Thursday, April 12, 2007

The Day After

The snowstorm has come and gone and left 2 inches of heavy, wet snow on the grass. It mostly slushed up on the pavement (except the Jones Hall parking lot, more on that later) and that's already melted away. Thus, we didn't have to do any shoveling, so I guess Mr. Murphy's attempt at causing regrets over my tractor went for naught. You can hear the sounds of melting snow and running water everywhere. The gurgle coming from my gutter downspouts is almost as enchanting to listen to as one of those table top fountain-thingies.

Anyway. Yesterday the snow started around 5:30 AM, just in time for the morning commute.(thank you Mr. Murphy!) If you took it slow and easy you made it to your destination just fine, albeit about 10 minutes later than usual. The girls had school dismissed at 12:30 (no surprise there) so I had to leave Kirkwood a little early to make it to the bus stop on time. The heaviest snow fell while I was waiting (in my nice warm SUV) for Lou's bus. The falling snow was actually rather pretty, although it would have been prettier in January.

The roads weren't much better this morning. They were wet, with lots of slushy spots, so you had to be careful. Plus the wind was blowing hard and shaking my truck, so it was a white knuckle drive to campus. When I got there, yesterday's snow and melt-water had frozen solid on the Jones Hall parking lot, turning it into an ice rink. I tried to park in my usual spot, but when I spun out and slid sideways (at only 2 miles per hour) I figured I'd better park away from the traffic and not in the middle of the lot, so I took an edge space. By the time I left the ice had melted away and the lot was drying out, so parking tomorrow should be better.

Speaking of Jones Hall, we're still running on a generator, and will be through Finals Week. The new transformer won't arrive until May 9, and finals are over on the 11th. Whatever. I've seen the movie previews, and I hope this transformer is one of the friendly ones. :-)

Meanwhile, I still have lots of homework to do, mostly revisions to my drafting class drawings. I also have projects due in Arch CAD and regular CAD, and I have an exam Tuesday in Survey and Site Layout. This past week (the day before the snowstorm) our class went outside in the raw, windy, cold weather and did surveying around the campus. This coming Tuesday we have an exam, and the weather is supposed to be 65 degrees and sunny. Doesn't that just figure?

Mr. Murphy is at it again!

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Murphy's Law at Work

I was once told by a female (notice I didn't say "lady") who used to attend our church that I had weird taste in music, specifically Christian music. In a way, she was right, even if it wasn't a particularly nice thing to say. I only like two Christian groups: Apologetix, a band that does Christian parodies of rock music, and Rising Hope, an obscure band from Cincinnati that played gigs around the Midwest in the late 1970's and early 1980's. (I think they broke up in 1982.)
Anyway. The reason I mention this is because Rising Hope did this great little song, humorous in its own way, called "The Lord Will Be My Snowtires" and the first verse goes like this:

Snow came down in April
And the green has turned to white
The Lord will be my snowtires
And He'll pull me through tonight

And why would I mention snow in April? Because we're under a winter storm watch! Yes! And what does Murphy's Law have to do with this? Simple! Carl took the snow thrower off of our John Deere tractor and attached the mower deck, so Mr. Murphy is off in his corner, snickering about how he held off sending snow until after our tractor was set up for summer use. Someone needs to find this Murphy guy and slap him upside the head, or something.

Speaking of my tractor, I got to spend all afternoon yesterday doing yard work with it. I de-thatched our yard, then sucked up all the dead grass with the tractor's bagger attachment. Last year, I couldn't get the bagger to work, but this year it did. I think it had something to do with the fact that the mower blades were dull. Go figure. Anyway, now we've got quite a pile of hay in our garden, which Judah immediately dug into so as to build himself a nest. After I finished with the mower and thatcher (affectionately named Margaret) I tried to spread some grass seed out in the yard, but it was getting dark so I'm not sure how successful I was with that. I'll have to try that again another time, preferably after it stops snowing. (By the way, if you didn't get the "Margaret" joke, you either were born after 1988 or you slept through the Reagan administration.)

So now it's time to watch the weather radar and monitor the storm's progress through the state. I hope that, if it has to snow, it will snow enough to delay or cancel school. I have a bunch of work to do at home (including the never-ending task of laundry) and I could use a day off. Of course, Murphy's Law being what it is, it will snow enough to make the roads treacherous but not enough to cancel anything.

Wouldn't that just figure?