The 4.5-day weekend turned into a 5.5-day weekend when the historical storm struck the New York region. Some areas near us reportedly got 32 inches of accumulation in less than a day. I cursed at the people who asked for a white Christmas, although didn’t mind the notice about office closing on Monday.
Hong wasn’t so lucky. Like the snow plowers, police, and emergency workers, hospitals were expected to stay open even if radioactive meteors were falling from the sky. We went out late Sunday night to plow out our cars, in the middle of the blizzard, so she could have an easier time getting to work in the morning. Fine crystals of snow never stopped falling into the parking lot, for the whole hour when we let winds up to 65 mph slice our faces open, but it was still fun to hop across knee-high piles and to see the artistic sand dunes on each car.
The greatest thing about not owning our place of residence was that some other poor men had to stay up all night to clean up the driveway. All we had to do was digging our own cars out, which “only” took an hour at night and 30 more minutes in the morning. Good thing we did the bulk of the work before anything melted or re-solidified, so our cars looked almost as clean as garaged, and our parking spots were the cleanest in the community. Then it pissed us off that a black Chrysler SUV, who drove away in the morning leaving a foot of snow in its spot, decided to take one of ours in the afternoon. So before Hong could get home from work, I had to shovel out another spot and secure it for her. Inconsiderate bastard!
Balcony
Attempt to reach the gym
Bikes
I was barely able to open the gym door wide enough to squeeze myself in
Pool closed. Okay.
After so many days of gaming, I didn’t mind returning to work on Tuesday. I overestimated the cleanup progress, however, and was surprised by the amount of snow left on the busiest state highways. This was my car’s first snow, and my personal first time having to commute by car in a post-storm mess. The mentality and obstacles were quite different from the New York lifestyle – I was glad not having to jump over black slushy puddles any more, but the new challenges could be more life threatening.
The left lane on the Turnpike was like a Russian Roulette – the majority of it was clear, but a few scattered stretches were definitely not safe to drive on. Picture this: I was traveling at 65 mph on the healthy looking asphalt pavement. All the sudden there was a sheet of white stuff under my tires, and before I could react, the thin sheet became half inch of bumpy snow. To make matters worse, a big van insisted on traveling alongside me so I couldn’t switch out of the left lane. For the sake of physics education, I wondered what would happen if I stepped on the brakes. But I wanted to live to write this down, and just let Vehicle Stability Assist do its wonders while watching its signal blink violently. Thank goodness for these electronics.
When I made it to Newark alive, my dream to keep the car somewhat clean was completely broken. Raymond Blvd, one of the most important roads in New Jersey’s biggest city, was in a worse condition than our apartment parking lot. The small areas that resembled shoveled road surface were covered in black slushy mud, and the densely packed layer of snow at the sharp turn is almost guaranteed to become ice by tomorrow.
That was a hell of a u-turn
This was meant to be a three-lane road (note: 2-3 blocks long of trucks and cars were idle blinking lights on the right side, not sure why)
This was meant to be a three-lane road plus sidewalks
Do not kill the pedestrians buddy
This parking lot attendant hollered business while shoveling out an entrance for his customers. Then he helped pushing the customer car into the lot. What awesome service!
This was a lot of accumulation for a covered parking garage