1711 I Hate ... Something, or Somebody

Saturday, March 1, 2008

We haven't had a lot of snow this winter. It has snowed often, but not a lot all at once. However, I've had a lot more trouble handling the snow this winter, more even than the year that we had several 2'+ storms. I'm starting to hate snow, or forecasts, or forecasters, or something. It's the expectations that have messed me up.

Like, the snow a week ago yesterday. I was away for the weekend. When I got home Sunday evening, I figured I'd have to clear the driveway on Monday. But Monday was warm and sunny, and the snow was melting, the lower part of the drive was partially clear by mid-afternoon, so I decided to let it go. You can't use a snowthrower on wet mushy snow, anyway.

Snow was predicted Tuesday to the north of us, but all the maps, and weathermen, and the government weather radio assured me that we would get none, so I figured it would continue to melt in the sun.

Instead, surprise, we got several inches. That wouldn't have been too bad, except that it didn't warm up, so the slushy weekend snow froze into uneven ridges of schlice where I had driven over it, and then it rained after Tuesday's snow, so I had crusty new snow on top of the schlice. It remained below freezing, in the teens in fact, for the rest of the week.

So last night we were supposed to get 8-12" of fluff. I canceled my plans for the weekend because I knew I'd be spending today throwing fluff. AND, knowing that I wouldn't be able to run the snowthrower through the ridged frozen stuff already there, I paid a man $50 yesterday to plow the frozen stuff off, BEFORE the storm came, so I'd have a fresh surface to clear today.

We got all of 2 or 3".

And by noon it was already getting heavy and wet, AND it was drizzling rain, which tonight has frozen into a crust. Sigh. You ask why I didn't get out there early and throw it? Because (you'd think I'd know better by now) all the maps, and forecasters, and government weather radio reports said this morning that we'll have temperatures in the 40's starting Monday, and then for at least the next six days.

I've about had it. I'd rather we got snow, and then COLD until I can blow the fluff away. This thawing and shushing and crusting is miserable. Like it's toying with me.

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My laptop or connection or something is also toying with me. Screens usually load quickly. I click on a link, and in a second or two, I'm on the next screen. Today, it's been 10 or 20 seconds of that slow "loading bar" across the bottom. Something is very wrong.

I have it set up to automatically clear temp files and ...uh... I forget the word, but when it moves pieces of files around on the hard disk so they're all together and easy to access? ... anyway, all that stuff gets done on the fly once a week or so.

I also run virus etc. scans on the fly, and started a scan manually this morning as soon as I noticed the slowdown.

Nada.

Fooey.
.