads), we actually got some stuff done.

Go ahead and make fun of us. We can't handle snow. And we have no desire to learn. We can handle hurricanes. Heck, we play football in hurricanes here in Georgia (Yes, I was at that game). You won't see any hurricane-related scandals here. But snow? You can keep that stuff.

21 comments:

  1. Simple choice, really. Spend 10% of the state GDP on snow removal equipment and materials that will be used maybe 2 days a year, or just close down the state economy for those 2 days. Problem this time was nobody recognized these were the 2 days.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, and when that one inch of snow is deposited on a quarter inch of ice, you're not going anywhere anyway, no matter where you learned to drive. And as for that shiny new 4-wheel drive vehicle, well, the mathematical expression is 4 * 0 = 0.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @2 - Yeah, I don't care who you are, ice sucks.

    Handy tip from northern guy: water softener salt (crystals, not pellets) does a dandy job on that slippery stuff. Doesn't hurt to mix in some cheap cat litter for extra traction, too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Or just stay home and watch the fire...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyU3bRy2x44

    Yeah, my family got two days off of work in Alabama for a little snow. We had snow and several days of below zero highs and only got one day off.

    I'd like to move south. Ok, maybe not to *the* south. Just a little south-er.

    ReplyDelete
  5. @4 - Missouri? Texas? Arizona?

    Whaddya have in mind?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I feel bad for you guys down there in the southland, not being at all able to drive in the snow and deal with bad weather. Up here in New Jersey we laugh at just an inch of snow or ice and just drive our Buicks and Chryslers up into the trunks of the people ahead of us who are too slow to get out of the way. Hey, their problem, right? The only thing that would keep people from crossing over into Manhattan would be ME, not the weather. It's some goof mayor not kicking up enough tribute to Trenton that slows down traffic, not some stupid low pressure cold front.

    Hey, southified folks, no worries, I'll call my buddy-pal Barack and see if we cant get environmentally conscious and send down either some flatulent German cows, or J-Woww and Snookie to warm up the Gulf Coast states, OK?

    In the meantime, get yourselves some chains for your tires, keep the car in second gear, and always steer into the direction of the skid.

    ReplyDelete
  7. ~Fatty bacon to @7 for making me chuckle.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hey guys, I just got done chatting with my best bro-pal, Barack, and he said he could work out an emergency subsidy for you southern folks from the NAACP and the Nation of Islam provided that it goes to elimination of racist oppression of black ice...which he says should be referred to as "urban-minority ice". He also told me that Jindall would have to agree to build a "community center" dedicated to "catching icicles before they fall into inescapable street traps and join the downtrodden slush of society."

    That could've been Biden saying that last bit, I had a bad connection on the speakerphone, but hey, those guys know what's what and the Boardwalk in AC gets rebuilt provided that, in future, we call the "black lights" used on the cabaret stages "African-American illuminations", and we agree to use the CFL versions.

    What the Hell, right, anything to get my Nathan's brats!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Heh. Raleigh, NC had about the same snafu a few years ago; noontime snow/ice for about an inch. DOT couldn't get to the roads to treat them before the cars were already in the way. My in-law has a downtown office; it took 8 hours to go 10 miles; resulting in a night in a hotel. Same thing with some kids spending the night in school too as I recall.

    ReplyDelete
  10. You guys are killing me.... in Ohio, every car made in the last fifteen year has anti-lock brakes! What? the General Lee too old for that?
    Why didn't you just stay off the road? You know your city and state is not equipped to deal with it! You know you lack the skills to drive in
    it, but what the hell, let's go sightseeing! Even if you didn't check a weather report, or listen to a radio or tv, you should have known you were in for a bad day when it STARTED SNOWING IN ATLANTA! Next time, get a redneck motel, and stay off the road.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm thinking we need to send your ass a hurricane. Cat 4 be okay?

    ReplyDelete
  12. I was @ Benning for just over two years. I was always told if there is one snow flake they close the post. It would figure it would snow after I leave.

    ReplyDelete
  13. And, sure enough, they did close FBGA on Wednesday.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Basil, I sat through Typhoon Pamela on Okinawa, in 1977... 140mph winds. When the eye rolled over the Island we delivered food
    to the controllers in the field that had to sit it out in quonset huts... send a bigger hurricane. I have plenty of Southern Comfort to
    weather any storm.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Heh. You DO know how to weather a storm, don't you!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Here in New Hampshire we drive 75 mph in a one-inch "dusting." If we get 30 inches of snow we slow down but we're still expected to be at work ON TIME. But we get more practice driving, it snows from October to April. And every town has 2,000 snowplows and 10,000 snowblowers in public and private hands. Privately owned snowplows are more common here than hand guns.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The snow thing is hilarious to me, because my wife had a business trip in Atlanta this week. Here in Pittsburgh, we get several inches over Saturday and Sunday. Enough that I shoveled the driveway twice on each day, and again Monday morning. My driveway, the yard, and the road are all universally white, and my wife still goes to the airport, and her flight still leaves on time.

    Then she arrives in Atlanta, and is baffled by the way Pittsburgh is business as usual while Atlanta shut down for pretty much the whole week on a fraction of the snow we got here.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Well, in Alabama a neurosurgeon walked to his hospital, six miles; 'course is was an *emergency*, per Fox.

    Nurse noted doctor walks for exercise frequently.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hey southified guys, I see things are gonna warm up for "you-alls" so I guess my sending down that spray-tanned gweed "Tha Sitch" to open his garlic-fragranced yap is working out for you. You're welcome. J-Woww and Snookie, anyways, were too busy popping out orange-tinted baby oompa-loompas to lend some of their methane to the national cause. No. Big. Whoop. I've seen their kids, man, can you say Pongo pygmaeus?

    I suppose getting hit with this polar vortexing kinda harshes out you guys' enjoyment of those juleps you like to drink as you sit out on your front porches. (You guys still drink those things, right?)

    Up here in Jersey, say in Bergen or Pali Park, you could have four feet of snow all piled up and folks would still be out on a stoop passing around a forty or a bottle of Night Train. That's just how we do it. I mean, we got ripped by a bit of a storm not too long ago, maybe you read about it, and nobody up here, least of all me, dumped in their drawers about it. Last time I sharted the BVDs was after a night in an AC casino, knocking back the better part of a case of Dewars and more than a handful of footlong grinders and passing out, face first, on the gaming table in my suite. Helluva mess. The Staties on my security detail got clever and managed to hook up a garden hose to one of the two showerheads in the shower stall and got me cleaned up fairly well. They had to burn the stool I was sitting on however.

    But hey, southsters, take comfort in knowing that Chris Christie feels your pain as you worry about your inch or so of snow and ice, and good luck getting back to your abandoned vehicles.

    By now, in Jersey, those suckers would've been up for auction and sold by now.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I'm glad you're all right, Basil.

    ReplyDelete

Please choose a Profile in "Comment as" or sign your name to Anonymous comments. Comment policy