November 30, 2001

It's snowing!

I don't know what the first real snow of the year is like elsewhere, but here in Utah there are always some idiots in SUVs off to the side of the freeway with their blinkers running a repeating "I'm such an idiot" message in morse.

(Or at least, that's what it says in context. Literally the blinkers are just a cry of pain. "oooooooooo" or "eeeeeeeeeeee," depending on the timing of on/off cycles.)

I'm sure all of my readers are bright enough to know what happened. See, these SUVs have much better traction than the average vehicle when they are trying to GO, but when they are trying to STOP it's another story altogether. They tend to be heavier, less balanced, yet still (and most unfortunately) limited to the four little contact patches the rest of us get.

So every year it's the same. I drive to work in the first snow very cautiously, waiting for the year (it'll happen someday I'm sure) when I actually get to SEE one of these blinking morons pitch his shiny, new, no-I'm-not-compensating-for-anything truck off the road. And the year I get to see it will probably be the year that mister package-spam manages to take me WITH him as he spins into snowy oblivion.

Yesterday morning I had a 7am meeting (conference call with engineers in Bangalore... ugh) and was AMAZED to see nary a stupidity-semaphore coming from the snowbanks. I said as much to a co-worker at 11am, and he said "Oh, you just hit the roads too early. There were half a dozen of them off the road when I came in. One of 'em almost got Kenny."

OUR Kenny has never once been killed, not even as a cheap gag, and is a great asset to the team. I'm glad he's got good reflexes.

Anyway, it's still snowing, and although it may not look that way from the text above, I love it. No, I don't ski. Yes, I have to shovel. No, I don't own shares in a ski resort. I just love the way the world looks in a proper winter storm. And Utah needs the snow this year: we irrigate with the spring runoff, and I've been told that there's some special sporty-something (limpers?) happening in February that they need snow for too. Eh. I'm gonna stay in by the fire and curl up with a good web browser.