Storm’s over, and it was a real one. Not just a wimpy DC-can’t function-with-a-dusting. Even Bee must agree that this was real snow, as compared to some snow standards.
Then came the digging out. Fortunately, my “driveway” is only the 5′ behind my car. OTOH, I didn’t have a shovel.
We’re scheduled to get a bit of snow here this weekend; the Friday afternoon forecast calls for 10″-20″ from now until Sunday morning (a factor of two larger than the forecast that was being broadcast on Friday morning). In the northeast where I grew up, this is known as a nice snowfall but not really a huge deal when it’s spread out over 36 hours. Plows would run continuously and keep the main roads pretty clear. When I was a teenager, I still had to get up and deliver the Gazette at 6AM (Mon-Sat). That never seemed to get snowed out. School rarely closed for snow, either, unless the snowfall was more than an inch per hour, and the plows couldn’t keep up. Even then, things got back to normal in a day.
Here in the DC area, though, it’s an impending disaster. The ritual at this point in an expected weather-related situation (I have a datum for hurricanes, too) is to go to the store and buy a 24-pack of toilet paper and a gallon or two of milk. I’m not sure how long the people who do this think they are going to be isolated, or which item they expect to run out of first. Who knows if my internet connection will be up, or if I will lose power. Last time we got two feet of snow the storm hit on a Sunday, and DC was shut down for 2 days.
After months of tinkering, I have discovered the best and easiest way to restore dry Play-Doh to its perfect state (besides Hasbro’s former suggestion that you buy a new can).
Several decades too late to help me, which I assume is everybody’s first concern, but good to know nonetheless. Tinkering to systematically find the best method. That’s science, baby!
Annoy and upset in ten (expensive) moves
Sex
Once you’re having carnal relations with someone it’s a fair assumption that you already approve of each other to a high degree. Don’t let that fool you into believing there is no room left for upset. There is a little known companion volume to the Karma Sutra which lists the 1001 ways you can upset someone in bed. The use of the adjectives ‘small’ or ‘quick’ or ‘disappointing’ are almost guaranteed to cause offence especially when all used together. As quite a lot of sex tends to be small and quick and disappointing the best way to avoid upset is to use the phrase ‘that took me to somewhere I’ve never been before’ without of course being specific about the exact place and whether or not it was worth visiting.
Flickr: Eisenhower Interstate System in the style of H.C. Beck’s London Underground Diagram
At least this map isn’t quite as distorted as the DC metro map, but I see e.g. it has Schenectady closer to Syracuse than Albany, and the route from Albany to Boston as a straight line, as one should expect of a schematic map, where your lines are limited to the eight choices at 45º
I’ve long despised the DC Metro map, because it was useless to me the first time I needed to get around while visiting; the cabbies were on strike, and I was forced to use plan B, except I had no plan B at the time. The schematic layout made little sense to me as I wasn’t familiar with the geographical layout of the city.
See Beck’s Tube Maps
A better way to tie them?
Also: Lacing variations
Travel has become difficult. Last year, a bureaucratic snafu not only denied me a trip to a conference in Hawaii, but it happened late enough that it kept me from scheduling an alternate trip to DAMOP. I spent the last week with the flu, which forced me to cancel a long-weekend trip to visit some college buddies, and now my plan to give a talk at an AAPT conference has been shot down. The government is operating under a continuing resolution, rather than an actual budget, and apparently this means there is a moratorium on this kind of travel. Not going on work-sponsored travel would essentially mean I couldn’t talk about results from work, which was going to be half of my talk. I’d be limited to talking about things that you could pick up on the streetcorner (but don’t do that … you never really know if that information is any good). Meh. Maybe this is a conspiracy.
As I hurtled down the highway, a pair of golden arches crept over the horizon, and the proverbial lightbulb smacked me in the forehead. To gauge the creep of cookie-cutter commercialism, there’s no better barometer than McDonald’s – ubiquitous fast food chain and inaugural megacorporate colonizer of small towns nationwide.
If you want to be more than 100 miles from a Mickey-D’s, you have to be in South Dakota
