Today's Weather? Out of the Sun...

Tell me this song doesn't describe this morning:



Motorhead "Out Of The Sun"

The wind is cold where I live,
The blizzard is my home,
Snow and ice and loaded dice, the Wizard lives alone,
The wind is cold where I live, white and cold, and clean,
White and cold and bought and sold and heartbreak in between,
And so we shall see what is done is done, undone.
Trees are stone where I live, leaves of razor steel,
High and low and ice and snow, broken on the wheel,
Trees are stone where I live, flowers made of glass,
Cold and white and wrong and right and voices from the past.
And all our yesterdays are now undone.
Out of the sun

Frozen and insane, I alone remain,
Held in the vice of my disdain,
There is now way that anyone will ever,
Make me warm again.

This Snow Mess is Somebody's Fault!

Get it? This "snow" Mess? This "whole" mess? ...yeah, I know, too early for bad puns.

We basically went all of Monday without much notice or warning about a potential storm on Thursday, and that all changed starting Tuesday, as the threat of the storm started to get more and more real. By Wednesday, the word was that the storm would be crippling. Schools were shut down preemptively, despite the fact we were due to only get, at most, a foot of snow and the real snowfall wouldn't arrive until Thursday night.

Then came Thursday.

No snow stuck to the ground in the city, and people stayed home, most likely in fear, that it would get worse. Myself? I went out, anyway, and went to work. I didn't get home until 7PM and by then, it finally began to stick to the ground. During the entire day, the major networks publicly argued about just how much snow we were to get, from some stations still sticking with a foot to others arguing nothing more than 6 inches.

Its now 8AM as I write this and I'm getting ready to head to work.

FOX 29, and indeed everyone else, is saying stay home. There's a problem or two with their logic. For starters, they have to cover EVERYONE from Philly to fucking Delaware! Is anyone else slightly annoyed by that? That the fact that our local news station seems unable to tell people in their MAIN MARKET that what applies to certain places doesn't apply there? The snow is sticking here, it's about 6 inches at (in some rare spots), but it really isn't that bad unless you drive.

So, here's the real message:

If you have to DRIVE today, wait until noon when the snow stops. IF you're walking or taking the regional rail or subway, you'll be fine. IF you're waiting for a bus, you're going to have to wait a while.

Sound good? Great. It's simple crap, folks!

Schools are closed again (although this time I actually can't blame them), but the local government is still running. It isn't a "snowmaggedon" or anything like that. Honestly, I thought this area had more fucking balls than to act like a bunch of 2-year-olds when we see a snow storm. We've just dealt with the worst blizzard in Philadelphia's entire history! 6 inches of snow shouldn't cause this many problems!

SNOWMAGGEDON 2010!!!

I woke up around 7AM, and the room was still bright white.

Though the sun was barely peeking through the clouds, a soft glow filled my room, my heart, and my mind. Turning on the TV revealed a shocking picture; the snow wasn't that bad, SEPTA was still running, and life still went on. The end wasn't here... yet. The main caution from the stations was that, although things didn't seem that bad at the moment, they were going to get worse, much much worse.

Around 7:30 I went out to start shoveling. Now, for some people, this is a pain and something they despise. For me, its a joy and a treat. The snow for the past few years has been light, fluffy, and easy to move. Even the 28 inches that fell this past weekend was nothing to me, almost the same as if it was 5 inches of heavy snow.

You can only imagine how frustrating it was to realize that the 8 inches that had fallen last night was now heavy snow with slush on the bottom. Each load felt like pushing around two feet of the white stuff, nearly 20 pounds per shovel lift! To make matters worse, the shovel itself was starting to fall apart and the day had barely begun. After about 10 minutes the short sidewalk and stairs to my house were done. The other two houses I had to do were still ahead.

It was around 11AM that I had stopped shoveling anything and everything I needed to do while the storm was in a brief lull. During this time, the snow had stopped and turn to sleet, promising to turn back to a heavy snowfall.

This is where my troubles began.

As the snow began to fall and the winds began picking up speed, a fear came across my eyes! The snow began to pile up quickly, growing as high as 1.5" an hour! Howling winds at 35 mph threatened to destroy the overburdened branches in the area. Sitting in my house, the sound of large amounts of snow falling made me worry about where they were coming from and why. Report of roofs in the city collapsing under the immense girth of both this storm made me worry about my neighbors with flat roofs. Some trees fell to the forces.

As night falls, the sky is filled with an eerie orange glow. The howling winds are still going on, and cabin fever is coming over the entire Northeast. Power is out for over 50,000 PECO customers, and things aren't going to end anytime soon.

Yet, on a plus side, they are calling for sun everyday through Monday. Hope is on the way.