So, um, yeah, I guess I can legitimately now claim to be a resident of Northern Michigan. Um, yeah.

A brief timetable (for the record, these timelines always are longer than planned):

Thursday
8:53 - While watching The Office ("Pwison is haaahd. I should know, I'm Prison Mike."), I see word of a "Winter Storm Warning" across the bottom of the screen. This is expected. We had heard since Sunday night that huuuge storms were expected for Thursday and Friday. Thursday had been a precipitation-free bust.

11:24 - The not-very-good weather forecaster informs me that I should expect large amounts of snow overnight. "Leave some extra time to get to work."

Friday
2:15 - I fall asleep reading.

6:08 - I wake up to my alarm, press the snooze botton, turn off my bedroom lights, and return to sleep.

6:42 - Out of bed, I look out the window. No snow.

7:18 - I depart for work, about three minutes earlier than usual and about 14 minutes earlier than necessary. On the way to work, I'm crusing. Hold Steady on the stereo, a traffic-free curvy road, and it's just awesome.

7:45 - I arrive to work and, on the way in, have weather-related small talk with a pair of coworkers. "My mom said they're expecting up to 16 inches in Chicago." Coworker: "That's really funny."

8:45 - A coworker says, "Looks likes the snow's coming." It is.
9:30 - The snow's still coming.
10:12 - Snow's still coming.
11:04 - Still snowing.
11:48 - Still snowing.
12:15 - Yawn.
12:23 - I get nervous about the half-hour drive home. In the snow. In the dark.
12:58 - A coworker returns from his lunch. "It's, like, waste-high out there." But he says it with a smile.
1:10 - During lunch, I say not much of anything. I'm transfixed by the snow. When asked about my confused stare, I say, "The first snow's kind of beautiful, isn't it?"
1:56 - Still snowing. Duh. Quickly.
2:14 - I have a call with a client in Indianapolis. They insist that they dug themselves out of the snow explicitly for our call. I kind of doubt that, but play along.
2:26 - Office second-in-command comes out into the main working area: "Get out of here. Go home. Safely. Now." But there's still a bit of work to do.
2:42 - We get word that the FedEx truck is stuck in the parking lot.
2:44 - We get word that he's gotten out.
3:02 - I start to brush off my car. A coworker makes fun of The Hold Steady's "Citrus" ('Hey whiskey, hey ginger, I love it when we come together.'), but he doesn't know how awesome it is in context.
3:10 - I finish brushing my car, quite efficiently, I'll add.

And then I drive, sloooowwwwwlllllyyyy. Crack 40 for only one awful moment, stay mostly in the 28-32 range. I got out of the parking lot without real incident, and I got home about 4:05. It was snowing the whole time, and I never saw a speck of pavement. I guess everyone's been through this, but that doesn't make it less-harrowing.

I made it up the hill to my apartment complex and everything, which is kind of awesome.

At about 4:30, I called a coworker (the "waist-high" coworker): "Hey, pal, just wanted to see if you made it home alright."
"Dude, this is nothing. Welcome to Northern Michigan. Why do you think we all have Subarus?"

Oh.

- - - - - - -

6:02 - I've just returned from my slumber, drifting in and out during the various local newscasts. (My roommate left work at noon, and has been doing the same.) By this time, the snow's basically stopped.

My ears perk up when they mention local snowfalls:

"Ring Fingernail: 10 inches"

That snow, friends, came down between the hours of 8:30 and 4:30, approximately. About eight hours, about ten inches. Incredible.

I've been told not to hope to see any grass until March. We'll see...

- - - - - - -

I shouldn't write something like this here, but my BARC fantasy football team is totally fantastic. I've won six in a row, have scored 37 points more than the second highest-scoring team, and 96 more than the third highest-scoring team. This despite the general miserableness of Jake Delhomme. I'm starting David Carr this week.

Playoffs start next week and, if you're lucky, I won't give any in-depth analysis.

Also, despite the awesomeness, I started 2-4 and, with the fantastic-ness of Carson Palmer and TJ Houshmandzadeh on Thursday, I'm in a big hole entering Sunday's action. A loss could drop me to the fourth seed, which would be annoying.

This league would be totally more exciting if Gurs and Rico sent me their 25 bucks. It's just 25 bucks, after all.