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Snow…an Explanation…Snow…a Proposal

Posted on February 14th, 2010 by Retired-Ed in Travel, politics

It’s still snowing in my little Dorf here in Germany. Not to imply that our problems can even begin to approach what the mid-Atlantic states are experiencing in the US. However, we may be better equipped to handle the problem here, because we’re used to snow. Our communities have snow plows! Sometimes they even have salt to spread on the roads, but this year’s problems with lack of salt seems to be a new phenomenon. I have already shoveled once this morning around 0700, and it’s now 1000 and I need to shovel again. I’m not even bothering with trying to clear out a path for my car. My beloved BMW may have given up the ghost. While driving on the Autobahn yesterday, some young lady (around 2o, I would guess) decided that she wanted to pass the truck in front of her. Never mind that I was already passing both of the vehicles at around 90 mph. She was driving a Smart Car, but that didn’t make her smart. She didn’t even know I  was there, and she pulled out right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, skidded, and miraculously avoided a collision. Don’t ask me how. I flashed my lights a few times at her, but she seemed oblivious. She’s an obliviot, to borrow a word from one of my favorite bloggers, Randy Cassingham. So, there was no damage to either vehicle. Or so I thought. Immediately, my car began to vibrate. I thought that maybe I had lost a weight from one of the tires, and the wheel was out of balance. I especially thought that when the vibration stopped at certain speeds. But alas! The vibration is coming from the engine. I’m hoping that it’s something as simple as a bad spark plug, but how would that be caused by a quick braking on the Autobahn? I’ll take it to the shop on Monday, unless Monday turns out to be a holiday (it’s Rosenmontag and some communities declare it to be a holiday). Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I have been absent from the blogosphere lately. I’ve still been here, but my computer has been busy. I have been getting a little nervous about the possibility of a hard drive crash or some other malady that might affect my computer. So I decided to try Carbonite, the online backup system. It will back up your most valuable files such as photos, documents, emails, and music for a flat rate of $55 per year. I figured that it was money well spent for the peace of mind. You get a 15 day free trial when you sign up. During the trial, the program will back up your files….all except for your music. That took 8 days! After I decided to purchase the subscription, the program began to back up my music files. I had no idea that I had so much music on my computer! That took 10 days. Subsequent backups will only take a few minutes. I’m satisfied with the program. If you think that you’d be interested, please contact me and I’ll send you a referral. The cost is the same, but I will get some extra months on my subscription for the referral. Thanks.

OK, so that explains where I have been. With the backup in progress, all of my other online activities were degraded. We already have a very slow DSL connection here. It seems that Germany has fast and half-fast DSL connections. You’re stuck with whatever lines your community has. My village has half-fast DSL. Yes, I know how that word sounds, and the pun is definitely intentional. I even had to pause my backups so that the Queen could download her TV shows from iTunes. But I seem to be back in business now.

It appears that our nation’s capital (I’m American, so I speak of Washington, DC) has been paralyzed by several feet of snow. Now, not to make light of their situation, but I can think of 535 morons on Capitol Hill that have been paralyzed for a long time. And that doesn’t even include the White House. No, that’s not a political statement; there are fools in every administration. However, I’m still waiting for Rahm Emanuel (or someone even higher) to blame the snowfall on Bush. But I digress.

In a city that is totally unprepared for snow, the government was closed for 4 days last week. Even a half inch of the white stuff seems to trigger government closures. What are they doing with over 2 feet of snow? Wow! Not ready for all of that. So I have a proposal, as radical as it seems. This is actually only partly tongue-in-cheek. It’s time to think about moving our capital to someplace that can cope. Washington has become a political cesspool, and moving outside the Beltway…WAY outside the Beltway…may be the solution. Maybe we could leave the lobbyists, the political hacks, the “consultants”, the morons, and those in the federal workforce who are more interested in a paycheck instead of public service (and there are a few of these people!) behind.

Where to go? I have two cities in mind, but I dismiss one of them for obvious reasons. My first thought was Chicago. Now they know snow! But Chicago also knows all about corrupt politics. The city that gave us Anton Cermak, Rod Blagojevich, Richard J. Daley, Richard M. Daley, Rahm Emanuel, and, yes, our current president, probably would not be the ideal place to re-plant the nation’s government. Anyway, Congress would be divided between Cubs fans and White Sox fans, and they’d never get any work done.

My suggestion is Minneapolis. It’s a wonderful city that can cope with the snow, and can probably even cope with the snow job that politics would produce. It has an international airport and also the Mall of America. It has a major league baseball team and an NFL football team. It even has Bret Favre, who is old enough to remember when the Washington Monument was first built. Oh, it would be expensive. New buildings would have to be constructed, but think of the jobs that that project would generate. Sven and Oly would not have any trouble finding construction work. And Garrison Keillor would find plenty to talk about on his radio show “A Prairie Home Companion”. It’s on Public Radio, which would probably send the Republicans into a tizzy, but he’s funny. Why, Minneapolis even has skyways that allow one to walk from building to building about about the 3rd story level (if I remember correctly) to avoid having to slosh through the snow at street level.

And it is used to snow jobs. The city ignores them. An ideal location, eh?

Retired-Ed

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