Oh Crap!

As my future trip to Ireland gets closer, I've been checking on things concerning it. Today, I checked on the flights I'll be taking. To my shock, I found out Delta moved the flight I'll be taking to Dublin 3 hours. That means, I'll have a 4 hour plus layover in New York JFK Airport. That sucks! It gets worse coming back. Because they moved the departing flight to Dublin 3 hours, they had to move the returning flight 3 hours. So, I find I now have 1 hour to get through customs at JFK and catch my connecting flight home when I return to the states. I don't think that's going to work. I'm pretty sure Globus will have to change my flight reservations. If all that news wasn't annoying enough, I found out my flight from JFK to Dublin will be 6 hours 55 minutes airtime. 7 hours is a long flight. Hm. Maybe, I should see about flying over a day early so I don't fall asleep at my tour's first group dinner. I checked into that and, it would cost $195 not including tax. I can handle that. It would be nice to have an extra day in Dublin. The tour doesn't spend boat loads of time there any way so, it wouldn't hurt to see more of that city. Now, I have to wait to find out from my travel agent what is going to have flights wise as well as will Globus penalize me if I add a day at the beginning of the tour. We'll see. Hopefully, I can and, I'll get to spend more time in Ireland. We'll see. Stay tuned.

Snow Update

This is an update to my last post on the heavy snowfall received in Maryland on Friday/Saturday February 5/6,2010. The snow stopped falling in Laurel, Maryland at approximately 4:15 p.m. I know this because I was shoveling out my car around 3:30 p.m. and, I could see the snowfall taper off to where it finally stopped when I went back in my apartment. People started digging their cars out after that.

Where I live, I got mixed luck plowing wise in my apartment complex. To my surprise, the maintenance folks were able to get through and did plow a path through the parking lot. However, they didn't come particularly close to the cars and, everyone had a 3 to 4 foot by 4 foot wide by 2 foot high plus pile of snow to dig out. This didn't include having to dig out pathways on the side of their cars. I got a royal workout digging out my car and helping some others who live in my complex.

I think a lot of people should be able to make it to work tomorrow. However, we aren't over the hump yet. The latest National Weather Service weather forecast (http://weather.gov) is predicting an 80 percent chance of snow/sleet Tuesday night and a 70 percent chance of snow Wednesday. Stay tuned for more updates. Cheers all!

Snow Update

Here is my first update on the snowstore that socked Maryland. The snow started falling sometime around Noon. Initially, it was very light and a lot of it melted on the roads. Around 4 p.m., the snow started falling more heavily and by 5 p.m., there was 2 to 3 inches of accumulation. The snow continued to fall heavily during the night.

I tried gauging how the snow was from my apartment but, my apartment windows were partly covered with it so, I bundled up and walked out into it. At 6 a.m., I found my apartment complex parking lot had at least 17 inches of snow. Some areas around my apartment building have 23 inches plus. I walked up to the Maryland 198 road to see if it had been plowed. It had though there was only 1 stretch that was passable. There wasn't any traffic on it at that time. A good wind was blowing that blustery at times. According to the National Weather Service (NWS) (http://weather.gov), there will be gusts as high as 35 mph today.

The NWS is predicting the snow will continue to fall heavily until this evening with the possibility of another 4 to 8 inches of snow. In my opinion, people should stay home and off the roads if they can. The conditions are really bad right now. Stay tuned for more updates. Cheers!

Snow Forecast

I'm not looking forward to work today. The reason for that is the weather forecast. Beginning around 10 a.m., snow is supposed to start falling and continue till possibly Noon tomorrow. It's forecasted that the area where I live could get between 17 and 27 inches of snow. This could easily become the worst snowfall I've seen here since I moved here in 2001. That much snow for this area (Maryland) would make a royal mess of things. Road crews typically don't start plowing the main roads till it stops snowing. Also, the apartment complex where I live have their maintenance people plow the parking lots. This is dependent on them being able to get in. If we get as much snow as forecasted, they won't be able to get in till late Saturday at the earliest. Also, where are they going to put all that snow? It promises to be a massive mess.

AND, things could get worse. I've heard they're forecasting we'll get hit with even more of the white stuff around Wednesday of next week. This is shaping up to be one of the worst winters in some in Maryland. Stay tuned for more updates as the weather progresses. Cheers all!

Map Updates

Yesterday, I found out there was a map update for my Garmin Nuvi 750 GPS. So, I started downloading the massive thing. It was 2.06 gigabytes and incredibly, the file was compressed. I don't have any idea how large it would be uncompressed. I didn't have to pay for the update as I'd bought lifetime map update downloads. It's cheaper that way but, you have to download them vice getting an easy CD or DVD (not sure which they use). My Internet connection isn't super slow but, it still takes a good while to download a 2 gigabyte plus file. After you download it, you have decompress it and install it on the unit. Installing the map update can take up to 2 hours. Overall, it is a bit of pain installing updates but, the unit has been really handy at times. It'll tell me how long it'll take for me to arrive at a set destination, when I need to make various turns and automatically recalibrate a new route if I miss a turn for whatever reasons. Also, it's handy when I get the itch to go exploring. I'll just drive down a road to see where it goes. More often than not, I get lost but, the GPS ensures I can find my way home. I've been very glad I bought the thing. Cheers all!