Yesterday. Tuesday. For once the weather people got it right, and more. According to media sources, we can conclusively say: It was the Biggest Snowstorm Ever. (Fine print: Within the state of Colorado, since the birth of Bitscape and the birth of both his parents. In other words: Since 1913.)

Tuesday, my mom did not go to work, because her office was closed. I was not quite so fortunate. The grocery store always stays open, unless something truly catastrophic happens. I decided that unless I was utterly unable to make my car move, I would report to work.

I went out, brushed the thick, heavy layer off my car, and left a half an hour early at 14:30. The roads, while excessively slushy and slippery, did not seem as horribly bad as many of the media reports were reflecting around town. I figured that if I was able to make it out of the parking lot and drive down the freeway in my 2-wheel-drive vehicle (albeit at much slower speeds than normal), it wasn't too terribly bad. Not nearly as slippery as it had been the night before (documented in my previous rambling).

I arrived at the deli at 15:20. 10 minutes ahead of schedule, and was congratulated by the manager for my "bravery" in making it despite the storm.

The store seemed approximately as busy as usual. Maybe even busier, as some people stopped by the store early, having left their 9-5 jobs a couple of hours early.

A half hour after my shift began, at around 16:00, the assistant store manager came around and told everybody in the deli that we could start closing up immediately and go home. (Non-deli personnel may or may not always realize that "closing up" without leaving everything in a state of total upheaval can be a non-trivial task. Slicers must be cleaned. The hotbar needs to be dismantled daily. Rotisserie chickens picked. Meats pulled. Etc etc etc.)

All departments involving perishable foods were being closed up early. Dairy. Bakery. Deli. Meats and seafood. The store itself would remain open with a skeleton crew, as would the pharmacy. (Understandable, givin that prescriptions are vital to the survival of many people.)

So, in an almost surreal display, we began dismantling and cleaning things in the middle of the afternoon that don't typically go down until later at night, while continuing to serve the flow of customers who happened to come in while all this was in progress.

I mostly handled the customers, as is customary for that phase of my shift, while the deli manager and the one remaining other guy started cleaning maniacally. (We were short-handed anyway, due not to the snow, but to a scheduling mixup. Lovely.)

At around 17:00 (I think), the deli manager departed to head home. (She had been there since around 6 in the morning, and was already around 2 hours past her scheduled departure time, and had to drive up into the mountains to get home, so I could hardly blame her for leaving the rest of the work for us.)

Gradually, the flow of customers began to taper off, allowing me to focus more of my efforts on completing cleaning tasks. While the other guy worked on the mystical magical deep fryer, I finished both of my slicers. Counters. Check. Windows. Check. Basically, I was just going through my usual shift duties at a highly accellerated schedule.

I was about to focus my efforts on the chickens, when...

18:15. We got a phone call. My coworker answered it. After speaking for a few minutes, he informed me of the bombshell.

"The Red Cross just called. There was an avalanche up eldora pass, a bunch of people were stranded, and they're working on finding them local places to stay in local schools and blankets for the night.

[Bitscape interrupts to immediately post another rambling about the breaking war news. Will finish this later...]

[Bitscape returns over 2.5 hours later.]

"We need to make 120 sandwiches in an hour. King Soopers has some sort of contract with the Red Cross for emergency situations."

My initial gut reaction: "What?!?"

Normally, the store requires 24 hours advance notice for mass orders to be prepared. Obviously, since this was an emergency situation, that wasn't possible. But there couldn't have been a worse time for it. We were short staffed, closing everything up, had cleaned much of the facilities (which would need to be dirtied again in order to fill the order), and I was beginning to worry about the prosects of getting home on US 36, based on reports coming in about the worsening road conditions. A massive delay while more snow accumulated was not what my idea of a good time.

It was a Cordelia Chase moment. How dare those selfish Red Cross people demand massive amounts of sandwiches from us at a time like this?

After a short bit, I pulled myself together, realizing that sometimes shit just happens, and this really was a worthwhile cause, even if it was bad timing. Maybe, just maybe, this could be my chance to make something of a positive contribution.

The good news: They weren't terribly picky about the content of the sandwiches. They did want 32 of them to be vegetarian, and the rest could be any combination of ham, turkey, and roast beef. We could use whatever meat happened to be in the case, so the slicers would not need to be dirtied again. Same for cheese. Also, nothing fancy like mayonaise was required.

In short: This would be much simpler and quicker than a typical order, so it wasn't as bad as it initially sounded.

My coworker went to the on duty manager of the store, and they managed to recruit a couple courtesy clerks to come to the deli and help assemble sandwiches.

For some strange reason, as we started to get underway making sandwiches, another long wave of customers arrived. An uncanny number of them wanted to get.... you guessed it... custom sandwiches. (Individual, not a mass order or anything like that.)

So I handled the customers while everybody else scrambled to put the red cross order together.

The red cross people were scheduled to arrive at 19:45. By 19:30, we still only had around 50 sandwiches. (Much of the time had been spent running around gathering additional bread, tomatos, and other supplies required for the event.)

As we got into crunch time, the manager on duty came into the deli and added to the effort to put the sandwiches together. Slapping random meat (most of them ended up being ham, since that what most of our unsold sliced meat consisted of), assorted cheese and bread together, wrapping them, and putting them in boxes. No cutting in half. No pretty crap. Just sandwiches.

The boxes were finally filled, with an appropriately discounted price, at around 19:50. (The pricing scheme for this turned out to be most crude: Took a few random samples from the box, weighed them, took the average weight, the normal price for that weight, multiplied it by the number of sandwiches, and cut that number in half, on due to the sandwiches being not-so-fancy, and the manager said it would be good to donate some of them anyway.)

About 60 seconds later, the Red Cross people arrived. We handed over the boxes to deliver to the stranded disaster victims. (I asked if anyone had been injured. The answer: Negative. Just a bunch of stranded people in the mountains.)

I didn't bother to think about asking how they were going to get the sandwiches from here to there if the roads were blocked off by the avalanche. I'm sure they had some ingenious method planned.

With that done, we could resume our cleaning.

Chickens. Oven. Finish hotbar. Clean up the mess from the makeshift sandwich factory. Dispose of trash. Wrap meat trays. Etc etc etc.

All said and done: We finally got out at 21:30. 2.5 hours before my normal shift would have ended. 1.5 hours after my coworker's shift would normally have been over.

The next hurtle: Driving home.

The snow was coming down like a spastic jellyfish with wings. The roads were covered with wet, heavy snow which continued to pile on. In heavily traveled areas, the snow was replaced with tired tracks made of thick slush. I called mom on my cell phone prior to leaving the King Soopers parking lot to inform here of my departure.

The wasn't a huge amount of traffic on 36. By this point, most people had probably decided the conditions were too extreme for casual driving. The road didn't look like it had been plowed in a while. Maybe the snow simply accumulated too fast for the plows to keep up. Everywhere but in the heavily treaded tire tracks, the snow had piled several inches high.

I drove with due caution, noting that it was even more slippery than it had been the night before. Accellerating and breaking had minimal effect on overall velocity. Occassional bits of slight traction made it possible to glide along, keeping within the established tire tracks.

As I neared the Louisville, I again worried that I would be unable to make it to the top without sufficient momentum. What's worse, another vehicle was ahead of me, and I was quickly gaining on him. Way too slow to make it to the top, if history of the previous night was any teacher.

Reluctantly, I decided to try to pass him before the big ascent. Before getting closer than a good 50+ meters distance, I started trying to change lanes, gradually edging to the left. The trick would be to traverse the gulf of snow between the the tire tracks my lane and of the other one.

Upon hitting the deep snow, Tobias suddenly lost directional control, and began sliding slowly at an angle pointed at the median. (Going at around 40 mph.) Shit. I cranked right, trying to get back to my original lane.

Tobias rotated to the right, into a slow-motion spin. Now I was facing the right edge of the road, which, if I were to lose control, would be a better place to crash than the median. When Tobias continued to slide straight down the freeway, while rotating to face at an angle of 70 or 80 degrees (not quite perpendicular to the road), I knew it was all over. The best I could do would be to try to come to a stop as gracefully as possible. I gently pumped the breaks, which may or may not have had any significant effect on my trajectory.

The real force stopping the car came when I slid into the snowbank at the right side of the road, whose cushioning resistance brought me to a relatively gentle stop on the shoulder. No damage to car or passenger.

With Tobias's rear end still out in the road, I thought there might be some meager chance that I could still get out without assistance. Putting it into reverse did nothing but spin the tires. Great.

I got out of the car to examine the situation, and observed that the front wheels were both buried quite deeply. Could I be vain enough to think about digging myself out? Without a shovel? No.

I watched as a couple of cars went by, and decided it was time to pull out my most handy cell phone. The real question would be, who do I call first? One of my parents, or a roadside assistance number?

Before I had time to think about it, an SUV drove just past my position, stopped, and backed up to where I was stuck. A friendly young couple in their 20's rolled down the window, held up a piece of heavy cloth-rope 2 meters long with hooks on each end (I know there's a better word for it, but I can't think of it at the moment), and offered to pull me out.

Most excellent.

We made a couple of attempts to attach the rope, which resulted in failure as it came detached from the vehicles before he could pull it taut. (Tobias's rear bumper did not have any obvious place to attach such a thing, but we eventually found a spot under the car which worked.)

In the third attempt, I sat outside and held onto the rope while he backed up and pulled it straight. Then I jumped into Tobias, put it in reverse, and gently hit the gas, while the SUV backed up, slowly pulling the vehicle out of the snowdrift. Even after out of the snowdrift, my tires continued to spin, so he kept pulling until we were in the lane. Then I got traction.

We detached the handy little aperatus, I thanked them profusely, and we were on our way. They drove on ahead, while I cautiously began to move down the road again.

Good Samaritans are cool. Thanks to this experience, I I think I'll be a little more sympathetic when I contemplate posting rants involving bloated, pollution-causing SUV drivers. (Not that I've made it a point to post daily rants against SUV terrorists, but I have laughed at and somewhat agreed with a few of them. Not that I intend to stop that. Heeheehee.)

Somehow, I managed to make it up the Louisville hill, and down the other side. As I neared Westminster, I contemplated which destination to aim for. Usually, I go to my dad's Laser Fortress after work to check my email, surf the web, etc, before heading over to mom's to sleep. (A peculiar lifestyle I have lackadaisically adopted for the time being.)

This time, any more driving than absolutely necessary, even just a couple miles, was beginning to seem like a bad idea. Besides that, having skipped lunch in the rush to get done, I was getting hungry, and I had stored my bread and meat supply at mom's place. But I also really wanted to read email to learn on the status of the possible upcoming gathering.

I decided to get off on Wadsworth, look at the road conditions, stop at mom's place to grab my food, and then make a decision.

Wadsworth was a deserted snow desert. Established tire tracks, once again, saved me from the perils of the white sea. I clung to them as a lifeline.

One of the stoplights on the way was out completely. It didn't matter. There were no other cars around.

I hesitated when it came time to turn at Dover. There were tracks, but they were a lot less established. I didn't like the look of it. I continued down Wadsworth to go.... where? On to the Laser Fortress, where the side roads would likely be similarly perilous?

No. Stick to the original plan. I made a U-turn at the Safeway intersection, which seemed to be in slightly better shape than a lot of the roads.

Half-block away, I made my right turn into the other Dover intersection, which led directly into Warwick Station. There was no other way. The tire tracks, such as they were, proved sufficient to get me into the parking lot.

Then came the question of parking. When I got to the place were I usually park late at night, a distant area on the edge of the complex, far enough away that there's usually amost no cars (the only places available in the middle of the night), it was full of cars, parked with far more space between them than normally alotted.

I spotted a potential space on the other side. But when I tried to park there, I couldn't penetrate all the snow, which left my rear hanging out in the middle, where I was worried someone might hit it. OTOH, this might be the best I could do. I wasn't satisfied.

I managed to back out, and continued through the lot, until I got to the 3-way intersection in front of our building. I decided my better chances would be to make a left, for some other spaces which might be open down the hill. (For anyone who's never been there, I can understand that this description is worse than cryptic. Oh well.)

As I turned, I hit snow where no tire tracks had been established. Generally, people going in and out of the complex aren't going to make turns which lead only to other buildings and parking, so I was making new tracks.

Part way around the corner, I got stuck. Right in the middle of the parking lot intersection.

Try as I might, I couldn't go forward. I couldn't reverse back up the hill. I tried getting out and digging the snow under the tires with my hands. Nope.

I got a call on my cell phone from mom. I told her of my position. She came out with some salt to sprinkle on the ground (normally the grade used for areas traversed on foot), which was akin to trying to dam up a tidal wave by building a sand castle.

Mom pointed out that there would likely be nobody coming or going anytime soon, and even if there was, there was plenty of room to get around my car.

I didn't like the thought of leaving Tobias parked in the middle of a slippery lot, but eventually I conceded that there was nothing else I could do. I was cold and hungry. I relented, and left the car to the care of the snow gods.

Inside the apartment, I made a few sandwiches of my own, and devoured them as we watched the late night news. One thing was certain: I wouldn't be going to check my email or write web content on that night.

I played Super Mario Sunshine for a while, and then listened to Abney Park and Tori Amos cds as I tried to go to sleep a few hours earlier than my body is accustomed to. Listening to music late at night with absolutely nothing else to consume my attention is an activity I haven't done much of recently. (I used to do it often years ago, especially before I had a computer, if one can remember that far.) Highly theraputic. I recommend it.

Snowed in Wednesday. I woke up at 7:30, and thought immediately of getting my car to a better place. One look out the window, as the snow continued to fall frantically, with not a single car in the parking lot moved convinced me otherwise. Some of the cars were parked even worse than the first place I had found. I regretted not keeping it. But the situation would be remedied in time.

Mom and I passed most of the day watching tv and listening to the radio. The "weather-proof" DIA roof ripped under the weight of the snow. Practically everything around town was closed. Some cities in the metro area were even prohibiting any driving except for emergency vehicles.

Worldwide, the U.N. held its final security council meeting before the war, with most members of the council opposing U.S. military action, and expressing grave concerns and regret that the inspectors had not been allowed to finish their work. (KGNU was nice enough to broadcast it between weather updates. As one Pacifica commentator pointed out afterward, most of the U.S. commercial media has been doing everything it can to minimize coverage of the voices of other nations with regard to the conflict.)

My mom said she is mostly on the fence with regard to whether this war is a good idea, but she leans toward opposing it. I convinced her to listen to the Democracy Now program at noon, with Amy Goodman. (I had no idea what the specific content would be, but as anyone who listens knows, Amy Goodman typically covers human rights issues. Unsurprisingly, the majority of recent broadcasts have been focused on many questionable, if not outright unjust, actions by the U.S. government.)

Today, it was about Iraqi-Americans who are emigrating to Canada for fear of upcoming deadline at which they must all "be registered". Many of them understandably fear arrest or imprisonment, due to past actions of this regime.

Also heard from anti-war movements in various countries, and how they plan to deal with the upcoming war.

Mom wanted to watch Charlie Rose, so we watched as he interviewed William Kristol, conservative editor of the Weekly Standard who supports the war. Having watched his show periodically lately, I think I'll go on record as saying that I think I'm starting to become a Charlie Rose fan. He always asks such pertinent, knowledgable questions, no matter whether the subject is politics, movies, history, or other random stuff. Calmly and with grace, he challenges the views of his guests, and gets them to think their answers, without being intimidating or rude.

William Kristol, for his part, was quite good in laying out his reasons for supporting the Bush policy. This rambling is running ridiculously long, so I'll not go in depth about it.

After that, I went back to my room and tuned into KOA. Over the past few weeks, I've been making a point to listen more to the opposing side. I love listening to KGNU and reading Salon and kuro5hin, because at this point in my life, on the whole, I consider these outlets to have the closest alignment with my beliefs and worldview. If it's the label that fits, then call me a liberal. They make sense, and resonate with my experience of the world. So I tune to them when I want reassurance and validation.

OTOH, I believe that if people do nothing but listen to sources they agree with, it can lead to feedback loops consisting of circular logic.

"I trust KGNU because they aren't funded by corrupt corporations or governments. KGNU reports on the actions of corrupt corporations and governments that is largely overlooked elsewhere. Therefore, I am more informed about the actions of corrupt corporations and governments. Because I am so informed, I know how corrupt corporations and governments can truly be. KGNU also knows this. That is why I trust their reporting."

Of course, that's taking it to an extreme, but I hope it demenstrates my point.

For this reason, I've been tuning into the AM dial, inevitably filled with conservative pro-war ranters, and trying to listen with an open mind. What I've heard has consisted of lots of hysterical ranting, intermixed with some decent points here and there.

Well, today, I tuned in to listen to a person I once revered as a hero. Rush Limbaugh. (Yeah, I used to listen to his show all the time. That was back when I was also a Windows user who surfed the web with IE 2.0 and logged onto CompuServe. Oh yeah! Those were the days.)

Today, when I tuned in during the third hour of his broadcast, Rush read an editorial containing excerpts from a speech by Walter Cronkite, who was once considered the tv news anchorman (long before my time). Rush used his "funny voice" to read Cronkite's expressions of grave concern over the war, and the long term consequences it might have for the United States.

At one point, Rush went off about how the editorial said Cronkite was "stepping down from his 'objective' role as news anchor" to warn of what he saw as dire consequences for U.S. arrogance. Rush claimed Cronkite was never objective in the first place, citing how he had been seen hanging out with Bill Clinton (on a boat?) during the Monica Lewenski scandal. Therefore, this proved that Walter Cronkite was not as "objective" as the article claimed he was.

So, essentially, Rush refuted Cronkite's editioral by going off on a tangent which consisted of an ad hominum attack about Cronkite purportedly associating with Bill Clinton at some point in the past. That's quite the logic.

Now that I'm reading other reports about it, I note that Rush completely omitted the part where Cronkite said that despite his concerns, it was also important for Americans to support their troops. I guess Rush didn't want us to think about points on which he and Cronkite might agree.

This was a man I once trusted for political insight?

When the commercial break came, I turned the radio off and took a nap.

Getting to the narrative of my life over the past hours...

When I awoke at 16:00, the snow had virtually stopped coming down. Theoretically, my shift had been scheduled to begin at 15:30, but I was so certain the deli would still be closed that I hadn't even bothered calling. If they ask on Monday (Yes! I'm off until Monday!), I'll tell them my car was stuck in the snow. And that will be the truth.

I ventured outside to investigate the possibility of getting Tobias moved to a better location. After brushing the snow off, I tried starting the engine. To my dismay, the tires spun just as badly as they had the night before.

I got out and started trying to dig the snow out from under the tires, using my hands, with the occassional help of the back of my windshield scraper. Neither mom nor I own a snow shovel. I saw several other residents with shovels digging out their cars, and thought about asking them if I could borrow a shovel. Obviously, they were all using the shovels they had at the moment, so I continued with my efforts to dig myself out using the means I had available.

I repeated the process of digging and spinning the tires several times before another guy wandered by with a shovel and offered to help. He helped dig me out, and eventually, Tobias was free. Turns out he lives in the same building as mom and I. I don't think I've ever seen him before.

Now that Tobias was free, where to go now? A drive to the Laser Fortress, or just park there and be safe?

I drove around the now-snowplowed parking lot for a while, and noted with dismay that all the empty parking spaces were covered in waist-deep snow. That settled it. I was going to drive over to the Laser Fortress. Where I would park once I got there was another matter. I was going to go.

All the main streets now had nicely plowed lanes to drive in, and there were very few cars on them. This was no problem.

Unfortunately, when I arrived, I found the parking situation in my dad's lot to be even worse. It wasn't even plowed at all, so as I searched in vain, I had to follow the tire tracks to keep from getting stuck. I knew this was hopeless when I saw in front of me one of Tobias's identical twins (another blue Neon with exactly the same external configuration) stuck in the middle, blocking me from going further.

This meant that I had the fun task of backing up through the parking lot, trying to follow the tire tracks in reverse, around two corners, until I reached a place where I could turn around without getting stuck.

Once I got out on the clear road again, I drove back to mom's. At least her parking lot was plowed.

In mom's lot, I got stuck while trying to park in a space that was partially covered with snow. Two people who were nearby digging their friend's car out (with no shovels, just like I had tried doing) helped push me out of this latest predicament.

Then, I spotted a spot in the corner. No snow at all, and totally out of the way. A real parking place!

I backed into it, and rejoiced.

As dusk set in, I wandered around the parking lot, observing the various activities, and watching the snowplow work its magic.

Called my dad to see how he was doing, and informed him that I had been within striking distance of his fortress, but been deterred by lack of parking. He said his 4-wheel-drive subaru was able to traverse it fine, and offered to give me a ride over. (Mmmmm... 4 wheel drive... Good in this kind of snow...)

Within minutes, he was over at mom's place. I had made my decision. Sleeping bag in hand along with a few dvds, I jumped in the car. If I stayed past his bedtime (which I virtually always do), I was going to be there overnight. Not a problem for me.

(Have I become too accustomed and dependent upon my parents' generosity since the loss of my apartment? Hmmmm... Am I taking advantage of them? Seems so. Not entirely liking that thought, but grateful to them for helping so much. Subject for another rambling, maybe.)

He invited mom to also come along for supper.

At the Laser Fortress, I got to check me email, catch up on NeoContent Solutions, and read a tiny bit of slashdot before supper.

We ate salmon. Yummy.

After that, he drove mom back to her home while I continued to voraciously devour recent content, and started on a rambling of my own (this one, by all accounts).

When he returned, the news had hit. The bombing had begun.

I opened another ramble session, this one brief.

Threw together a quick new header graphic, more up to date.

I'm sure everyone knows by now that they tried to hit what they thought to be Saddam's location, without starting the full offensive just yet. Bush made a televised statement. Hussein made a televised statement.

The war is now on.

I need sleep. Been alternately typing and reading news updates for most of the night. More stuff to happen tomorrow. The Great Gathing is still scheduled as far as I know. Much lies ahead.

Goodnight.