Monday, February 8, 2010

Snow-pocalypse III: Welcome to the Thunderdome

The National Weather Service is calling for an additional 10 - 20 inches beginning tomorrow afternoon. Heaven help us all. 4 feet of snow on the ground is a bit much, don't you think? I can shovel it just fine but where will am I going to put it? The snow bank next to the driveway is already 8 feet high. Pulling into the driveway is like flying an X-Wing through the trench to destroy the Death Star. Reminds me of bulls-eyeing womp rats in my T-16. Good times.


By this time tomorrow, this town is going to be like a really cold version of Max Max, complete with roving gangs of marauders and to-the-death cage matches for toilet paper.

At least one area school system has already said that school is closed until Tuesday. Next Tuesday.

Will we ever get out of here?

Snow-pocalypse II: Electric Boogaloo

Again? Hey, I love snow just as much as the next guy, but this is ridiculous. Redonkulous, some would say. It started at about 1 in the afternoon, and 24 hours later there's well over 2 feet on the ground. An inch per hour for an entire day, and it didn't stop until later that night.

A friend calculated that, assuming 20" average snowfall across the state of Maryland, it amounts to about 4 cubic miles of snow. It would make a snowman (using the standard 4:3:2 ball ratio) about 21,000 feet tall. That's quite a snowman.

We're trying to keep The Kid occupied, since getting out is a non-starter for at least 24 hours. She can play reasonably well in a foot of snow, but this stuff is up to her chin. Where's the fun in that?

On the upside, we didn't loose electricity, which is more than I can say for some of my friends in the area. Now that I've said that, I fully expect to be in the dark any second now.

Nope. Still here.

Our living room looks like a Chinese landfill with all the toys scattered about. We're all terminally bored, except the cat. He's pretty much business as usual. What I wouldn't give to be him.

On the upside, we're had The Wife's famous chicken and dumplings for dinner, which is just about the very best thing to have when you're snowed in.

I'll post some pictures as soon as I have something to take a picture of that isn't just a wall of white.

Did I mention that we're getting another 5+ inches on Tuesday? Gulp.

Snow pictures 2010

None of us went to work today. The Wife tried, but only got about 4 miles down the road before she turned around. Discretion being the better part of valor and all that.

We dug out yesterday, and I came to the conclusion that I am an old man. 2 1/2 feet of snow weighs a lot.

Here is what our driveway looked like before we began the shoveling.



About 3 hours later, we had most of the driveway done. For a sense of scale, here's my car, snow still on the roof.



Yes, that's a MINI Cooper. One of the smallest cars on the market.

BTW, we didn't put it in the garage because we were operating under the theory that the leaving it out would mean less snow to shovel off the driveway. I didn't get any statistically valid measurements, but I think it worked. Especially with the amount of snow that we got.

The back yard? Yeah. Won't be visiting that for a while.

We did get The Kid out in it yesterday, but there's not much to do in snow that deep.



Still calling for more snow tomorrow night into Wednesday. At least 5 inches, probably more. daytime highs in the high 20's. Down into the low teens at night.

Lastly, our good friends the Stuttses (who are stationed in Hawaii) posted some photos of the view from their kitchen window. Here is what ours looks like. I'd rather have theirs.