Disclaimer: this photo is NOT from today. It is from sometime in Feb 2008! It was 60 degrees here today. We fairly often have temperatures in that range here in the winter although they usually don’t stick around for long.

Okay, so I walked outta work at the end of that day to a totally iced up car. The dogha was a 2001 top-dollar Honda (dogha = Dirty Old Green Honda Accord). Great car (V6 vroom), up there in my top three, but it didn’t have remote pre-heat functionality. If I wanted to pre-heat the dogha, I had to go outside, get IN the vee-hickle, start the ignition and turn everything (heat and defroggers) up to high. That was okay in the Landfill driveway, which is in a very low crime area (knock on wood) and I can easily see what’s going on in the driveway from the front living room and kitchen. Also, I was usually outside too, shoveling snow. At Cubelandia I didn’t pre-heat my car although it would probably have been safe there too since it was in the remotest part of a backwater business park with no traffic unless you want to count water birds and things.

Fortunately I am well equipped with ice scrapers and experienced at using them after spending a lifetime in the Great Lake State and childhood in the yooperland. So I don’t remember this at all but what the heck, it is a common enough occurrence that I knew the drill. Get in the car, start it up, put everything up to high, make sure not to lock your keys in the car, grab your ice scraper, and START CHISELING.

By the time I got out to the main road (South State north toward Ellsworth if you know Ann Arbor), my veeeendsheeeld looked like this. Yes, I can see. I don’t remember if the ROADS were slippery that day. I’m sure they were iffy but not total sheets of ice. There are times when your vee-hickle can be totally encased in ice (like the dogha was) but the roads are kinda okay. Looking at the long line of traffic I had to sit in (and I was *obviously* sitting because I took a photoooo), I’m guessing people were taking it easy. But also, the notorious State/Ellsworth roundabout had not been built yet. Before the roundabout, traffic on S. State was often backed up like that at that time of day even when the pavement was bone dry and the sun was out. The dogha and I just chugged slowly along in zen mode.

Of course we eventually acquired cars that can be remotely pre-heated. That’s all fine but Cygnus (our newest) limits pre-heat to two five minute periods. After that I can’t pre-heat her again. It isn’t always enough time to de-ice zee veeeendsheeeld enough to avoid using a scraper. I am not a climate-change denier but c’mon, we live in the Great White North and we don’t really have to egregiously idle all that often even in the winter. Most winters, anyway. Your mileage may vary.

Since the future of teleCublandia arrived, I have not had to deal with winter driving conditions, at least not to get to work.

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