A brief blizzard at Borders bookstore

I had many adventures yesterday. I was finishing off yesterday's blog entry when a friend IM'ed me and asked if I could give her a ride to work - her truck was in the shop, and she had waited until she was fairly sure the roads were clear and safe before she asked. She usually goes in to work about an hour and a half before I do, and I still had to spread some salt on the steps and sidewalks, give one of my cats some pills, and take a shower. Oh, and remember to take in a fresh box of tissues to work. But I said sure, no problem.

I should have known how the rest of the day was going to go when I watched my box of tissues tumble off the roof of my car as I was halfway down the busy street that leads out of Nanticoke.

I was able to recover the tissues, but I was not able to find my friend's house. Not right away, anyway. I have been there a dozen times, but I still missed it five times before I finally got to her.

Then there was the incident of the hill that leads from her house. My little car couldn't pull itsef up this hill, which is at roughly an 89.9 degree angle to the horizontal and was slightly glazed with ice. My friend knew an alternate way to the highway, so we took that.

We eventually would up at work at 10:00. This was a big pain for her but less so for me, since I was trying to find a way to kill time before the 10:00 PM Blue Sundaze show - this show was just a few miles from work but nearly 40 miles from home, so it would make no sense to go home after work and come back for the show. Lucky for me, a ton of work came in yesterday, and it had some major problems that need extensive technical consultation with the customer and the customer's marketing department. I wound up not leaving work until after 7:30.

I killed time by stopping at a local grocery store and picking up my "Holiday Meat Pack" courtesy of my company. I then went to Sam's Club for gas, chocolate chips, butter, and some perfume for my mom. After that it was about 8:30 and I decided to go to the Borders bookstore to kill some time.

Borders was crowded and uninspiring. Even if I had found something I wanted to buy - I already did all of my Christmas book shopping - the line was about 20 people deep. I wandered around a bit and then decided to head out to get something to eat.

I stepped out of the bookstore and into a blizzard.

Well, it wasn't a blizzard just yet. It was just flurries as I left the store, but by the time I got to my car it had worsened into a minor blizzard. Nothing to do, I thought, but take pictures.
I like this one. It's a brief time-exposure - my camera does that in low-light conditions when I turn the flash off - so each falling snowflake is described by an individual line. The sodium vapor light illuminated them perfectly.

Another shot of the parking lot, taken from the roof of my car. The light and the snow have combined to create a nuclear blast look.

A shot taken from within my car through the passenger's-side window. Again, each snowflake can be seen as an extended line. There were quite a few of them.

Luckily the blizzard tapered off to flurries again after just a few minutes. Driving conditions were treacherous for a little while, but the roads cleared up again after a few cars had gone through. I was able to make the hike north to Wellington's to see Blue Sundaze once again. But that is a story for another blog entry.