OK, I swiped that from John Richards, the KEXP morning DJ. John may have swiped it from someone else, but I give credit where credit is due.
What I don't need the news to tell me:
A Little Snow in Seattle is a Big Deal No news required on this one, I can assure you. If you live in Seattle, look outside and see that it is snowing, you do not need any media to tell you that the entire infrastructure is about to come to a screeching, grinding halt.
Your Commute Just Got a Lot Longer Really, a traffic report is just not going to be needed. This is the scene: I am in my office in Sumner, about 31 miles from my apartment in West Seattle. As I look out my office window, I see the snow is sticking to the ground and the roadway. I don't need a traffic update to tell me that my trip home is going to be epic. There will be crunching, spinning, sliding and swearing and all this is before you manage to get to the freeway on-ramp. Once on the freeway, any freeway, things are only going to get worse. In really bad snow storms (what would be a mild dusting in the Midwest) Northwesterners have been know to abandon their vehicles on I-5 and wander off on foot. This snow journey was not, however, accompanied by a constant stream of news about which roads were worse than which other roads. I let KEXP roll out the afternoon show of alt-rock, snow songs requested by other travelers and your basic musical whatnot.
Shoveling Snow is Fun I know, more middle-aged American men drop dead shoveling snow than almost anything other activity. Being from the Midwest, I have the dominant SSMHK gene, which made itself apparent when I was a young boy and my dad would say "Snow Shoveling Must Happen Kid". So when I jumped out of my lovely four-wheeled drive truck after surviving the bumper car ride that is Seattle in the snow, all I could think of was the super hero Midwest Man, whose super powers were clearing sidewalks and driveways. That's me!! While the traveling masses confirmed on the radio why they were not traveling and those that were home watched the local news to see those that were not traveling, I was shoveling like a super hero. While I was making big piles of snow, my neighbors were wandering home with tales of their three hour journey from Bellevue, less than fifteen miles away, or how the West Seattle Bridge was now closed or that their husband was still stuck downtown. That was the real news, delivered in person.
Roo Would Love This Yes, little Roo would have been thrilled. SNOW!!!! Crazy, sliding, spinning cars and trucks!! Blustery cold wind and piles of snow to shovel into other piles of snow. Snowpacalypse!!
I did not partake of the news today. I did not need to. First of all, I didn't need to go to the news, because the news came to me without the requirement of any other delivery system except the event itself. Second, I don't need the media to tell me how to act like an overgrown kid. As it turns out, I'm still pretty good at that.
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