Stranded -- Photo of the Week 7 Feb 2011

So, there have been some snowstorms sweeping the nation as of late. I was most impressed by this photo:

(Source: E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune)

 

 

We had a pretty bad storm out in the DC area a week and a half ago that absolutely crippled traffic around here. Work the morning after was like listening to a bunch of war stories: "It took me 7 hours to get home..." "...It took me 11 hours to get home." "I had to abandon my car and walk the three miles home..." "...I had to cannibalize my rugby teammates in order to survive" etc etc. It was stunning how much the roadways shut down around here; my commute home made me feel both lucky and a slight tinge of survivors' remorse (it only took me 45 minutes). But really, I think it was just the Man upstairs looking out for me -- knowing my impatience with traffic, if I were stuck for that long, I probably would have become very, very angry.

Happy Monday to you, folks. And if you're wondering, I still have not bought a snowshovel.

Read more...

Snowpocalypse, etc -- Photo(s) of the Week 8 Feb 2010

Well, while everyone was picking grocery stores clean of essentials and succumbing to mass panic -- I mean, really, everyone was casting this snowstorm as some sort of meteorological Hannibal Lecter, sweeping in to abduct their children and eat them "with some fava beans and a nice chianti"  -- when in actuality it just dumped 30 inches of snow and caused all normal transportation problems that result from mass amounts of snow. It wasn't the Snowpocalypse that so many feared it would be.

We capitalized, of course. Snow changes landscapes in a beautiful way, and we got some 'shoeing in today. Mei Mei wanted to do some "freestyle snowshoeing" off of the picnic tables:

and DJA just wanted to jump off tall structures, because 30 inches makes for a nice soft landing:

Oh, did I mention that the view of the waterfalls was amazing?

Happy Monday, all. Word from the weather peeps is that we have more mayhem heading our way.

Read more...

New Years' Snowshoeing -- Photo of the Week 4 Jan 2010

No better way to celebrate a new year than getting your snowshoeing ON, and that's exactly what our road trip to West Virginia provided for us. Sure, West Virginia's MOs are usually missing teeth, alleged inbreeding, and overall backwards-ness, but it is a state with some amazing natural beauty. It was a great way to spend the 1st of the new year -- how did you celebrate?

As always, road tripping with friends is fun. The game providing the most entertainment was 6 Degrees of Actor Separation, where you connect two actors by movies that they have been in with other actors.**  The most challenging connection to make was Pauly Shore and Jean Claude Van Damme -- partly because none of us could name more than one movie of their's.... but mostly because the mere mention of either actors' name was enough to produce uncontrollable laughter. Why was it so funny? I still don't know, and likely will go to my grave not knowing.

Either way, I challenge you to find a solution that takes less than 9 degrees of separation for those two, because that was the best we could come up with.

Also thanks to 6 Degrees, I found out that Jean Claude's nickname is "The Muscles from Brussels." I feel stupid for having gone through 20+ years of life and having not known this. Shame on me. And shame on my entire educational system and my friends and family for having never taught me this.


Anyway. Happy first Monday of the year, all.

**For example, if you wanted to connect Matt Damon and Christian Bale, you would say that Matt Damon was in Invictus with Morgan Freeman, and Morgan Freeman was in the Batman's with Christian Bale. Just two degrees of separation.

Read more...

The One Where the World Ended -- Photo of the Week 21 Dec 09

Sorry on the delay for PotW. I was too busy having my senses and mind blown away by Avatar 3-D.

You've all heard of the snowstorm that buried the DC Metropolitan area, no doubt. 20 inches of snow is impressive.

Winter Wonderland? For most, probably. But Josh M was trying to leave the area Friday night to go snowboarding and he described the scene that greeted him on the roadways as being "like the end of the world." I asked him if he saw John Cusack flying a small plane. He said no, but cars were strewn all along the sides of the road, driverless. Low visibility. Oh, and this:

Other accounts from friends described grocery stores as picked completely clean of all milk, eggs, and bread (apparently french toast is the choice of the snowed-ins); gas stations with no regular unleaded left. Because that's how we roll in the nation's capitol and its adjacent suburbs: Panicked, overreactive, and expecting the worst.


Happy short week, everyone.

Read more...

Education, Education, Education

Snowshoeing took me to the "mountains" of West Virginia a couple of weeks back. It was my first venture into "The ----- State" ...I actually don't know what the state nickname is, and frankly, it's too late for me to care enough to look it up. Anyway, given Rye's semi-offensive jokes regarding the inhabitants of WV, I was expecting green, sprawling fields with rows and rows of bathtubs filled with fermenting moonshine, or toothless, bearded men donning 'coon skin caps firing shotguns at each other from the ditches on each side of the road. Something like that.

Crazy expectations, you say? You haven't heard the jokes that Rye tells.

On the return journey we had to pull over and flip around once. We pulled temporarily into a driveway which Dave said "look[ed] like it belong[ed] to a slasher." Below is the sign that was posted at the beginning of his driveway. A simple "No Trespassing: Private Property" probably would have sufficed; not only in preventing trespassers, but also in preserving this man's dignity by not exposing his ignorance to anyone who happens to pass by:

Let me type it out in case you can't see it well, and go through this like my 6th grade English teacher used to go through sentences, picking it apart piece-by-piece.

"Trespassers will b
percecuted to the full extent of 2 mungrel dogs which
never was over sochible to strangers
& 1 dubble brl. shot gun which aint loded with sofa pillers. Dam if
I aint gitten tired of this
hell raisin on my place."

On second thought, I will not pick this apart. I think it speaks quite clearly for itself.

If I were in any other state, I would say that this is so over the top that it is a joke. But when you're in WV, sometimes you just don't know --

Read more...

Random Hobby #1 - Snowshoeing

So only a couple months ago I realized that I have a good job, I'm single, and I have no dependents (that paternity test proves so!).* I wanted to pick up a hobby that wasn't something that all the other bandwagon jumping-types were doing. I decided on something that I enjoyed when I was younger: Snowshoeing. Random, I know.

The problem is, I went to school in Utah for 4 1/2 years and was literally a 15-minute drive away from copious amounts of great snow during the winter, but didn't have the financial means to get the equipment. Now I am on the east coast where there are no mountains and it rarely snows, but now I'm stackin enough scrilla' so that I can afford the equipment. I'm currently submitting that to dictionary.com as the definition for irony.

Anyway, I had almost resigned myself to the fact that I would not get snow here and that my equipment would end up hanging on the walls of Red Robin or TGIFriday's or some other we-consider-junk-collecting-to-be-interior-design restaurant.

But it snowed all day today. I rushed home from work, pounded some dinner, strapped on my equipment, grabbed my 'shoes, and headed for ---- that's right, the middle school right next to my apartment complex. It's got a huge field that was secluded and undisturbed. I realize that 6 inches or whatever in the backyard of a middle school are really not ideal snowshoeing conditions, but sometimes you just have to make do.

One tall wooden fence, the flimsiest chain-link fence I've ever climbed, and a tree branch in the eye later, I was strapping on my 'shoes and was off. It was a serene 45 minutes of enjoying snow. I wouldn't have traded breaking the law for anything else.

I realize that this adventure would not have been possible without the help of a lot of people. My special thanks to:

TME: For coaching me through the purchasing process.
Shigeko: Bringing my ski bibs to TX and getting me nice ski gloves for Christmas.
JoshM: For generously providing my softshell and outershell, free of charge**
Myself: For buying the snowshoes, the winter boots, and for actually conjuring up motivation to do something this time.
Taxpayers: For providing the middle school.
Whoever lived here 20 years ago: For planting those trees where they were; if they weren't there I would have never gotten over the aforementioned chain-link fence.
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole: For providing the soundtrack for my trekking.
My Glasses: Although you kept fogging up on me, you saved my right eye from that tree branch when I was hopping fences.
The Tall Wooden Fence: For trapping and crushing my left "boy" between yourself and the inside of my upper thigh as I was hopping over you;*** I mean, I hadn't filled my quota of indescribably painful nausea for the YEAR, so it's good to know I'm ahead of the curve. My never-to-exist children and posterity also thank you.


*You may or may not have seen me on Jerry Springer
**Sorry, Goodwill. He was going to give them to you before I snatched them up.
***My apologies to readers for the graphic nature of this anecdote.

Read more...