Thursday, February 3, 2011

Snowpocalypse

It was after the fourth crack of thundersnow lightning when I realized that my years of forming a zombie swarm defense plan was for naught as the yetis started form in the distance. Yetis. I hate those guys. Soon they started to pound their clubs against the revolving doors and I knew someone had to take charge.

"Bellmen! Strike them behind the knee with your snow shovels, then decapitate them while they are down. It is our only chance."

Ok ok. No yetis. We did get our blizzard on Tuesday as promised though. Hundreds drivers had to abandon their cars on Lake Shore Drive, 174,000 homes lost power, almost 2000 flights cancelled, and one fatality of a 60 year old man who was pulled from the frozen waters of Lake Michigan.

Aside from a few friends who lost power or got stranded for a few hours, my loved ones made it out pretty much unscathed. Too be honest, it didn't seem all that bad from my end. I was working the PM shift when it happened since hotels don't know the term snow day. Watching the storm from the lobby was actually pretty cool. That thundersnow I mentioned earlier did happen. Lightning during a snow storm. I've never heard of that before so experiencing it was pretty neat. And I saw some almost take a spill while cross-country skiing across the sidewalk in front of the hotel. Falling is almost always funny and people trying not to fall is always funny. A few guests were upset that most if not all restaurants in the area closed down, but hey, us locals want to get home safe too.

While my 11pm train ride home wasn't full of smiles, it got me to my stop at almost the normal time. The hard part was swimming the four blocks home and trying to find and retrieve some items out of my girlfriend's car. On the way I saw some poor dude trying to push his girlfriend's car which was stuck in a normally fairly busy intersection. He was bemoaning how the city should have been more prepared since we knew this was coming. I felt for them, but at the same time we knew it was coming too and they really shouldn't have been driving anyway. I didn't stop to help them in their futile cause, but I did snap a quick picture.

Anyway, I got home shivering and wet, but my girlfriend had a cocktail waiting for me and put my hastily discarded clothes somewhere dry. She did ask for me to pose for a picture first.

Last night I left two and half hours early for my midnight shift to make sure I would be here on time, but it took my usual commute time to get here. It was a very quiet night with only a few stranded guests left in house. When I leave in an hour I get to look forward to trying to find whatever snow shovel is left to buy in the city so I can dig out girlfriend's car so she can try to drive to work in the burbs, which I still think is a bad idea. After that I plan to lock myself in the apartment until I have to work again on Sunday, leaving only to stop by the corner store or possibly the neighborhood bar if I want to swap some yeti stories with my fellow locals.

Feel free to comment here or email me any of your Snowpocalypse experiences.