Tag: weather

Spring afternoons

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There are few things as pleasant as spring afternoons. I was sitting out in the front yard the latter part of the afternoon, working my way through None So Blind (and thoroughly enjoying the novella, “The Hemingway Hoax”, which I had never read before). The temperature was in the upper 70s with a pleasant breeze. I had a cold Corona by my side. And the delicious smell of barbecue permeated the air from the neighbors backyard next door. I had a late lunch this afternoon, but the smell of that barbecue made me ravenous!

The humidity hasn’t arrived in the D.C. area yet, which is nice. I also noticed that the fireflies have not yet arrived. It may still be too early. Perhaps when I am back from L.A.

I took a walk earlier this evening, but on a day such as today, one walk isn’t enough so I’m about to head out for my second walk.

For some reason, days like this seems impossible to imagine in the deepest of winter, which makes them all the more special when they arrive. It’s one of the reasons I don’t think I could ever go back to living on the West coast.

Saturday morning

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I got a pretty good night’s sleep last night and I was up at about 7:30 this morning, and spent some time browsing online. In noticed that Tangent Online recently reviewed issue #4 of Intergalactic Medicine Show, touching briefly on each story in the issue. (In fact, the magazine has reviewed all of the first 4 issues of IGMS.)

Jen’s train looks like it will be arriving 5 minutes early; she’s scheduled to get in at 10:15. We plan on heading to Georgetown for brunch, and then up to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor later this afternoon. (And we have dinner reservations at Ruth’s Chris up in the Inner Harbor; I am craving their steak!)

I’m about 500 pages through In Joy Still Felt. I probably won’t quite finish it by the 30th, but it will be close. I’m taking a break from it today in order to catch up on magazines. I’m trying to read through the magazines that I receive as close to the day that I receive them as I can. I have two on which to go through today, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN and mental_floss. Rather than lug my big book downtown with me, I’m taking the magazines and see how much I can get through.

It’s overcast right now, but it should be comfortable today, with highs reaching near 70 degrees. I noted that on Tuesday, the highs here in the Metro, D.C. area will hit 91 degrees! (And less than a month earlier, it was still freezing and snowing!)

Yanks dropped their 7th in a row, giving them the dubious honor of having the 2nd worst record in all of baseball (Kansas City is still the worse, but perhaps not for long). I love my Yankees, but I am simply not as emotionally attached this year because I can’t afford to invest the time watching every game as I did last year. Still, I have every confidence that they will turn things around and sports writers will be talking about their incredible comeback after such an abysmal start to the season.

Nor’easter

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I was up pretty early this morning. It was Norm and Vicky who managed to sleep in late–until almost 10 AM! I treated them to breakfast at Friendly’s. We all had a craving for pancakes and I ordered their Lumberjack breakfast, worried that three pancakes would not be enough. It turned out that these pancakes were among the thickest, most dense pancakes I have ever seen. It was all I could do to eat half of what I was given.

Back at Norm and Vicky’s we vegged for the remainder of the afternoon. We watched an episode of The Office and I brooded over when the best time to head home would be. I didn’t want to be caught out in the worst of the weather, which was composed of heavy rain and winds. But neither did I want to get home too late. I compromised and decided to head home at 3 PM. Norm, meanwhile, was busy doing his taxes in an effort to make the Tuesday deadline.

I did leave at 3 PM, after a wonderful weekend with Norm and Vicky. It rained hard for the first 100 miles or so and the visibility was such that the few cars on the road were forced to drive at about 50 MPH. Never the less, the rain faded out the farther south I got and in fact, I got home at precisely 7:30 PM. If you count that fact that I didn’t really get on the road until close to 3:30 PM (after gassing up the car and preparing for the drive) it took me about 4 hour and 15 minutes to go the 240.5 miles. Considering the poor conditions, I made excellent time.

At home, Zeke was glad to see me. I had some time to relax, do some laundry, and watch some TV, including The Sopranos and Entourage before heading off to bed.

One inch

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We ended up with about an inch of snow. Most of it had melted by the time I woke up this morning, but I could tell there was an inch by how much snow was on my car. Of course, tree branches are covered in snow and so everything looks unusually bright. Furthermore, it’s odd to see snow when there are leaves on trees and since the trees have begun to bloom, it makes for a kind of surreal setting.

This just in: snow!

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Yes, a rare April snow storm for the metropolitan Washington area. And I don’t mean flurries. Current reports suggest 1-2 inches of accumulation overnight! Plows, which had been put away for the season have to be hauled back out. Prince Georges’ County is reporting that the surprise April snow will cost them $200,000. For some reason, the thought of this amuses me.

It was 80 on Monday and I’m hoping that the roads are warm enough to melt most of the accumulation. I guess I’ll find out in the morning.

Thunderstruck

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I was awakened from a deep sleep in the middle of the night last night by the first thunderstorm of the season. It was the thunder that woke me up and within seconds of its rumbling, the rain started to come down and the patter it made on the roof of the house lulled me back to sleep, even though the thunder kept up at a steady pace for quite some time. (I know this because I woke up several hours later and it was still thundering out.)

I love spring thunderstorms!

Open windows

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I got home before 5 PM this evening. It hit 81 degrees here today and while it looks like it’s going to rain later (the year’s first thunderstorms?), I have the windows and door wide open and am basking in this early, pleasant spring-like weather.

It’s supposed to grow cold again toward the weekend, but I’m enjoying this while I can.

Delayed! Workout!

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I was up at 4:30 and caught the 5:10 AM Yellow line train as usual. When we got to the Pentagon stop, however (one stop before I get off the train at Pentagon City) we were held there for fifteen minutes due to track work. Fifteen minutes doesn’t sound like much, but it meant that by the time I got up to my office, I would not have time for my full cardio workout this morning.

Rather than go after work today, I am planning on going at lunch. I talked to someone here who goes to the gym at lunch and says that it is not too busy. Mainly I want to get in my 40 minutes of cardio and if I can do that, I’ll be happy. We’ll see how it goes.

My work laptop was supposed to be imaged last night so that the image could be transferred to a new hard disk. I have a feeling it didn’t happen, or it didn’t work. When I picked up my laptop this morning, the screen seemed to indicate that the image creation process never got started. That would be annoying, but not surprising.

I should actually get some code written today on my main project, which would be nice for a change.

And it hasn’t started snowing yet, but the estimates are now anywhere from 1-3 inches.

Still snowing

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I just looked outside and the snow is really coming down. Almost white-out effects. It is beginning to accumulate on the ground as well. I checked the forecast again and now they are saying 1-3 inches of snow. Great! I love snow, but my main concern is being able to get home from the Metro station after I leave work this evening.

(I could always leave my car there and take a taxi home, or even walk, but that means I have to walk or cab back to the Metro station at 4:50 AM tomorrow morning.)

Back in the office again…

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I was up at 7:30 this morning, showered, headed to breakfast and then straight into the office. I just got here. It was raining (freezing rain) when I left the house, and by the time I got into Arlington, it was snowing. I hope it doesn’t snow too much. According to the forecast, it’s supposed to turn back into rain this afternoon and no accumulation is listed.

So today I’m listening to my Autobiography playlist while I work. The playlist is 193 songs and over 12 hours worth of music, but I’m starting at the beginning and we’ll see how far I get.

Back in the driveway!

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When I got home from work this evening, the warm, 50 degree weather had melted enough of the ice in front of the driveway that I was actually able to park my car in the driveway tonight for the first time in almost one week!

I finished SF AGE Volume 1, Issue 6, which completes the first full year of the magazine. I’ll be posting my thoughts later this evening.

Got my Amtrak GuestRewards Select membership kit for 2007 in the mail today. I number of free first class upgrades and free use of Club Acela. Ironically, it’s been so much cheaper to fly to NYC than to take the train that I’ve flown the last three times I’ve gone, so who knows if I’ll ever even get to use these benefits. Also got the latest issue of AOPA Pilot in the mail.

I’m going to relax for a while. I’ve got Heroes, Studio 60 and 24 TiVo’d and I’ll probably watch those. Then I’ve got the final draft of “The Folly of Man” to complete as well.