The Nature of Waiting

I did a lot of waiting this weekend. Starting last Wednesday I started writing two blogs daily, my usual scratch on my world, making corduroy at a ski resort, and a second daily post, focused on the pending demise of the Reentering Satellite Of The Month for January, Russia's Phobos/Grunt.

Sunday was the predicted day of Phobos/Grunt's fiery reentry, and I devoted my day to the satellite's end. I did watch the Texans vs Ravens playoff game (full disclosure- I slept through most of the first half), and I enjoyed every play of the Packers vs NY Giants.

While I watched the games, I was fully multi-tasking. My laptop had open tabs with Twitter, Facebook, and Real Time Satellite Tracking, while I surfed the Sunday newspapers, spaceflight pages, weather reports, personal weather stations and webcams. I even made a Sausage, Olive and Mushroom pizza for lunch.

Just about an hour before the predicted reentry, the Real Time Satellite Tracking site crashed. Too many people around the world were trying to track Phobos/Grunt's end, resulting in a DOS (Denial Of Service Attack) type lockup. Fortunately, Twitter was humming along without a hitch, no whale page, not a single quirk...just waiting for word of the crash.

It was about this time when I began to ponder the waiting game. Even as compelling as the events were, it was still a waiting game. Twelve hours later, I'm still waiting for confirmation of time and place.

It's not just the reentry...my whole Fall/Winter season has been all about waiting!
Waiting for enough snow to go to work.
Waiting for enough snow to work more than weekends.
Waiting for snowmaking temperatures.
Waiting for enough snowmaking to open enough trails to open daily for the season.
Waiting for the stubborn blocking high to move, allowing storms to track into our area.

Scientific American explains the wait: "Jet Lag".

As I type, flurries are in the neighborhood. Northstar is getting a few flurries...not enough to measure, but snowflakes are falling. It even shows up on channel 13's Weather Radar:

Irony of ironies, by next Sunday we may all be waiting for the snowfall to stop! TahoeWeatherDiscussion has the details in his "Sunday Morning Update"...6-8 feet depending above 7000ft!

There's another kind of waiting that I know something about...procrastination...I'll write about it sometime...maybe...eventually...

Look!
Flurries found Truckee and the resorts!

Even a little at the DaveCave!