When I went to bed last night, the weather forecast for tonight included 2-6 inches of snow. Now we’re looking at a total of 5-10 inches of snow. What?!
It’s a huge weatherman conspiracy to keep me in on Saturday nights, I tell you.
(Oh, sorry, in accordance with my post on the metric system I should say that we’re being upgraded from 5-15 cm to 12-24 cm of snow.)
The City of Albany started a snow emergency at 8pm on Sunday. During snow emergencies, residents must park on the even side of the street during the first 24 hours, and the odd side of the street during the second 24 hours.
An article from local NBC affiliate WNYT enumerates some of the problems Albanians have had in comprehending this complex system of “odd” and “even”. In particular:
Ashley Laleker moved to Albany from Balitmore [sic] three months ago.
“I walked to where my car was. No car. So I had to walk to school,” she said Monday.
As a med student, Laleker knew she was in for some tough courses, but not a snow emergency.
“I kind of ignored it because I didn’t get it,” she said. “They said you have to park on either an even or an odd side of the street and that didn’t make sense to me so I ignored it and I got towed.”
What kind of criteria must med schools have nowadays that allows in students who get confused by the idea of “odd” and “even”?
Ashley, if you can divide a number by two on your school-approved calculator and you get a “.5″ on the far right side of the display, the number’s odd. If you don’t, it’s even. Just so you’re clear for next time.
To be fair to Ms. Laleker, she might have misunderstood the parking regulations, not the concept of odd and even. But still, shouldn’t a medical student be able to handle a concept that can be explained completely in 50 words or less? And failing that, you know, maybe ask someone rather than just ignore the problem?
Now, Ashley, please stay away from my internal organs. Kthxbai.
Here in beautiful upstate New York we’re getting pounded by the second snowstorm in three days. We had about eight inches on Friday, and a good solid eight inches are falling right now.
I’ve wasted the day just like any other red-blooded American male — watching football and needlessly surfing the Internet.
The San Francisco Chronicle’s annual Geography Quiz was published this past week, and I was on that like my cat on bacon.
Give it a try. You know you want to.
I got about 20 of 50 right. I understand that for this quiz, that’s actually pretty good. How’d you do? Remember, no cheating.