1. Last Thursday was snowmaggedon here in STL, despite the fact that it only snowed a few inches. It was embarrassing, really. MoDot (Missouri Dept of Transportation) misread the storm and didn’t bother pre-treating the roads, so that few inches of snow made everyone’s commute seem like hell on earth. I’m lucky in that I don’t live far from the office and I leave earlier than most people, but it was still touch and go, right from the moment I tried to leave my apartment complex only to see a car sliding down the slight hill straight towards me….. luckily it was a T-intersection, so I just quickly turned the other way…. In another fortunate twist of fate, the ramp I use to get onto the highway happens to be right after the point where they had shut the highway down, so I didn’t have to worry about merging onto the icy expanse of roadway with no visible lane markings, because there were zero cars coming from behind….. But all’s well that ends well, I suppose, and the fact that I survived without getting into an accident is what really counts.
2. I find it funny that I used to have so many political opinions. In 2007-2008 I was all about Barack Obama and the democrats and screw the Republicans and all that. If there was a debate going on, you can bet I had an opinion on the issue. But I think I’m all politic’d out. I won’t say Congress has done nothing these past couple of years, but they’ve come pretty darn close. The Repubs have made no secret of the fact that their #1 goal is to shoot down anything supported by the President or Democrats in general, regardless of whether it would benefit the American people. And the Democrats are almost just as bad with the mudslinging and finger pointing. Everyone’s seemed to have forgotten that they were elected to get sh*t done, not to play politics. It’s not completely their fault though, I suppose. Idiot, ignorant voters are usually the loudest, drowning out those of us who are more realistic and moderate (it doesn’t help that many of us are disgusted with the system and have disengaged with a “good riddance” attitude) and politicians have a vested interest in catering to the voters who will get them their jobs back. But whatever happened to a sense of honor and doing what’s right for the majority? Sigh. I’ll certainly be voting for President Obama again – he’s not everything he promised (what politician is?) but there aren’t any strong independent candidates with a chance of winning, and have you seen the Repub candidates? They can’t even get along amongst themselves, how could they possibly be effective in working for the whole American public? Electing one of them would be an absolute disaster! (Plus they seem a little out of touch with the ‘we’re going to cut taxes and pay down the national debt at the same time, even though cutting taxes would mean less income with which to pay that debt….)
3. The schedule change at work is official. For at least 2 months we’re going to try a system where half of us work M-F and the other half work Sat-Wed one month, and then switch the next. My manager actually made up a spreadsheet that shows that it can run smoothly (no 4 day weekends off or working 10 days in a row) and it’ll be interesting to see if we can make it work. What we’re doing now certainly isn’t working, so there’s no harm in trying something new that’ll give us a few weekends off in the meantime.
