Extreme Contrast

I hadn't looked at the weather for the past few days. Last night, I just looked out the window and it was snowing heavily all of a sudden. Accumulation was minimal because the ground was still warm. We had about 2 inches and then rain turned it into a glaze... and then slush. The morning commute was extremely messy, especially on the smaller streets that weren't cleaned. When I got to work, the area outside of the office was a mess as well. It was a wintry mess in mid-March. 

Th end of the day was completely different. It looked like a nice Spring day. In the 8-hour work day, the sun managed to melt away all of the slush. The temperature also jumped enough that what I wore in the morning was too warm for the evening commute.

Spring Training

It's not even the regular season yet, but there's already drama in the Yankee's camp and player movement talks. A-Rod is out for most of the year if not the entire season, which prompted the Youkilis move and a ton of stories about how he'll get along with Joba. That was what was making the headlines until the A-Rod news about performance drugs came up again. That filled the headlines for another couple of weeks.

The story is now about the outfield as Granderson fractured his arm in his first pre-season game. We have writers with stories about Johnny Damon and Alfonso Soriano, both of which could be available to help. I think they're just stories at the moment to please the fans. Realistically, Damon was prepared to retire. I don't think the Yankees would go for that. It would be odd to bring on their former 2nd baseman Soriano as an outfielder, but that would be great because we lost him in the A-Rod trade. Anyway,I think we'll be OK in the outfield no matter who fills the spot because Gardner is in center and we all know he covers ground!

Styrofoam

First it was soda and now it's styrofoam. Mayor Bloomberg's current crusade is to get the city to stop using styrofoam containers. I think he has the right idea since it is not biodegradable. The problem here is that it's not practical yet. Food services use it because it doesn't melt in high temperatures and the big one... it's CHEAPER! Cost is the most important thing. Paper is too expensive and recycled paper even more so. It seems to go against logic, but in this world, we get penalized for doing the right thing... which encourages us to do the wrong thing.

The styrofoam ban is something we should work towards, but forcing it now is going to cause backlash.

Pope

It was announced that Pope Benedict plans to resign on February 28. I've never heard of this before and thought it wasn't possible. Then I read that he's going to be the first to do so in 600 years! In my neighborhood, one of the priests in a local church "retired," but yet he still does sermons pretty often. So I felt like he never really retired. It's even stranger to hear that the Pope is retiring! What does a retired Pope do? Party time?

Winter for a Day

Over the weekend, we got dumped on with enough snow for a season. After 2 years of nothing other than flurries that didn't stick or sub 1-inch snowfall, we got 1-3 feet from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning. Some areas of Long Island seriously got 3 ft! My area had 14"... about 4" Friday and then another 10" when I woke up. I really thought NY winters were gone as we were almost out of this season.  

Super Bowl

It was Super Bowl Sunday over the weekend, but just an ordinary Sunday for me. Since I'm not a football fan, I only watch if a NY team makes it all the way. But I also felt like it was a quiet one for many in NY. It wasn't talked about a whole lot in the office despite corp. services advertising it with events. People still had parties and junk food just because it's a good excuse to do so. I'd say NYers were more about the gathering of friends than the game.

Ratings dropped from last  year and AMNY printed "unknown reason." Uhh.... I can tell you the reason. Last year, it was NY vs Boston, rivals and 2 of the greatest sports towns... plain and simple!

Coins Live!

When the MetroCard was introduced, seemingly ages ago, it quickly did away with coins and tokens for subway rides.  However, the buses still take change. Even with that being the case, you would think that it never gets used since everyone owns a MetroCard anyway. But I still see the same people using coins all the time. They must just be old fashioned. It'snot a one-time thing where they forgot their card. These people actually do it every day, forefeiting the discount and carrying the extra weight of $2.50 in coins!

Barriers

We just got through one month in the year and there's already been 6 deaths involving subways. Incidents involved anything from pushing, drunks and people taking a crap. If the entire year follows this trend, we may have close to double casualties of any previous year. So the discussion of platform barriers has finally come up. This is something that's implemented in many other systems across the world, but NYC being one of the oldest does not have it and is going to have  a hard time implementing it. It should be done no matter the cost though. When we look back at where money is spent, it's much more important than topside renovations and the 2nd Ave line. Those things can certainly wait. But we'll have to see if the MTA can get their priorities right.

Weathercoaster

We've been very lucky this Winter so far. It's nearly February and we haven't had too many super cold days... probably less than 10 when it fell under 32. This week was somewhat extreme though. It was mostly in the 20's and sometimes around 14. Then all of a sudden, it shot up to 50 on Sunday. 

The warmth of this Winter really had people thrown off last week. Everyone got so used to wearing lighter clothing than usual. When the lows hit last week, it felt extra cold because they weren't used to it. In the office, many called in sick.

Another oddity is we haven't really had snow yet. There were flurries and even some accumulation last Friday, but nothing that broke the 1" mark. 

#2 on #6

Train strikes happen all the time... more often than reported. But last night's was a unique story. Some rider decided to take a crap between cars on the #6 train. In NYC, we see homeless and cab drivers go #1 on trees and walls, but this is the first I've heard anyone do #2 in public. He must've had to go real bad to do that! Trains are so unstable already and if you're going #2, you have to crouch down and be on either side of the small ledge. If you've ever crossed cars before, you already know that it's not easy walking in the center and standing straight up.

Besides risking his life for nothing, the passenger also forfeited his honor. I mean, come on.... that's one of the last ways you'd want to go in life!