Laziness and Snowblower Abuse.

I think this happens with a lot of folks' home improvement blogs--they have a lot to say and show off at first, but it starts to taper off over time. This is for an obvious reason--there are a lot of big things to do before and right after a move, but once the pressing concerns are handled, there just isn't very much to say. And the blogging gets lazy.

In my case, I find this to be true--we're basically settled in and enjoying life in The Serpico House. Things are cool. But there are still a zillion things to do. We still haven't painted our bedroom, our guest room (I've started calling it "the turtle room" or "Mack's Room") still needs a desk and some other things, we need to replace our dining room's light fixture, the kitchen is awful, etc, etc.

But, for right now, let me tell you how I failed at the technology of living in the suburbs.

I'm guessing most of you are aware that the northeast portion of the U.S. has gotten a smidge of snow in January. Yep, it's true... a couple of minor storms, one big 'un and some icy rain. All told, I think maybe we've gotten about 25 inches of snow or something. I'm not complaining, really. I don't mind snow, and taking some days off due to snow provided us some nice unexpected family time.

Now, due to utter procrastination, we've failed to procure a new shovel for dealing with all of this snow. Yeah, we're still using Mrs. Serpico's old shovel. I should really get a picture of it--the thing is pitiful. It's nearly impossible to move snow with this thing. But we've managed to make it work... sort of.

If the condition of a person's driveway could, in some way, be correlated to the lifestyle or functionality of the relationship of the family that lives in the house behind that driveway... erm... well... let's just say our household discussions would look like something out of a John Woo film.

(My film school friends/former video store co-workers are snickering right now)



In short, our driveway is a mess. It's really a good thing that my car is an SUV with All-Wheel Drive. On the morning of the day after we got our last big snow, the view from our front window was this...


Yeah. That was taken around 6am. We got 15 inches of snow that night. This view would normally show our lovely front bushes and porch. After such snowfall, we just had white lumps that merged with the whiteness on our porch. It was kind of crazy.

When the snow finally ceased, I assaulted the snow on the porch and driveway with Mrs. Serpico's shovel, and I was sure I'd be able to clear enough of the mess to get my car out of the driveway. Well, I made a path to the car, and, foolish man that I am, I tried to back out of the situation. Yeah, that didn't work--I wound up getting stuck around mid-way through, where the snow was higher than my vehicle's axles.

Luckily, my wife's aunt (she calls me her nephew, so I should call her my aunt, too, I guess) has frequently offered us the use of her snow-blower. Now, she lives on a small Philly side street, and her house has a fairly diminutive footprint---I have no idea why she owns a snow-blower... other than that she likes gizmos.

My neighbor, Josh, had wisely paid one of the many roving gangs of snow-removal specialists (snow-opportunists? Snoppertunists?) to handle his driveway and sidewalk duties. However, since we were a bit light on cash (those dudes wanted $60 to do the driveway and sidewalk!), I was resolved to do this on my own.

Josh was nice enough to drive me over to my aunt's place, where we dug out her driveway and sidewalk in return for the use of her gas-powered snow-blower.

Now, not being familiar with the use of things like this (my last lawn-mower was an electric one), there was definitely a learning curve involved in making it work. Josh helped a bit, and we managed to get the thing started, and I found the lever that made the "snow-eater" work. I got into pushing the snow-blower into the huge mounds of snow and seeing the resulting spray of chopped-up snow fly off to the side. Pretty awesome. But... well... it was really hard to push the damn thing. I mean really hard to push it. The snow-blower weighs about 100lbs, and the snow itself was very wet and fairly heavy, so I was pushing it up and down my driveway by inches for an hour, dying from the exertion.

People who know how to use a snow-blower are laughing right now.

I almost shat out my spine before I realized that the wheels needed to be engaged with the motor--the engine makes the nubbly wheels turn and help push the machine along through the snow and ice. I didn't know about that. You have to pull on an extra lever to make it happen. In other words, I was shoving 100lbs of machine against that deep, heavy-ass, wet snow with no assistance from the engine. I didn't get hurt or anything, but I surely felt stupid when I realized how much extra work I was making for myself.

Avy offered to help, but I was so annoyed with myself that I just kept working. I know, I know. Typical male, right?

I finally cleared as much snow as I could, dragged the machine into the garage and went inside the house to dry off and warm up. Xavier was taking a nap after a tiring round of snowman building with Avy and a neighbor kid. I changed into soft, warm, dry clothes and took an Advil. I then planted my ass on the couch and went to sleep.

The damn suburbs kicked my ass that day.

Since that day, the snow has been melting fairly steadily, and the driveway has been looking better and better. Nature clears out snow better than I do.