Carmageddon

This post is basically a traffic report, but it's the most exciting thing that's happened to me in a while, so I'm writing about it.  And it's super long.  Get ready.
At work right now, we're in our very very busy time.  We've spent the last few weeks building up to this week, making budgets, uploading reports, downloading reports, and building board packages for the executives to review all our numbers.  Today was the first day of the review meetings, where all the executives in Salt Lake would be meeting and having a video conference with executives around the world to go through the books we've been putting together.  As of last night, we still had a lot of work to do before we'd be ready for the meeting, so my boss asked me to come in early today. 

This morning I was watching the news at the gym and seeing reports of freezing rain and bad traffic, so I decided to get ready in 'super hurry mode' (I have various levels of speed for how I get ready- that's for another post someday) so I could get out the door even earlier than I had planned.  I did well, and managed to be on the road pretty early.  About five minutes later, my windshield was covered with a solid sheet of ice from the rain hitting it and freezing immediately.  Luckily my defroster works really well, so that only caused a few minutes of less than responsbile driving.  Traffic was slow and people were fishtailing, but nothing too bad was happening yet, besides a few ambulances going past and the occasional siren in the distance, so I had no idea what I was in for.

About twenty minutes later, when I had gone what normally takes about five minutes, I came to a downhill portion of my drive.  Everybody on my side of the hill was going super slow but steady.  The other side of the hill (people going up) was mostly empty, but there was one truck that just couldn't get a grip.  It was almost to the top, but couldn't get there.  It was fishtailing everywhere, then it would slide backwards a ways and try again, but couldn't gain ground.  I think it just needed people to push it up the rest of the way, but nobody dared leave their cars on the side of the road for fear of being smashed.  Last I saw it was still fishtailing and spinning its tires. 

About 40 minutes into my drive (it usually takes me 45 minutes total to get to work), I only had two more lights before the freeway.  But as I came up to an intersection, I saw all kinds of flashing lights and emergency vehicles, and I realized the lane I needed to be in to get on the freeway was blocked, so I got in a turning lane to take a side road.  Directly across the intersection from me was a minivan with its nose pointed down at about a 45-degree angle to the road, and its end up in the air.  It had a smaller car almost completely underneath it.  The back of the van was too high for me to tell what had happened, but I couldn't understand how that little car mustered enough strength to get under the van.  As I made the turn I got a better view and saw a truck behind the car, that must have lost traction when it tried to brake, and pushed the car under the van.  Crazy!  There's a picture in this article: http://www.ksl.com/?sid=23839268&nid=1164

So I took the side road parallel to the freeway for a couple miles, thinking maybe it'd have fewer accidents than the freeway.  Nope!  Every few hundred feet there were cars lying willy-nilly in all directions and across all lanes.  So I got on the freeway at the next entrance.  Bad idea!  For the next hour and a half, I stayed in first gear, inching my way down about 4 miles of freeway.  I only saw a couple accidents, but that's probably because nobody was moving fast enough to slide anywhere. 

Eventually people started deciding they were above waiting with the rest of us, so they took to the shoulder to get ahead.  I don't put up with that kind of nonsense, and since my car is bigger than average, I have no problem hanging out over the shoulder and blocking people from doing that.  One guy passed me anyway, but only got by me with inches to spare.  Right after him, another car tried to pass me, and I was MAD, so there was no way I was letting him by.  Then he turned on his lights.  Turns out it was an unmarked cop car.  I very meekly got back into my lane and let him go pull the first guy over.  It figures the time I finally really take a stand, it'd be a cop.  At least the first guy got justice.

So after 1 1/2 hours on the freeway, when I got up to the interchange to get on the other freeway to go to work, I found out that freeway was closed.  The report on the radio said there were about 15 cars piled around the other end of the interchange ramp, and people were standing around just watching the crashes from overpasses like bumper cars.  So I had to take a different exit that put me on another side road.  Somehow that side road was free and clear, as if the ice sheet had completely missed it.  People were still going slow, but there were no more accidents or slide-offs, and 30 minutes later (and two phone calls from my boss making sure I hadn't been in an accident), I pulled into the parking lot. 

Today's Commute Tally: 2 1/2 hours, tons of 'car'nage all over the road, and a much less productive work day than I was planning on.
Between this and the blizzard a few weeks ago, I'm more grateful than I can say that I have four-wheel drive.

The Yips

Well, I've got the yips.
According to Wikipedia, "Yips or the yips is the apparent loss of fine motor skills without apparent explanation, in one of a number of different sports. The technical term is focal dystonia. Athletes affected by the yips demonstrate a sudden, unexplained, loss of previous skills. Athletes affected by the yips sometimes recover their ability, sometimes compensate by changing technique, or may be forced to abandon their sport at the highest level....  In baseball, the yips usually manifests itself as a sudden inability to throw the baseball accurately. Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Steve Blass is the classic example: from 1964 to 1972, he was a dominant pitcher and All-Star; however, beginning in 1973, he suddenly lost his command, walking almost a batter an inning; he retired in 1974 due to continued loss of his pitching ability. “Steve Blass Disease” has been attributed to talented players (such as New York Yankees second baseman Chuck Knoblauch or Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman Steve Sax) who inexplicably seem to lose their ability to throw the ball accurately."

When I play the piano at home with nobody around, I'm awesome.  I'm Mozart, but a girl.  When I play the same pieces in front of people, I'm a nine-year old with no rhythm.  I also happen to be the ward choir pianist.  The songs the choir director chooses aren't particularly simple, but they're not super hard either.  I practice them at home, and they sound pretty good.  By the morning of the performance, I can always get through the full song without any mistakes.  Then I get to Sacrament Meeting and the whole things goes out the window.  Every time.  Today the choir sang 'Ere You Left Your Room This Morning'.  I went through it several times this morning with no problem.  When I played for the choir in church just a few hours later, I lost my place on the first page and just played random chords for three measures until I found my place again, then I had to skip several other notes throughout the song because my fingers couldn't get to them fast enough.  What's the deal?!  Am I going to have to retire as a victim of Steve Blass Disease?!

A Few Random Thoughts

Sometimes I really just like having fun in my car.  Every now and then, if I have an errand to run after work or something, I'll take a back way home that keeps me away from the freeway and on a much less crowded and more windy road.  There's one particular part of the road where I come up over a hill and then the road kind of drops.  If I get going fast enough, I can almost catch a little bit of air.  I'm sure it doesn't look nearly as exciting from the outside as it feels on the inside, and I always feel bad about what I might be doing to my car's shocks, but for the second when I'm flying over that hill, I feel like a movie stunt woman or a race car driver.

I had to leave work early for a dentist appointment a couple days ago.  I kind of thought it'd be fun to wear a suit to work that day and then tell people I was leaving early for a "dentist appointment", just to get a rise out of them (dentist appointments and doctor appointments were the classic cover up for job interviews at Chrysler).  I decided that might be pushing the limits a little too far.

What's the deal with airport bathrooms?  If you've ever traveled alone with half a week's worth of luggage as your carry-on, airport bathrooms are a little preview a what hell might be like.  First of all, you sit there at the gate area trying to decide if you should go before they start boarding the flight.  You decide you probably should.  You hoist your mega-backpack into place and go traipsing to the nearest bathroom.  When you get there, you find out that the stalls are just big enough to stand straight in, but with the backpack on, you can't close the door, turn to either side, or even remove the backpack.  You start thinking maybe you should have just found some trustworthy-looking person to watch your luggage back at the gate, but right then the announcement comes over the loudspeaker that due to heightened security concerns, you should neither leave your luggage with anybody else, nor accept luggage from anybody else.  So even if you had found somebody to watch your luggage, after that announcement, the only people willing to watch it would probably have had some kind of alterior motives.  But as the straps to your backpack swing into the toilet water because there's nowhere else in the stall for them to go when you turn to flush, you think maybe it would have been worth the risk.  And, even though you did your best to do your hair and makeup and arrive at the airport looking like a decent traveler, when you get to the sink to wash your hands, with your backpack dripping toilet water, your hair dishevelled and stuck under the straps, your coat tucked between your legs so you can wash your hands, and the rest of the travelers staring at you like you just crawled out of the toilet, you realize that airport bathrooms were invented to make single travelers rethink ever leaving home.

Jaded?

This morning when I opened my curtains and looked out the window, I was greeted by the above site.
When I was a kid, this would have been the best day of the year.  The first real snow fall!  And it's a nice, solid, wet snow that you can really do something with.  This means a full day of playing, sledding, and building igloos, forts, and snowmen.  And there would be plenty of breaks for hot chocolate, soup, grilled cheese, etc.  As a kid, life didn't get any better than waking up to a Saturday covered with snow.
Fast-forward to today.  I've spent 26 winters in Utah, 3 in Virginia, and 3 in Michigan. I've been through several blizzards- two weeks after moving to Virginia, we had a blizzard that shut down the city for a few days and left piles of snow that were still in the middle of busy streets a few weeks later; a few times in Michigan we had storms so bad that everything was cancelled and even going for a walk to the mailbox was taking your life in your hands (Jacob and Jenni- it's not that bad; everybody else, yes it is).  And then a couple years ago we had a storm like this about this time of year, and about a month later it ended up in my basement.  So my first thought when I looked outside this morning was, "oh yuck".  What's happened to me?!  Am I really this jaded?  Or do I just need a few years away from real winter to learn to appreciate it again?  Either way, I'm done with winter for now and would like summer to come back quickly.

Special Skills

A couple weeks ago at work we had an 'End of Summer Luau'.  It was just a potluck lunch, and some people wore Hawaiian shirts, and the breakroom was decorated with streamers.  They also had a hula hoop contest.  As a little history, during my year of job searching, one of the skills I decided to learn was hula hooping.  I researched it online, found a quality hoop, watched YouTube videos, and practiced until I could go nonstop while I watched entire tv shows.  Until now, I've never mentioned my hula hoop skills to anybody at work.  It's just never come up in the conversation.  And in general, nobody expects anybody from the finance team to have any kind of personality or talents outside of spreadsheeting and running reports.  The administrative assistants put the luau on (which explains why it was scheduled on the day finance was doing the month-end close, our busiest day of the month), and they're kind of used to finance just showing up for the food and then going back to work.  But I brought my hula hoop to work with me and just had it sitting quietly in my cubicle.  My boss noticed and asked me what it was for, and I told him I was a hooper.  Unfortunately, the contest started right when I was in the middle of running my first batch of month-end reports.  That's my busiest hour of the busiest day of the month.  But my boss was so excited at the prospect of somebody in finance showing up the rest of the company that he decided the reports could wait, and he let me go hula-hoop.  The only interaction I have with anybody outside of finance is to email them reports and answer questions.  I'm pretty sure they just see me as a lifeless drone who sits in the corner until they need something.  So they were shocked when I not only showed up to participate in the contest, but came with my own hoop.  It was me, three administrative assistants, and one guy from operations who was forced to play.  With about 40 people from the rest of the company watching and cheering.  Including all of finance thrilled that one of their own was finally representing.  When the referee said go, we started swinging our hips.  The operations guy lasted about half a second, a couple of the admins lasted a few seconds longer.  The last admin and I were in it for the real competition.  That's when they realized I meant business.  Eventually the other admin's hoop fell and I was the champion.  Finance cheered, the rest of the company stared in disbelief that finance can do something not related to numbers, and I went back to running my reports- after collecting my prize of an inflatable palm tree, inflatable flamingo, and a marraca (for shaking it).  The rest of the day, people throughout the building were talking about the upset, and my boss was bragging about the intense interview process he puts us through before he hires us, just so he can cover all his bases in these types of situations.

Warm Fuzzies

Last night I went to my 5 year MBA reunion.  I don't think anybody knows this, but I cried through most of my MBA graduation.  Not because the speeches were so great or I was terrified to tears of what lay beyond, but because I had grown so close to my classmates and I knew that we would never all be together in a group making memories again, and I just wasn't ready to let that go yet.  The two years of my MBA were the best I'd ever had.  Sure, I spent every minute from 7am til midnight during that first semester doing something school-related, and sure, I spent that first Christmas break looking for a job because I was certain I couldn't make it through another three semesters of that.  But after that Christmas break, when I found myself sitting in the MBA lounge greeting all my friends and comparing our new schedules, I knew I was home again.  We were friends because we'd all been through the same hell that first semester, we all knew each other's pain, and we all faced the same fears of what came next.  And it turned out the next three semesters were fun.  We were surrounded by friends, including our teachers, and we had fun in our classes.  We still spent inordinate amounts of time in the MBA lounge with study groups, writing papers, working on homework assignments together, etc, but it felt more like productive hang out sessions with friends than work. So when it came to an end and everybody scattered across the country (and, in some cases, across the world), I was none-too-excited.

Over the last five years, I've kept in contact with people through various social networking sites, but too often that's more like internet stalking than actual communication.  We all see each others' updates, but we don't actually talk to anyone.  So I wasn't really sure how it was going to be to see everyone at the reunion.  I was a little nervous to see if friendships would still be remembered, let alone be comfortable.  But as usual, my fears were for nothing.  When I walked into the garden court at the Wilk, it was just like old times, if not better.  We all greeted each other with handshakes or hugs, caught up on each others' lives, and talked as if we'd seen each other yesterday.  Even the people I'd only been casual friends with during school- we were hugging and talking like the best of friends, as if time has only strengthened our friendships. 

A couple of our professors spoke- one gave us a quick lecture on the current state of the economy (and for one of the first times, I understood what he was talking about and I remembered why I love finance!) and the other updated us on happenings and rankings of the Marriott School.  It was just great all around.  I don't consider myself a cheesy person in general, but when the evening ended, I was reluctant to say goodbye again and I drove home full of warm fuzzy feelings.  I'd been reminded of why I loved the MBA program so much, and it was just wonderful to spend a few hours surrounded by those memories again.

Signs of the Seasons

I've realized that different places mark the changing seasons in their own ways.  Of course, generally, cold and snow mean winter, warmth and flowers mean spring, sun and hot mean summer, and cool and colorful mean fall, but in the various places I've lived around the country, there are other signs for the changing seasons. 

In DC, I knew spring had arrived when I would go to bed and it was still cooler outside than inside, but when I went outside in the morning, it was hot and steamy.  And I knew that outside would be a steam bath from that morning until October, every year. I knew summer had arrived when all of the sudden, overnight, the metro system became clogged with tourists during the daily commute.  It'd be fine one day, and packed full of sweaty people asking for directions and talking too loudly the next day.  Not a bad thing; just a sign that the summer travel season was upon us, and all of America had chosen to vacation in the nation's capitol that year.

In Michigan, one day in November you'll see a few snowflakes start falling, and you realize you've seen the bare ground for the last time until April.  It's time to get out the snow clothes and get ready for some alpine kickball, frosty football, blizzard baseball, etc.  You get the idea.  Spring arrives in April, the first day the temperature gets into the 50s, and the neighborhood comes to life with everybody out walking, biking, gardening, and doing anything else they can think of to soak up some sun.  It's the friendliest day of the year.  And for a sure sign of summer, just look to the freeways.  Traffic isn't usually too bad in Michigan.  But in the summer, the freeways right around the cities become parking lots. I think this is because with all the cold temperatures the rest of the year, the roads take extra work during the warm weather.  Of course, it doesn't help that every now and then you get a really stupid driver who takes a turn too fast and rams into a fuel tanker right under a newly completed overpass (that took a year to build and had just been finished a few days earlier) and causes an explosion so big the overpass melts.

Utah seems to be the opposite of DC and Michigan.  Summer officially arrives when the roads clear out.  My commute the last few months has been awesome.  There have been plenty of days with traffic jams, but overall, the roads have been nice and easy compared to the rest of the year.  I'd complain about being the only person in the state who apparently has to go to work, but the commute is just so great, I can't complain.  And the latest sign of the seasons changing is one I discovered today.  I realized it was the first day back to school for most kids when I got to the gym this morning.  For months, when I've arrived at 6 every morning, there have been about 4 people in the gym.  Suddenly and without warning today, almost every piece of equipment was occupied.  It was nuts!  I guess everybody's back to their regular schedules.  And I'll know fall has arrived when there's a line for the equipment.  That means it's too dark/cold for people to exercise outside anymore.  I'm all for people exercising and making America healthy;  I just don't want them doing it on my time.