Happy Valentine's Day

It is raining in Dallas. What was I to do?

Heading Toward Green

Valentine's Day with Cupid as its mascot has done its fly-by for this year. It now swings out into space on its way around the calendar orbit toward 2016 and its return. Fat Tuesday, Carnival or Mardi Gras, comes screeching  to a halt  at midnight to anything goes partying for another year. Already the multi-colored plastic eggs,  fake green grass, baskets and white stuffed bunnies are beginning to appear in the stores. It's another endless cycle in the marketing, advertising, and retail commerce world and I thought steel mill rolling schedules were odd in size rotations to even more odd when customers and billet stockpiles rearrange themselves almost over night.

 Besides, it's getting close to ice cream season. It was 78-degrees F on Saturday and I had to fight the steering wheel in the car as I drove by the two  neighborhood Braum Ice Cream stores on the way home. And Bill Gates said he is worried about machines taken over. I wonder if his car gets strong-headed in Redmond around ice cream stores? When I was a kid, my grandfather would take me in his wagon to the back of his farm when he missed a cow during  calving season. Never once, did I see him touch the reins on that wagon. All he did was to talk to his team of horses and they took us right back to the barn. Maybe my car already knows that Braum's is the place for ice cream runs. I should try that with my car when I'm out during ice cream runs this year. I'll get back with you on that.

That 78-degrees of yesterday is sinking pretty fast tonight as two separate cold fronts are bringing snow and ice dangerously close to me both tonight and tomorrow and Tuesday. While I still like snow, I don't like ice here in Texas. The thing about ice is that it takes down big trees and when they fall, they fall on power-lines and that takes out electricity. I heat with electricity, not gas. When you hear ice-talk here generally, people don't like to drive on ice. I'm pretty cool with driving on ice and snow has never been a problem. But, not having any heat becomes a health issue and that worries me. So I'm thinking about talking dance lessons on line to learn how to ward off the ice. It sure does not work for rain. Hopefully, it works for ice.

A long time ago, I was scheduled to fly out of Atlanta one morning for High Point, North Carolina. The problem that morning was that Hickory, North Carolina had gotten 2-inches of ice over night and nothing was going north that early morning." Maybe by 10", the airlines said. They were working on it. Long story short, they found a 4-prop that, " could probably get out of Hickory" one of the ticket agents said. "They will pick us up and take us back to High Point'', the agent again responded. The old plane had the familiar markings of Piedmont Airlines, the forerunner of US Air. First time I ever had to chip an inch of ice off a rental car,too, but I got to High Point that same day. I'm so glad that I don't have to do things like that any more. As it turned out, that plane in Hickory was a re-schedule of equipment. If that plane had not been in Hickory for what ever reason, I would have had to redo my entire schedule for that east coast run. I guess it was about then that I started not to like ice storms.

So, if I get a good report from the cardio guy that is coming up,clearing the way to St. Patty's Day weekend, I'll be a happy Irishman for sure. Don't need a dance for that one......we've got a few stored up for that weekend come rain or come shine.

Lower Greenville Avenue is one of the three largest parade routes in the US on St. Patrick's Day.