Soft Fluffy White Stuff Rage!!!!

I really need to continue with the theme of yesterday's (2/6/11) post, because frankly, I've had it up to my full 5' 5" height with the amount of God's dandruff that has been dumped on the state of Connecticut for the past month and a half.

I. Hate. Snow.

I hate the way it falls. I hate the way it doesn't stick. I hate the way it accumulates. Most importantly though, I absolutely hate with every single middle-aged bone in my 5' 5" body how it turns supposedly intelligent appointed officials into gibbering idiots whenever more than three inches drops on us with a giant THUD.

Due to forty years of poor city planning, combined with a policy of being reactive, the capitol city of Hartford CT had declared a state of emergency because it has been unable for the past three weeks to intelligently clear the roads in that decaying city.

You would think that because of the amount of businesses, which includes the single largest employer in the state headquartered in the city, they would properly plow the streets so that traffic would flow smoothly, right?

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

Boy are you ever wrong.

Let me tell you something, when a city turns a four lane road into one and a half lanes due to inept plowing, what does that turn your commute into?

That's right, it turns your commute into 100% pure unadulterated H-E-DOUBLE TOOTHPICKS!

To quote Fire Marshal Bill, "Let me show you something!"

On the average, my normal 20 minute commute (morning or evening, it don't matter) is now about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Think I'm joking?

Example #1: during the last snowstorm that we got tagged with (on 2/2/11), this is what my morning drive was like. I drove into West Hartford from Newington until I got to the Parkville section of Hartford, before making a right turn and driving towards my ultimate destination of semi-downtown Hartford. Now I know the route I just described makes absolutely no sense to any of my readers outside of Connecticut, so here's the next best way of describing it.

Think about what your normal morning destination is. Think about how you normally get there from where you live (say east to west). Now, drive to your normal morning destination, only this time, instead of arriving from the usual direction, arrive from the other side (east to east).

That was my morning commute.

Example #2: I live south of where I work. For the most part, my evening commute has consisted of me driving northeast, I repeat, driving northeast and going home through Wethersfield. I did have one evening commute that wound up like I was taking two steps forward before taking three steps backwards and a half step sideways.

Example #3: This one is a biggie because this could only be described by that popular military phrase "clusterf#*k". This one happened to me this past Friday morning (2/4) as I was driving back from my friendly neighborhood mechanic where I had gotten my car fixed. Now, the drive from there to where I worked was relatively uneventful...until I got to about 3/4 of a mile away from my office. Then all hell broke loose.

I saw the traffic jam at the light up ahead, so I slowed down and pulled a U-turn. I drove back in the opposite direction for about a fifth of a mile before taking a right at traffic light. I proceeded to spend the next several minutes driving in a zig-zag fashion as I went up various side streets trying to dodge traffic. I made fantastic progress until I again I got to about 3/4 of a mile from my office, then traffic screeched to a halt.

I thought to myself, "Okay G, since you can't get there from the southern side of the city, let's try it from the central part of the city". So I cut down a side road and I made a right turn at the light. Seconds after making the turn, I saw a fire truck about a mile down the road. So I made a left and continue zig-zagging my way through the side streets.

I should point out that by this time I was some two miles away from my intended destination. Anyways, I battled through a few more super narrow unplowed streets and got to the main drag. The second I made that right turn, traffic was a major "clusterf##k" as you had cars parked on both sides of an unplowed road and two lanes of traffic trying to squeeze into one and a half lanes. So I found another unplowed side street and made a right turn down that. When I got to the stop sign, I banged another right until I got to the traffic light, then I took another right, then another left.

At this point, I was roughly parallel on the map with the assisted living center called Avery Heights, which is located about two and a half miles from where I live in Newington. What's this all mean? This means I was now about three and a half miles from my intended destination. Twenty minutes later, I finally got to my office.

What should have been a simple fifteen minute drive from one part of Hartford to the other turned into a 45 minute drive from hell in which I had driven a total of five extra miles out of my way in order to get to work.

So.

For those of you who aren't from New England or New York, how's the weather out your way?