Illinois is one of the hardest places in the United States to understand.
We have snow in the Midwest today. It’s not a surprise. The weather’s been pretty decent for most of the year, and last week a deep freeze settled over a lot of the country. Because that Arctic system is moving out now, the warmer air colliding with it is generating warmer temperatures and, of course, precipitation.
In other words, snow.
Again, not a surprise. This is the middle of the country. The region is no stranger to snow.
Why, then, when the system has been moving in for days, when the municipalities have known for several days the storm would come (and it’s not even a major storm, only a few inches), are they so incredibly unprepared for the inclement conditions?
I had to engage my four-wheel-drive today to safely cross intersections (after not safely doing so at the first junction I came to) because the roads are inadequately plowed and unsalted, for the most part. Things got a little better farther south — I saw a snow plow, at least — but not much. The street I use to travel is not an expressway, but it is a major road. And yet, it was only marginally better than the side road feeder on which my employer’s building resides. In fact, only marginally better than our parking lot, which wasn’t addressed at all when I got here.
Why?
It’s getting more and more stupid by the moment.
Well, anyway, I’ve been taking some time away from my computer training videos. Insomnia kept me away one night. Working too late and getting home after 7PM did it another night. So last night was the first time I’d done it in about a week, and it felt very awkward. I didn’t feel the way I did at the end of my last one, where things were flowing and I "got it". No, this time I had to stop the video a few times and her it again. I feel a bit lost, honestly. I might have to restart the thing and hope for the magic to happen again. Meanwhile, I’m muddling along at work not making any progress because what I’m learning now is supposed to be my "salvation" with Appmageddon (coming soon).
I still don’t even know how to begin with that monstrosity.
On the upside, I’ve doing a lot of Excel macros lately and have knocked those out of the park. So my average for number of projects on time or early is up.
Also, I’ve been learning about the power of SharePoint, and have begun to realize how under-utilized it is by our company. This thing’s slick, and offers a lot of out-of-the-box solutions you can implement to do some very cool things, all without any code. Whereas, the solutions we have implemented right now for our intranet ALL require code. 100% code, actually. (Well…not exactly 100% code. But I have to manually build each and every page as opposed to being able to use something pre-constructed and simply adjust the settings/properties to make it work with our data.)
Oh, and SharePoint hasn’t got an issue with Microsoft Access the way most other technologies seem to — including Microsoft’s other technologies. Seems the SharePoint team embraced Access when they built it, and they work nicely together. Which would mean I don’t have to learn SQL Server before I can improve what we’re doing. it’s a nice touch and looks great. All I have to do is learn it.
*Sigh*
Ah, well. At least my time with the kids has been amazing and fun without the videos looming over my head. But I have to get back into the flow of things right away. Meanwhile, someone AWESOME who’s a Facebook and former-DeviantART friend asked me for my book "Sharkey" as her graduation present in five months. I’m in agony because I don’t think I can do it. I just don’t have time with the work pressure still on.
And that’s frustrating too. As much as traffic. Maybe.
What are you all doing this weekend? Any big plans?
DarcKnyt 
Ugh. Illinois government: pull your socks up!
Yeah, pull something up, would you? And each of the municipalities are responsible for themselves, so it’s not even the entire state. What DID seem to be state-wide was trying to wish the snow away rather than prepare for it.
Toronto has very timely snow removal. The plows and salters are out in force on the major streets and highways as soon as a the first flakes of a forecasted snowstorm begin to fall. If that weren’t the case, the whole city would be in gridlock in short order.
One member of our management team spent two and a half hours on the tollway this morning. Four accidents, two of which involved cars turned completely around, pointed against traffic. Why was a place where snow falls every winter so unprepared on their major traffic arteries? This is unfathomable. Mind boggling. My mind, she’s boggled.
I would hate to have to come home from work and immediately begin doing training for work. Sometimes one needs to take a break. Your brain can only do so much.
True. And for the record, I don’t immediately do it. I address it after dinner, generally. Family time first, then training. Still… I miss doing things I loved. Like writing.