Deep in Thought

Well, it's still October and, right here?  We are under a blanket of a foot of snow. What's going on my little El Nino. (Can you believe it? I'm a morning person staying up late enough to watch the Craig Ferguson show.)  Do any keyboards include the TILDE? They must because I see it in print a lot.

I make my students listen to this tirade every year, so you might as well hear it as well. Why, when there is a major snowstorm anywhere, the media...all media...say, "make sure you get an early start."

Result? We all get on the highway at the same time and just sit there burning three dollar a gallon gas. And we're still late for work! All highways to my understanding have finite dimensions.

And, it's my understanding, they are build to accomodate predicted volume. No provisions, that I know of, have ever been made for the roads to just get bigger on the spot when it snows. 

Try these metaphors on for size. Ever try to push a sweet potatoe (Dan Quayle and I think that's how it ought to be spelled) through a keyhole?  How about an apple through a hose?

Anyway, I turn this little diatribe into a TV story many moons ago? I find many frustrated motorists coaxed into becoming parts of the sweet potatoe (It is an alternate, although not encouraged, spelling). 

I even get Dan Hopkins, then the spokesperson for the Department of Highways, now the mouth piece for the Governor, to agree with me. He says, "yeah it is a dumb idea to encourage everybody to get an early start."

But he also cautions me I might have a little trouble selling the story, politically speaking. Well, I should have listened. He knows a lot more about politics than I do.

At the end of the story the anchor (dear Bertha Lynn by name) says, "that's really an interesting story Paul."

We go to a commercial break.  Out of the break it's time for weather. Bertha says to the Weather Anchor (I'm 90 percent sure it is Marty Coniglio), " Marty, any advice to commuters with this storm coming." 

"Yeah, Bertha. Everybody should get an early start."

Clearly they know a lot more about politics than I do too.

There is a time in media history when Dan Hopkins is the traffic reporter for Triple A? His reports are aired over half the radio stations in this Metro Area. Noting similar conditions to which I've just described, in his report,  he says somethinglike?

"If you'll all just leave for work at your regular time, and slow down to a safe speed, we'll all just be about ten or fifteen minutes late to work.  LATE but ALIVE."

So the Triple A phones are ringy ding dinging?

"Good Morning. Triple A!"

"This is Bill Coors! I want to talk to that traffic idiot who says it's okay for my employees to show up 15 minutes late. If they show up late they'll lose their beer break."

"Good Morning. (with depleted enthusiasm) Triple A!"

"This is Charles Gates. (probably from the grave) The reason people are on the road at all this morning is because my company's employees show up to work on time and make tires and fan belts.  Let me talk to the Dan Hopkins person."

You know it's probably better to just call in sick.

Advice to students. Don't send me an email saying there is no way you can make it to school with all the snow that fell at your house. 

That is, don't send that email until you've done your homework. That is, done your homework, and know where I live.

These are funny emails to read when I've done my homework. I've done my homework and know you just live a few blocks away from me.

One year I get one of these emails detailing the transportation problem of having to get to school,  in the snow,  having to drive a specific vehicle? 

You guess it.  It is a later model of the conveyance I use to find MY way to campus.

Here's some ironies, in my mind.  So it snows a foot?

Let me give credit where credit is certainly due.

The mailperson holds true to the company's motto. The mail arrives.

[NEITHER SNOW, NOR HEAT, NOR RAIN, NOR GLOOM OF NIGHT....BLAH, BLAH, BLAH]

And hey, it's bottled water delivery day. There are heavy footprints in the front yard.  And there are two big hunkin' bottles of water sitting on my front porch. But guess who the no-shows are?

The paper isn't here. Now in ancient history when the paper is delivered by some 12 year old on his Schwin?  Understandable.

But in this age when the paper person is a soccer mom, delivering the paper from her heated HUM V, driven by GPS, paper slung by automated slinging device?  There really should not be an excuse.

And here's one I'll never understand.

When former Energy and Transportation Secretary Federico Pena was Mayor here? When he faces a storm of even greater proportion?. What implement does he  enlist to pack down the snow on the streets to make them passable?

You probably didn't guess. He employs those big ol' monstrous go anywhere, anytime, GARBAGE TRUCKS.

So who doesn't show up for duty in this snow storm?

This time you DID guess it. GARBAGE TRUCK!

I didn't get a good picture of one? But a garbage can caked with a foot of snow makes a dandy snowman (person).  

And, Oh! In the mail? The Garbage Truck BILL.

I promise my friend Mindy I will be temperate for a while on the Backyard Bullydozer saga.  I can't afford to lose her.  But I must follow up on the espying of a the Pink Simi sitting amongst the BullyDozers. 

I did track down the project manager. He then directs me to an assistant project manager who might know who'd be brave enough to own and/or drive a pink semi. 

Well I get busy and humbled by Mindy's ennui. So I just kiss it off for the time being?  And then I head to work?  I'm late and pushing the speed limit on a major East-West Thoroughfare.  But I'm not going so fast that I miss a "big ol' pink" semi racing in the opposite direction. 

I damn near slam on the breaks and jump the median. Oh, those missed TV opportunities.

That's all moot now anyway since I get topped by stepdaughter Rhonda.  In case you haven't read her comment?  She knows of a trucking company in the Bay Area that boasts a fleet of LAVENDER semis, all decked out in lace curtains. And all the drivers? Uh, huh! Women.

I'm still going to get the Pink Semi story, but it pales in comparison. Lavender?  Whoa!

Now that's deep!

[THIS JUST IN: THE PAPER JUST ARRIVED. SHE MUST HAVE TAKEN MY ADVICE AND LEFT AT HER REGULAR TIME.]