Sometime last night, the DC area was hit by the lesser-known Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, freezing rain. I imagine the city has shut down. I didn't bother to go outside, although we're supposed to celebrate my dad's birthday tonight in Annapolis, so I might later.

Last time there was "inclement weather", on Wednesday, I went to pick up the wife and visit my grandmother in Arlington. It was some of the worst traffic I've ever seen in the city. Things went okay down 14th Street until a block before the circle. Then we stopped. And waited. I forget which circle that is, but it's just south of 14th and N NW. Traffic in the circle wasn't moving. About half the cars waiting with me on that final block turned around before we started moving. I got most of the way through the circle before I decided to bail out onto Vermont, which I've never done before, but it goes in more or less the same direction.

That was a mistake. I ended up turning right on K instead of I St. If you live in the city, you've probably driven on K. It's prety much a disaster all the time. I was almost killed there on the way to my rehearsal dinner, following the then-fiancee and making a right off K without using the stupid access road (Who knew you couldn't go right from the main road?).

The problem I ran into was that you can't make a left from K during rush hour at all. And I needed to be on I St. I ended up going right on 18th, going around the block and coming back down Connecticut. I probably should have gone right on 20th and came down 19th, but I wasn't sure I could do that, and I like to do my experimenting with new streets when it's not 6pm and I'm already late. Looking at Google Maps now, it looks like it would have been fine.

Anyway, going left on 19th from I St was a mess, too. Luckily I told my grandmother we'd be later than I originally thought, so we were still on time.

All of this is basically to explain that I didn't go into work today and am planning to do some work from here. I don't expect anyone will even notice (Except one of our team leads, who reads the blog. Hi, Andy!).

Edit: Just noticed that DCist used the same "icepocalypse" in their title as I did. I'm gonna sue. Jerks. I mean, it's not possible that they came up with the same thing I did. I'm just too clever for that. They must have stolen it.

I just took some trash out to the bin outside, and our driveway is covered in ice.  If you don't have a compelling reason to be outside, I suggest you stay where you are tonight.  Get your voting done and get home safely.

As you know if you were in the DC Metro area last night, it was really, really windy.  So windy, in fact, that the plywood sidewalk cover across the street from the house, erected by the construction company to protect pedestrians, blew over into the street.  Luckily, there's a fire hydrant there, and it's the side of the street where you can't park during rush hour, so only one car was hit with debris.  Well, lucky if that wasn't your car, I guess.  I mean it was lucky that there weren't more cars parked there.

The police came, and spent an hour or so driving past, and then backing up (the wrong way down our one-way street), and generally making a nuisance of themselves.  Then they put up some crime scene tape and tore off down the street.

As of 7AM this morning, the car with a huge pile of plywood on top of it is due a parking ticket.  It may be hard to place the ticket on the car, as the front end is entirely covered.  But I fully expect DC's parking enforcement to try anyway.

Our football game was canceled.  So now we start the playoffs this Saturday.  They should wrap up sometime next year, I guess.

Weather.com is guessing that we might get rain tonight and tomorrow, so perhaps the supreme being whose existence I proved may actually be listening.  We've recruited a bunch of people for our flag football team, but I would still prefer our regular squad out there (And I'd kind of like to play, as well).

When I first moved to the DC Metro area back in 2001, I was living in Fairfax, VA, and working on Wisconsin Ave NW.  I used to park on a little un-zoned residential street.  One winter, either 2001 or 2002, I forget, we had a big snow that was on the ground for a couple of weeks.  We got 4-6 inches, and then it just stayed cold.  Most of the cars in the neighborhood just didn't move.  For weeks, they just sat, covered in snow.

Now, today we got our first snow since we moved to the city, and my car is still covered.  I expect it will be covered tomorrow.  I mean, it's supposed to get up close to 40 degrees tomorrow, so there's not much point in clearing the car.  In fact, since street cleaning has been suspended for the winter, I don't expect to touch the car during the week until March or so.

Well, tomorrow we have errands to run in Virginia.  But other than that.

It's funny how quickly my attitude about driving has changed now that, for the most part, I don't have to do it.  Going a day without driving used to be really strange, and now it's the norm.

Anyway, the snow's kind of nice.  My commute is only outdoors for three blocks to Metro, and then a minute where the Yellow Line train goes over the Potomac into Virginia.  So the snow isn't really a concern.  I do have to take some trash out tonight, though.

So, I drive to work less than once a month.  I take the Metro almost all the time, but our corporate office is out in Manassas, and so on the infrequent days I have to go out there, I drive.  Today is the first time since I started at this position in March that I drove to the office where I actually work because I'm going to Manassas a little later today.

Coincidentally, today is the first day of the winter that we're getting snow.  Now, it's just flurries, and shouldn't affect anything, but seriously.  The ONE DAY I drive to work, we get snow.  That's just absurd.  That, I think, is the most convincing evidence of a supreme being that I've ever heard - there must be a god because he/she/it has a sense of humor.

Well, Supreme Being, if it's not too much trouble, can I get some rain on Saturday so our flag football game gets cancelled?  We're really short on players this week (including myself), and it's the first week of playoffs, and I'd really like a rescheduling.

Well, not really.  We need the rain.  But it's messing up my weekend.  We have flag football on Saturday morning, and my mother-in-law will be in town from far away, and wanted to see the game.  My mom was going to come from less far away, and everyone was going to watch.  But since it's been raining for two days now, and isn't expected to stop until Saturday afternoon, it's looking increasingly unlikely that we'll be able to play.

This probably also doesn't help the wife's plans to take her mom around the city tomorrow.

On the bright side, it's been so long since I've actually seen rain that it was really kind of nice.  It wasn't raining that hard when I was outside, and it's still warm enough to be pleasant.  As I was waiting to cross 16th Street yesterday, I watched the rain run down the windshield of a Ford Explorer that was blocking the crosswalk as the light was changing.

As I stood there watching, I wondered if anyone had ever uttered the phrase, "The warm rain running down the windshield of your 1993 Ford Explorer is hauntingly beautiful."

Then I wondered if I had accidentally ingested some drugs without knowing it.

But then I decided that it's just my subconscious getting ready for Nanowrimo.

Anyway, we need the rain.  But it sure would be nice if the fields were dry enough to play on this Saturday morning.

Or is it hot outside? It's not so bad now, but when I got home from work, there was a hot breeze blowing that made me want to move to San Fransisco.

It's good to be back home, though. Vacation was nice, but the cat missed me.

And, if I ever get a reasonable internet connection at work, I'll try to get back in the habit of posting regularly.  I know I've been a bad, bad blogger lately.

It's April 6th.  One to two inches of snow are predicted for tonight.  Pardon my French, but c'est connerie.

It's all your fault, Al Gore.