A strange adventure, in the middle of a crazy couple of weeks! After working for a week in Salt Lake City, I flew to Boulder for the National Space Society Board of Directors meeting. Then Monday I flew home, and Thursday afternoon I was planning to drive down to Sacramento to serve as an expert panelist at a PMI conference.
I got up at 4:30 AM, which is normal when I’m in the Pacific time zone, and went through the normal routine of feeding the animals, showering and dressing, holding telecons, doing email, and writing various things. During the afternoon, I had a particularly annoying telecon. I had been asked by a Very Senior Official in my current environment to see if I could advance the schedule of my project by some “outside the box” thinking, if I assumed for discussion purposes that I could get a supplemental appropriation for this year (FY 11/12).
So I did. The scenario has significant risks and costs, and I called them out. When I presented the whole thing to a Very Senior Commission in my environment, it was very well received. But then yesterday in a telecon with a lower level group, I was asked by a young technical guy, in a reasonably snotty tone of voice, why I thought my assumptions had any validity. Sadly, this is part of a pattern that I’ve tolerated too long, and which will soon come to an end. What I wanted to say (but didn’t, even though it would have been the absolute truth) was “Because I was managing multi-million dollar technology projects when you were still learning your multiplication tables, kid!” Instead, I simply mentioned that my resume was posted on my blog, and that he might want to take a look.
On top of that, the meeting was run in a totally uncontrolled manner, and ran late, so I ended up rushing around trying to deal with logistics that were already tight to get to my conference. I had hoped to ride my motorcycle down to Sacramento, but the weather forecast was light rain Thursday evening, and light snow Friday, so that option was out. Finally, I was sitting on the shuttle to go down to the airport, and I had nothing to do for 40 minutes. A very good thing!
As we were climbing out of the Tahoe basin, I looked to the southwest, and there was a huge wall of clouds advancing over the Lake. I mumbled out loud, “That looks a hell of a lot bigger than what they were forecasting.” But I was going to be driving, not piloting a plane, so I didn’t think that much about it. We got to the airport, I went to the rental counter, picked up my car, and continued on my merry way.
Not long after passing Checkpoint Charlie on I-80 heading west to California, it started snowing. Nothing on the roads, but a steady snow. One of those road signs said that it was snowing over the summit. Duh, if it was snowing where I was, 2000 ft below the summit! The snow continued to worsen, and by the time I crossed Donner Pass (yes, the Donner Pass), the snow was starting to stick on the road.
Once over the pass, the conditions immediately got much worse. The road was still relatively dry, but the snow was thick enough and blowing so badly that the visibility started to get bad. Then it got worse. Then it got a lot worse, and the snow was starting to stick on the road. Having driven in the stuff for decades now, I was the fastest car on the road and then suddenly in front of me…asteroid! I saw taillights getting closer much more quickly than I liked. I used moderate braking, but I started to feel just a bit of instability in the grip on the road, so I had found that limit. I went past the asteroid on the right, and when I got back in front of him, he started going a good bit faster. He just didn’t want to be the lead dog. Now, when I say I’m going fast, I’m talking about 25 mph. The asteroid was going…I dunno…maybe 4 mph? Initially I was briefly annoyed, but then I realized that there was no reason to believe he could see any better than I could, and I couldn’t see anything at all, so I cut him some slack. I was using “faith-based” navigation…praying I wouldn’t hit the center divider! They had a standard K-rail divider, but there were no reflectors. Anywhere. It was just solid white. I thought about pulling over, but concluded that the odds of someone ramming me from behind were probably higher than the odds of me hitting something, so I just kept going.
After I got past the first clot of asteroids, there was no one in front of me at all. A little spooky, actually. I slowed down to the point where I was willing to believe that the dim outlines that I thought I saw were actually the edge of the road…maybe 15-20 mph. I ending up passing several clots of asteroids like that, and then a new problem developed.
Ice. The windshield and the wipers were icing up badly, and quickly. OAT was 31ยบ, with massive amounts of visible moisture, perfect conditions for icing, as any pilot will tell you. I immediately went to full de-ice mode, heater on max, fan on max, flow set to full defrost. The washer helped for a short while, but then started to make it worse (pretty typical). I was down to about 4” of windshield height that was clear. And I was thinking about pulling over despite the risks, when the trend started to slowly reverse. The ice stopped forming, and slowly started to break up.
Right about then, a new problem became evident. By this time, the snow on the road was pretty thick…if you wanted to call it snow. It was about 4-6” of slushy gunk, one of the most annoying substances in the galaxy. Still no visibility. At this point, the semis had started driving down the center of the two lanes, straddling both! But, with some prodding, I was able to get them to pick one or the other, and let me pass.
The final irony was when, a little ways before Auburn, one of those freeway signs said that you could take your chains off four miles ahead. During my passage, there had never been a requirement to put them on! This storm came through much harder, faster, and colder than anyone had forecast. Later in the hotel, I heard on the news that they had closed I-80 less than half an hour after I had gone through. Good call!
I was now well below the snow level, and there was just some light rain. I got off on a major artery in the area. And I started looking for a grocery store to pick up some Mountain Dew and other sundries. I watched, and watched, but no grocery store. I saw several fitness centers, and about half a million drug stores, and the thought occurred to me: Has California finally come to this? They don’t eat any more, they just work out and take drugs?
My participation on the panel the next day was very well received, and when subsequent speakers started quoting me during the rest of the conference, I figured my work was done there. I head back home, and had a completely uneventful drive and arrival. Yesterday AM I had one last logistical adventure. I had to drive the rental back to the airport in Reno, take a shuttle back up the hill to Incline, get a ride from the Hyatt to my auto shop, pick up Behemoth, and drive home. All went like clockwork. Today I go to church for the first time in over 30 years, and then back to Salt Lake City to mud wrestle this narly problem I just discovered into submission.
The adventure continues!
J
TCS
