The Perfect Storm

The phrase perfect storm refers to the simultaneous occurrence of events which, taken individually, would be far less powerful than the result of their chance combination. Such occurrences are rare by their very nature, so that even a slight change in any one event contributing to the perfect storm would lessen its overall impact. So, there it is. Copy and pasted straight off wikipedia. Very well defined. Now, allow me to explain.

Erin and I were down in Cape May this past weekend for her friend Jen’s wedding. Cool wedding. At a hotel smack in between Stone Harbor and Avalon. The ceremony was on the beach. Reception was in a very elegant banquet room. Real nice. Problem was this, the wedding was Sunday 3:30pm. Not Saturday. Both Erin and I had to work today. So, before we even arrive at this wedding we already have an idea that we’d like to be home by 9-ish. 3hr drive means we need to hit the road by 6pm. Easy ‘nuf.

Immediately we run into trouble. For what ever reason the ceremony doesn’t get rolling until 4. Quick ceremony and I’m feeling good about things again. Cocktail hour. Open bar. Yes. The Wifey is unable to booze so I take advantage and order up a Shiraz. The unfortunate side effect of cocktail hour is, well, it’s an hour. 5:30. People start to saunter into the banquet room. Intro’s, first dances, speeches, first course (Potato soup, my fave!), salad, and finally main course. We inhaled a very tastey meal and said our good-byes. Fire up the Volvo. Time? 7:07. Add 3. Something about best laid plans…..

Phase two of the storm. In case you live under a rock you probably know the Eagles played the Cowboys Sunday afternoon in Philthy. Since I’m continually disappointed by terrestrial radio’s music options I put on the football game. It was pretty entertaining to listen to it. I had no feelings one way or another about who won. As we’re blasting up 55 and the game was ending the thought occurred to me that my route home could get slightly cluttered by 70,000 drunken Eagle fans. Little did I know……

Phase three. We breeze across the Delaware and hit 95 North for a mile or two and then exit onto 476. It’s Sunday night. Why, How could there be any traffic issues? Did I mention 70,000 drunken Eagle fans? As soon as we hit the Blue Route, normally a fast stretch of highway that should take 20 minutes to hit the SureKill, blamo! A sea of brake lights greet me. I just about had a meltdown. Time? 8:30. Gas. Brake. Measured in inches. Slow. And I mean slooooow. At one point I did the math. Somewhere years ago I read that a reasonably fit person could walk at a 2.5-3mph pace. I could have dropped that person off and thirty minutes later that person would have still been walking ahead of us. Those thoughts didn’t take the sting out of the fact that I wanted to be in my bed but instead I was in traffic hell in Philthy-f-ing-delphia and there was no end in sight.

Finally we come to realize that the highway braintrust decided to close two of the three lanes of 476 for road work Sunday night around 8pm. Yep, 8pm. One solitary single friggin lane of traffic. Once we made it through the road work it was as it should have been, clear and free sailing. We spent a very efficient 62 minutes tarveling the 80 miles of PA turnpike. Home at 11:30pm. I guess I wasn’t too disappointed at 11:30 since I was convinced that I would still be on 476 for Monday morning rush hour.

There you have it. Any one of those three would have been easily overcome by itself. Not Sunday.

Tonight we had our tour of the birthing facilities at Harrisburg Hospital. I enjoyed it. By far the most useful info I’ve gotten out of the classes we’ve been taking. Last one is next Monday. My sister is going to join us in the delivery room for the entire labor/delivery of Little Jr so she also came up tonight with Greg and DJ to take the tour with us. I’m super happy she’s going to help us. She’s been thru it and will be invaluable for Erin and me during the whole process.

60-40 IC Lite. I did a couple good rides down in CM this weekend. Motivation has been hard lately. A major part of me just wants to fast forward to Xmas so I can start this “I’m a Father” thing. It doesn’t make going out and doing intervals any easier with that in mind. We’ll see how it goes.

Speaking of perfect. The Raiders perfect season is intact. 0-4. Is it too late to jump on da Bears bandwagon? Or am I a poser at this point?