It's Christmas Time in the Cities

On the contrary, this year I was fortunate enough to have Christmas off from both of my jobs. After work yesterday I drove down snowy I-35 and arrived in Pella shortly after 10pm. Kyle and Amanda beat me home a couple days so everyone was home by the time I got there. Last year I was late by a couple days and the year before that everyone trekked up to Dubuque to open gifts and celebrate. The snow made travel take a little bit longer but it was nowhere near as bad the year there were storms during Thanksgiving and Christmas and it took me over 5 hours to drive from Dubuque to Pella.

Earlier in the week I worked downtown at Fogo de Chao and from the light rail I saw the deflated dome. I had seen plenty of coverage on the news and during Vikings game, but it was weird to see it in person.

The snow keeps falling in Minneapolis. Our latest snowfall on Thursday night and Friday helped us top the record for the snowiest December in history. (http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=895829) At the house and at the airport and pretty much everywhere you look, we're running out of places to put it. After a while it gets difficult to throw the snow over the pile you you made the week before. Thank goodness for snowblowers. I can't imagine what it was like before them.

Next week we will have friends over to celebrate New Year's Eve. I was also fortunate to have this holiday off this year. However, I forgot to request off the following morning so I will be valeting at the St. Paul Hotel. Hopefully there will be quite a few guests on their way out who are still feeling generous and want to spread some holiday cheer.

Snowstorm Round 2

It was a busy week for me with work. I valeted Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights after working a 10 hour day at the airport. By Saturday I was ready for a break, but I could only sleep in until 9am. Snow began to fall at 10pm on Friday night and flights at the Minneapolis Airport had already been canceled through the 1 o'clock bank on Saturday. For some odd reason, friend and "crashpadder" Nick still had to go sit at the airport on reserve from 5:30a to 2:00p. Someone in scheduling didn't think that one through.
I spent the day watching the snow pile up. The Minneapolis Airport closed early in the afternoon because the trucks just couldn't keep up. I was released from my valet shift for that night because the party I was supposed to work had been canceled. So I watched movies and made barky pretzels and then I enjoyed about half of them while playing video games.
I slept in again this morning. The snow stopped last night, but the plows had not been through our neighborhood yet. I didn't plan far enough ahead and went out to clean of my car at 11 (about 10min before church started). By the time I got the snow off my car, the plow had come to clear our culdesac. So I had to wait for him. The other half of Gold Trail had not been cleared yet either so I had to plow my way through that.
The Vikings v. Giants game for this afternoon had been postponed last night due to the fact that the Giants charter flight had to divert to Kansas City. When I got home from work I learned that the Metrodome roof had deflated and torn in several places and there was snow on the field. The Gopher's new stadium couldn't be made ready for the game because of all the snow so the game had been rescheduled to Monday night at 6:20p in Detroit.

I also saw that my friend Paola was on Saturday Night Live last night for the first time! I was pretty excited for her. The last time she was supposed to be on her skit got cut from the program right before they were about to perform. She has been on the soap One Life to Live several times before also and has even had lines on that show. You can see her here on SNL. she's in the front left in purple at about 3:17 and 3:43 http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/whats-that-name/1264557
Today Patric continues the closet project and I also plan to get caught up with my chores and cleaning my room. It seems to be a constant task because I never have time to put stuff away at the time.
Not sure where this picture was taken, but it was posted by a friend on Facebook.