Snowalready Shopper Blocker
It's hard to believe on December 4th my yard is completely covered with snow. It's not the first snow of the year, that came on Thanksgiving morning and was gone by noon. But it is the first real snow of the year, where "real" is defined as it having some influence on my life other than for viewing pleasure only. Real this time means I had to leave a little earlier yesterday to be somewhere by 10:00, since the roads weren't actually plowed by then.
You might think this would be a verbal assault against the snow and cold, but it turns out that it helped me quite a bit yesterday. See, I had yesterday earmarked as my primary Christmas shopping day and the Bridgewater mall opened at 10:00. The show afforded me a blocker, so to speak, which allowed me all sorts of running room, blocking out the competition such that when I arrived at 10:00, the mall was barren of the usual insanity awaiting me there.
This worked out well, as I was able to leave by 11:15. As I was leaving people were streaming in, an assured nuclear meltdown of a riot-in-training for the noontime crowd. You can keep people at bay, but only for so long. I had a few other things to get a non-mall stores (yes, they still do exist). But I was completely done by 11:50, which means that I had to drive around Somerville for 10 minutes before going to the Super Saver Liquor Store, a true diamond in the rough in beer sales.
Back to the snow, which the beer may eventually help me get through but that's not at hand just yet. I live in New Jersey, not upstate New York where it starts snowing in July. We've had Christmas temperatures of 60 in years past. Waking up to a white earth isn't what I'm ready for right now. My master plan yesterday was to finish shopping then go for a bike ride. I would have passed 2000 miles for the year - a feat accomplished only once before. As it is, I now stand at roughly 1991 miles. I'm sure I'll make it, but as I sit here and they predict another 1-3 inches (or more depending on the level of sensationalism in your news of choice), I'm not thrilled by the possibility that I'll need to do it with 6 inches of snow on the ground.
What this portends is, well, absolutely nothing. People are surely measuring caterpillar lines and declaring a [good|bad] winter. I guess it keeps people talking. But you know it might be 50 again on Thursday, despite the weather gurus claiming otherwise. What do they know? They're not aiming for 2000 miles on the road bike for the year. They're trying to get you to watch TV.
That's what happens when winter falls - TV. I'm already finding myself a little stir crazy from it. I've almost completed my basement transformation, which consists of cleaning up the junk that takes up space with no use, wheeling my cooler down there and filling it with beer and ice, and bringing my bike tools and bike stand down. I also hooked up some old computer speakers with a setup that allows me to plug in my Ipod or a CD player. And the TV was already there, but it's parked in front of the treadmill so if I want to watch I need to earn it.
I'm not ready for the cold but it's coming either way. It served as a nice blocker yesterday and it will probably allow me to take the later train tomorrow, which makes my work day shorter and thus keeps me more sane. Once February rolls around though, I'll probably be skinning the paint off the walls with my teeth. Either that or I'll have to figure out a way to deal with this stuff.
You might think this would be a verbal assault against the snow and cold, but it turns out that it helped me quite a bit yesterday. See, I had yesterday earmarked as my primary Christmas shopping day and the Bridgewater mall opened at 10:00. The show afforded me a blocker, so to speak, which allowed me all sorts of running room, blocking out the competition such that when I arrived at 10:00, the mall was barren of the usual insanity awaiting me there.
This worked out well, as I was able to leave by 11:15. As I was leaving people were streaming in, an assured nuclear meltdown of a riot-in-training for the noontime crowd. You can keep people at bay, but only for so long. I had a few other things to get a non-mall stores (yes, they still do exist). But I was completely done by 11:50, which means that I had to drive around Somerville for 10 minutes before going to the Super Saver Liquor Store, a true diamond in the rough in beer sales.
Back to the snow, which the beer may eventually help me get through but that's not at hand just yet. I live in New Jersey, not upstate New York where it starts snowing in July. We've had Christmas temperatures of 60 in years past. Waking up to a white earth isn't what I'm ready for right now. My master plan yesterday was to finish shopping then go for a bike ride. I would have passed 2000 miles for the year - a feat accomplished only once before. As it is, I now stand at roughly 1991 miles. I'm sure I'll make it, but as I sit here and they predict another 1-3 inches (or more depending on the level of sensationalism in your news of choice), I'm not thrilled by the possibility that I'll need to do it with 6 inches of snow on the ground.
What this portends is, well, absolutely nothing. People are surely measuring caterpillar lines and declaring a [good|bad] winter. I guess it keeps people talking. But you know it might be 50 again on Thursday, despite the weather gurus claiming otherwise. What do they know? They're not aiming for 2000 miles on the road bike for the year. They're trying to get you to watch TV.
That's what happens when winter falls - TV. I'm already finding myself a little stir crazy from it. I've almost completed my basement transformation, which consists of cleaning up the junk that takes up space with no use, wheeling my cooler down there and filling it with beer and ice, and bringing my bike tools and bike stand down. I also hooked up some old computer speakers with a setup that allows me to plug in my Ipod or a CD player. And the TV was already there, but it's parked in front of the treadmill so if I want to watch I need to earn it.
I'm not ready for the cold but it's coming either way. It served as a nice blocker yesterday and it will probably allow me to take the later train tomorrow, which makes my work day shorter and thus keeps me more sane. Once February rolls around though, I'll probably be skinning the paint off the walls with my teeth. Either that or I'll have to figure out a way to deal with this stuff.
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