No hot time in the old town

As I mentioned yesterday, this area is in the throes of really cold weather. If you want a precise measurement, it’s bloody colder than a landlord’s heart, which scares those of us who rely on Metro to get to and from work.

Especially when snow enters into it, as it did overnight into yesterday morning. Whenever there’s anything less than perfect weather, Metro becomes a crapshoot. Snow moves it to a whole new level.

School districts in the vicinity of The District They Call Columbia shut down for the day (which means supermarket shelves in the area were denuded of milk, bread and disposable diapers) and the federal government was on two-hour delay with liberal “unscheduled leave” and teleworking.

My mile-and-a-half drive to the Metro station was a little dodgy at 0445, but I noticed that highways were clear and plenty of traffic was moving at speed along both the Dulles Access Road and I-66.

However: Metro.

My car, as you can see, had drifts of snow from the doors being open for at least five minutes before departure:

And there was no heat on.

You cannot believe how cold the 40-minute ride is when there’s no heat and the outside temperature is around 25°F.

Man. #WMATA

Forewarned is forearmed

As you might be aware, the eastern part of North America is experiencing positively Arctic weather, which we’re told will hang around for several days.

So you can expect me to be on the lookout for silliness.

Viz:

P.S. From the Twitter thread, apparently the poster logged the danger, but went out for the food anyhow.

  

Up in the air

Here’s another entry from the vanity plate collection:

It was on a vehicle that you’d generally associate with testosterone, although I did not see the occupant(s):

No indication of the aircraft of choice, and no way to tell if the 80 is year of birth, or of active flight status.

Still not as good as one I saw once in the parking lot of Star of the Sea Church in Virginia Beach. That one was SPY NAVY, and the driver turned out to be a rather dishy guy with a gorgeous tenor voice.

Until thrift do us part

The other day I was at a thrift store, browsing through the housewares aisles (sometimes you can find small Corning casserole dishes, which I seem to use at a rate of knots) and my eye was caught by the stemware. I don’t know how this happened, but—while I have an abundance of wine glasses—I’m down to only two Champagne flutes, so I looked a bit closer.

It was too much to hope for actual crystal in this setting, but what made me stop and wonder was this random glass:

It’s hard to see the actual words, but trust me on this:

Ryan & Lindsey

August 12, 2006

(And a seahorse. What do you suppose the seahorse signified?)

That’s nearly twelve years ago. I wonder if Ryan and Lindsey are still together?

  

Gratitude Monday: still here

A brave winter sun presides over the District They Call Columbia. Sixteen degrees with a wind chill taking the perceived temperature down to single digits.

Thus 2018 breaks here.

But I’m in a warm house; my car started without complaint earlier; I’m queuing things up for the workweek ahead; and I’m in good health. I have much to be grateful for, and that’s what I’m concentrating on for this first Gratitude Monday of the New Year.

Peace out.

Waving the old one out

I think this is as good a way as any to see out 2017.

Happy 2018.

Seen about town

A couple of shots from errand-running this week.

First: I don’t know the story behind this company, but I just can’t help thinking that it’s a rather unfortunate name. Kind of unfortunate for any company outside of the Disney® family, but especially so for a moving service.

But while considering this notion, I got behind this car and had more to ponder:

Several possibilities here. The numeral 1 could be just that, or a substitute for the letter I. So is this an errand-running service? Or a traveling nurse? Or a number-one nurse?

I can’t decide.

Water of multiple life forms

Year-end cleaning out my desktop brought these photos I took at Wegmans a couple of months ago. (When I run out of things to marvel at on the road, Wegmans never lets me down.)

These containers are in a refrigerated case in the prepared fruit-and-veg aisle. (That’s where you go if you’re too pressed for time to slice apples, peel carrots or chop celery. It’s also the place where you can relieve yourself of discretionary income for the convenience.)

In case you’re not sure what this is, it’s 32-ounce bottles of water-and… lemon slices, watermelon chunks, cucumber slices and pineapple chunks.

And here’s what you pay for water flavored according to someone else’s specs:

Yes, $3.49 for a quart of water with a handful of fruit or veg in it. In a container that I hope to God you’ll at least put in the recycling.

However, here’s the part that I find disturbing: the disclaimer on the label warns that this very expensive water “May contain Crustacean Shellfish, Eggs, Fish, Milk, Peanuts, Soy, Tree Nuts, Wheat” on account of the handfuls of fruit and veg being tossed into the bottles in a “shared preparation area”.

Maybe wanna toss your own fruit-and-veg into your own purified water?

Consulting the oracle

As you know, I am easily amused, and one of my sources of entertainment is vanity plates—what people choose to proclaim via the semi-permanent mechanism of their vehicle’s license plates is endlessly fascinating to me. Such things are ongoing expenses: $10 to buy the plate from the DMV; then $10 per year for as long as you still want it.

It’s more permanent than a bumper sticker; less permanent than a tattoo.

So here’s one I find really interesting:

First, there’s the fox-hunting plate. Here’s someone proudly proclaiming that they’re down with a quintessentially elitist activity that can only be engaged in by people with much too much money and time, the practice of which is inordinately destructive of farmland all out of proportion to the keeping down of vermin. I mean, if The Old Dominion has a fox problem, having overbred elements in ridiculously-overpriced outfits that can only be worn for this pursuit, riding crash around across fields on heavy hunters would not be an efficient solution.

But then there’s the vanity part of this plate. Some Honda owner, whose priorities have already been called into question, is driving a stake in the ground at Oracle SQL. And is paying $10 every year to do this.

Fascinating.

Daily routine

I find it interesting that so many businesses don’t close down during the period between Christmas and New Year. Trust me: enough folks take time off because their kids are off school and they don’t want to pay for either babysitters or the childcare premium that nothing gets done anyhow.

This is the case at pretty much everywhere I’ve worked in the past 20 years. Where I am now, you could hold World War II there this week and no one would get hurt. I’m one of the ones there, since I only take time off when I can use it productively.

This doesn’t stop me from collecting oddities, however. As in this thread I found some time ago on LinkedIn—the “careers networking platform” that has long since devolved into a cacophony of “look-at-meeee” and sales spam. Here’s how it started out:

I don’t know whether this Mark Sloan bloke was deadly serious or taking the piss; either way he exemplifies the whole LinkedIn ethos. However, the responses were definitely in the latter category:

And, finally: