**Work was a slow mix of boredom and overGoogled-job searches. A few things got done - but overall, little to be done. Difficult to manage a project when one does not exist - and the whole bipolar dysfunctional ABBA clan was out of town all week - do the math. I was scheduled to leave at 5:30pm to drive in bad traffic down to Richmond, VA for the weekend. I was trying to determine if I should leave early - or leave late (because Washington, DC metro is soo horrible...it dictates your life). Would define a 2 hour sway of time wastedness. S0 I decided to leave at 5:30pm on the dot. Car loaded, gassed up - things for the trip, overtly obsessed packed bike and garb for trip. On da road jack...then......slow slow slow....break, gas, break, gas, break, gas.......never got above 15 mph on route 28 heading south. Swell. Then it began to rain. Hard. Then the winds, gusty. Took me an hour and a half to go 15 miles. Dag, yo..I still had another 105 miles to go. So I figure, I'll get to Richmond before 8pm if I pass all this DC traffic, get on Interstate 95 south - which is usually fast - minimum 65mph - and a direct route to Richmond. I'll make this story painless and short.

I arrived in Richmond at 10:30pm. Took me 5 hours to drive to Richmond, VA from Sterling, VA - a total of 110 miles. Let's do the math 110 miles divided by 5 hours, screw it - in my car, median time was just too fucking slow - for being in a car. For crying out loud - I can bike 100 miles in less than 5 and a half hours).

To sum it up - I was driving in the middle of Hurricane Ivan. I am a dumbshit. It was nothing but 50-80mph wind gusts and torrential downpours, multiple tornados, heavy lightning the entire trip. Spectacular lightning - saw a few close hits. It was a white knuckle drive. Everyone and their brother was calling me to tell me to be safe. It was frightening. Here I was stuck on Interstate 95, thousands of cars, bumper to bumper, literally parked - not moving anywhere...for hours on end - the radio saying, "....a tornado has touched down.....please take seek shelter immediately". Finally the cars started up their cars...we went 5mph, then 10mph...then stopped again. It was horrible. I found out later that there were many huge tornados that came thru. And I'm grateful that I got there safe.

Got to Richmond, was greeted by my friend who was so happy to see me safely there - by then, the rain had almost stopped. We had a casual evening, just caught up - had a beer and then we eventually dosed off to the pitter-pat of rain outside. (**written following my trip to Richmond on 9/19)

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