Rain City Story

Braggers Suck.

[DISCLAIMER: As much as I hate it, there will be a hint of bragging in this entry]

As much as I like to beat myself up about sucking at this or that and not being perfect at everything I try, I know that I have one innate skill. Driving in snow and ice. Allow me to explain.

Being extremely close to finishing the project I was hired for work, I elected to stay until I was. Around 1:15 am, I stepped out into the Cingular parking lot and got into my car. It was raining rather heavily. Less than a mile later, I hit a serious wall of large snowflakes with an inch or snow on the ground. I knew this was going to be trouble, it was fairly warm out and snow when it's this warm is wet and much slicker than powder. One more mile and I was now into 3+ inches on Route 202, a two lane country-ish road with deep enough drops off both sides. My car was going everywhere and I cursed myself for not bringing my cell phone and not balancing the weight of my car by filling up the tank (I was pretty much on empty). I knew this road like the back of my hand however and knew when to give it gas to make it up the gradual inclines and when to lay off.

It was just after Ames Lake Rd. where I lost it. The rear of my unbalanced car spun wildly to my left putting me into a 180 and then hard up against the guard rail (though I cursed its existence at the time, I thank the gods of Alpe D'Huez for placing it there). Screwed I thought. No phone and 8.1 miles (I told you I know this road) from home. But I couldn't just leave my car here, it was on th wrong side of the road in a blind uphill corner. So I took some breaths, did my little chant and with some funky moves that any physics professor would be proud of, got my car going back towards Redmond. I resolved to go back to the Shell Station, balance my car out and try 'er again. Filled my tank and got some compliments from some guys in trucks that witnessed my escape moves. I called Amy and told her that if she did not see me in one hour, to drive up 202 towards Redmond where she would find me walking in the middle of the road.

I had some incredibly close calls on the second try but my techniques proved useful and I took an alternate way home that had minimal stops and inclines. About 55 minutes after I called Amy, I opened the garage door and was pumped up! I must have seen 25 cars along the roadside, some of them with AWD/4x4.

Oh, so my coping mechanism, it's none other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's infamous developers, Developers, DEVELOPERS speech. He's a psycho crazery bastard but for some dumb reason about 4 years ago, while driving in some treacherous snow in Colorado, I found myself chanting this instead of "keep it together, keep it together." It' stupid but it must work.