Tag: snowpocalypse

Dad Brog (#145): almost three years to the day

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I have this saying that it only snows once every five years in Georgia, but miraculously, we got snow today.  It wasn’t a huge amount, but enough to give a nice white blanket to the world around us, to where the girls could wake up, look out the window and be marveled by the sight of falling snow a bright white morning outside.

In preparation for the winter conditions, most of the state went into its typical overreaction of shutting everything down, but after the Snowpocalypse of 2013, I’m not going to complain about the state erring on the side of safety and precaution versus thinking it won’t be so bad and ending up being a national embarrassment all over again.  The government shut down, schools closed, dance class closed.  My waste management company straight up said they weren’t coming, with no makeup day planned.  Pest control company was scheduled to come, and they nope’d out, understandably.

But the best was my job, who graciously announced closure of the office on Friday in preparation for the wintery conditions.  The kicker?  Everyone works from home on Fridays anyway, so it’s basically the equivalent of allowing people to go to church on Sunday.

Regardless, with snow having arrived, it was my utmost priority to get outside and spend some time with the girls, since they basically will see snow only every five years for as long as we live in Georgia and the south.  So, channeling one of my all-time favorite Calvin & Hobbes strips, I didn’t wait to have to be coerced and swayed to play some hooky from work so I could play with my kids in the snow, I basically just checked in at 9, got myself dressed and ready for the cold, and was out the door and in the snow with the girls as soon as I could.

And let me say, how lucky we were to have gotten that real good type of snow, that’s perfect for snowballs, making snowmen and being all malleable and perfect.  Getting to build a snowman with my kids is a privilege I didn’t think about how lucky I am to get to do it, considering the lack of opportunities it’s more likely to be in coming years, and it brings me great joy just thinking about how I was able to do such.  And the fact that my house just happened to have an actual carrot and lumps of coal for traditional eyes and noses, how fortunate that all have lined up so well.

I decided to name our snowman “Jon Snow, king in the south;” the girls were not impressed, and balked immediately. 

So I said okay, we can call him Aegon. 

They didn’t like that either.

But my au pair did have a wonderful idea, which was to recreate a photograph from when #2 wasn’t even a year old, when the last time snow fell on Georgia.  And it was from this, did I realize that it’s almost been exactly three years since the last snowfall.  Otherwise, I will never say no when the opportunity to do a timelapse photo.

#2 usually isn’t a fan of smiling for cameras, but clearly the arrival of snow seemed to elicit such a genuine happy response that here we are.  Best snow day ever.

Sometimes there is no funnier reality television than the NBA

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Somehow true: Portland Trail Blazers center Deandre Ayton misses game due to being unable to get to the arena on account of icy weather conditions

I’ve been following sports for pretty much all of my entire lucid life, and in all those years, this is honestly the first time that I’ve ever heard of a scenario where a player basically called out due to the weather.  This is the kind of shit that a college student says when they don’t want to get up for an 8 am class, or a shitty American babysitter says when they’re checked out.

But an NBA player?  Especially one who’s making $32M to play fucking basketball?  Mind blown.

Like, I’m sure because he’s mega rich, he lives a little bit in seclusion, because that’s what rich people tend to like to do.  And I know Portland is a weird place, in terms of people, as well as geography, and they’re kind of subject to the shitty weather conditions that afflict Seattle and the rest of the Pacific Northwest, but you’d think a go-zillionaire like an NBA player like Deandre Ayton would have some sort of contingency plan for icy roads.

Honestly, it’s not entirely on the player too, the team itself could’ve taken better preparation for this, like putting up him and other players in a baller hotel right near the arena or something if there was any indication that the weather was going to go tits up on game day.

Imagine if something like this occurred in the MJ era of the NBA?  Ayton would be destroyed by a Charles Oakley type of veteran meat mountain, on his own team as well as opponent.  Guys like Alonzo Mourning or Karl Malone would be all up his ass crack, giving him shit for having the audacity to miss a game due to icy roads.  He must live at Castle Black or something and the Kingsroad was just too coated with northern ice or something.

Whatever though, unsurprisingly the best part of this whole situation is the backlash it’s gotten on the internet, and when people collectively get mad at something, the clowns occasionally deliver some hilarious observations.  I think my favorites that I’ve seen so far are:

Pretty funny the Trail Blazers of all teams could not blaze a trail for DeAndre Ayton.

And then there was this one that is clearly familiar with Ayton’s game in general, and spun his joke to hilarious effect:

I realize Ayton couldn’t drive to the game, but perhaps he could have done several spin moves, each taking him slightly further from the rim to the game.

In all fairness though, as critical I feel towards the situation and carte blanche to criticize, I have to admit that sometimes, there’s fewer things more entertaining than the bullshit that comes from the NBA players themselves.  Between the Pistons trying their best to become the de facto worst team in league history, and clowns like Ayton calling out due to black guys ice, I can’t say I’ve paid more attention to the NBA in a long time.

Georgia Snow Day 2024

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Photo 100% unedited.  Yep, totally

The best part about not having to go into the office is that the day before, the entire state was going into winter snow storm protect mode.  Thanks to Snowpocalypse a decade ago, the entire state is, preferably, always on the side of caution and quick to pull the trigger when it comes to shutting down the city over thinking they can handle any modicum of snow, because as Snowpocalypse showed the world, Georgia is not.

Sure, it was chilly and the temperatures were rapidly falling, but with the chance of precipitation vanishing, I knew there was no real chance that we were going to get any snow.  Black guys ice, sure, was a possibility, but I didn’t think there was much chance that we were going to get any white blanketing over any parts of the state.  All the same, the Metro Atlanta area was quick to pull the trigger and shut down all of the schools, and my building was quick to declare a delayed opening, which honestly if there’s one drawback to the advent of remote work, is the fact that seldom can we ever be able to use snow days as an excuse anymore for not wanting to go into the office.

In the early morning, since I’m always the first person up in my house, I let the dog outside, and unsurprisingly, it was dark, dreary, cold and blustery, but not a single snowflake appeared to be floating around anywhere in sight.  As I prepared the kids’ breakfast and the sun began to creep up, it looked like a gray and dreary day, but definitely no snow in sight.

Despite the fact that my office had a report time of 10 am, I punted on the day, since I had started working remotely at like 8:45, and I wasn’t about to pack up my shit, drive to the office to set up shop again, and risk burning an hour of relocation and commute time when I had already started working.  And much like responsible people in the workforce, I probably ended up working longer and more studiously working from home that day, because my workload was quite slammed, and I was pretty much on the clock all the way up til 5 pm, without taking much of a lunch break because I was in such a groove.

But it was during one of these moments where I poked my head out to get some air, did I notice that not only was there no snow, it was absolutely, majestically peaceful, sunny and beautiful outside, albeit a frigid 16F degrees and windy as fuck.  So I had to snap the above picture to send to my friends to show them what snow in Georgia looks like.  It’s not my fault if the birds and wildlife decided to celebrate in front of my camera like the start of a Disney Animated Classic.

Snowpocalypse 2019, Super Bowl Leee, etc.

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I find myself in a position where I suddenly have some down time, and for lack of better things to do, I kind of feel like I should feel like writing.  Meetings are still consuming the vast majority of my work days, but for some reason, my afternoon meeting(s) have been pushed back to a later time, so kind of out the blue, I’ve got this patch of time, and I’ve already exhausted my usual rounds of internet surfing during my morning meeting(s), so I guess I’ll try to help the time pass by writing about some things that I don’t necessarily want to spend an entire post writing about, but aren’t so bad consolidated into a singular post.

So, earlier in the week, the City of Atlanta for the most part, shut down.  On Monday, the news was that an unavoidable snow storm was converging onto the southeast, including Georgia, and that by Tuesday morning, snow was all but guaranteed.  Mind you, all of Monday was around the high 50’s, and by the time I left the office, had topped out at 60F degrees.  It was such a beautiful day, I went home and threw the ball for big dog, since if the weather were to come true, there wouldn’t be another chance any time soon for ball time to occur.

As night rolled in, the temperature did start to drop, and I could feel that thickness in the air that typically seems to come with snow, but I couldn’t help but think in my mind how funny it would be if Snowpocalypse was some massive false call, and that nothing was to occur.  I had already taken contingency plans as far as work was concerned, and made sure to collect numbers from my employees, just in case I had to let them know that the office was closed in the morning.  The news kept pushing back the arrival of the impending snow from 11 pm to 3 am, and by the time I went to sleep, it was around 5 am.  I went to bed, expecting to see snow on the ground by the time I woke up.

And naturally, there was none.  I’m glad I didn’t alter my routine and stay up late because snow was all but guaranteed, and fuck myself from waking up.  I texted all my employees and made the day optional on account of the updated news that by 10-11 am, SNOW WAS GOING TO COME, but otherwise went into the office myself.  Went ot the gym, ran cardio, showered, and then went upstairs to my desk, where I had a pretty routine day; and since I’m seated next to the window, I had a front row seat to the small amount of misting that occurred, but no snow actually fell.

The picture above is a pretty accurate representation of what Snowpocalypse 2019 looked like in Atlanta.

Continue reading “Snowpocalypse 2019, Super Bowl Leee, etc.” →

Snow day lol

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was a little jealous of those lucky enough to have Presidents Day off, despite the fact that I typically get every other holiday as well as Confederate Memorial Day off, because I’m greedy, and I want to slack when everyone else is slacking too.  Needless to say, work was on the agenda for today.

Thankfully, the City of Atlanta and the State of Georgia have become a little sensitive to criticism following the embarrassment that was the way Snowpocalypse 2014 was handled, and have decided to err on conservative, by being preventative as opposed to reactionary.  That being said, today is a snow day, and my office is closed.

As you can very well see in this photographic evidence taken this morning, my backyard is clearly a frozen tundra, and a baby wooly mammoth that looks precariously like my dog is traversing the land Pangaea to seek warmth and sustenance.

This pleases me.

Nine degrees

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Cold enough to where if I want to mention it, I have to write out the number, because in conventional writing, single digits are treated in such a manner.

Seriously, nine degrees? Granted, I don’t dislike the cold, but even for me, this is a little bit of frigid.

The scary thing is that I remember the last time it hit single digits, and it was around this time last year; it was like seven degrees when I got back from Las Vegas, and my car’s ignition was definitely labored in the face of the bitter cold. Subsequently, within the next few weeks that arctic snap would also result in the Snowpocalypse which crippled the city under two inches of snow and a sheet of ice, making Atlanta the laughing stock of the planet for a quick breeze.

I’m reluctant to bring that part up, because frankly I’d rather not go through it again, despite the fact that there were hundreds of people that probably had it way worse than I did.

Continue reading “Nine degrees” →

Inevitable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It was my original intention to have traveled this past weekend, but due to Icepocalypse, that couldn’t happen.

Not to say that I didn’t salvage a busted weekend with a little productivity and helping out some other friends, but I really did have my heart set on gorging on pigs and flesh of lesser creatures on the food chain.

Naturally, the weather was gorgeous, sunny, and not at all intolerably cold the entire weekend, and looking out the window would make anyone believe it was inconceivable that it was a gray, dreary ice blanket outside just a few days ago.  Furthermore, in spite of all the condemnation of Hartsfield Airport due to the mass cancellations during Icepocalypse, and despite that my destination was showing oversold flights, it turns out that I would have made it out fairly easily had I just gone and tried, probably due to people having given up earlier, drove instead, or re-booked and the software didn’t account for it.

My response to such details can only be summed up in the above animated gif I had the time to create, alternatively.