We made it through the polar vortex intact, more or less. I am fortunate to have a garage at home, and a parking garage at the office as well. Last summer I shelled out for a software upgrade for my car to disable the constant draw on the battery (a satellite radio related quirk) that often left my car battery dead in the winter. After last week my car was fine. Our neighborhood bakery wasn’t so lucky. Dulceria had a couple of pipes burst. They put up a gofundme campaign:
Our priority is to pay staff for all cancelled shifts, even though insurance won’t cover most of it, we made no sales at our store, and cancelled and reimbursed paid pre-orders. We also expect repairs costs to impact us, not to mention we still have to cover our monthly expenses. And did we mention our brand new oven also needed repairs?
Thankfully that’s been fully funded and they are planning to reopen by Thursday. But this week has its own weather woes: Ice takes down Blue Line during miserable morning commute: Crashes piled up on mainline roads as pedestrians slipped and fell on icy sidewalks and Minnesota Weather: Roads Are Slick Monday Morning. Ya think? I wiped out walking to my car and hit the back of my head on a concrete step. Got in my car anyway, a little dazed and I’m definitely going to be sore. My driveway is on an incline. When reversing I nearly lost control and skidded into the neighbor’s garage. Only narrowly avoided it. Side streets were terrible. Main roads were ok but go slow. There’s black ice everywhere. The Twin Cities turned into a hockey rink this morning. There was another round of school delays, but not outright closures, and cancellation of after school activities. Returning home I was unable to get enough traction to make it back up my driveway and had to park in front of the house. I am ready to sleep it off until Spring.
Rather than my usual Five Good Things let’s file these under “Something’s Got to Give” :
- The antidote to civilisational collapse: An interview with the documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis
- Munchery: How a venture-backed startup swindled a group of women and minority owned companies out of over $50,000 and is getting away with it. Not cool.
- The shutdown is over. Can Joshua Tree recover? “Off-road drivers and vandals damaged the fragile ecosystem, prompting fears it could take ‘300 years’ to bounce back.” So furious.
- Every Single Seal, Dolphin, And Whale In One Study Found To Have Ingested Plastic: “Marine mammals are good sentinels of how humans are impacting the marine environment given they are long-lived and high up in the food chain.”
- Some better news: A coalition of giant brands is about to change how we shop forever, with a new zero-waste platform. Really hope initiatives like this gain some traction.
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