Winter has arrived at the home of the champions

"Winter has arrived with a vengeance." the local newspaper reports. We received our first blizzard of the 2008-09 winter season. This included:

"The city is advising no travel," according to Amy Norris, public information coordinator. “The snow plows are on the main roads only,” Norris said, “and with the rate of snow fall and the wind there is a lot of drifting going on, which is making driving very dangerous at this point.”

The Weather Service reports that travel may become “very dangerous to near impossible” across the region.

Bus service was stopped at 1:30 p.m. Sunday. “We’ve been hearing from drivers and they say with the blowing snow, it is impossible to see past their windshields,” said general manager Dennis Jensen. Jensen said they tried to give two hours’ notice to riders and that two buses are stuck.

"On Monday night, temperatures are forecast to fall to near 20 below and near 30 below just to the north." This doesn't even take into account the wind-chill factor.

"Wind and blowing snow are beginning to hit at full force. Gusts are expected in the 40 to 60 mph range. A gust of 58 mph was reported."

"Most flights were canceled." (of course-if ground travel isn't advised!)

All the area schools and many businesses are closed today.

But on the bright side:

"University of Minnesota Duluth’s 21-14 mens football victory over Northwest Missouri State on Saturday in Florence, Ala., secured the first NCAA Division II championship in the storied 76-year history of Bulldogs football. The Bulldogs went undefeated 15-0 in the greatest turnaround since Division II starting keeping track of the statistic in 1996." I graduated from that school so this is my team!!!! (Even though I haven't really followed them.) Yay for us, we're champions!

And then yesterday I stayed home and made bread and a casserole. Mmmm, nice hot food to eat! At least we still have electric power--unlike unlucky people on the eastern coast. Today I'm doing the laundry and making those coffee and tea mixes for Christmas gifts.

Have you finished your Christmas shopping and preparation yet?

"HIgh," "Bong" and "Goosed"

After a shaky start, the rest of the visitations this week have gone well. Well, the ones that actually happened, that is. There were many time mess-ups, no-shows and cancellations but the visits that occurred were good ones. That's encouraging.

Also I had a job interview this morning. It sounded like such a great job, they cross-train and encourage people to move up in the organization. Except for a couple of things: the office is up two flights of stairs! I arrived very early, climbed up the stairs (with the cane, of course) then had plenty of time to look around in the building's hallways for an elevator. There was none.

Previously I would have not thought much about it, just a "good, now I'll get some more exercise" sort of reaction. But now I'm wondering how they can not have an elevator up to an office that, obviously, workers and clients would be going in to work or to do business. Isn't there some sort of law about accessibility in a public building? Maybe it's not really considered a public building since it's an office building with suites.

And besides the stair-climbing problem, but related to it: the job requires courier work--running in and out of the office to pick up things! What a fun job that would have been, but
A.) I'm NOT going to get a call-back even though the interview went well, and
B.) I don't think I can do that job, sadly. Gee, I really wish I could walk normally again.

I had three visitations scheduled for this afternoon and evening. Every single one of them had the time or something else messed up with them. (No, I do not set the times--the social worker does all the scheduling! They just tell me when and where to show up) But the ONE visitation that actually happened was a great one, really heartwarming. I do like this job quite a lot, and they were not joking when they said they need someone who is very flexible!

Driving over the interstate bridge to those visitations was rather sad today. There was a large, dead goose on the bridge. I wonder what the car that hit a GOOSE looks like?! They are a really big bird and could have done some damage. That interstate bridge is locally called, the "High Bridge" even though it has another, official name. The other interstate is called the "Bong Bridge" named for Major Richard Bong, a pilot of WWII fame. 'Way back when I was a college student the out-of-state students would have a good laugh at the names of our local bridges, "The HIGH bridge and the BONG bridge? What sort of party place IS this?" Actually we are kinda a boring, backwater sort of place, but peaceful.

OK, the conversation question this time is: Do you have any weirdly named (or commonly called) local roads, bridges, etc.?