It could be worse....

I could live in Minot, ND.

During my daily work routine, I was doing some reasearch into one of the companies we work with. And I was reading up on a call we placed to them almost two weeks ago. Quick background: As part of our job here at the Help Desk at the 'B we montior transmissions of information to our member companies. So when we get in in the morning, there's usually a list of companies that we were unable to transmit to overnight, for any number of reasons. Many of them get themselves righted without any help from us, but some of them we have to call to ask them to turn their machine on, reboot, or something along those lines. You know, the work I should be doing right now, instead of writing blogs. Anyway, why this is relevant: One company was "down" today, and I was looking at their profile to see who it was I should call there. They're one of the companies that usually right themselves when there's a problem, so I don't know the contact off the top of my head. And if a few hours go by and they haven't fixed themselves then we should call them. Anyawy, I find call from 10/06/2005. And in it someone here at the 'B talked to someone there in Minot, ND. They had to reboot their machine because of a power outage....

CAUSED BY A SNOWSTORM!!!!

A snowstorm. In the first week of October. Dear god strike me down if in any warped state of mind I ever move there. To put it in perspective, A couple of years ago, when my sister and brother-in-law lived in FL, I went down to visit on Colombus Day weekend (first weekend in October.) There's an annual regatta that weekend which is all the rage. What it is is a boat race (which we didn't attend), followed by what is essentially a huge boat party on the water off one of the Florida keys, next to Miami. We're talking huge. Thousands of boats. So on this one weekend, a few years ago but the same first week of October, I found myself swimming in an Atlantic ocean that must have been 70-80 degrees. You ask me to choose between that and a snowstorm big enough to knock out power? It's no choice at all. Even the resulting sunburn that turned me lobster red for a week would be more preferable.

As you can probably tell from this, and other, posts, I am not a fan of winter. Or cold. Some years are better than other for me (utterly independent of how the wanter actually is.) Some years I deal better, most years not. Snow hold no particular appeal after 30 years of it. It's not like I get days off from school or anything, and never days off from work. I'm not a skier or snowboarder or ice sculptor. I don't find my self in unexpected snowball fights (except once last winter with my nephew, which of course was my own fault because I kept making him the snowballs he threw at me.) I'm sure I'd still enjoy a good bout of sledding, but without my thundertube what's the point. Conventional sleds just don't compare. So I have no use for snow. It's pretty for about 5 minutes, then it turns gray and black from exhaust and is pushed into ugly, jagged mounds by plows and into slushy ruts by car tires, good only for wetting the cuffs of pants and soaking feet through any level of footwear protection.

And cold? I already feel it. We're only halfway through October and already I'm wearing foru layers (t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, hoodie, jacket) when I leave the house in the morning. And even then, I still have that tensed shoulder, hunched over walk because it still doesn't seem like enough. Something tells me this is going be one of those years where I deal worse with the cold.
Already once this year, my roomate has come home to me zipped up in a sweatshirt, with a blanket wrapped around me. She was then kind enough to show me where to turn on the heat. (New apartment, you know.) The heat, which, thankfully we don't pay for. And while I feel bad for my landlord, I'm also feeling pretty glad that all my extra cash won't be going towards ridiculously high heating bills. Because let's face it, the windows in this apartment? Old school. At least they hold in the cats better then I feel they're going to hold in the heat.

At least one thing is as good, if not better, in the winter: beer. Especially a nice darker, "heavier" beer. Like a Sam Adams. Something tells me that Sam and I will be the best of friends this winter.

That's all for now.