Weather-related maladies

Man - I had an odd day because of the weather, which is why this entry is actually coming after August 5. However, I'm backdating it because I would have posted it earlier, if not for the ridiculous weather.

The fun started at 9 a.m. I just finished submitting my latest story on court hearings for a local woman accused of killing a man with her car. You can read a brief of it here. Also, just like last time, my family noticed that I landed in some video clips again. I came in at about 1:50, blinking like I just stole the crown jewels of England.

Anyway, after submitting that story, I took the next five minutes to relax and unwind. I got up from my desk, walked out to the small kitchen area of the paper, got some water from the Poland Springs dispenser, and used the bathroom. Just your everyday sort of thing.

But when I walked back into the newsroom, there were literally buckets of water pouring out from the ceiling. See, early Thursday morning, Westerly got hit by severe flash thunderstorms, and it was also under a tornado watch. Apparently, the leaky roof from earlier in the year wasn't quite fixed completely, and something had burst in the roof. All the weight of the water focused on two ceiling tiles, which snapped and came tumbling down.

Of course, the affected area was right near my desk, about five feet away. One of my co-workers unfortunately got the brunt of it, as it mostly hit her area of the partition wall that we share. However, the water soon seeped across the floor to the rest of the newsroom, and by the end of the morning production run, the newsroom was down to six computers that could be safely used, as opposed to the normal 16.

The whole scene was madness. Workers from the on-site print facility came rushing in with pushcarts. These are normally used for paper disposal and recycling, but today they held dozens of gallons of water. The thing that surprised me the most was the sheer noise of the event - The water was loud, and it was surrounded by two to six yelling workers at all times, followed by a noisy vacuuming and cleaning effort. In this cacophony, the editors managed to get the paper out, which was a small miracle.

Anyway... That's how my day started. I left work early to instead do some stuff out of the office, since they had to clean-up and what not. Proving the old Rhode Island adage correct, if you just waited 15 minutes (times four), the storm passed, and in its place was 88-degree heat and ridiculous humidity. The feel-like temperature according to Weather.com was 102 at one point, so I didn't really get a ton of work done. (Damn my Irishness!)

The fun wasn't over for the day though. Thursday night is trivia night at Casey's, a local restaurant / pub that my friends and I enjoy. We were minding our own business, eating delicious meals before the fun started shortly after 9 p.m., when the lights started to flicker. They came back on, and then, VOOMPH! Complete darkness. (Photo to the right, taken by my roommate Becca.)

I've seen this sort of thing happen in bad movies, and thankfully, there was no mad rush or screaming as people tried to flee in terror. Everyone kind of just sat in the dark for a minute, and quietly murmured to their friends. The staff came around to tables and said that a conductor on the street had probably blown, and that we could stay and drink if we wanted to and what not.

We (my roommate Becca and her friend Julie) decided to stick it out, because we're awesome like that. The power snapped back on in about 20 minutes, following by trivia, which we totally dominated and won! Woohoo! Two weeks ago, we won with the glorious team name The Stephanie Pratt All-Stars, but this week we kept it simple with the inside joke name of What's Your Deal?

So, yeah. I'm officially not a fan of this god damn weather. But at least winning trivia at the end of the night softened the blow a bit. (Also, I stole a bunch of mints on the way out from Casey's, which is always a good thing.)

The weather and car crashes

[Left] Whatever happened to these two wild and crazy guys?

Because it is so overcast and rainy here today, I thought I'd share a personal story or two about how weather has F'ed me over in the past. About a year ago, I went through the worst month of my life, which saw me get dumped, get laid off and be forced to move back in with my parents, but it all started with a car crash.

It was during a torrential rainstorm, and while I was driving on Route 95 North, on my way to the aforementioned ex-girlfriend's place. Just as I got past the Route 4 split, my brakes gave out, and I skidded off the road and into a tree.

Luckily for me, I was driving below the speed limit, and there was also a thicket of shrubs that slowed me down considerably before I hit the tree. As I was about to hit the tree, I closed my eyes and thought, "Wow, this is going to hurt," but shockingly, my face just barely hit the deploying airbag. I didn't lose consciousness at all, and even the next day, I wasn't shore at all. I was really, really lucky from a health standpoint.

Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same thing about my car, an awesome 2002 forest green Chevy Prism. There was an angry gap right in the middle, and the windshield was completely shattered and caved-in on the passenger's side; the police said I was lucky that nobody was in the car with me. The car had to be junked and I had to file an insurance claim, which sucked, because what I got - $5,000 - was worth far less than what I could have sold the car for - around $8,000.

The other weather and driving-related incident I've had is far less spectacular. I forget the circumstances, but for some reason I was driving south on Route 1 toward Westerly in January of this year. It must have been for an important reason, because it was late at night and there was practically nobody else on the roads, and they hadn't even been plowed yet.

That night, I learned why it is such a bitch to drive on an unplowed road. About half a mile from the McDonald's, my car went into a spin, and flipped around 180 degrees, so that I was pointed the wrong way.

For some reason, the only thought in my head was, "I hope someone doesn't find me like this." The thing was, I had stayed on the road the entire time, so it was more of an embarrassing thing as opposed to something dangerous. My car was still running, so I very, very gently drove forward and looped around, so that I was the correct way on the road again. I was a bit rattled, so I pulled into McDonald's and got something to eat and read a book for about half an hour, which gave the plows time to work.