Stormy

It was a hot, sunny day. Then the sky darkened, winds increased greatly, and rain and hail came down in a torrent.

And yet there was a kind of ethereal beauty to it too.

Tidbits

What is going on with this weather? At the end of last week I was bemoaning the fact that my air conditioning isn't working. Today I turned the heat back on.

A few months ago I was disappointed to see that Healthy Choice's Honey Ginger Chicken was no longer being carried at the grocery stores I shop at most often. I've since found it at a different local chain and at a grocery store when I was in New Jersey, but I thought they might have been exhausting their inventory. Apparently not. I bought some more today. Weird that nobody else seems to be stocking it.

Lazy, blind, or both? I set up a small Christmas tree--my first--in my apartment in late November or early December 2009. I still haven't put it away. Sometimes I forget that it's even there.

The heat is on

We haven't really had spring here in the Midwest. Winter lingered longer than usual, and even when the temperature began to rise a smidgen, it seemed like we had nonstop rain and gray skies. The last couple days the temperature has jumped into the 80s and brought a decent amount of humidity. Where are those nice cool spring days?

Let's put it this way. The furnace was still set for heat until this week. Of course, now that I need air conditioning, I find that it isn't working. A coil was replaced a year ago, so who knows what the problem is? Hopefully this will be a quick fix by the apartment complex.

So I sit in an apartment at a toasty 85 degrees. It isn't cool enough outside to slide open the glass door to get the thermostat needle to drop. I've had it open for around seven hours and have it down to a warm 83.

Seriously, let's get some spring weather back. I'm not quite ready for summer just yet.

Summer in April

And then suddenly it was a summer-like day with spring basically being skipped in the process. The high here was in the mid 80s. Eight days ago I was wearing a knit cap, a winter coat, and long underwear to stay warm at an evening baseball game. Crazy. Of course, the high is supposed to fall about twenty degrees for tomorrow, and the rest of the week looks to be in the 50s or low 60s.

So how did I elect to take advantage of this beautiful day? I went to see the first part of a twenty-six year old and nearly nine and a half hours long Holocaust documentary. (Today's section was "only" four and half hours.) It's a rare chance to see something I figure I ought to see. You wouldn't judge me if it had been raining all day.

Aberration

You will notice that today's entry is dated February 18. I am in central Ohio. So how is it that I did not need to don a coat or jacket today? Or that I wore shorts to walk from my car to the fitness center and back? Or that I drove with the window down?

OK, I could have used a jacket this evening after the sun went down, but otherwise this was t-shirt weather, something we'd have in the spring, not now. Just slightly more than two weeks ago schools were cancelling classes because of ice and snow.

This won't be lasting, as far as I know. The weather app on my phone claims the high on Tuesday will be 26. (It lists a high of 60 for today.) So this was a nice surprise, like the new Radiohead album being made available a day early today, but there's no need to look at it as anything but a pleasant aberration.

Plus/minus

Plus: Due to the weather, my employer has closed the offices...
Minus: ...but it's only until noon.

Plus: I can still get some writing done at home before heading in...
Minus: ...but I'm going to lose at least twenty minutes scraping through the thick ice coating my car.

Plus: (4:24 p.m.) Due to the weather, evening classes are cancelled...
Minus: ...but I still have to be here because I've been doing all this writing for the show taping around 5:45.
Minus: ...but this means the fitness center will be closed too.
Minus: ...but I'm still going to be at work until almost 8:30 anyway.

Plus: I won't be needing this bag that I packed in the event that the roads were too slick and I felt better just getting a hotel...
Minus: ...but now it's one more thing I have to carry as I try to keep from breaking my neck getting across the parking lot to my apartment.

Plus: Getting my wireless router working properly after yesterday's power outages reset it was pretty simple...
Minus: ...but I wish I'd realized that last night.
Minus: ...but why couldn't either of the customer service reps explained it rather than trying to get $40 out of me?

Plus: Chances are decent that school will be cancelled on Wednesday...
Minus: ...but even if it is, I'll spend it working at home on stuff I need to get done anyway.

Rolling the dice

I woke up to a surprise this morning. The power was out. It tried to come back up while I laid in bed but quickly went dead again. The funny thing was that the smoke detector, which chirps briefly when the electricity returns and goes away, settled into a strangled squeal. So what does THAT mean, I wondered. I didn't smell or see any smoke. About a half hour later the power blinked on and off again, and the persistent noise went away. It returned the next time the power flickered. Two hours or so after I first noticed the power was off, it came back on and stayed that way. I felt that I could leave home at this point and that the silent detector meant all was well.

And it was. The building was still there when I returned home around 7:30 p.m. The power was down again, though. This presented some problems. At the very least I had to watch a DVD screener for work, and I'd hoped to finish some writing. I couldn't do that at home. One theater in town is playing the film, but I was going to be stuck having to see it at 10:20 p.m. With freezing rain and sleet in the forecast, I didn't exactly want to be on the road home around midnight in those conditions. What to do, what to do.

First things first: get dinner. I went to get a sandwich and to think over the situation. The longer I sat there, the more convinced I was that getting an inexpensive hotel room for the night would be the best of both worlds. I could watch the DVD on my laptop and be done with it earlier than if I went to see it. I could write if I felt up to it. I would be a little bit closer to the office and wouldn't have to take the interstate in the morning, both of which might be advantageous based on what's being called for during the morning commute.

All right, I've talked myself into it. Then I drove home to get what I might need and, naturally, the power had been restored. Going by my flashing clock radio display, it had been back for a half hour, so it would seem like it was going to stay on. Still, if I put the DVD in the player and the power went down again, I'd have the problem of not finishing the film and being unable to remove the disk. (Here's the benefit of being in two professional organizations: I have two copies, so if I needed to depart for a hotel, I could get the task done.)

Before I started watching the movie, I tried to get my wireless internet working. It wouldn't cooperate. I called my cable provider, as it didn't appear that internet service was working at all. By the time I got through to someone, it was working with my slow, old desktop. Wireless still wouldn't work. The cable company doesn't deal with that, though, so I was given a number for the router's customer service.

After explaining the situation and giving all the necessary (and probably some unnecessary) information, the representative informed me that the warranty had expired for the router--no kidding--and that I could either refer to online help or pay one of two exorbitant sums for telephone assistance. Fat chance that I was going to pay half of what a new router might cost.

I selected the online chat help option, which was all well and good, except there too I was told that the piece of equipment was out of warranty, etc. This person did give me a link that explains how to reset the router and so on and so forth. By this point I'd burned at least an hour, didn't have wireless internet service, was getting tired, and still hadn't attended to the work at hand. Maybe I should have gone to a hotel.

With wireless internet solutions pushed aside until another time, I watched the film and, as I'm able to post this, made it through the rest of the evening with electric service. In the end I saved the little spot of money that I had been willing to part with if necessary. I can tell you this, though. Since I'll be leaving work late on Tuesday, you better believe I'm going to have an overnight bag ready if it's as nasty as they say it'll be.

Slip sliding away

On the first Thursday of 2010 I had all the proof I needed that I had to get new tires for my car. We received a pretty good snowfall, and I didn't feel like I had very good control of the vehicle.

Today we didn't get nearly as much snow as a year ago, yet my car exhibited practically no traction. Making a slow right turn onto a neighborhood street, I skidded toward a car sitting at the cross street traffic light. Fortunately I came to a stop in time. (I may have been luckier nobody from behind plowed into me.)

That would be enough to keep me home, but I had to head out for the evening. The roads weren't terrible, but traffic was exceptionally slow for early evening beyond rush hour. On the way back I chose to take city streets for the last leg as a police car was dealing with another driver at the on ramp to the outerbelt. Smart thinking? Maybe, maybe not.

I was being a careful driver, which is probably what saved me earlier and definitely did on this second occasion. The car in front of me slowed to a crawl and then a near stop to get around a car in the ditch being assisted by a tow truck. As I hit the breaks I fishtailed and started sliding toward the car on the road and the one half off of it. I jammed on the brakes, which didn't seem to be doing much good, and came to a stop turned around almost ninety degrees. Again, I hit no one.

When I bought this car--a replacement for the one totaled when someone hit me last March--one benefit was that the tires appeared to be new. The tread is certainly in good shape, but if today's any indication, they have no grip. I nearly slid down the small incline from my apartment complex's parking lot into oncoming cars.

I didn't expect to, nor planned on, replacing tires in perfectly fine condition, but at least after today, I feel like they may get me injured or killed otherwise. Tire Rack, here I come again?

Lazy Sunday

This morning I dragged myself out of bed to go to church. What with it being the Christmas season, I felt like I needed to make an extra effort, especially since I've been bad about attending all year. (I blame my failure to get to the services in part on the sleeping problems I've had for most of the year, but maybe that's simply a way of justifying it.) I expected to see a snow-covered parking lot, but nope, all we were getting was rain.

About midway through the service the rain changed to snow. It was coming down steadily when I carefully made my way to the car across the quickly becoming slick pavement and asphalt. As I drove to my next destination--the movie theater--I got stuck behind someone driving about 10 miles per hour. I'm all for being careful, but the roads were totally clean. Plus, not that many vehicles were on the streets yet.

By the time my showing of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader had ended--the film was tedious, by the way--the car required a decent excavating. With it being around 12:30, traffic was heavy and slow-moving on the snowy streets. Not that I had plans to go anywhere else, but this sealed the choice to hole up at home for the day.

Watching football and napping, with an emphasis on the latter, gobbled up the majority of the day. It is one of the pleasures of living in a cold weather state during winter that watching sports all day long on the weekend isn't something to feel ashamed about doing. I imagine it's harder to justify doing this when the weather outside is hospitable.

The TV remained on to watch the season finale of The Amazing Race. The global game show is easily the pinnacle of reality TV fare, and it's the one program of these I'd be interested to appear on. While it must be exhausting to run around the world and be thrown into stressful situations, how else could one get the quantity of experiences and passport stamps that the participants get while doing it on someone else's dime?

The Amazing Race is certainly molded as much as any reality TV show, but I appreciate that its intent isn't to show people at their worst. Sure, sometimes the contestants display cultural insensitivity and tempers flare. For the most part, though, this is a relationship program in the form of a game show travelogue, and those partners who remain patient and good-humored tend to perform better. (I think the producers learned a lesson several seasons ago when they cast a couple in which the husband seemed verbally abusive. People will get testy under the circumstances, but that extreme kind of reaction has virtually vanished.)

The snow has returned, I think, and is to continue to some degree through the night. And that was Sunday.

Rediscovery

Among the things I need to do before the end of the year is determine my picks for the best films and albums of the year. The former is a professional obligation; the latter is personal choice.

In this age of digital music and iPods, I'm becoming aware that I don't tend to listen to albums as thoroughly as I once did. The ability to carry around hundreds of albums in your pocket provides so many options at your fingertips that there's always something else to hear. At one time I would have been likely to listen to a new album over and over for awhile. Now it seems like I'll rip it to iTunes, listen to it a few times, and then let it settle into the untamed mass of music on my iPod.



I've started relistening to albums that I'm certain are up for consideration as my favorites of 2010 and have been pleased to discover nuances that my few earlier passes through them didn't reveal.

For instance, I liked Arcade Fire's The Suburbs when it was released this summer, even if I did feel it tended to be a bit same-y from song to song. Listening to it a couple of times this week, I've been struck by how wrong that impression is. Yes, the songs sound of a piece, but each is distinctive. As a whole it works phenomenally well. Why have I not been listening to The Suburbs more since its August release? That's a question I hope to be asking myself as I dig into the year's other albums that I've enjoyed and then more or less set aside.

Creep

Holiday creep seems to arrive in stores earlier every year. It used to be that Christmas stuff wasn't out until the time around Thanksgiving, if not after it. Now we're lucky if retailers wait until Halloween has passed to prime the pump for it. If you pop into a grocery these days, you'll already see that merchants are ready to get us in the Christmas mindset.

The weather insists that it's time for it as well. We haven't exactly had much in the way of fall temperatures this year. Either it's been too warm or too cold. That in-between that defines autumn as a transitional season has been virtually skipped. The past two days my mom has e-mailed pictures of the snow received in northwest Indiana.

It was a nippy couple of days here, more like something from December than early November, so I feel like I'm adjusting more for the winter. I stopped at the grocery today and observed how it was decked out for the end of the year celebrations. Usually I would try to pay it as little attention, but for whatever reason, I'm ready to jumpstart the holidays this year.

Maybe it's a desire to put a lousy fall behind me. Maybe it's a sentimental streak coming to the fore. Maybe it's just a matter of the shorter days having a physiological effect. Whatever. Bring it on.

Of course, it's supposed to be in the sixties this upcoming week.

Something's in the air

It seems like we jumped from summer to the colder part of fall, from shorts and t-shirts to long sleeves and jackets. A week ago we went from high 80s/low 90s to high 60s. We seem to be on the verge of things turning even cooler.

The change in weather definitely makes me want to knit more. Granted,warmer temperatures aren't what have kept me from picking up the needles of late. Being busy and being tired have been more than effective obstacles.

I still need to get to work on my contribution for the Red Scarf Project. The chillier night air also has me wanting to make another scarf for myself, not that I really need one. Everything has seemed like it's been in a holding pattern the last couple weeks, so maybe progress on any knitting project, no matter how small, will make me feel like I'm getting somewhere and have a little bit of control over things. Now to make the time for it.

Hot hot heat

You may know firsthand or have heard that it is hot in this part of the country. We didn't hit triple digits here, but the temperature tipped north of ninety, which is hot enough. The messaging signs above the interstate indicated that an air quality alert was the order of the day. That's just for old folks and kids, right?

I still wanted to get my exercise in, so even though it was 5 p.m., surely one of the hottest times of the day, I set out on the path around the park. Usually I'll do three trips keeping mostly to the park's perimeter. That route takes me around an hour to complete, including time walking to and from home.

I felt good after the first lap but also was cognizant of the heat. Mercy, it was hot. Not humid, just very warm. As I got into the second lap I could tell that the heat was wearing me down faster. Tired and soaking wet, I gladly called it quits after the second go-round. When I got home I saw that two laps had taken about the same amount of time as three typically do.

Moral of the story: pay attention to those air quality alerts. While I felt like I was functioning fine, I was going slower than usual to compensate. Also, although I prefer to carry as little as possible, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to bring some water along.

Bits and pieces

-Do you ever get the feeling that some people send or respond to work e-mails at certain times to indicate how hard they're working or to suggest that you ought to be working too? (Hello Friday afternoon at 4:55 p.m. and late weekend evenings.) I'm not saying I've never done it, but in dealing with some particular people I've found this practice extremely irritating.

-That being said, I've learned that I need not always be available when it comes to work matters.

-We haven't received much rain around here lately, but a couple brief, intense storms have produced some lightning flashes that have been too close for comfort. This reminds me that when I was a kid we were told that during storms we should avoid being on the telephone and taking a shower or bath. (Obviously those are intended to be separate items. Talking on the phone while bathing cancels out a storm's potential for bad consequences.) We'd even turn off the TV sometimes. I'm wondering now, though, if this is actual good advice and if it is still passed along. The phone probably doesn't factor into this unless you're still using one with a cord, I'm guessing.

-How is it that July is nearly here?

Sidelined

Welcome to spring weather, I guess. Early in the week the temperature hovered around eighty. Overnight temperatures the last couple days have dipped low enough for frost to appear.

Long story short: I have a cold or something. Blah.

Surprises

Once again I was up before the sun was so I could head north for the film festival in Cleveland. It was a fairly uneventful drive, but as I got closer to downtown, my GPS informed me of some major slowdowns ahead. But what am I going to do, take an alternate route?

That's exactly what the GPS had in mind as it did something I didn't know it could do. Samantha, the default voice on the device, informed me of "severe traffic ahead" (or maybe it was "serious traffic ahead") and changed my route all on her own. Is my GPS becoming sentient?

It turns out that the route was a clever way to avoid interstate messes, although I would soon find that the GPS could have guided me to drive a couple more highway miles before exiting. Best of all, this route took me around the major detour needed to be taken to reach parking at the festival's location. I may take it again on the way in Friday morning.

Of course, who knows what the roads are going to look like. With most of my movies stacked more or less on top of one another--and me needing to deal with work issues that have dogged me for the last few months (and promptly ruined my evening)--I hadn't seen what was happening outside. I departed the last movie of the night to find a couple inches of snow on my car! Where did this come from?

Smart and safe

I am back in the hotel I checked out of this morning.

Around 11:30 p.m. I walked out of the place hosting the film festival and saw that it was raining buckets. Hmm, that's not ideal driving conditions for someone who hasn't been getting full nights of sleep, is coming off of watching six films over the previous fourteen hours, and is looking to spend the next couple hours driving home. Water was pooling on the city streets and interstate. Highway speeds being observed by fellow drivers hovered around 35-40 mph.

I didn't have the option to wait out the storm. I've been in such a bubble since Friday that I have no idea if it is supposed to rain like this all night. So I decided to play it smart and safe rather than cheap and stupid. I would check back into the hotel I checked out of earlier today.

I wavered on the decision when I hit better stretches of the interstate, but ultimately I held firm to that gut impulse to suck it up and pay for another night's lodgings. I didn't need a couple hours of white knuckle driving, and while I felt pretty good, especially considering the ringer I've put myself through the last four days, I didn't know how long that would last under long, strenuous conditions.

And yes, my car accident a month ago weighed into tonight's decision. While I think I would have been fine, I felt like I didn't need to press my luck. The reason I stay where I do for the festival is because the hotel is at least half the cost compared to accommodations in downtown Cleveland near the event. Another night isn't going to break the bank, but really, what I was more concerned about not breaking was myself or my car.

Rain or not, this was probably the most sensible thing to do anyway.

Snow day

I wasn't expecting, but was pleasantly surprised, to wake up and find that today was a snow day. I was going to have a fairly full day of writing ahead of me at the office, so to get an extra day and the freedom to work from home to accomplish all (or part) of that was very welcome.

We've had one of the snowiest Februarys on record here--25.1 inches as of this morning, which doesn't include today's snowfall--and a steady amount of the white stuff this season, but this was the first time I got a full day off. I don't know if I could say I made the most of it, but I finished two-thirds of what I need to have written for tomorrow.

Plus, there was plenty of Winter Olympics viewing, including two complete curling matches. I'd been wishing these Games fell during vacation time so I could watch more of the daytime coverage, so a snow day was a gift.

Eventually I ventured outside to trudge over to the rental office to retrieve a package. Tramping through the shin high drifts took me back to childhood days when slipping into a snowsuit and playing in the white stuff was one of the best parts of winter.

I've been stressed out about a lot of things lately, so having this free day to do with as I pleased was a real relief that I very much needed. Yes, I did spend a significant portion of it working, but I've removed some of the pressure I would otherwise be facing if I hadn't tackled that workload. I'm not going to get greedy and wish to get tomorrow off, but one of these every once in awhile is good for what ails you.

Postponed

Monday I put in a marathon work day so that I'd have everything done for the two shows today. My thinking was that I'd be a lot more at ease if I didn't have to deal with even the tiniest detail. I have to log a lot of time preparing each element, and doing so takes up a lot of space in my head. I am more than ready to clear it all out.

When I left the office late on Monday evening, I felt like a great weight had been lifted. All that remained was actually taping the programs. At this point in the process that feels like a formality, as though I've already given birth (in a manner of speaking) and just need to pretend to do it again for documentation purposes.

And then the snow came. Working at an institution of higher learning, we're not as subject to the skittish decisions of administrators spooked by the predictors of precipitative doom, otherwise known as TV weatherpeople. We close much less often and even then don't shut down for the entire day. Sure, we were getting a fair accumulation of snow this morning, but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

I went out for lunch and didn't really think the main roads were that bad, but the snow felt wet and heavy, which was a distinct change from the morning. A quick check of closings showed other universities calling off evening classes. I figured it was just a matter of time until we did. (These cancellations occur in chain reactions.) Finally, we were alerted that the campus would close mid-afternoon.

Rather than finally put all that hard work to rest and completion, it must be rescheduled. Frankly, I still sort of feel like it's done. The expiration date was tonight. We'll give it another try in a couple days.

(And for what it's worth, it stopped snowing--or snowing in any meaningful way--when the campus shut down for the day. I got home in about the same amount of time as usual. Maybe it's worse out there than I realize, but I think the hype outdid the reality. As usual.)

Snow advisory Friday

This week has weighed heavily on me, so I decided that I'd be better off taking it easier today, if you consider seeing three films a way of taking a break, and working a full day on Saturday. Thing is, we were due for snow, and potentially quite a bit of it, today.

Nothing was on the ground when I got up this morning, but by the time I headed into Columbus the thick, wet snow was coming down at a good pace. Drivers were predictably overreacting and maintaining a much slower speed than necessary.

My first stop of the day was DK Diner. Their donuts received a rave review, and since the diner was in the general vicinity of where I was going, this seemed like a good place to go. Was it ever. It looked like they'd been cleaned out of most of their selection, but what I tried was really, really good. Eating a regular breakfast here will be a must at some point.

Three movies and about eight hours later I ventured home confident that my new tires would serve me well on the snow-covered roadways. I ordered them just before the last decent winter storm but wasn't able to get them installed until after it. This is the first significant amount of snow and ice we've had since then, so I was kind of eager to see how the car handled.

On the highway I felt very much in control. The car was less stable at a lower speed on the city streets, which seems counterintuitive, but these roads definitely haven't been cleared or treated as well. The most important thing is that the old tires would have stranded me along the side of the road, put me in a ditch, or something much, much worse. Let's hear it for new tires, even if I hadn't figured I'd need them just yet.

I stopped at a place near me for takeout food in the nick of time. They mentioned that they would be closing at 8 p.m., which indicated that the roadways were starting to shut down a lot of businesses in the area.

I'm expecting the roads will be significantly worse on Saturday. I noticed a lot of water and snow on the highway, and that stuff is only going to freeze and create a bigger mess overnight. We've supposedly received about a foot of snow--I'm having some difficulty getting a precise figure for this area, so that may be high--and have more on the way after midnight.

This could potentially blow my work plan, but maybe it's for the best. A big part of what I need to do is write, so if I can stay boarded up at home on Saturday, hopefully I can pound out what I need to finish most urgently. The rest might be feasibly finished at the office on Monday. The only problem: I'm not sure I have much to eat around here. Good thing there's a grocery store about two-tenths of a mile from my apartment.