A Weekend in Photos

Spring, let's hope, is approaching. If nothing else, it's spring-like in our dining room right now.

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We call this series: How Ben Spends a Saturday Afternoon While Inspired by both the Olympics and Heros vs. Villians

What the heck is going on in that sink??

That's right, something delicious!

And he poses victorious, like Evan Lysacek after landing a pristine quadruple toe loop, or the Flying Tomato after a Double McTwist 1260. The crowd goes wild!

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Inspired by the games and our own inclinations for snow-related activity, today we summited the mount, fed like Colby and Coach on popcorn coconut.

Let's Ignore the Falling Snow

1) This man has been in our apartment. I had nothing to do with it, though I believe cash was exchanged for a childhood comic book collection on our deck.

2) This might be the coolest photo to come out of Our Fair University. In case you were wondering, UVa does not honor President's Day but did, until very recently, lump Martin Luther King Day with Lee & Jackson Day. OHMIGOD. I pine for the days of UMass holding public forums to discuss the consequences of observing Columbus Day.

Local tidings

One of my hardened beat reporters (and Daily Progress screeners), live from the mean streets of Keswick, sends along a particularly incendiary measure by state officials to tax online purchases. What gives, Commonwealth? We can remain free of microchips, but we must be taxed from our living rooms?
(NB: Who even knew online purchases weren't taxed? Your fare blogger is a lousy Democrat who expects taxation...)

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Best recent Charlottesville taxi cab one-liners:

Corduroy Pillows Are Making Headlines
&
Diet = Mind Over Platter

From Ben's Vaults:

Good news, Virginia: the House voted in favor of a bill to protect citizens from "attempts by employers or insurance companies to implant microchips in their bodies against their will."

What a relief, sci-fi nerds!

It's official.

We're lucky enough to be living through Charlottesville's snowiest winter since the observatory here began tracking weather. (We're not even close to the snowiest winter in Virginian history, but still: Take that, last year's drought!)

In other local weather news, I am at least grateful that it's not always this windy in gorgeous central Virginia. Today's uncharacteristic gusts -- filled with icy snow particles -- just added insult to (blinding) injury.

Overall, I like to think I'm fulfilling some of TJ's legacy by recording my deep thoughts about the weather as often as possible, though it occurs to me that I am reporting from the lowly base of Pantops, way below his highness with the other plebs and general First Years. Someday, I'll get to the top of the mountain, gosh darnit.

Signed,
-Someone paid to read Jefferson's wonderfully quirky meteorological observations

Digging Out

Another Sunday, another day digging out the cars.

We hear our northern brethren in Philadelphia outdid us with over two feet. You've officially earned hot cocoa with marshmallows! Of course, in a weird meteorological pattern, Matt claims he got a generous dusting in Montclair, and the P'boro contingent is reporting about a foot.

Poor Finny is having a rough first winter. Here he is getting his fourth cleaning of this storm alone. I think he's destined for the mountains, one that sticky accelerator issue is addressed! ;-) Or maybe just Atlanta, where we're headed next month.

As we walked through the neighborhood, we were greeted by this happy snow family. Very cute, though some of us shudder at the idea of zucchini eyes.

Hope everyone's resting those sore shoveling muscles and enjoying a Sunday of relative freedom to engage with the world again. I know I'll be happily out and about in a few hours. Doing what? It doesn't even matter!

Snowmygod!

2010: This Buried Life continues apace.

We fell asleep to sleet and awoke to more of the fluffy stuff.

Snowmen on the perimeter!

Everything's quiet inside. We've heard that 13,000 homes in the area are without power, including possibly Don & Sue in Keswick. We've had some brief outages, but it seems to keep clicking back on.

Another day, another snow storm.

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More snow-pun related humor from our local weekly paper, The Hook:

Best new snow word: "Stucksters," coined by regular Hook online commenter Gasbag Self-Ordained Expert about those who are automotively ill equipped but still try to drive in the snow.

Best plan in the face of weather disaster from a professional: "I buy every loaf of bread and all the milk I can find-- and then sell them to my neighbors," offers UVA climatologist Jerry Stenger.

Snow News is Good News?

Just a few more links to inspire fear: Pandesnownium, Even Worse, and Snowtastrophe. I guess if I had to find something positive to say about Charlottesville this week, it's that local blogo'journalists care just as deeply about nicknaming meteriological events as I do. I mean, I'd trade that for a weekend where I could leave the house, but I'll take what I can get at this point.

Related aside: The University preemptively closed for tomorrow by 5pm today. The snow? It's a 'comin!

MORE Winterwonderland Extravaganza

Well, whattya know?

Between tonight's snowfall and this upcoming weekend's predicted massive winter storm, Charlottesville residents will categorize this winter as the:

a) Snowmageddon

b) Snow-nami

c) Snowpocalypse

or

d) "It's always like this in Charlottesville"?

Local schools were closed last Monday because of flooding that took down trees and closed thirty county roads. The kids had off this Monday and Tuesday because of last weekend's unplowed, hazardous snow, and have off tomorrow already because of the snow that began falling during tonight's rush hour. All that, and UVa hasn't had a single delayed opening. On Monday, while I was slaving away at UVa, I realized that Montpelier, my actual employer, had a two and a half hour delay. And like a sucker, I just kept on working...

So, if we get another two feet of snow this weekend, everyone local just hold up your hands and laugh at the freakish northerners who thought they'd catch a little break moving six hundred miles south. C'ville has *already* gotten double the precipitation it usually gets in a winter.

The silver lining, hopefully? No brush fires near apartments that house our worldly possessions this spring.