Once again an ice story. Since trees and ice don't exactly work well together there are tree limbs down all over our fine city. The power is still out all over the place and the cable Internet, TV, and phone are spotty at best, all due to the still heavy ice and fallen tree parts. This story is about three guys, a chain saw, 1 1/2 shovels, a bag of salt, a 3 gal gas can, two axes, and a nut. One of my close friends who happened to move to Lexington a short 4 months ago had an ice covered driveway and bunch of trees down on her property. The story goes like this... 3 guys show up, the chainsaw ran beautiful, the shovels cut through the ice like butta' and the salt did the rest, the gas can sat unused along with ax one and two, and the nut that holds the chain tensioner is long gone.
You know those 3 guys? They were able to help out a great friend whom I hold in high regard.
THE END
Thursday, January 29, 2009
HINT... HILL+ICE=NO PROGRESS
So I finally decided that I had something to say about topic that might warrant a blog, albeit a topic that many of my friends here in the “great” Blue Grass State have blogged about before. You see unless you live here in the Commonwealth of Kentucky you cannot possibly understand what we have to deal with when it comes to driving. Those of you who do live in this messed up, backwards, and confused state already knows what I could share. This short essay, however, is not going to point out the little everyday things that we have to deal with here, such as, the lack of turn signals, the driving in the left lane, the driving in the left lane at the same exact speed as the person in the right lane even though the car behind you is flashing its lights and blowing its horn and riding your…!
No, this short rant is dedicated to those who can understand my pain. Those individuals, who are from frozen states, check that, states that are frozen more times than not during the winter. You see growing up in Western New York you have no option but to learn to drive in frozen conditions. And I never I thought that it was all that hard and I never thought that it was a particularly special skill. Until I moved to the God forsaken “Wild Cat Country.” As with most of the US right now Kentucky is under a layer of ice and on top of that a layer of snow.
As I look around the neighborhood I can’t help but wonder if people driving by can pick out the house who’s residents grew up in the North. Well, I should say for all my true southern friends further north than Kentucky. Since it seems that Kentucky is neither North nor South, just confused. I digress…
The past couple of days have been very interesting, nothing that I would say could deemed as “state of emergency” unless you’re one of the unfortunate who lost power for some time and for that I sympathize and say go the High St Y and get a hot shower. There are a couple of instances that I do want to the share with the rest of the world. Lets begin with the next-door neighbor’s boyfriend followed by a short story about Fred Flintstone. Allow me to set up the situation. Aimee and I live in the backside of a hill. The way our driveway is situated you have to come down the hill pass the house make a 180* U-turn to the right and climb the hill pass six houses and then turn left in to our driveway.
The brilliant boyfriend of said next-door neighbor decides to try to get to her house. Mind you that he is driving a utility van. The van was big, white, and has no windows in the back, a true utility van, but understand that what the van looks like is not as important as the fact that the van is rear wheel drive. This can cause all sorts of problems when the roads are simply wet with rain around here but this day Mother Nature had dealt a hand that included quite literally an inch of ice that coated everything like white frosting on Funfetti Cake. And like eating too much cake can send you into diabetic shock watching someone try to climb a hill in a rear wheel drive van can send you into a aggravated state of confusion. Both are inevitable and both are unpleasant. It wouldn’t have been all that bad but the genius decided to stop behind our driveway making it nearly impossible to get to where we were headed. Finally, Aimee and I maneuvered the car our of the driveway, which by now had 100 lbs of salt spread on it, and made our way to Lowe’s for a new shovel. As we made out return to our home, I see 4 or 5 men standing in the middle of the road in front of our house. Turns out that the boy genius had decided to try to make it up the hill into our neighbor’s driveway. He has now slid in he landscaping in front of our house; stuck, he thinks that more power will free he from his captivity. He lays on the gas throwing and flinging mud and tree branches through the air meanwhile digging Kentucky’s version of the Grand Canyon in my landscaping. I have one question for the boy genius, why didn’t you back down the hill instead of trying to climb up said hill that was covered in a sheet of ice? HINT… HILL + ICE = NO PROGRESS.
Fast-forward maybe 2 hours, I’m outside shoveling off my driveway with relative ease because of the 200lbs of salt that was now melting the ice. Once again here comes a vehicle up our side of the street. This time it is not boy-genius but I think it could have been a close-distance relative that may have been educated at the same school of “I live in Kentucky and I can’t drive, can I have a drivers license anyway?” This time there was no utility van involved though the vehicle trying it this time was an early 90’s Blazer, two-doors, and two wheel drive a busted old P.O.S. half rusted through. Part of me wondered if the floor pans were still intact or whether the owner was going to go Fred Flintstone style.
As I’m removing the snow and ice from my driveway I hear this SUV coming up behind me on our street. As I turn to see and to make sure that he didn’t lose control and hit me. I turn to observe and think immediately that there is no way he can make it. You can tell that he just didn’t have the momentum that he needed to make it to the top, which by the way is where he was trying to go. So, I put my head down and continue to shovel. As he passes my house the vehicle he’s trying to drive begins to slow and the rear tires begin to spin. The SUV then starts to slide back so what does the driver do? He gives it more gas. Ol’ Freddie is now redlining and continuing to slide back towards, where? You guessed it, towards my landscaping…
The blazing tires are spinning at a ridiculous speed as their owner slides in one of the blossoming trees that we have out front. As the Blazer comes to rest against the tree the driver takes a moment. You can tell he’s trying to think things through and then… There goes the rev of the engine and the clip of the rev limiter. He’s trying to climb the hill again this time with no momentum and same ill fate. After 2 or 3 minutes of burning rubber and loud revving “Fred” realizing that going up the hill isn’t going to work rolls down his window and says (in the most redneck accent you can imagine), “Sure is slippery out here.” Rolls up his window and proceeds to try again. (HINT… HILL+ICE=NO PROGRESS) Finally, understanding that up is not an option he puts it in reverse and begins to back down the hill. But guess what? Oh, remember that landscaping, yeah he just backed down over top of it. Here I pause and would like to say that this is the end of my story but like an infomercial only seen at 3 o’clock in the morning I have to say, “but, wait there’s more.”
When he reaches the bottom of the hill he comes to a stop, puts in drive and steps on the gas peddle. The engine in the already tested Blazer flairs and the tires begin to spin. The driver neglected to somehow realize that the ice that was covering the hill making his ascent impossible continued at the bottom of the hill. After minutes of trying to move forward the driver remembers that reverse just worked. So he drops the SUV into reverse and rolls backwards towards the end of the road that has no outlet. He then proceeds to continue to back over the landscaping at the end of the street in the main road which has salt-trucks maintaining it so its relatively easy to traverse. Finally, freed the SUV proceeds to climb to the top of John Sutherland Dr. where is stops and drops off its passenger who then walks to his front door and into his house. Are you kidding me? Did that just happen?
That just happened.
No, this short rant is dedicated to those who can understand my pain. Those individuals, who are from frozen states, check that, states that are frozen more times than not during the winter. You see growing up in Western New York you have no option but to learn to drive in frozen conditions. And I never I thought that it was all that hard and I never thought that it was a particularly special skill. Until I moved to the God forsaken “Wild Cat Country.” As with most of the US right now Kentucky is under a layer of ice and on top of that a layer of snow.
As I look around the neighborhood I can’t help but wonder if people driving by can pick out the house who’s residents grew up in the North. Well, I should say for all my true southern friends further north than Kentucky. Since it seems that Kentucky is neither North nor South, just confused. I digress…
The past couple of days have been very interesting, nothing that I would say could deemed as “state of emergency” unless you’re one of the unfortunate who lost power for some time and for that I sympathize and say go the High St Y and get a hot shower. There are a couple of instances that I do want to the share with the rest of the world. Lets begin with the next-door neighbor’s boyfriend followed by a short story about Fred Flintstone. Allow me to set up the situation. Aimee and I live in the backside of a hill. The way our driveway is situated you have to come down the hill pass the house make a 180* U-turn to the right and climb the hill pass six houses and then turn left in to our driveway.
The brilliant boyfriend of said next-door neighbor decides to try to get to her house. Mind you that he is driving a utility van. The van was big, white, and has no windows in the back, a true utility van, but understand that what the van looks like is not as important as the fact that the van is rear wheel drive. This can cause all sorts of problems when the roads are simply wet with rain around here but this day Mother Nature had dealt a hand that included quite literally an inch of ice that coated everything like white frosting on Funfetti Cake. And like eating too much cake can send you into diabetic shock watching someone try to climb a hill in a rear wheel drive van can send you into a aggravated state of confusion. Both are inevitable and both are unpleasant. It wouldn’t have been all that bad but the genius decided to stop behind our driveway making it nearly impossible to get to where we were headed. Finally, Aimee and I maneuvered the car our of the driveway, which by now had 100 lbs of salt spread on it, and made our way to Lowe’s for a new shovel. As we made out return to our home, I see 4 or 5 men standing in the middle of the road in front of our house. Turns out that the boy genius had decided to try to make it up the hill into our neighbor’s driveway. He has now slid in he landscaping in front of our house; stuck, he thinks that more power will free he from his captivity. He lays on the gas throwing and flinging mud and tree branches through the air meanwhile digging Kentucky’s version of the Grand Canyon in my landscaping. I have one question for the boy genius, why didn’t you back down the hill instead of trying to climb up said hill that was covered in a sheet of ice? HINT… HILL + ICE = NO PROGRESS.
Fast-forward maybe 2 hours, I’m outside shoveling off my driveway with relative ease because of the 200lbs of salt that was now melting the ice. Once again here comes a vehicle up our side of the street. This time it is not boy-genius but I think it could have been a close-distance relative that may have been educated at the same school of “I live in Kentucky and I can’t drive, can I have a drivers license anyway?” This time there was no utility van involved though the vehicle trying it this time was an early 90’s Blazer, two-doors, and two wheel drive a busted old P.O.S. half rusted through. Part of me wondered if the floor pans were still intact or whether the owner was going to go Fred Flintstone style.
As I’m removing the snow and ice from my driveway I hear this SUV coming up behind me on our street. As I turn to see and to make sure that he didn’t lose control and hit me. I turn to observe and think immediately that there is no way he can make it. You can tell that he just didn’t have the momentum that he needed to make it to the top, which by the way is where he was trying to go. So, I put my head down and continue to shovel. As he passes my house the vehicle he’s trying to drive begins to slow and the rear tires begin to spin. The SUV then starts to slide back so what does the driver do? He gives it more gas. Ol’ Freddie is now redlining and continuing to slide back towards, where? You guessed it, towards my landscaping…
The blazing tires are spinning at a ridiculous speed as their owner slides in one of the blossoming trees that we have out front. As the Blazer comes to rest against the tree the driver takes a moment. You can tell he’s trying to think things through and then… There goes the rev of the engine and the clip of the rev limiter. He’s trying to climb the hill again this time with no momentum and same ill fate. After 2 or 3 minutes of burning rubber and loud revving “Fred” realizing that going up the hill isn’t going to work rolls down his window and says (in the most redneck accent you can imagine), “Sure is slippery out here.” Rolls up his window and proceeds to try again. (HINT… HILL+ICE=NO PROGRESS) Finally, understanding that up is not an option he puts it in reverse and begins to back down the hill. But guess what? Oh, remember that landscaping, yeah he just backed down over top of it. Here I pause and would like to say that this is the end of my story but like an infomercial only seen at 3 o’clock in the morning I have to say, “but, wait there’s more.”
When he reaches the bottom of the hill he comes to a stop, puts in drive and steps on the gas peddle. The engine in the already tested Blazer flairs and the tires begin to spin. The driver neglected to somehow realize that the ice that was covering the hill making his ascent impossible continued at the bottom of the hill. After minutes of trying to move forward the driver remembers that reverse just worked. So he drops the SUV into reverse and rolls backwards towards the end of the road that has no outlet. He then proceeds to continue to back over the landscaping at the end of the street in the main road which has salt-trucks maintaining it so its relatively easy to traverse. Finally, freed the SUV proceeds to climb to the top of John Sutherland Dr. where is stops and drops off its passenger who then walks to his front door and into his house. Are you kidding me? Did that just happen?
That just happened.
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