Snow Day!

[telophase]

Snow day today! Of course, I didn't realize campus would be closed until after I got out on the highway and saw that they hadn't salted or sanded, and there hadn't been enough traffic to melt much of the snow on the road yet. It's a fault with having lived in South Dakota, I think: I totally underestimated the amount of snow it takes to shut the city down.

Anyway, I took some photos because I'm sure you all want to see the results of this huge winter storm that has paralyzed all of Dallas-Fort Worth.




To be fair, out my front door it looks a little bit more dangerous. The red circle points out the real, actual, fluffy snow we're getting instead of the more normal little hard ice pellets that fake being snow. (It's snowing a lot harder as I write this.)




Here you can see my HEROIC STRUGGLE to get out the door, fighting through the drifts of deadly snow left by the blizzard.




And the cat, who is completely weirded out by this white stuff. The news says we may get an accumulation of UP TO A WHOLE INCH. I'd better get out to the grocery store and stock up on essentials!




And the recumbent bike I put together last night.

Comments

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

I am laaaaaaughing.

I mean, I did call into work on Sunday morning due to everything being covered in slick ice, so maybe I don't have the winter weather cred of someone from South Dakota, but that? *snicker* They must really not be prepared for this type of stuff down there.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

There's not that much ice in South Dakota during the winter. I mean, there *is*, but it's covered with snow, and the weight of the cars packs the snow down so that the top surface has at least some traction. Of course, I never topped 15 miles per hour when driving to work, but I was in a small town and my drive was all of two miles. But I remember having to get a foot of snow off my car and to shovel out the end of the driveway where the snowplow had piled the snow up. :)

Yeah, nobody knows how to drive in this, and while they'll sand the roads in some areas, they just don't have enough to sand all the highways, I think.

[mscongeniality.livejournal.com]

A veritable fortress of ice!

That said, I'm still glad my plane went through DFW yesterday.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Send in the St. Bernards!

Yeah. You'd probably have been cancelled or delayed today.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

If you think that's funny, you should have seen the expressions on what few of my co-workers are at work when they saw that I bicycled in as usual. True, it's getting a lot worse out there, and the cold dropped enough that my derailleur iced over from the slop, but you'd have thought we were living in Alberta or something. (Hell, on the roads, I was doing better time than most of the cars.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Hee. I'd have thought twice about bicycling, but only because I'd be worried about the idiots on the road who think that you don't have to change your driving when there's rain or snow or slush on the road.

OTOH, that's not exactly any different than the normal run of idiots on the road.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Pree-CISELY. I could probably pitch my daily commute to a Hollywood executive as "it's Breaking Away meets The Road Warrior." Believe it or not, I feel safer on a bike than in a car right now, mostly because I have better control. (I'm just damn glad that I replaced my rear tire and tube last Sunday.)

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

you'd have thought we were living in Alberta or something.
Hahah! And even living in Alberta I'd often ride my bike until January/February. But that was when I was young and immortal. These days I stop around September.

Good on yah!

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Now's not the time to tell you about our mutual countrymen's efforts to make snow bikes (http://www.atomiczombie.com/gallery/bradgraham/hammerhead.htm), is it?

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

Oh man! I want to try one of those out!
XD

[the-z.livejournal.com]

LOL@Dallas/Ft. Worth

It looks like powdered sugar.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

The recovery effort will take months! The city will never be the same again!

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

I want a snow day! *Pouts* We've still got three inches of packed ice on the parking lots and side streets. Half the street can't get back up into their driveways, they just slide gently back into the street.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Hee. :D I remember instersections in South Dakota: you always waited a few seconds when light turned green for the last few people to slide gracefully through the red light. I witnessed this happening in front of police cars, and they didn't give a dman. XD

[assume-a-virtue.livejournal.com]

oO ...Are you serious? Oh my god. xD SEND IT UP HERE. Please. I'm about to cry-- and so are the poor confuzzled squirrels.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Pretty much all of Texas is having unusually cold, icy weather this week. Texas A&M was closed yesterday and today due to icy conditions. :)

[darksumomo.livejournal.com]

Looks just like Michigan right now, except the sun is out and the trees have an inch of ice coating them. They look as if they're covered in glass. Very pretty, but unsettling, as that means there's ice on the roads, too. This morning, I was 20 minutes late to work, which is normally 20-25 minutes away, because of an accident. Nice way to start the semester! :-P That said, things are pretty normal here, except for all the people who have no power.

So, taken a spin on the recumbent exercycle yet?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Not yet, since I haven't eaten breakfast and I know from experience that if I exercise without eating first, I'll get lightheaded and almost pass out. :D

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

They called a snow day for THAT?!
I'm deeply amused.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

oh wait! I suppose everyone only has all weather or summer tires right? I could see that being a problem then.
But still!
XD

[riofriotex.livejournal.com]

That and the fact that there are also not enough trucks to sand everywhere (why should we spend tax dollars on something that's needed so infrequently?), and nobody down here knows how to drive in this stuff.

And it's a big deal for the kids. I can tell you this from growing up in Houston (further south) where I think it only snowed once every 13 years.

[sleary.livejournal.com]

... they make other kinds of tires?

<- native Texan

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

ha! After I posted I wondered if perhaps there was only one type of tire in Texas as the weather doesn't vary as much as here? Guess that's the case! ^_^

[selenite.livejournal.com]

So there goes my line about Fort Worth having winter weather one day a year. Guess I'll have to come up with a new one.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

This is obviously the hundred-year storm, then. :D

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

ROFLMAO

[telophase.livejournal.com]

:D

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

Did they honor the tradition of sending a news reporter to a nearby overpass to have them say 'IT'S SNOWING OMG OH NOES'

We get that here in Indiana, even though this year's the first where we've really hadn't had any snow. OMG, it SNOWS in Indiana.

My relatives in Minnesota like to laugh at them.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I didn't turn on the TV to see, but the TV station websites are offering LIVE VIDEO COVERAGE of the various accidents all around the city. :)

[scorpionocean.livejournal.com]

lmao, they shut down GA for stuff like that too. I think I once got out of going to school because it was 'too cold'. Bwahahaha I loved it! But then you get all the fools going to the store and buying out all the bread and milk. Wtf are they doing with all that damn bread and milk anyway?

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Every grocery store around is almost stripped, mostly due to the idiots who think that they'll be snowed in for months. My wife and I hadn't had a chance to go shopping in almost a month, so we ransacked our local Asian grocery before going to a Kroger to get what we couldn't get at the other grocery. The Asian grocery was nice and quiet, but the Kroger was full of idiots buying up firewood and batteries and gasoline as if they were going to be fighting off Australian motorcycle punks in bondage pants by Friday.

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

ahahahahahaha! your commentary is priceless. and the bike is nicely snow-related? XD!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

But of course! What else am I going to do all day?

[derjmeister.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about moving to Texas (Austin) but now I'm not so sure. Now that I know about the epic blizzards in Texas. DAMMIT.

[flamika.livejournal.com]

Snow! Why do we not get blizzards like that down here?! All we get is ice all over the damn cars from the freezing rain. It really is bizarre that Texas is getting this weird weather; A&M is also closed today until noon because of the ice storm warnings. =/

A few years ago on Christmas Eve, it snowed in CORPUS CHRISTI, all of places. Dude, no one knew how to drive; it was like the snow froze their brain cells. Parts of the highway were shut down, but people just moved the blockades and got on the road anyways. We were driving up to Beeville on Christmas day, and I swear I lost count of the number of cars I saw that had run off the road due to trying to drive on snow like they normally would.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

They officially closed A&M totally this morning - mothoc works there and didn't check the website before he went in. :D

I don't get the mentality that moves a blockade. Because, of course, the Highway Department puts random blockades up for NO REASON. Probably the same sort of idots in South Dakota who zip allong a snowy highway at highway speeds and don't realize that the ENORMOUS SNOWPLOW in front of them is going TWENTY-FIVE MILES AN HOUR until it's too late. You see a lot of those guys nose-deep in the snow off to the side of the road, when they manage to avoid hitting the snowplow.

[arkanefyre.livejournal.com]

Oh man, if my school (we're north of Toronto in Ontario, so we get lots of snow) had a snow day every day that the weather looked like this, the school year would have just gotten a LOT shorter. XD;;

Though, it iced on Monday, and the streets were frozen over glittering. I was shoveling the snow, and instead of slush, it sprinkled little ice diamonds. Really pretty~ And the snow on the driveway were coming off in slabs of ice; ice frisbee with the neighbour's trees is SO MUCH fun XD;;

I hope there weren't idiots on highways going regular speed since they're not used to the snow?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

There were plenty of accidents - Channel 5 did news for, like, four straight hours on the weather and the various things around the metroplex. I don't know how many times you can say "Most schools are closed, the roads are slushy and icy, the airport is experiencing delays as they de-ice every plane, there's tons of accidents, don't go out unless you ahve to" in four hours.

And they're starting the 4:00 news at 3, just to get in more crap about the weather.

[celestriad.livejournal.com]

hold on... that's called a blizzard? hahahaha. *lives in michigan*

granted, we haven't gotten much snow around here yet this winter, either... we did get lots of freezing rain, though. -_-;

[anderson-t.livejournal.com]

Damn, you got lucky! >_< It's like sheet ice here. You can't do shit here because of the ice...not the snow. 0_o.

Damn Austin, and being stuck under a tri-front area.

[pzb.livejournal.com]

Are you shitting me? XD We've had (until today) 4 inches on the ground (which is a hell of a lot for Eugene) and only yesterday did the call a snow day for some schools because of the fact that it was freaking sleeting all morning. (I am SO glad I went into work early, else I would have been riding my bike in the sleet.)

Yes, I know by all comparisons, four inches is still nothing, but I'm from Southern California for crying out loud. We don't HAVE snow days (unless you're in the mountains...which I was not. XP)

[snarp]

What is it with all you people in the -ing southern climes talking about your -ing snow. -ing jerks. OHIO WOULD LIKE A WORD WITH YOU

I did finally see a little snow when I was in Kentucky during break. It was a whole forty-five minutes before it was all melted again.

I'm very resentful. You're all just lucky I didn't get that robot for Chrismukkah.

[gweniveeve.livejournal.com]

I want snow in Atlanta. *pouts*

[azure-reverie.livejournal.com]

Ah, that snow is so cute!
I guess the crazy weather is everywhere this year.

[ninja-tech.livejournal.com]

I envy you your snow. While it is true that we have snow up here in MN, it is only a few inches, and we're way below where we should be by this time in winter. I think it's awesome that living in SD helped give you winter driving/surviving skills.

[lady-noremon.livejournal.com]

And we got 8 inches one day 10 the next here in NS XDDDD

DEADLOCKED *lmao* not really, but they did cancel school early due to ice.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Oh god. Can't stop laughing.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

hmm...I wonder if this is this blizzard that left my parents stranded in Dallas the last day of their trip and they had to stay overnight in the airport because it was so late...

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Might have been. OTOH, I think we had the airport shut down a couple of times because of ice this winter.