Ice, ice, baby...

It got just warm enough this month, as it will do at times, for us to get an ice storm. We have a beautiful, almost iridescent, coating of ice on the trees and the snowpack. When I came in from work tonight, I could hear the branches on the trees jingle like wind chimes as the breeze blew them about.

Unfortunately, that same coating of ice is on cars, streets, sidewalks, and power lines. That can be a problem. The accumulation of ice does weigh down the power lines and they snap. All that stuff about coefficient of friction you sat through in physics class is true. Rubber on slippery surfaces has a low coefficient. That may be good in some situations (to forestall the inevitable wisecrack), but it makes for treacherous walking and driving.

About the only thing to do when one of these starts up is head home, hunker down, and wait it out. I'd much rather have a foot of snow than 1/4 inch of ice. If you fall in a snowdrift, generally there isn't a lot of harm done. Fall on ice and you can get hurt fairly easily. And there's nothing like watching a car slide down a hill like a puck on an air hockey table, unless that car is headed toward something you own or, worse yet, still owe money on.

The good part is that now I don't have a long commute back and forth to work. I've been in a couple of ice storms when leaving work-and a 30 mile drive home that would stretch out to 90 minutes to two hours. I don't miss those days.

Anybody out there with some horror stories about ice-other than 'YD, I was sitting at the club the other afternoon and I only got one cube in my scotch on the rocks.'?

yankeedog out.