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Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003 - 4:00 p.m. Got the call at 12:50 am last night. I had spent 2+ hours tossing and turning in bed at that point, so the call was actually good for my well being. I had slept about 7 hours during the day already, so I almost needed to stay up. With the forecast of 1� to 2� of snow overnight, I knew I would be working. That is why I slept so much yesterday. I knew I would be up all night. Today? I went to bed at 8:30 and woke up, wide-awake, at 1:30. If I have to work tonight due to blowing and drifting snow ( about 90% likely as I type this), I will be fighting sleepiness all night. That isn�t that big a problem when fighting the drifting snow. You only have to make a pass Southbound (the direction of the wind almost always is from the Northwest) every hour or so, and then have to sit in the truck, waiting for it to build up again. Plenty of time for powernaps. If I don�t get called in, I will be able to fall asleep at our regular bedtime tonight. I wouldn�t mind working tonight for one simple reason: Tomorrow is old Honest Abe�s birthday, and we still get it off as a holiday here in North Dakota. Any time worked after Midnight would be at double-time. The IRS will be thrilled if I get called in� I guess his catchphrase will now have to be �Dude! I�m getting a Cell!" Actor Benjamin Curtis, the overexposed slacker spokesman for Dell computer company, was busted for purchasing a minor amount of marijuana in New York Sunday night., in what will surely be considered another major victory in the federal governments never-ending war on drugs. Yeah, I know that Dell was in the process of phasing him out of their ads. His 15 minutes were already up. But this arrest is shocking, none the less. Not because of the fact he likes to smoke a little weed. That isn�t hard to believe. The fact that he is a smart enough to be a college student (the news reports state �Curtis, a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, is a senior at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.�) is the shocking part to me�.. So it looks like there is still a possibility that Osama Bin Laden is still alive. The tape (that Colin Powell had alluded to in Senate hearings on Monday) contains Bin Laden�s usual �Our Allah loves us more than your God loves you guys� rhetoric, plus claims of solidarity to Iraq. Several things about this most recent tape pop up in my semi-functioning mind: 1. If Colin Powel knew about this tape before anyone in the Arab world (press or otherwise)had even mentioned it, it makes me wonder- how many bugging devices and �moles� do we have in the headquarters of Al-Jazzera? 2. If he is �unharmed by the rain of hell� (his words on the tape) that was the bombings of Tora Bora last year, why hasn�t he been seen on videotape since then? If he really wants to incite the Muslim masses, wouldn�t his beaming face do a better job of it than a rambling audiotape? This leads me to believe one of two things has happened. Either he has been maimed or disfigured badly by the bombings (which means he is still alive, but lame) or he is dead, and the Arab world�s Rich Little is making a little money doing his best Bin Laden impersonation. 3. Why do these tapes always come during �network sweeps� periods? Last tape was in November, this one in February. Expect another audiotape in May, I guess...... These latest �homeland security� warnings are so convoluted they would be funny. Funny, if they weren�t about life and death, anyway. On one hand, they tell us to be at a high state of alert, to expect something really bad in the next few days (I heard the term �dirty bomb� a lot last night, and I think that is the first time that the Gov. has specifically stated WHAT form of attack they think is planned), to buy duct tape and Visqueen� to cover up our windows. This is supposedly for protection from biological agents (yeah, I�m planning on running right out and buy 20 rolls of duct tape and a 100 foot roll of plastic this evening!). Then, in the next paragraph they tell us that there is no specific targeted area, and that we should continue doing whatever it is we do without fear of attack. Doesn�t that come across like the Homeland Security people are the ones working without enough sleep, and not me? One thing�s for sure: If I had the cash, I would invest in stocks from the Duck brand duct tape company�� Has anybody checked to see if Dick Chaney has any monetary ties to the Visqueen people? Weird Google hit (to my page) of the day: �What happens when salt gets in pop?�(my page was #9 for that search combination) I can answer that one for the searcher- you throw it out! Unless you like your Pepsi� salty, that is�. Oh yeah, about last night�s snow. Like anyone is still reading this entry at this point� When we walked in the door, the State forecast was calling for only a trace to an inch. They stuck to that forecast until about 5 am, when they changed it to 1� to 3�. I had about 3� on the ground at that point, so they were really going out on a limb� When the snow started falling, it looked very much like �Hollywood � snow- large, fluffy flakes falling straight down. There was absolutely no wind at all. From 2 am until 5:30 am, all I could do was plow non-stop. The temperature was down below 10� Fahrenheit, so spreading salt would have been useless. I emptied my load once the snow stopped and the morning traffic started picking up a little. I had one motorist almost cause me to crash into them last night. This was around 3 am, so the likelihood that this driver was intoxicated was pretty high. Most of the non-commercial traffic at that hour is drinkers, driving home from their favorite bar at closing time. I was trying to clear out the left turn lanes in town. Since the snow was still falling, I was just quickly turning into each left turn lane, pushing it back, and then pulling back into the passing lane. When I do this at night, I have my strobe lights flashing, and when I pull in and out of each lane I use the corresponding turn signal (left when I pull in, right before I pull back out). Most people steer clear of the passing lane when we do this, knowing we will soon be back in that lane. Not this SUV. When I pulled into this one long turn lane, they were in the driving lane. I glanced in the mirror about the time I was ready to pull back into the passing lane (driving about 20 mph), and noticed just in time that they were floating over into the passing lane. I didn�t have room to pull back into the turn lane, so I locked my brakes up and slid to a stop. The stop included a collision with the curb, jamming my right wrist a little bit. I might have been doing 5 mph when I stopped. After cursing this idiot at the top of my lungs, I got out and made sure nothing was damaged on my plow or its push frame. Luckily for me, it was undamaged. This goes back to the issue of never assuming what the other drivers will do. There wasn�t anybody else in the driving lane, so they had no reason to move to the passing lane. They were driving a little too fast for conditions, but my mind didn�t register that fact at the time. They were probably just drunk and didn�t even know that they had changed lanes. After hitting the curb, the rest of the night went by uneventful. It�s amazing what a shot of adrenalin will do to help keep you awake when you are sleepy�� The Weatherbug on my computer toolbar just started chirping. I clecked on it, and we now have a high winds/ blowing snow advisory until Midnaight. Looks like I might be getting one step closer to paying my large Federal tax bill....
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