Snow Day(s)...

It's kind of ironic I'm sitting on my couch in shorts and a t-shirt with the windows open and a fan on writing this. I guess that just shows how far behind I am on posting to my blog. I've said it plenty of times, I HATE snow. Luckily, usually when it snows in Abilene it's an inch, maybe two, and it's gone the next day. Well, this recent snowstorm we got it seemed like it would never go away. And, unlike when it snows up north and a couple hours later the plows get out and by the afternoon it's gone. Here, it cripples the city and Outside of the one or two plows operated by the Texas DOT, the only thing to get rid of the ice on the roads is the sun. So, when the sun stays away for three days and the temperatures don't go above the low 20's I get to spend the majority of my time shooting weather photos.

On Monday night it started out raining... by about 2am it was snowing, hard. By the time I woke up the next morning there was 5-6 inches of snow on the ground and all the rain from the night before was a solid sheet of ice on all the roads. For a three day period I was not able to even get my car out of the driveway. Luckily my lovely wife allowed me to chauffeur her around in her 4-wheel drive Jeep.

So, my days pretty much every one of those days consisted of diving around chasing snow plows, creeping around the city behind people that shouldn't be driving car that they didn't know how to drive on ice and were ill equipped for driving, and looking for people having fun and generally acting foolish. Luckily by Friday, the sun came out and the sun began thawing out the roads, and by Saturday there were no problems. Overall, I was happy with what I got, but I'm glad it's gone and I've got shorts on now!

The Boys of.... Summer?

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, I HATE HATE HATE snow!! The last time I was excited about snow was when I was a kid amd it got me out of school. Cold weather, I'm not a huge fan of but I can deal with it. But snow, no way. It's a damn nuisance, and just causes me to work more. Last Monday I got asked to work to shoot the crosstown baseball game since the normal Monday night photog was on vacation. I figured no big deal, go out shoot the game and be done. The editor who called me also asked to grab a few weather shots too. That was easy enough, most everyone in the stands was pretty bundled up because the game time temperature was about 33... way too damn cold for a baseball game!!

After the first couple of innings it was clear this was only my second baseball game of the year, my timing was off, got caught off guard and looking the wrong way more than normal. It actually turned out to be a good thing, I was trying to be done shooting by 9pm to make deadline. I was stretching it waiting for a decent shot. Then the snow started. It was really light at first, then between innings it just started coming down hard. It was kind of funny. I shot the top photo which was about the third pitch and the kid threw two more pitches before they called the game. Didn't matter I knew I had my shot. I stuck around to get a few shots of them putting out the tarp since both teams were putting it out. After the tarp was out I had to go, it was after 9pm and both the front page and sports front were being held for these photos. The ironic part of it all was that by the time I got in my car and headed back to the office it had stopped snowing... We did get five inches by morning though. I'm ready for Spring!!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

I'm not a big fan of snow, it was cool when I was a little kid and it got me out of school, but now it's more of a nuisance than anything else. I'm not really a fan of cold weather as a whole. Ideally around 60 degrees is about perfect. So, when it's 30, snowing and the wind is blowing at 10-15mph that last thing I wanna do is be outside, I'd rather be huddled up on my couch with the dogs trying to stay warm. But, that just ain't gonna happen working for a newspaper. So, you make the best of the situation.

Christmas Eve morning it snowed, hard. In fact it was the first time the weather service in this area had ever put out a blizzard warning. So, at 9am I got a call to go shoot weather photos, at least I'd be getting off early on Christmas Eve. So, I set out looking for people playing in the snow, as well as people stuck in it. The funny thing is, it was so cold and the wind was blowing so hard there really wasn't a whole lot of people out in it like in the past. However, after looking for a while I did find a few brave souls willing to brave the snow.