Monday, December 21, 2009

Winter wonderland? Spare me

The calendar tells is that winter arrives today. We know better. It actually arrived Saturday. With a thud.

In short, we got hammered, with a pre-winter, pre-Christmas storm that dumped as much as 23 inches of snow on the region. That’s a record for a December snow.

There is something I should admit here when it comes to weather and the media. It is one of my pet peeves, that being the way TV and radio handle the weather, in particular that dreaded four-letter word that starts with s and ends with w.

Don’t for a minute confuse newspapers with our brethren in TV when it comes to snow. For them, all that white stuff translates into gold – big ratings.

For us, the ink-stained wretches of the newspaper business, it is something else entirely. Basically, it is a nightmare.

Let me try to explain. Our problems with snow in terms of the newspaper fall into three distinct categories.

First, we have to get staff into the building.

Second, we have to cover the story, which often means going back out into the elements.

Third, we have to deliver the paper. Yes, believe it or not, we still actually print and deliver a lot of newsprint, aside from all these bells and whistles we feature online.

Of course, we then also have to try to get home late at night after working all day.

In general, I hate winter just a little bit more each year. Yes, it was pretty. Yes, I went for a walk Saturday night while it was still snowing and glanced at all the Christmas lights in the neighborhood twinkling in that blanket of white.

And if I never saw another snowflake in my life, it would not bother me in the least.

White Christmas? Spare me.

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