Wednesday...UPDATED

So the weather is the story in our area today.  I changed the home page picture because it just didn't seem right to have that shot of the Arizona golf course given our current landscape.  (These pics from today really don't do justice to the storm.  The air conditioning unit is fully covered to the right of the swing in the pic above.)  Few things are open today, at least this AM.  Still trying to find an open Starbuck's.

It took me a solid hour and a half this morning to snow blow my driveway out to the street.  The drift at the street, admittedly aided by the street plows, was over three feet.  But there was a similar drift in front of my garage.  I actually had to break the drift down with a shovel before I could use the blower.  Probably the biggest single dumping of snow that we've had here for several years.

The small bit of humor out of my work was that I still managed to get stuck backing out of my driveway when I left for coffee.  Everything was so white that I lost perspective and backed into the drift oppisite the mailbox.  Fortunately, it was a single five-minute shovel job and I was then free and onto the street.

My pal Lee in C-town says that the trains are on weekend schedules and he just told his employees to work from home today.  I'm glad the The Fates had not had me scheduled to fly through O'Hare or Midway today.  My guess is that it will take a couple of days for the airports to get caught up with traffic.

BTW, what happened with the groundhog?

I'll add more here later today after the lay-of-the-land is fully disclosed.

For sure...


UPDATE...

Bunkered down now for the evening.  Other than a relatively brief project to shovel the snow pushed across my driveway entrance by the street plows, my morning clearing didn't require any repetition this afternoon.  Suite!  But they have the temperature scheduled to go down to -10 overnight, with lower wind chill, of course. 

Not sure what the scoop is, but the Hawks are up 20+ on Michigan State in IC!  Don't take this the wrong way 4, but this doesn't say much for MSU.  And there are a few empty seats in Carver-Hawkeye.

Actually, the biggest surprise for me for the day was the fact that my regular Starbuck's never opened this morning.  I can understand a late opening, but not at all?  I suppose that getting staff in was a safety issue, but it still surprises me.  (It should also be noted that the Kimberly Hy Vee deli wasn't open either, and the Devil's Glen Hy Vee had no deli service even tonight at supper time.)

I'm guessing that Gold's being closed all day ranks along side the Starbuck's situation.  I'm guessing that they could have staffed to have the place open by at least noon, but with the general advice by authorities being to stay home unless absolutely necessary, the local Gold's management had to say, "Uh, let's not be heros".

Finally, Augie used good judgement and rescheduled tonight's home game to tomorrow night.  I don't think that they had to concern themselves with "have to play" provisions in their television contracts.  Which they don't have.

Hope 3 and Herky don't have trouble with this storm system in NYC tomorrow.  Hang in there, guys.

And everybody this side of the Left Coast, in particular...

BCOT