This weekend, in an effort to avoid driving in the snow, I managed to drive through the worst snowstorm to hit the area in ten years. Other than the obvious answer (because I'm a dumbass), why did this happen? Well, on Friday reports were that 4-8 inches of snow would be coming early on Saturday. Since I had to teach in Pittsburgh Saturday afternoon, I asked Bill if I could stay over at his place five minutes from downtown Friday night. I did that, and as I headed in to class Saturday afternoon, not one flake had fallen on my car or anywhere else. I taught class, then visited some other friends in the city who I hadn't seen in a really long time (I'm not telling who--wild turkeys couldn't drag it out of me), and then met Bill and a whole group of people to see Daredevil. (I enjoyed it, though I attribute that at least partially to just being happy to go to any movie nowadays, since it's infrequent.) After the movie we went to Eat 'N' Park (think Denny's, but more, um, Pittsburghy) for desert, and it was approaching midnight by the time we got out. As we were driving back to my car I commented about how unexcited I was about the hour drive home, and Bill suggested I stay again. This, of course, was the FRAUGHT portion of the weekend.

I woke up Sunday morning and waited for the snow to stop. And waited. And waited. Finally, at 3:30, I decided to leave at four if it hadn't let up, so that I could be home before dark. I made the normally 50-minute trip in about an hour and a half, and there were some very treacherous moments, but interestingly the roads got better the farther into the country I got, and so everything was OK. I was home at 5:30--or, almost home, rather, because I couldn't actually pull my car into the driveway due to snow accumulation. I was able to park at my uncle's next door because he has more of a lot than a driveway proper. At that point we had maybe 6 inches of snow. When I got in the house, I found out that by the following morning we were expected to have 18-24 inches. When dad and I were shoveling the driveway Monday afternoon (work, school, anything involving leaving the yard was right out), we put the yardstick into a flat, undrifted area and got a reading of 17 inches. At least I got the cardio of shoveling out half the driveway, and neither of us had a heart attack, which is an extra bonus!

We did ultimately make one brief trip yesterday, as once we got the cars dug out, the actual roads were pretty clear. As a result, my car is now at the body shop, and by tomorrow afternoon it should be as good as, well, used.

Oh and just when I thought the news about Pennsylvania's antiquated and ridiculous Liquor Control Board was getting better, along comes this moron to once again squelch any state pride I may have been starting to feel.