Love the cool weather, low humdity and occasional thunderstorm. Hate the constant congestion, head colds and body aches from the non-stop barrage of pollen. It covers everything and makes your life miserable.

Weather Report

Possible snow showers Saturday night. Wind chill somewhere in the low teens. Not as bad as the stuff my brother is dealing with in Minnesota but it’s still pretty fricken cold here!

Apparently, if it rains long enough in Atlanta, GA. even the water gets stuck in traffic. Normally the Department of Corrections does an OK job keeping the highways picked up (even though people in Atlanta are horrible when it comes to throwing trash away properly) but during heavy prolonged rain (it’s been coming down for 48 hours straight now), all the trash and leaf litter washes downhill and collects in great big piles. Usually right over a storm drain. As the water backs up onto the highway and slowly starts to flood across each lane, the commuter-crazy Atlantians continue to race pell-mell through the rising water until a D.O.T. HERO unit arrives to shut down the highway. At this point, a couple miles worth of cars/trucks back up across 5 lanes and it pretty much screws the commute for everybody unlucky enough to be on the wrong side of the flood.

I wonder if the D.O.T. guys draw straws to determine which unlucky SOB gets to don hip-boots, wade out into the trash slush with a shovel to uncork the storm grate. At the same time, trying to avoid getting sucked into the Atlanta sewer system as a couple thousand metric tons of highway bilge water drain off the asphalt.

Membership has it’s privileges. $3.97 a gallon for unleaded vs. $4.20 or more at a regular gas station. Plus, with the membership requirements you aren’t standing in line for 30-60 mins. Today they had both regular and premium in stock.

Granted, Mel and I don’t shop there very often but the savings per gallon on the gas alone makes it a no-brainer.

Monday morning recap:

1. The Gators lost
2. Our checking and savings bank: Wachovia goes under
3. Atlanta is facing another 2 weeks of gas shortages

Lovely week it will be.

Yea almost. Quarter tank left and I can’t find a gas station here in the metro Atlanta area that has stock. Apparently gas is flowing into the city but everybody is trying to keep topped-off so any stock that makes it to a station is gone within a couple hours. I estimate I’ve got another 2 days of gas left for my commute and then I’m in trouble.

Ironically, I’ve been telling myself all summer not to let my tank get below half during hurricane season because anytime the Gulf gets hit, Atlanta goes bonkers and people panic causing even more trouble with gas supplies. But Mel and I spent the weekend in Ellijay so I was going to fill back up when I hit town but got caught behind the weekend rush. Now I’m screwed if I can’t catch a gas station between today and Friday.

This is why it pays to own a house and property kids. I’m not some natural disaster noob but living in a loft downtown doesn’t give me many options when it comes to stockpiling critical emergency supplies … like a couple 5 gallon jerry-cans worth of gas.

Should be a fun couple of days.

Update: After driving around Cobb county for 30 minutes yesterday evening I finally found a Shell Station that had regular unleaded. 20 mins later and I had a full tank. I’m estimating 1 in 10 stations are sold out daily only 1 in 10 stations have gas on a daily basis. We haven’t reached panic levels yet but you can tell people are starting to get edgy.