Winter is Awesome, Winter Sucks

It's been awhile (by web standards) since I've blogged here. On Friday I wrote the latest segment (Part XII) in the Dynamic Storytelling Blog (DSB). For those of you unfamiliar with this creation, it is a progressive story made up of five collaborating authors. I've had a lot of fun reading and writing it. Be forewarned; it is a fantasy story, geek factor 8. Saturday Mag, Krista, and I went snowshoeing at Glacial Lakes state park. I remember thinking about fifteen minutes into our hike that it was the most fun I've had in Minnesota in the three winters we've been here. Obviously I need to get out more. It's hard for me to think about doing things like snowshoeing, or skiing, or whatnot. Growing up in Norman, Oklahoma, there isn't much call for snowshoes. And when we did get our once or twice a year big snow, there aren't many (any) good hills to sled on. Skiing, on the other hand, is known about. It's what you do when you go to Crested Butte or Steamboat Springs in Colorado. Unfortunately, only the rich kids from Brookhaven and other points west of I-35 went skiing, so that's not something I did either.

One thing I really noticed out in the woods was how there was no color. Anywhere. Everything was shades of white, gray, and black, except for our clothes. It was weird getting back to the car and returning to the world of color. As we were doing so, I noticed that it was starting to mist. By the time we arrived at the gas station, it was sleeting, hard.
By the time we reached Alexandria, it was sleeting and snowing.
By the time we reached Sauk Center, it was snowing blizzard strength.
By the time we reached the first St. Cloud exit, it was sleeting mixed with freezing rain, to the point where the rain formed a coat of ice a half inch thick on our antenna.
By the time we reached the Twin Cities, it was raining so hard that it was no longer freezing, forming massive puddles on the interstate.
This morning, when I went out to shovel, there was a snow and ice amalgam six inches thick on everything. I've noticed that when I clear the walk, I don't think of how much snow we got in terms of inches, I think of it by how heavy a shovel load is. This morning was like shoveling concrete. What a mess.

Linkage

I have gotten the idea while surfing Lileks' site that I'm the nerd coming late to the party. Has everyone already realized how cool his stuff is thus never told me? Latest find: the gallery of Ghost Ads, those ethereal advertisements from bygone eras you still see on the sides of old brick buildings. I remember that Portland had some of those, too, but I can't really remember any of them particularly. Here's one from Minneapolis; it says "Hotel, Furniture, Undertaker."

Another link my mom will like: the intersection where the city of Livonia, MI is ordering the family not to place memorials to their dead son.

Fran Kempa said the city is being "insensitive."
"It's ridiculous," she said. "I asked the city if I could have one flower there -- just one flower -- and they said no."

Finally, a truly funny site, Kiss My Freckled Ass Goodbye (.com), where disgruntled employees send their resignation letters. Try this one on for size:

In closing, I would like to let you know that there is a "surprise" audit scheduled for two days after I leave. (You always said I knew everything first). I have left 36 separate mistakes in the paperwork. If you can find and correct 30 of these, you will pass the audit.

Hobbsblog II acknowledges: Metafilter (by way of rcade), the Waterloo Wide Web, and as noted.