I think that spring has finally sprung around here …

Of course, now that I’ve said that, the weather is gonna get crappy … LOL. Hopefully not.

I’ve had my balcony door open most of the afternoon. It’s nice to get some fresh air into the apartment. So I’ve been listening to the sounds of interstate all afternoon (since I live only a couple blocks from it and can see it from my balcony). The sound doesn’t bother me though. It’s kind of soothing actually.

Days like today make me wish I wasn’t afraid of my grill. I’m not afraid of the grill itself … just the fire that comes from it … LOL. I have a wooden balcony. And my grill is one of those cheap table-top ones that I got at Fleet Farm last year. I’m just freaked out that I’m gonna set the balcony (and thus the entire apartment building) on fire. When I used it last year, I always had a pail of water sitting by. I wanted to get a fire extinguisher, but never got around to it. But I can’t use it anyway. I don’t have any propane. I think I’m gonna give it to my parents to use since I’m so leery of it.

I was planning on getting my hair cut this morning. Mona (my friend and hair dresser) works from 9am to 4pm today. My plans were to head out around 9:30am or so to get my hair cut and then stop at Walmart to get some stuff that I needed (and since it’s right by where I get my hair cut). But that plan got blown away. As I mentioned yesterday, we had some crappy weather coming. But I was hoping that it wouldn’t get as bad as they were saying or that it would die down before I wanted to go out. But nope …

…BLIZZARD WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST THIS AFTERNOON…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GRAND FORKS HAS ISSUED A GROUND
BLIZZARD WARNING…WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST THIS
AFTERNOON. THE WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

NORTHWEST WINDS OF 25 TO 35 MPH WITH HIGHER GUSTS WILL OCCUR TODAY
CAUSING BLOWING SNOW AND POOR VISIBILITIES ESPECIALLY IN OPEN
COUNTRY. LITTLE ADDITIONAL SNOW IS EXPECTED. ALSO WIND CHILL
TEMPERATURES WILL FALL TO 25 TO 35 BELOW ZERO BY LATE SATURDAY.

A BLIZZARD WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE
OCCURRING. FALLING AND BLOWING SNOW WITH STRONG WINDS AND POOR
VISIBILITIES ARE LIKELY. THIS WILL LEAD TO WHITEOUT
CONDITIONS…MAKING TRAVEL EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. TRAVEL IS NOT
ADVISED IN OR NEAR THE WARNED AREA.

Yeah … I had no plans to go out of town, but I still don’t wanna drive around in this … even in town. I just don’t wanna deal with the wind OR the wind chills. The windchill right now is -25°F. Not fun.

But Mona works tomorrow too. So hopefully the weather will be better and I can get my hair cut then. Sunday is normally my lazy day, but I’ll do that today. I’ll plop my ass in front of the tv for damn near 12 hours of NASCAR today … ending with the Bud Shootout tonite. After practice last nite, I have a feeling the race is gonna be CRAZY!!!

I am so ready for spring. It’s not that we’ve gotten a lot of snow. We have gotten our fair share. But it’s been so damn cold. Temps well below zero and wind chills even colder are not fun. And now we have our first blizzard watch of 2008.

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GRAND FORKS ND
1108 AM CST FRI FEB 8 2008

…GROUND BLIZZARD CONDITIONS POSSIBLE LATE TONIGHT…

.ONLY AN INCH OR TWO OF LIGHT SNOW IS EXPECTED ALONG AN ARCTIC
COLD FRONT MOVING THROUGH THE AREA LATE TONIGHT. HOWEVER…THIS
NEW SNOW…WHEN COMBINED WITH THE SNOW THAT FELL EARLIER THIS
WEEK…WILL MAKE PORTIONS OF THE AREA VERY SUSCEPTIBLE TO GROUND
BLIZZARD CONDITIONS AS NORTHWEST WIND SPEEDS INCREASE TONIGHT INTO
SATURDAY. WIND GUSTS OF 45 TO 50 MPH ARE EXPECTED…WHICH COULD
CAUSE NEAR ZERO VISIBILITIES AT TIMES…ESPECIALLY IN OPEN
COUNTRY. BITTERLY COLD AIR WILL ALSO SURGE INTO THE REGION…
RESULTING IN WIND CHILL READINGS FROM 35 BELOW TO 50 BELOW ZERO BY
LATE TONIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT.

TODAY WILL BE DECEPTIVELY MILD WITH VERY LITTLE WIND. HOWEVER…
AS THIS ARCTIC FRONTS SWEEPS TOWARD A DEVILS LAKE TO LANGDON LINE
BY LATE THIS EVENING…GROUND BLIZZARD CONDITIONS COULD QUICKLY
DEVELOP. THE FRONT IS EXPECTED TO REACH THE RED RIVER VALLEY
SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT…AND PUSH INTO EASTERN MINNESOTA BY
SATURDAY MORNING. DUE TO THE POTENTIAL FOR RAPIDLY CHANGING
WEATHER CONDITIONS…PEOPLE NEED TO MONITOR THE LATEST FORECASTS
AND STATEMENTS REGARDING THIS EVENT.

The temps are nice now … 22°. But after this crap goes through, it’s gonna get cold again. I am SOOOOO ready for spring. When does it start?

Conditions from about a half hour ago …

And look what that does to the INSIDE of my balcony window …

Click to enlarge

So … yeah … it’s a little chilly out today.

I almost looks like a blizzard outside right now. It started snowing around 6pm or so (I think … I was in my bedroom watching something I had taped today). The wind is rather strong. I can barely see the West Acres sign … and I can normally see it without any trouble. The temp is around 34° right now … slightly above freezing … so the roads are gonna be slick. I’m glad I decided NOT to go to Walmart tonite. I was gonna go and get some baking supplies. I hope things clear up by morning. They’re supposed to … I think. We’re in a Winter Weather Advisory until 2am … so by 7:30am or so, things should be better. I just don’t want to have to drive on crappy roads to work. It would be nice if I was already working from home. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about the weather. But I guess I shouldn’t complain … I do live in North Dakota.

It’s the weekend, so of course the weather is crappy. It’s rather wet out right now …

And according to the radar, it’s not going to stop any time soon. And I’ve got a bunch of running around to do. I better add an umbrella to my shopping list …

I went to the grocery store tonite to get some stuff. My fridge was getting pretty bare. When I left, I noticed it was wet out. It was dry when I left home. And it was raining pretty good. I’m wearing a white tshirt. Luckily, it wasn’t raining too bad. Enough to get wet but not enough to turn my tshirt see-through.

After I got in my car, I heard on the radio that we are in a severe thunderstorm warning until 9pm …

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE EASTERN ND/GRAND FORKS
807 PM CDT FRI MAY 18 2007

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GRAND FORKS HAS ISSUED A

* SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR…
CENTRAL CLAY COUNTY IN NORTHWEST MINNESOTA…
EXTREME EAST CENTRAL CASS COUNTY IN SOUTHEAST NORTH DAKOTA…
THIS INCLUDES THE CITY OF FARGO…

* UNTIL 900 PM CDT

* AT 807 PM CDT…NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING GOLF BALL SIZE HAIL…AND
DESTRUCTIVE WINDS IN EXCESS OF 70 MPH. THE STORM WAS LOCATED 2
MILES NORTH OF MOORHEAD…OR 3 MILES NORTHEAST OF FARGO…MOVING TO
THE EAST AT 15 MPH.

* THE SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WILL BE NEAR…
NORTH FARGO AND NORTH MOORHEAD AT 810 PM CDT…
DILWORTH AT 815 PM CDT…
GLYNDON AT 835 PM CDT…
6 MILES NORTH OF DOWNER AT 855 PM CDT…
MUSKODA AT 900 PM CDT…

REMEMBER SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS CAN AND OCCASIONALLY DO PRODUCE
TORNADOES WITH LITTLE OR NO ADVANCE WARNING.

Notice it says “at 8:07pm” … I was leaving the grocery store at 8:10pm. LOL Talk about timing.

It looks like it’s a pretty decent storm on the radar, but of course, it’s moving out of town. There’s still some thunder and lightning though. Maybe there will be more weather before I head to bed. There’s another storm out there that has a tornado warning on it right now. That’s about 12 miles north of Valley City. Too bad it wasn’t earlier in the nite. I might have gone storm chasing … :lightning:

And I’m stupid enough to go out in it. Not once but TWICE.

First … the water. Yesterday started the rainy trend. It rained on and off all day … really gloomy. Then I get up this morning and it’s still raining. And by looking at the radar, it’s gonna rain for most of the day. There’s a good sized water puddle in the parking lot of my apartment building. And there are some in the streets in places too. Lovely weekend … LOL.

Now … my being idiotic enough to go out in this TWICE. Clean up week starts on Monday. That’s where you can toss all of your old crap away. Maybe I should go out and see if I can find a chair that’s still in good condition for my apartment … LOL. Anyways … they had a tv/computer recycling even going on today between 9am and 2pm. I still have (or should I say had ;) ) the tower from my FIRST COMPUTER. Talk about old. There’s no hard drive in it any more … it’s in my current computer. That’s where I store everything I put on it … except for my music that is. The drive is WAY TOO SMALL to put music on it. I had held on to the thing because I had wanted to try to turn it into a test web server so I could work on my websites without having to upload changes to my host to check them out. But I found EasyPHP, so I didn’t need to do that anymore. It’s been taking up space in my closet for way too long. So I decided it was time to get rid of it.

So I ventured out into the rain. Thank goodness I didn’t have to get out in the rain to drop of the computer. I was able to do that inside the city’s Solid Waste Facility. I drove in, opened the trunk, answered a couple survey questions, and drove out. Simple as can be. I made a couple stops on my way home (got cash and stopped to get some pop to feed my soda-pop addiction … LOL).

I have to go back out again in a little over an hour. I have an appointment for an oil change and tire rotation. The place I’m going is very close … I can get there in less than 5 minutes. But I still have to go out in the rain. I had intended to walk home and then go back to get my car when they were done, but not since it’s raining. I’ll just have to take a book with me and sit there and read while I wait. He had told me it should only take 30 to 45 minutes. I would have scheduled it for this morning, but I had intended on going in to get my hair colored again this morning, so I can get rid of my “stripe” …. :D. Stupid hair has to keep growing after I color it … LOL. But there’s prom today, and Mona had an up-do to do or something. I could have gotten in around 11am, but that would have made it kinda rushed to be done by 1pm for my car appointment. So I decided to put it off a little longer. The color I got isn’t that far from my natural color, so the stripe isn’t horribly obvious … or at least other people have told me it’s not that bad (of course, I notice it and hate it). But I’m not really don’t anything until around the time of Mona’s wedding (the week of the fair … silly her for scheduling during that time … LOL), so I can live with my “stripe” for a while longer.

I just looked at the radar again. It looks like we’re going to be getting a break in the rain. Hopefully it’ll last until after I get back from my oil change. After that, I’m not going out again. Not unless Robin calls and needs a ride to the hospital. I need to give her a call to see how she’s doing. I think she’s more than ready for that little one to come out … LOL. Her due date WAS yesterday after all.