Winter Trials

As anyone who watches the news or lives in the Midwestern, Midatlantic or Northeastern states knows, a big storm came through these last two days. While northern Virginia didn't bear the brunt of the storm, we received a unique blend of snow, sleet, freezing rain, more snow and more sleet. The total accumulation was only 2 to 3 inches, but all that ice mixed with the snow made shoveling the driveway and sidewalks an ordeal. Who knew snow, ice and sleet weighed so much?

As I mentioned in my last post, I did get to work from home on Tuesday to spare me the agony of a long commute home in bad weather. The federal government in the Washington metro area officially closed at 2:00PM so the government actually got a few hours extra from me by working from home. I actually have a nice work schedule considering its, you know, work. I work a compressed work schedule, which means over a two week period, I work my 80 hours in nine days rather than 10. I get every other Friday off. Its like having a three day holiday weekend every two weeks. On top of that I get to telecommute from home every Weds and every other Friday. That means I'm only physically in the office three days a week. Which is nice considering I have an 82 mile commute - one way. I know it sounds crazy, but I have my reasons. My job was relocated from Crystal City, an office/shops/apartment conglomerate tucked in between the Pentagon and National Airport (yes I know its Regan National Airport, but the Republicans aren't in power anymore and their attempts to name everything Regan can go stuff it.), to southern Maryland. I had a choice of finding a new job, relocating to southern MD or commuting. I chose the latter. A lot of my co-workers chose not to move and found new jobs. They were mostly policy type jobs, which didn't interest me. I like my job. I could have moved and actually southern Maryland is quite nice. Lots of water and great crab cakes. Shopping centers? Not so much. Schools? Not the best. My oldest was about to enter her senior year of high school, the twins would be entering their sophomore (daughter) and freshman (son) years. The move would have been particularly hard on them. So after a lot of thinking about it, we decided to stay put and commute. We, Ann and I, take a vanpool rather than drive our own car. Members of the vanpool take turns driving so I don't have to drive that often and I've gotten very good at sleeping on the van. There are days when I hate the commute, but considering most of my fellow commuters in the DC area have at least an hour commute, mine isn't that bad by comparison. It takes about 1 1/2 hours in the morning and 1 3/4 hours in the evening.

Working from home did allow me to erg on Tuesday. I did a personal best for 5,000 meters. My time puts me in approximately the 40 percentile for lightweight men in my age category. Things are heading in the right direction. I didn't erg on Weds and considering it took me 2 1/2 hours to dig out, its just as well. I'll do a 30 minute row on Friday.

Weds is my night to cook dinner. Since Ann and the son are off at work and I'm working from home, its a logical thing to do. Last night I tried some balsamic vinegar pork chops with pumpkin polenta. Pork chops were great the polenta wasn't a big hit. We're trying out new recipes to try and expand our repertoire. We were getting into a bit of a rut with the same 7 or 8 things for dinner..

Hope everyone enjoyed their Valentine's Day. We don't make a big deal out of it here. Ann isn't into candy or flowers or lingerie so its usually a card at most. We didn't even do that this year. I don't think either of us missed it.

Its suppose to be another cold weekend. Hope there's some decent basketball games on. By good games I mean college basketball.