lubbock or leave it

by the way, Lubbock or Leave It is my theme song for this trip. Hopefully they won't arrest me for listening to the Dixie Chicks. I'm serious.

yikes. how scary is this map?? i'm trying to get up through the northeast corner of New Mexico tomorrow and all those little red circles with white lines means road closed as of right now.

if you're interested in my route, here's the link on mapquest except I passed through Abilene instead of Dallas. On the map, I'm currently at the route 83 sign near Amarillo, until further notice!

One of the things I never knew about Texas and have learned in travelling through is that a lot of the towns and setttlers here were German (Rhineland or Niederwald, anyone?) There are also some REALLY funny town names like Happy and Ding Dong (no kidding).

But my favorite thing while driving has been making a list of towns that would make really great, original dog names... like Mumford, Marlin, Hewitt, Rowden, Floyd, Roscoe, Nolan, Burnett, Pete (love it), Wenzel, Vernon, Tye, Buford, Mitchell, Scurry, Roby, Merkel, Henson (love it), Stanley, Buda, Harrold, and Holmesly (you could call him Holmes!... oh I love that). Very very original town names for sure. You don't hear a lot of places named Lubbock.

still haven't run into matthew mcconaughey... he seems like he should be somewhere in Texas for the holidays. hmmph.

here's me as of an hour ago in the hotel parking lot. At least I have a K-Bob's Steakhouse to look forward to!
Do you suppose it's really necessary to have a "neighborhood crime watch" sign in front of this little house? I didn't see any neighborhood around it...

current song in my head: "I've just seen a face, I can't forget the time or place where we just met..." (bluegrass version)

Stuck in Tex

Happy New Year Y'ALL! More than an appropriate choice of word. I am in a small town near Amarillo, TX, and believe me, I am as surprised as you are that I found an internet connection here.
I was already delayed 2 days in driving back to Denver because of the second snow storm that hit Denver this week but I figured I'd be safe driving home yesterday & today... wrong!

this is literally me driving with fingers crossed that roads would be open.

isn't there an expression that you're up stink creek? been there.

Actually the weather was fine for my 10 hour drive yesterday through all of Texas. I took some beautiful pictures of the sky and the small towns. Texas roads are all open, Colorado roads are open, but all of northern New Mexico is closed because they got 30 inches of snow, and that's the way I need to go! It's really the only direct way home. Otherwise I think it would be a waste of time and gas to go up to oklahoma and kansas which probably have road closures too. So I'm staying here and holding my breath that NM roads will open tomorrow. In normal weather, it would be a 7 1/2 hour drive... but that also takes into consideration that the speed limit is normally 70.

Hundreds of people are stranded in the panhandle of Texas like me. Someone just walked into this little Best Western and asked if there was a starbucks nearby. That was the best laugh I've had all day.

Will be hanging out in my hotel room today and watching the Seinfeld marathon on TBS. Thankfully I brought (or bought in Austin) enough clothes for an extra few days. I think I will head over to the local general / grocery store. Actually I heard they even have a one-screen movie theater in this town...

Yippie Yi Oh Kay Ay or Something

Well I didn't get a chance to call each and every one of you but here's the scoop...

I waited in Denver International Airport for nearly 3 hours last Saturday morning JUST in the security line to get to my gate. The line wrapped around the entire first floor of the airport which means 16 baggage claim carousels. I have never seen anything like that, not even Disneyland is that bad. There were no airport employees monitoring the line either.

As much as I knew I wouldn't make my flight, I hung in there until I got to the gate. And once I missed my flight, I just gave up. The line for getting on flights standby was 2 hours. Even if I went standby, I'd have to go to Chicago first and then wait to go standby to Conneticutt. The amount of negativity in the air from angry, desparate, tired passengers, and frustrated and overworked airline employees... it was all the brewing grounds for a freakin' riot or something. Was not up for that.

So I went home, grabbed my Nikon, printed out Mapquest directions, packed some food in a paper bag, and called my friend Julie to say I'm driving down to Austin. 16 hour drive meant one night in a hotel and I could handle that. Found a best western on the New Mexico - Texas border, took a long bath, and slept very well that night.Since 8:00 on Christmas Eve I've been hanging out with Julie, her boyfriend Paul, Paul's brother Ken, and Ken's girlfriend Bernadette. They all have to work most of the week but we spent Christmas Day hanging out, went to see Pursuit of Happyness, and Julie made a delicious dinner of filet mignon and rosemary potatoes. And we all got drunk on red wine.

Yesterday I did some after-Christmas shopping, picked up a book on Texas, and walked around downtown and the Capitol building today (not suprisingly - the biggest Capitol in the country, even 7 feet taller than the Capitol in Wash DC!). One of the capitol's oddities is the doorknobs and door hinges are very ornate.

Rescheduled Christmas vacation was going well until today, but now I'm worried because Denver is getting another big storm tomorrow which is supposed to dump a foot of snow on the state, and no doubt will close down roads, offices, and the airport yet again.

There has been enough sad stories this month on the news about people thinking they can "brave the storm" that I am not about to go driving through New Mexico & Colorado in the bad weather. But I do want to get home soon to pick up Derby so I'll just sit and watch the Weather Channel for now and see when it's due to pass. I may drive through Oklahoma or Northern Texas. Wherever's it's not snowing. I feel like Thelma without Louise! At least I have a lucky Christmas armadillo over the dash.

latest in the fiasco

final tally for the snow was 33 inches in my neck of the woods. 24" in Denver. now the sun's out, and we're going down about 1/2 inch an hour.

I am supposed to fly out Saturday at 9:45am, via Chicago (which I hope doesn't get our storm) and on to Hartford. Derby & I will get up around 5am tomorrow morning to try and get him over to his vacation home near the airport for 7am. Believe you me I am only taking carry-on luggage and I have already printed my boarding pass.

Jingle Collar

I had to put some jingle bells on Derby's collar so I wouldn't lose track of him outside. Thanks to Chieko for the bells!

We just came in from outside and actually it was very decent temperature! It's snowing lightly now, though it was snowing pretty hard until 11am, and dogs from all over the neighborhood are showing up - clearly they were begging their owners to go out.

I spent a half hour running around with the dog, and another half hour shovelling the car out and stomping down snow in the parking lot to get the snow moved away from my car. Talk about a work out! I think my arms will be sore tomorrow.

One neighbor lady was proudly shouting about how her minivan's "mohawk" was 36 inches high... awww, the RAV's mohawk is only 17 inches.

Next I'm gonna curl up by the fireplace and try not to watch TV all day. Cross your fingers that I will be able to fly out on Saturday!

feeling stranded

I should have put "Stranded" by Van Morisson on my mixmas this year. : (

I lost any optimism late last night when I heard DIA is now not even OPEN until Friday at noon, earliest. Chris was able to rebook me on a flight to Connecticut for Saturday morning but who knows if those flights will really happen or not. So now Derby and I are stuck inside for 2 1/2 days... I am so glad I recently bought him dog food and he's got christmas bones to keep him entertained 'cause he keeps saying "Why can't we go outside??" and moping around bored.

It was a good laugh when I looked at the calendar today and noticed that today is officially the start of winter. In Colorado the Winter Solstice is September 21.........Autumn, Fall, what's that? Never heard of it.

I'd like to just pick up and drive out to the East Coast with Derby, we would totally be up for it, but none of our interstate highways are open.

it's come to this...

it's so cold and windy, I actually had to wear my elmer fudd hat!! Derby is in a scarf but you can't tell. For some reason when I said "Smile!" he started licking me.

ok, so here's the latest... we just ventured outside and didn't get too far. this is the front door. the snow drifts are about 3 feet high, even though we technically got about one foot of snow. maybe 14 - 16 inches by now. it's still snowing hard but the wind died down.

in a lot of places it's above Derby's head, and in one spot near the pond, I fell in a drift up to my waist!

the drift in front of our door is really unusual because it crested over like a wave!!

RAV! You rock!

It's been a while since i've written, and now's as good a time as ever because Denver's snowed in!! And despite the major warnings on TV last night, nobody cancelled work, so traffic was a mess and there will be endless undue accidents and stories for people to tell their children for years to come about how they ran out of gas on the side of the highway and walked 40 miles in the snow to get help at the only 7-11 that was open (rather than calling the free phone number for Colorado Department of Transportation highway rescue).

If I can just rant for a while here, people are SO DUMB about driving in snow in Denver. I have never seen such a bunch of sorry asses. The governor has declared a state of emergency because of the stupidity of Coloradoan idiots who, for example:

1) neglect to drive with their HEADLIGHTS on... about 1/3 of the cars don't
2) don't get decent tires, or don't ever get their tires replaced in their car's lifetime. you have to buy all-weather tires in Colorado, it should just be mandatory when you register your car!
3) they don't wear a jacket or hat or gloves
4) they don't wipe the snow off their rear window, or rear view mirrors before driving
5) they don't pump the break when they start to slip
6) worst of all - they drive on the shoulder because they think it's a lane or think, "aha! I can bypass the traffic!"

A lot of the world's ills could be solved if more people would have just had a good drivers education class.

My boss thankfully kicked us out of work this morning, before I could even finish what I wanted to get done, and by 2pm we had 8 inches of snow already. I was very impressed that my car not only gripped the snow well, but in several cases of fresh snow, it grilled right through it without flinching. Love the RAV. Love my new Yokohama tires.

The craziest part was not the snow on the roads but the fact that in most places, highway and street signs were covered in snow, so you had to rely on familiar landmarks like trees or neon store signs to recognize where you were. A few times I seriously thought, "Oh! Now I know where I am, I never would have guessed it was that street!"

In our own neighborhood, the snow is always worse than it is just outside. It's like we're in this little microcosm of bad weather, under a different cloud or something. When I drove into my apartment complex, gusts of wind were kicking up the snow, so you couldn't see 20 feet in front of you - other than just sheer WHITE. Looked like a sand storm.

Sigh. So it's way too crazy to go outside and take pictures yet, my camera would get soaked in an instant. But this photo explains it well...
You know it's a blizzard when you come inside and it's not enough to take your shoes off, you have to actually undress or the carpet will get soaked. Good thing I have two pairs of Uggs!

As for whether I'm going to make it to Connecticutt, my flight leaves tomorrow at 1:30 and knowing Colorado, this blizzard will be "old news" by then, so I'm really not sweating it YET. I usually am confident that the airlines will find a way to get you there - their employees work all night sometimes to get it worked out. If it's actually that bad of a nightmare that I can't get out of Denver for 2 or 3 days, just in case, I have thought of a backup plan - I will drive down to Austin to spend Christmas with Julie.

song in my head right now:
Eight Days a Week demo on the Beatles anthology
"I'll try to remember, John, and if I don't, well it's just too bad, inn-chit!"

MERRY MIXMAS

2006 mixmas is done and is on the move...

Christmas cards were freakin' exhausting this year! I had like 55 or something!! This was my favorite card:

Must Buy for Mr. Hoffman

i was trying to google this funny t-shirt i saw at Target about "peeps" and somehow my google results came up with the below shirt which... TOTALLY ROCKS
but this one's pretty cute too

about me

someone i work with designed this little "bio" about me for our internal web site. True.