Tales From the Milk Drinker

Hello hello. I decided to start blogging again at the request of my beautiful and multi talented girlfriend Amber. Good call sweety. I sort of feel like ranting on about her for a few pages now but I think that might spoil the spirit of the blog - to talk more about pointless things.

Today it's storming "like a bastard" outside. The snow is coming down and the wind is blowing it round. Our driveway has some bare spots and some spots where the snow is up to your hip. Well maybe not your hip. But my hip. And I'm almost 5' 6". They have not plowed our road yet and this prompts me to the rant I am about to begin.

It could be my imagination but I think when it used to storm snow plows used to wander the street of summerside continually looking for freshly shoveled driveways to fill in. Now this winter I have been in Summerside for about 3 spectacular storms and it seems that they now only plow when it's all over and done with, thereby making more stingy and cost effective use of plow driver's time and valuable diesel fuel. Perhaps the price of oil had something to do with this or perhaps the city now feels that environmentally it's irresponsible to spend fuel cleaning up a storm before it's over and done. I would think that this now method is probably unpopular with the plow driving community as I would assume less hours = less pay.

I almost think that a decent effort should be made to keep the roads open. I can certainly appreciate that to anyone with a sick family member in the house (and I mean genuinely sick with a threatening problem, not a runny nose) an unplowed road can spell insecurity as it blocks off the logical route to the hospital. I suppose some folks who don't plan ahead well could also be stuck with no way to get to a pharmacy if they had important prescriptions which needed to be filled.

One of the nicest ideas I've heard of is the club which opperates in the HRM. I forget their name but it's basically a gathering of folks who drive oversized four wheel drive trucks who offer their services to those in need during extreme weather. For example a health care worker (like a nurse or a doctor) who needs to get to the hospital for their shift can phone the club for a ride during a storm and a team of a few vehicle opperators will do their best to get them there in their jeeps/large trucks. What a nice idea.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I miss my four wheel drive. Don't tell the sexy sunfire. It'ld hurt it's feelings.