What
a day!
As I explained earlier
on Other Crap, I'm stuck
far from home in a small
trucker motel on
interstate 70. The
interstate is closed
going east. It's open
but undriveable going
west. We had ten inches
of snow yesterday
followed by -30 wind
chills last night. As a
result of that
combination, all the
roads, although now
plowed, are like hockey
rinks. I have no way to
get home, and our hotel
currently has no phone,
no internet and no TV,
so I'm making do with a
laptop tethered to a
slow smart-phone 3G
connection. Hey, I'm
happy just to be safe
and warm. Thank God the
motel never lost
electrical power when
they lost everything
else.
It's interesting that
almost everything around
us was closed today
except those anchors of
American life, Wal-Mart
and McDonald's. (Also at
our exit: Burger King
and Wendy's, neither of
which opened today!) The
Wal-Mart was open with
only ten employees. At
the time I went in
there, my son and I were
the only customers, and
the only register open
was the little express
lane where they keep the
cigarettes. There were
no parking places
cleared by the plow, but
a path was plowed in
front of the store. We
parked about five feet
from the front door, as
if the mammoth store
were a 7-Eleven.
Amazing! Because that
store was open, my son
and I were able to live
a normal day in our
rinky-dink motel, with
plenty of food,
entertainment and
reading material. The
McDonald's, which we
could walk to from our
motel, ran the place all
day with a crew of four
- and they did a damned
good job. They couldn't
keep the dining area
clean, and they ran out
of many things, but they
kept everyone fed and
full of hot coffee.
Anyway, bottom line: I'm
only going to be able to
report the big stories
until we get out of
here. I have some
material on two hard
drives, but I don't have
Aesthete's stuff. I do
have Defoe's other film
clips, but they are very
large ones, and I don't
have the connection
speed to get them to the
server.
So I'll catch up on
everything else when I
finally make it back to
Stately Scoopy Manor.
For now, here's what is
important: