Snow Advisory

/O.EXT.KLOT.SN.Y.0014.000000T0000Z- 080212T2200Z/ MCHENRY-LAKE ILLINOIS- KANE-DUPAGE-COOK-WILL-LAKE INDIANA- PORTER- INCLUDING THE CITIES OF... WOODSTOCK...WAUKEGAN...AURORA... CHICAGO...JOLIET...GARY...VALPARAISO 343 PM CST MON FEB 11 2008
...SNOW ADVISORY NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 4 PM CST TUESDAY...

THE SNOW ADVISORY IS NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 4 PM CST TUESDAY.

SNOW WILL OVERSPREAD THE AREA TONIGHT AND CONTINUE AT TIMES THROUGH MIDDAY TUESDAY...WITH GENERALLY 3 TO 6 INCHES OF SNOWFALL LIKELY BY TUESDAY AFTERNOON.

THE VERY COLD TEMPERATURES WILL RESULT IN SNOW IMMEDIATELY ACCUMULATING ON ROADWAYS. WHILE SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS SHOULD BE MINOR THIS AFTERNOON...IT WILL TAKE VERY LITTLE SNOW TO MAKE ROADWAYS SLIPPERY AND HAZARDOUS. THE HEAVIEST SNOWFALL WILL OCCUR TONIGHT INTO TUESDAY MORNING...SO TRAVEL TUESDAY MORNING WILL LIKELY BE DIFFICULT.

A SNOW ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW WILL CAUSE PRIMARILY TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SNOW COVERED ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES...AND USE CAUTION WHILE DRIVING.

Well I am now snowed in! I'm lucky to have made it home. I had some trouble getting the car parked. My car got stuck and couldn't get enough friction to roll into the snow filled spaces. Two guys where nice enough to give me a push while I stepped on the gas. Was able to park. The apartment complex parking lot is half plowed and that does not include parking spaces. It seems like we got a foot and the roads were bad.

The snow came down heavy today. It was very pretty.. but dangerous.

I can't imagine what the commute was like for people who don't live 2 miles away from work. I hope everyone got home ok. I know there were a lot of closings.

Here I am all comfy in my cozy warm apartment with plenty of food, electricity, and both cable TV and Internet. I'm blessed.

I want to play in the snow and make snow angels with people. I want to have a little fun but not at this apartment area because of the dogs. The local park looks like a fun place to go snow boarding. There are a few hills where people can roll down on thei boards. That must be fun :)

Happiness :)

Here is a video all about roundabouts! Dad and Joe, watch this so you know how to drive in Carmel, IN!

I was being sarcastic but the video did convince me of how nice they are. My TomTom tells me which way and which exit to take on the roundabout.. otherwise I'd be going round and round!

I renewed my lease last Friday. The rent went up to $940/month for one-year contract for my fordham glen apartment. I inquired about the 4 open garages near my apartment and they want $120 for a single car garage and $220 for a two car garage for the lease term. They expect people to back up the money truck. Hell no. I'd move the hell out of there but it doesn;t make sense to move somewhere else and pay more for less and then move out. All that costs money in transition. I wonder how my friend Becky is doing in Miami. I think she was paying the same amount for a studio in a gated community.

I tell myself that by this time next year I don't care if I relocate to New York state or Indianapolis, I'm going to be the hell out of this apartment and probably the hell out of this state and in some kind of living space that has at least an attached garage and more space. I'm tired of not relalizing my home ownership dreams.I'm tired of seeing everyone else have things that I don't have like houses and six figure incomes. I'd be able to afford a 70's/80's 2 bed townhome in warrenville if I made 75k. Otherwise, forget it.

Today I had chinese for lunch because I forgot to bring my lunch to work. Someone in particular caught my attention, I'm not blaming you, but I was distracted! I spent about a good 10 minutes making my lunch, but iIll bring it tomorrow.
Anyways, I grabbed lunch for my busy coworkers too and got a fortune cookie with an ominious message, at least I think it is. The fortune cookie said "This year your first priority will be your family". I'm superstituous when it comes to things. I have had ominous things appear/happen to give signals of personal/spirtual tradegy in the past.

I think someone up somewhere is watching out for me lovingly and guiding me with things. I feel very comfortable and am thankful for being in decent health, nto sick, and not in pain. It is when I am sick or in pain do I truely feel alone and helpless. Not being married and estranged to my dad, it is hard to depend on anybody but myself and to look forward to my future. Yes it is hard to look forward to my future. The only thing that I had to look forward to was the house that I decided I couldn't afford to buy.

Another day another dollar another opprtunity to reduce debt, but not produce wealth. The only wealth that i am really producing for myself is in the form of retirement benefits (good) and company stock (small amount that I bought!)
I came out of college with the standard 20k in debt and it's been close to about 4 1/2 yrs and I think I am down to a little over 10k remaining in student loans. I have about another $12k to pay off on my car too. I'm hoping that by this time next year I will be able to have enough saved up to move, and if some miracle in my job situation, I could move into a house, but odd are I will be moving into another apartment that is better in a different state.

I need to take some business/entrepenur classes. I am studying to take my professional engineer license which will open up a lot more career and salary opportunities for me. I've been getting a lot of contact from recruiters. Some are laughable, some are serious, and some are contract jobs. I am reading that contracts can be like $50-125$ an hour. These don't offer benefits but if you're making $90/hr I think you can afford your own health care premium of like $300 month and to contribute to your own retirement account and still make out like a bandit. The whole concept of contract work seems risky and full of legalse. I'm doing some research on dice.com and in the forums I'm learning a lot about recruiter and staffer companies that don't pay up and how other problems. Say I was offered a 3 month contract in indianapolis for $100/hr. Well there is the expenses occured of breaking my lease, premiumumns on the 3-month lease living arrangements, transportation of my stuff, risks inherent in getting the payments, breach of contract, and potential loss of income. If it were a 6 month contract, that is better, but a 1 yr would probably be better. I'd rather do my research and hopefully land a position in a company that pays great salary (not exorbinant like contractors get is expected) but affordable to meet the general living costs in the area. I'll be looking at the cost of living, cost of houses, crime rates, city data, and other characteristics when looking for a possible new area to move to. I honestly like where I am now but the costs of living and housing are just too high for me right now. I don't want to commute over an hour one-way a day to make it to my job like many people do.

It was dark out when I was on Roselle Rd in Hoffman Estates. I was in the right-most turning lane waiting for the green arrow to go to the Marathon gas station. Gas is $2.45 a gallon. I notice a small compact red car in the left-most turning lane right next to mine. It catches my attention because I notice movement in the back seat and for a moment I thought I saw a dog, but there were 3 teenagers in the back seat and one in the front seat, one in the driver's seat of course.

I look the other way as to not draw attention and contine waiting for the light. I hear laughing to my left and notice a teenage boy walking then running to the vehicle. Apparently he had gotten out and as a practical joke amongst his friends, they speed up to pretend like they were leaving him.

Light is still red.

Then I watch their car inch up a bit as if the light had turned. My reaction was to inch up a bit until I verified with the arrow still being red.

Red arrows mean you can't go.

They inched up again and after the opposing turning lanes were givin a green arrow there appeared to be two lanes of cars turning. A few in both lanes had turned when the red compact car made a dash to turn against this traffic.

They were going to get creamed and would have if I didn't HONK so loudly to make them stop. The cars in the opposing lane narrowly avoided this car an it blocked most of the intersection.

After the cars were gone, it went ahead fastly and probably didn't think that they could have died.

Maybe I saved some lives today, maybe I didn't..