Farewell Juno: We Hardly Knew Ya!

Random thoughts following our much bally-hooed, but in the end kind of lame, snowfall:

The Prophets of Doom REALLY blew this one: We all have them in our office, the weather "armageddonists" who seem to spend the entire Winter as a part-time meteorologist. They start in October with a "I've read it's supposed to be the worst winter in decades." Then they spend the next few months on weather.com, find every potential storm, exponentially blow it out of proportion and spend the next few hours with like-minded weather fanatics discussing how bad it will be and what events will be cancelled.

The most aggravating part of these people - and we ALL know at least one of them - is they find the weather model (they look at different models - they aren't screwing around) that gives the worst possible outcome and multiply it by 3. So if the weather sites predicting anything from a dusting to 2 to 4 inches, they immediately proclaim "We're getting 6 to 12 inches."

They also like to call storms 6 days out, which anyone who spent 10 minutes in an Earth Science class will tell you is an inexact science at best.

The true meterologists are having a rough winter: I'm not one of those who like to trot out the "it's the only profession where you're wrong all the time and still get paid" line every time a 40% chance of rain doesn't give us a tornado. In fact they have been painfully accurate over the past decade or so . Ivan, Sandy, and countless other storms were dead on. In the past 10 days the forecasters have: 1) completely missed calling an ice storm, 2) Were so wrong on the timing of another they called off a day of school and not a flake fell until 4:00. 3) Fell asleep at the wheel again a few days ago and I woke up to six inches of wet snow and now 4) Overhyped this one so badly they actually closed my ofice, which NEVER happens.

Where's the Love? (Adult Version): I realize that we are becoming an increasingly agnostic nation so maybe people aren't as versed in the "love thy neighbor as yourself" concept - but it kills me when we DO get a decent amount of snow and someone pulls out their snow blower and spends a whole 26 seconds knocking out the 22 feet in front of their home (we live in a row home). I'm no saint but most of the time I can cover at least 4 houses easily without using a motor.

But it doesn't stop there: If people shoveling their cars out would spend the extra few minutes to pile the snow on the curb rather than in front and back of their car the street wouldn't have nearly the amount of drama we do every winter where people place trashcans in front of their house to mark their spot.

I am TOTALLY against that practice btw. If we all use that logic than nobody can visit anybody until all the snow melts. Plus - it's not your damn street!

Where's the Love (Kids Version):  I don't have many issues with "kids today." I don't ever remember walking to school in 3 feet of snow like so many people who are my age. I remember school getting called all the time. I don't think kids today are stupid, or lazy or whatever else.

But they are blowing it when it comes to one thing: when I was young, our first order of business was shoveling out the elderly people on our street and we damn sure didn't ask for money. Sometimes we got a tip, sometimes we didn't - but it wasn't about our separate shoveling business where we knocked out the driveways of yuppies for $15 a pop. And if we got to the door of someone we didn't know who turned out to be elderly (I hate that word...maybe "old" is ok, but you cn argue I'm old) then we charged an insanely low price like $2 a driveway.

In our neighborhood, not only are the kids not shoveling anything gratis, they are charging exorbitant rates and make no concessions for our AARP-qualified friends.

I guess part of it is a lot of us don't really know our neighbors anymore - but on this one I think the kids are just being lazy. I'm part of the problem - while I was out shoveling my kid was in the house reading his "Ripley's Believe it or Not" coffee table book.

I guess I should be glad he was reading.