This Morning's Commute

...was much better, thank you very much.

The roads were clear and traffic was a little lighter than usual, probably 'cause much of DC hasn't come out of their bomb shelters and panic rooms after seeing the first few snowflakes.

I was almost clobbered by a huge chunk of snow and ice from an SUV in the lane in front of me while zipping north on I270. I was in the middle of a lane change when it flipped off his roof and smashed into the pavement about where I would have been otherwise. Folks, it's just common courtesy to remove all the snow and ice from your vehicle before driving. Yes, it's hard to do on an SUV, but too bad: that's the price of ownership.

There was much complaining on the WTOP talk-back line during yesterday's evening commute about how the state highway administrations screwed up. Personally, I think the callers were vastly too harsh: this was a light snow, not a blizzard, and it unfortunately happened at the peak of the morning rush hour. The people who salt/sand the roads can't control the weather and they can't perform miracles. It wasn't their finest hour but they hardly deserve to be boiled in oil.

This Morning's Commute

...was much better, thank you very much.

The roads were clear and traffic was a little lighter than usual, probably 'cause much of DC hasn't come out of their bomb shelters and panic rooms after seeing the first few snowflakes.

I was almost clobbered by a huge chunk of snow and ice from an SUV in the lane in front of me while zipping north on I270. I was in the middle of a lane change when it flipped off his roof and smashed into the pavement about where I would have been otherwise. Folks, it's just common courtesy to remove all the snow and ice from your vehicle before driving. Yes, it's hard to do on an SUV, but too bad: that's the price of ownership.

There was much complaining on the WTOP talk-back line during yesterday's evening commute about how the state highway administrations screwed up. Personally, I think the callers were vastly too harsh: this was a light snow, not a blizzard, and it unfortunately happened at the peak of the morning rush hour. The people who salt/sand the roads can't control the weather and they can't perform miracles. It wasn't their finest hour but they hardly deserve to be boiled in oil.

Struggling Against Boredom

Everything I had scheduled to work on at the office was resolved before 10 AM.
My work tickets are complete, tickets I've scheduled are approved, my timesheet is updated, my papers have been sorted and filed and all reports have been sent.

On personal projects, I finished digitizing audio tapes of the 2006 Advanced & Challenge Fly-in in DC (ACDC) last night and used the application Audacity to split them into separate MP3 files. In a moment, I'll burn these and recordings of prior years onto a CD-ROM DVD so the cassette tapes can be placed in storage.

I've finished listening to my daily podcasts from Canada, the US and Britain. My daily LJ reading is caught up, as is my Yahoo News page.

Thus, I am trapped in my cube with nothing to do.

I could write some more square dance choreography, but neither my heart nor my mind are set right for that just now. Both need to be engaged correctly for anything of quality to be produced and I've realized that forcing either leads only to frustration. Besides, it's been nearly three days since my last square dance engagement and one day until the next: I'm rather enjoying the brief vacation.

I'm also finding it very difficult to get myself worked up into an xmas card frenzy this year. A few will be sent to family, but it's going to be a vastly reduced set when compared to the prior three years.

More than anything, I'd like to catch up on some reading but doing so at work is Just Not Done --to put it mildly-- even if there's nothing else to do.

kent4str has taken today off work as a mental health day, while cuyahogarvr has been largely house-bound; I could do something similar but they already put up with me more than any human should be required to, so I'll leave them their space for now.

Perhaps I'll run up to Frederick for some xmas shopping at lunch. A long lunch. Until 5 PM or so.

Any other ideas?

Struggling Against Boredom

Everything I had scheduled to work on at the office was resolved before 10 AM.
My work tickets are complete, tickets I've scheduled are approved, my timesheet is updated, my papers have been sorted and filed and all reports have been sent.

On personal projects, I finished digitizing audio tapes of the 2006 Advanced & Challenge Fly-in in DC (ACDC) last night and used the application Audacity to split them into separate MP3 files. In a moment, I'll burn these and recordings of prior years onto a CD-ROM DVD so the cassette tapes can be placed in storage.

I've finished listening to my daily podcasts from Canada, the US and Britain. My daily LJ reading is caught up, as is my Yahoo News page.

Thus, I am trapped in my cube with nothing to do.

I could write some more square dance choreography, but neither my heart nor my mind are set right for that just now. Both need to be engaged correctly for anything of quality to be produced and I've realized that forcing either leads only to frustration. Besides, it's been nearly three days since my last square dance engagement and one day until the next: I'm rather enjoying the brief vacation.

I'm also finding it very difficult to get myself worked up into an xmas card frenzy this year. A few will be sent to family, but it's going to be a vastly reduced set when compared to the prior three years.

More than anything, I'd like to catch up on some reading but doing so at work is Just Not Done --to put it mildly-- even if there's nothing else to do.

kent4str has taken today off work as a mental health day, while cuyahogarvr has been largely house-bound; I could do something similar but they already put up with me more than any human should be required to, so I'll leave them their space for now.

Perhaps I'll run up to Frederick for some xmas shopping at lunch. A long lunch. Until 5 PM or so.

Any other ideas?