A Non-Awesome Snow Morning

Yesterday, just before noon, the office of personnel management [OPM] made a very smart move by excusing federal employees 2 hours early from their normal work day. I get to work very early in the mornings, which allowed me to take off and head home about 1:00 in the afternoon. I'm very, very thankful I was able to do that, because I've heard nothing but horror stories of people being stranded on their normal commutes home, taking 8, 10, or even 12 hours. No human being should ever be subject to that kind of roadway torture.  I made it home yesterday before any precipitation began to fall from the sky. Once the snow did start falling hard, I walked over to the store and got ingredients to make chili at home. It was delicious, and you can find the recipe here. Moving on.

My guess is that we got about 8-9 inches of snow last night. I was up late checking the OPM website to see if there were any updates on today's operating status. With no updates late at night, I had no choice but to get to bed in case I had to come into work today. I woke up at 3:00am and there was still no update, when I checked again at 5:00am, I was not so happy with what I saw: 2 hour delayed opening. Usually when I see this, I just head in at my normal time, because it means there will be less traffic on the roads. So I went outside and started the car, came in and got ready, and then headed back out to get all the snow off the car. Once the car was cleared off, I backed out of my driveway, made it about 20 feet, aaaaaand stuck. My car simply cannot make it through anything more than 4 inches of snow. I tried rocking it, and clearing a path little by little, but it was useless. I had no choice, I had to go wake up my roommate. 

He got up, got dressed, and came out to help. At first he just tried pushing but we quickly realized that wasn't going to cut it. So we went and got his Explorer from the driveway, and he just pulled out and drove right around me. I was thinking to myself, 'you gotta be kidding me.' I swear, my next daily driver WILL either be an SUV with 4 wheel drive, or at the least another car with AWD capability. Anyways, he drives right around my stuck car, and backs it up. We attached a tow rope to the front of my car and he pulled me through the remaining 40 or so feet out to a more cleared out area, and it was off to work I go. 

If I wasn't trying to save all my vacation time right now for my upcoming trip to Colorado, I would've just taken unscheduled leave today and skipped work all-together. But Colorado is worth a morning of frustration here. Below are two pictures of my car stuck directly in front of my house. Man, I hope a plow makes it through our neighborhood today. 

Stuck.

View from front door. Yea, I made it real far. 

Oh, and as I was about 5 minutes away from arriving at work, I realized I forgot my dress shirt at home. So yea, I look real professional today. Super. And yes, I wrote this post while at work, because there is no one else in my building, and it appears as though I'm the only one crazy enough to actually attempt going to work today. 

Beef & Beer 'Casserole'

As previously mentioned, I got a crock pot and cook book for Christmas last month, and have had a great time putting it to good use, esp with this cold weather! I was flipping through the 'Winter Warm-Ups' section of the book the other day and found this recipe for a beef and beer casserole. The picture looked good, I like beef......and beer, so I thought "why not?!" My roommate and I headed out to the store, picked up the ingredients and threw it all in the crock pot, and headed out for some go-karting and saturday afternoon fun!

*Quick side note. If you've never been out to All-Sports Grand Prix for go-karting you are missing out. You're required to take a safety class, have a valid license, wear a jumpsuit, helmet, and gloves. The karts are fast, and you're on a slick track. It's the real deal, and I highly recommend getting out there!

Back on topic. We return home that evening to a house filled with the lovely aroma of tender beef and Yuengling. That'll warm ya up on a real cold day! The meal was awesome and perfectly hit the spot! Tender beef, red skinned potatoes, and beer, mmmmmm.

Oh and literally as I'm typing this I've got some bbq'd beef in the crock pot at home ready for some bbq'd pulled beef sandwiches tonight. I'm doing a test run before the super bowl party this sunday. Update to follow....

Dinner Time!

So for Christmas I received two very awesome and very practical gifts. A crock pot, and a recipe book to go with it. My roommate and I have wasted no time putting them to use! Two nights ago we decided that we wanted ribs the following night (yesterday).

Since I leave the house usually by 6am for work, my roommate put the ribs in the crock pot when he left, closer to 8. He put a dry rub on the ribs and just threw them right in the pot and set it to low for 8 hours or so. When I walked in the door around 4pm I almost fell over the house smelled so good! I immediately became starving too.

I read in the recipe book that you have to resist all temptation to open the lid while the food is cooking cause that will let all the heat out, and I did, but boy was it tempting!

Right around 6, I took the ribs out, dumped out all the juices that had accumulated, and smothered the ribs in the sauce (recipe for sauce was included as well) I had prepared. I put the ribs back in the crock pot on high for about another 30 minutes. As soon as my roommate walked in the door around 6:35, we had a feast! They really were fall off the bone ribs, as you can see in the pictures, the bones were bare and clean the meat came off so easily. If anyone wants the recipe, let me know and I'll get it to you. Hopefully the pictures don't make you too hungry!!