SNOW DAY!

Yes to this. However, the kid in me wants to see a goddamned blizzard. I heard on the radio today that there's a potential for an end of February/early March shitshow. I, for one, would enjoy not working in the middle of a week for once.

 

Shit is just starting here. They've canceled classes tonight and throughout tomorrow, so no worries there. Now its just time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the blizzard.

 

Parts of Ohio are looking to get a few inches of snow after about 3/4" of ice. Our local meteorologist said this is "the storm of the winter". Which I guess it is for parts of the country, but not so much for us. Then again, 3/4" of ice is all you need to turn a pickup into something out of a Disney ice musical.

 

I've just seen the first flakes here East of South Bend and I think we're going to shut down tomorrow (its early but the news calls this storm a "beast" and I want to sit at home and drink all day tomorrow so it works).

For some reason the impending doom of a big storm brings out the kid in me. I'm going to have to play in the snow after work and hopefully I won't make the news for doing proving natural selection or survival of the fittest.

 

The first storm is over. Getting ready for round two.

 

I agree. What does that have to do with snow?

 

Upside: Classes are unofficially canceled for us. They tell the professor's to use their "discretion", which means they all stay home.
Downside: No classes tomorrow to cancel, waste of a snow day.

 

I saw this on facebook and thought of this thread.

 

Somebody posted this on my FB wall, good shit. I'm assuming it's one of those sign generator programs, but it it's real, it's double the laffs.

 

I live in SE Wisconsin...there is no visibility right now (winds are bending mature trees). Thankfully I picked up a 12'er to up my inventory since tomorrow is a snow day. Since there is no "snow day drunk thread" would it be mutinous to transform this thread into one? This storm is affecting 30 states after all...

 

My work sent out company wide emails today stating that they will be sending free taxis to peoples houses to pick them up if they can't get to work tomorrow because of the blizzard we are supposed to be hit with. They also said they would be offering free pizza all day via delivery service.

Here is the forecast over the next 36 hours, ain't no crazy cabbies or delivery guys gonna be out in that. See you all on Xbox for some COD, bitches.

 

It's -23C with a -34 windchill (-9F/-29) here. I always get a chuckle when I hear about winter around the world, and then roll my eyes. I can't even count how many days the weather's been -40C this year so far here in Manitoba, Canada. I also wonder who the eff thought it would be a good idea to settle here, in the mosquito swamp that it is meeting one of the coldest areas of the continent.. some people call it hell on earth, others call it home.

That being said, when it's -10C with no windchill, it's absolutely beautiful out, I unzip my jacket and it feels like it's spring!

 

Wow. The word epic gets bandied about an awful lot these days. This, though, is truly epic.

 

I'm on the West coast of Michigan, right in the middle of the big line of red heading this way. The boss made it clear on the way out the door today that he didn't expect to see anyone if we actually get dumped on as bad as the news is saying, so I'm already well on my way to irresponsibly drunk for a weekday.

Unfortunately the fiance and I have responsible plans of unpacking the rest of her boxes during our snow day.

 

Is this a bad time to mention that the expected high in my parts is 73 tomorrow?

According to many Fbook status (statusii, statuses, whatever) The Governor closed all the University of Wisconsin system campuses. This happened 3 years ago when we got 18 inches in 12 hours overnight. The time before that it was in like 1976. Pussies.

 

Last night we had some rain as the front blew in, but that was it. Perfect today, jeans, jacket, sunglasses. It'll be around 30-35 here tomorrow.

Sometimes I wish I lived in an area where it snowed, but not right now. Fuck that. Y'all deal with snow shovels tomorrow, I'll go for a run.

 

I'm in Chicago, and it's fucking brutal. I jetted from work a few minutes early, and the el train was damn near dead for 5 p.m. Got home, made dinner, and got a little silly with my room mate.

I told him that I heard they were shutting down parts of Lake Shore Drive because there may be 30+ foot waves on Lake Michigan, which is fucking ridiculous. I have never even seen the spray from the wave breakers go higher than 20 feet, let alone waves.

So in our state of mind, we decided it would be a good idea to drive near the lake and go check out these waves. I know, I know, stupid idea. I don some USMC grade long underwear, thick pants, boots, underarmour, a thick hoodie, my snowboarding jacket and face mask, rabbit fur ear-flap hat (no idea what the proper name is, those Russian style ones) and goggles. My room mate put on his flight suit that he used in the Corps when flying in cold areas without helicopter doors. Well we get pretty close, thanks to his 4x4 Tacoma, and see cops and fire trucks. Note that visibility was maybe 25 feet.

Turns out they were trying to get people off Lake Shore Drive (Henceforth known as LSD). So we start pushing cars. Luckily, I wore my snowboarding goggles, and we had brought a shovel to clear out the bed of his truck. Also, he left a 24 pack of water bottles in his car, which came in handy.

There were cops, firefighters, CTA workers, Traffic management people, and good samaritans helping out. The crowd started thinning as time went on, but so did the amount of cars. We probably helped 2 dozen cars or so.

Then I decide to try and light a cigarette. That was difficult. So I decide to hike up the hill onto LSD (we were previously under the overpass helping). Well, it's bumper to fucking bumper. We grab the water and start passing it out to these poor stranded bastards. They had been in that spot for over an hour, and stranded on LSD for 5 to 6 hours. I passed out a bunch of water and tried to lighten the mood by saying shit like "however we do not have a bathroom handy" or "that will be $50 please". One guy was flipping out, so we told him to talk to the cops, not us, because we have nothing to do with anything. Some of the cars were abandoned. One woman told us that she heard a bus had flipped on it's side a few miles up, thus the lack of movement. Quite a few people asked us what was going on, or if we were red cross or some shit, but really we were bored and slightly stoned, and decided to turn our adventure into helping other people. I was shocked at how long some of those poor folks were there for, though. My mom works in the loop (as do I) but she lives a hell of a lot further and the Metra cancelled a shit ton of trains. Luckily she worked from home today.

Being the only one with goggles, I decided to venture to the lake. It was insane. The closer you got, the less you could see. I made it to the wavebreakers, but there were no waves to be seen. A good thing, I suppose, because if a 30 foot wave hit me I would have surely died.

That's when I realized how surreal the situation was. It was like in the movies where some apocalyptic event occurs, and they just show barren roads with abandoned cars and people panicking. I found my room mate, and we headed back to our place, sober at this point. We hit another jam on Clark and Fullerton, and had to push a cabbie and another rear-wheel drive car out to safety. Watched a different cabbie wildly fish tail because whoever decided rear wheel drive is good in the Chicago winters is a retard.

I just gave a bunch of my snowboard gear to my other room mate and some of the girls that live upstairs, they grabbed more water, and we essentially switched shifts. Unfortunately, I am expected to come into work tomorrow, but the territory I handle is the Midwest and North East. I don't think the industry I work in will be open for business in this weather. However, we do a lot of business on the West coast and the South, and 6 of my 11 person team have an hour to 2 hour commute from the burbs, so there is a good chance we will be grossly short staffed. I'm gonna call my boss in the morning and hope we're closed, or at least hope the El is not running. I heard buses won't be.

Ah, sorry for the long winded tale there. Gonna sleep soundly tonight, plus I learned an important lesson: if you can, without endangering yourself, help people out in these situations if you're in the position to, because they are scared as fuck.