Snowmageddon
Snow has its allure during childhood No, I'm not referring to Snow Days, weather-mandated school holidays. But you can build snowmen, sled, engage in snowball fights, etc. I remember as I finished eighth grade in Kansas during Dad's isolated tour in Southeast Asia, I had been looking forward to my Dad's return assignment, hoping it would be some Northern state with a change of season. No, it was South Texas; it made sense for flight training: warm weather, clear skies year round. You would think as a native Texas (just barely), I would have embraced it. Alas, I'll never forget my first Christmas there; it had rained maybe 2 inches over 9 months, it was 95 degrees with brown grass in the front yard. Snow was infrequent and rare; when I studied in San Antonio (about 2 hours away), I remember going out with my camera snapping shots of a snow-covered campus. I heard that at home they had some 1-2 inches, probably gone by the afternoon, and people, unfamiliar with driving in the snow, got into several driving accidents.My Mom never liked the cold weather and persuaded Dad to stay in Texas as he retired from the Air Force near San Antonio. A lot of it no doubt reflected often dangerous driving on icy roads, clearing driveways and sidewalks, brushing snow off cars and clearing windshields and other windows, walking on slippery surfaces. The TX AFB where I was born closed several weeks after I was born. My folks were on a limited budget, living in a trailer at the time. Apparently on the way to my Dad's new assignment on Cape Cod, they ran into an incident or two of the trailer almost losing traction.
For me the charm began to wear off when I started dealing with the hassles of driving in the stuff, in particular, I recall in the mid-90's in the Chicago suburbs being a fanatic about getting my daily workout at a local fitness club. It was snowing one winter evening but I was determined to get my workout in. The main road to Lombard was winding and the road had not been plowed. There was a corresponding median between double lanes in each direction. The road was not plowed, maybe 2 or 3 inches. I was in the left lane when all of a sudden, my wheels hit a patch of black ice at the bend. It's the scariest thing you can experience. My car jumped onto the meridian, and I was worried about approaching traffic on the other side. I finally managed to stop the car, but yes, I managed to limp into the fitness center parking lot. However, when I dropped my car off the next day, it turned out that I would have to wait 3 weeks to get my car repaired. I had to do a car rental for the duration.
For the most part, I've had to deal with modest snow weather (except when I've worked in TX, CA, AZ, and FL). The worst was the 2013-4 winter in WV when I drove the 20 miles (mostly on an interstate) to work too many times than I care to remember, where one could barely make out the lanes. Many minor streets went unplowed. There were many days that winter where the day high barely reached 0, if that. (One of my RN nieces took a recent assignment in Williston, ND (think recent shale oil boom) and got caught in the polar vortex with wind chill often pushing temperatures under -20 degrees.) I went through 4 pairs of windshield wipers. I don't recall "snow days" for work; I think I did have to check for closed roads, but for the most part, work commutes were unpleasant, but functional.
Move forward to 2019 and the life of a government contractor. Circumstances may differ by contract or site, never mind employer policies, so any inference to the experiences of others is probably dubious at best. I'm probably commented on certain aspects in past posts. Usually, but in not all cases, federal holidays are paid. For example, in 2005, I worked on a contract where the client (a Navy base) observed MLK Day, but my employer didn't, so I had to go to Laurel MD headquarters and do training, documentation, whatever.
So in my current situation/ we generally earn a limited number of Paid Time Off (PTO) hours each year, prorated among biweekly pay periods. Most people probably think of it as vacation, but quite often it's used for life's little emergencies, for example, when I ran into into a transmission control cable problem on my car, I ended up taking off a half-day PTO. To a certain extent, my clients are somewhat flexible. For instance, I get a flex-day off every other Friday, the first Friday into a 2-week pay period. So when my last paternal aunt died over a year back, her funeral was on a Monday following my RDO Friday. I asked for and got permission to work my normal RDO and get Monday off to attend my aunt's funeral. (There are a number of restrictions to flexibility; for example, civilian (civil servant) coverage in the office suite, weekend hours, workday hour limits, etc.) Obviously flexibility as we approach the end of a pay period approaches diminishes. For example, as I recall, my car problem occurred on the last day of the pay period, and I did not have flex hours to cover it.
So I like to maintain as much PTO as I can to cover unexpected events, like a death in the family. The employer also grants a limited number of sick days, but caps all carryover hours for the following year (none for sick leave). What's particularly annoying are the mandated "snow days", deferred openings and/or weather-related early closures for our own good (!)
For instance, a week ago last Wednesday, a facility closure was ordered for a full day (2 days before the end of the pay period); we contractors were told, moreover, that we wouldn't be able to make up the 9 work hours lost. This bothered me because I had had to work on database patching over that holiday weekend and had expected to flex those hours. (The company also changed policy on holiday hours; if a government holiday fell on a normal M-Th schedule when we normally work 9 hours, we could book 9 hours. We now need to flex those holiday hours or eat a PTO hour. So I was under the impression I could only book 80-9 (snow day)=71-8 (holiday)=63 hours and that I would have to eat the holiday weekend hours. (It later turned out I didn't have to lose PTO hours that pay period.)
Now if we really had something like a blizzard event, I wouldn't have an issue with sacrificing a precious PTO day. But I routinely drove to work in WV under far worse conditions; the local roads were fine, only a few inches of snow to clear off the car. In fact, we had worked under heavier conditions (snow started during business hours). The civilians were allowed to leave earlier (I don't have issues with the fact that civilians get snow days, 59 minutes on holiday weekends (work just one minute into your last work hour), early dismissals, etc.--I just wish we got them, too.)
So it turned out Friday there was a delayed opening. It didn't affect me since it was my flex day off. (In fact, I had to go to the laundromat and it was the easiest snow-clearing job on the car this season, and the local streets were all clear.) I passed by one of the civilian cubicles and made mocking reference to the previous Wednesday "Snowmageddon"; she laughed.
What's Going On Hallmark Channel
It seems every so often I find the need to bash Hallmark, for (e.g.,):- engaging in stereotypes of big businesses
- embracing trendy nonsense, like the locavore movement, organic food, sustainable farming
- odd obsessions, particularly with European monarchies
- formulaic storylines
- heavy rotation of its content, especially movies.
There are some things I would do to diversify content, including family content, fantasies, inspirational stories, cartoon features, musicals, classic movies, maybe some updated classic animal series like Lassie, Flipper, and the Black Stallion,
Still, I was astonished to turn on Hallmark one recent Friday, still in winter, seeing a rerun of one of their recent Christmas movies. It turns out it's their way of promoting the 10th anniversary of Countdown to Christmas. Weird but okay. I rarely watch Hallmark on Friday night anyway.
WWE Storylines
Probably the most interesting thing is the decision to push Kofi Kingston as a contender of the WWE championship, only to see a returning from injury Kevin Owen replace him in the upcoming championship match (via chairman Vince McMahon's second intervention gimmick, recently also having replaced Becky Lynch with Charlotte Flair).
I suspect the intent is to turn heel Owen babyface and/or maybe the face of "The Authority". What's less clear is where they were going with the push to Kofi. The New Day connection complicates things. Maybe a heel turn to the popular babyfaces where Big E and Xavier Woods try to cheat Kofi's push to the championship.
