Snowed Under

All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. (Henry David Thoreau, Walden, p. 12)

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We made a trip to the drugstore and the nearby hardware store yesterday. We decided to park across the street in the church parking lot and walk to the stores because of the condition of the parking lot in front of the stores where we went shopping. There was traffic gridlock on the street in front of the strip mall which is just a few blocks from our house. It's close enough that I often walk to the hardware store in good weather.

More snow is expected on Monday or Tuesday. That will surely shut down the entire city again. Clearing the snow from the highway that runs in front of the little mall where we shopped is the responsibility of the state of Maryland. As of yesterday they had yet to clear the show from all lanes. In front of the gas station, at the corner where we turn into our development, there is a pile of snow over six feet tall sitting in the right hand lane.

Before 8:00 a.m. this morning I heard a large diesel snowplow from the county in front of our house. At first I thought he was going to push the remaining snow back to the curb. After about fifteen minutes he went up 76th Avenue past our house hrowing salt and chemicals out the back of the truck onto the bare pavement. I'm afraid he didn't do anything to clear another lane. This is going to make it impossible for folks to park on the flat part of the street at the top of the hill before the next snowfall.

The derailment on the subway is being blamed on operator error. They say the operator ran a red light going north out of the Farragut North station. Then the system diverted the train onto a siding, called a pocket track, and automatically derailed the train when the operator didn't take action to stop the train. I think this is the first time they have revealed that they have a way to derail a train. They didn't explain how this works. If the trains are run by computer wouldn't it make more sense to apply the breaks and stop the train, rather than apply a derailer and derail a train? Good grief!

Mr. Dickie
14/Feb/2010 8:17