Thanks, Winter

I'm one of those people that keeps a close eye on my vehicles' average gas consumption rates. According to my fuel logbooks, my wife's SUV has gotten around 20.2 MPG over the last two-plus years; my sedan has gotten 24.7.

This past week, the DC area was visited by a fast-falling snowstorm that hit right around rush-hour (and, "rush-hour", in the DC area, is normally a four hour window in the morning and evening). When I go to my regular office, it's about a 19-mile commute. When traffic's sane, it's about a 35-minute trip. Wednesday, that same trip took me over 5.5 hours to complete. Normally, I get about 22MPG on that 19-mile trip when taking my wife's SUV to/from work. In addition to the five-hour snow-penalty, there was a serious MPG penalty: I got around 11.2MPG from the tank. Given that I'd already made the 22MPG morning run to get to the office, it means I probably got rather less than 11.2MPG on the trip home.

Argh. I hate driving in the DC-area during bad weather.

Do They Ever Get It Right

Ok, last night, weren't they saying just a dusting of snow and that it wouldn't start till later in the afternoon? Today, the snow started in the morning and ended up dropping more than an inch of snow and dreck. Yeah, 1" isn't much more than a dusting (except in an area like DC where people lose their fucking minds even if it's just flurries), but, it's still yet another instance of the forecasters being wrong.

Fmeh. How can a class of "professionals" be so frequently wrong and either have jobs or be taken even marginally seriously. I swear, the old lady at the nearby "fortune teller" shack is more accurate and more frequently right.

Fuck you, winter. Fuck you straight in your frigid ass.

So, we spent the week, cruising the tropics. Going from where it was in the upper 30s/lower 40s to someplace where it was in the 70s all day seemed awesome. Unfortunately, we came back home and the 30s/40s had been replaced by days peaking in the lower/mid 20s. Argh.

Rain and Traffic

Suppose I should head out, early, so that I can navigate the traffic idiocy this rain will have created... No matter how much or how little rain we get, people, invariably, lose their freaking minds because of it. It's almost as bad as getting snow. Oh well, at least there's actual flooding to justify some of the nonsense, today.

Theme song for today: "Here Comes the Rain, Again"

Was woken up, this morning, by the artillery-esque sound of thunder. Lots of it. Sounds of rain, too.

Didn't go into the office till nearly lunch, so things had dried out.

Came out to my car, to go home, and found it wet with rains that had just passed through. I495 towards Alexandria was slow and the pavement was damp, but it was an fairly uneventful trip home.

Got home and was thinking of going for a walk - gotta work on getting this gut back under control. However the skies were looking threatening. Oddly, they looked threatening from a direction rain normally doesn't come from. But, in watching the news, it confirmed that, yes, rain's coming from the wrong direction and it's coming hard.

And thus, as I type, I hear the rain pouring down, outside.