The snow keeps on coming down up here in Rochester and on Sunday my stubbornness got me into a little jam once again. I headed out the door Sunday morning to go to church and when I stepped out the door I plowed into a good 14 inches of snow on the ground. Not only had we gotten dumped on but the plow guy decided to slack off and leave my driveway full of snow.

Well, since I wasn't about to let the irresponsibility of Plow Guy keep me inside and I was running far too late to shovel the driveway myself, I decided to just knuckle down and drive through it. It was only 5 degrees out, so the snow should be very light and fluffy. So I cranked up the old A4, dusted it off, and put it into gear. The car rolled forward without much trouble and I hit the gas to try to build up as much momentum as possible.

I was going strong heading around the house and hit the straightaway toward the street when I got stuck. It appeared too much snow had piled up in front of my car. After much rocking back and forth I realized that not only would I be unable to go any further forward, but I was also unable to go back. Not a huge deal except that my house has eight other apartments in it and those tenants would probably be rather unhappy if their cars were stranded behind the house because I was blocking the driveway.

I was about to head off in search of a shovel when a guy from across the street took pity on me, bundled up, grabbed a shovel and walked over. It was at this point that I took a closer look at the front of my car and realized that I had an even bigger problem. The plastic panel that is bolted under the front end of my car to protect the contents under the hood had managed to come loose on one of the back corners and every time I backed up, it was shovelling up more snow to the point where the panel was warped, mangled, and dragging on the ground. Great.

Fortunately, at this point a guy plowing the driveway next door recognized the guy helping me out and drove over to give us a hand by plowing the driveway from my front bumper to the street. So after some digging and pushing, we were able to free my car and get it to the end of the driveway. But I was still stuck with the dilemma of the plastic panel dragging on the ground.

I realized I had no choice but to remove it. I knew what I had to do. So, gritting my teeth, I threw off my coat, jacked up the car, and pulled out my trusty Leatherman. And in the 5-degree morning I flopped down onto my back in the snow and wriggled under the car.

It must have been quite a sight to drive by that morning. Blustery cold winds blowing the snow sideways, two corduroy-clad legs sticking out from under the front end of a white A4. But after a brief battle with the bolts and the risk of frostbite, I defeated both and the panel was freed. I threw it into my trunk, dusted myself off and hit the road.

And then it hit me. Church was probably cancelled. I guess that's where piety gets you.

Over the weekend I had yet another under-the-influence-of-NyQuil incident. I've been suffering from another one of my viral infections and I knew I'd have to go in and work a full day on Saturday. So Friday night I drugged myself up nice and early around 8 so I could get a good night's sleep. Around 3 am I woke up. I was very tired and groggy, but for some reason did not fall back asleep. Instead my engineering mind started trying to probe the cause of my illness. And I concluded that part of the problem was that I don't have a forced air heating system so I'm not getting enough fresh air in my apartment (never mind that I'm hardly ever actually IN my apartment). Now if it wasn't insane enough that I was thinking about air changes and the Ideal Gas Law at 3am, I actually got out of bed and started opening up my outside doors to get some fresh air. So after a few minutes I tried to close the place back up and I couldn't get the French doors out to my side porch to shut tight enough to be able to bolt them. After much pushing and shoving it became quite evident that I was going to have to get a hammer involved. So then I thought, "Oh no, I've got to take my Christmas tree out these doors. If I get these doors shut, I probably won't be able to get them open again. I'd better just take the tree out now." (Remember I'm under the influence of a strong sedative.) So I start pulling lights off the tree and I finally come to my senses. "WHAT AM I DOING? It's 3am, I'm sick, I'm tired, and I'm tearing apart my Christmas tree?!" It was at this point that my path became clear: I had to knock myself out again. So that's what I did. I said, "I don't care if it makes me groggy tomorrow. I don't care if my apartment is unlocked. I just need to sleep. Someone can come and take all my stuff, just as long as they don't wake me up." And I slept peacefully, got up at 8, and dealt with door problem at a normal hour.

Alright. I'm ending my blog silence to ask this question:

Will the prankster who registered me with eharmony.com please step forward? I've got a thank-you gift and I'd like to know where to send it. Or if you're seriously trying bully me into wedded bliss, your plan has hit upon a hitch (no pun intended). You've neglected to inform me of my user name and password, so I can only be antagonized with emails informing me that Mr. Right is waiting and all I need to do is log in and meet him.

Talk about frustration.