September 2010 Weddings
LauraT25
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
XP: Saving a parking space after a snowstorm
In light of the recent storm that some people experienced, here's a link to a thread on P&CE:
http://community.thenest.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/47069816.aspx
It provides text from a blog article about the 'politics' of saving a space in South Boston, and I thought that a lot of the comments were an entertaining read as well. If you've never experienced over a foot of snow, it probably won't have the same meaning! (Not going to lie, I never felt like I could truly murder someone until the multiple blizzards we had last year).
Re: XP: Saving a parking space after a snowstorm
haha oh Boston parking spot saving - I know it well lol. It doesn't apply to DH and I since we own a house outside the city, but we have many friends with apartments downtown who deal with this every winter! The spot saving actually works, but Boston has been cracking down on people who save a spot for more than 24 hours.
There's a great article in the NY Times about this today, too. H is from Pittsburgh, and thought it was hilarious that I'd never heard of it until I went there last Christmas.
ETA: Der, that *is* the NY Times article. I'm special today, apparently.
The tomato-throwing story from Staten Island made me LMAO. And my block looks like the later pics they posted - lawn furniture, cones, whatever you can find. I'm just ashamed I couldn't come up with anything more creative than a garbage can to save my spot.
*In my defense - First massive snowstorm after I moved into the house, I tried to do the 'right thing' and NOT save a spot - and my neighbors were all kind enough to keep rotating which of them got to park in my spot instead of me. After that, it was survival of the fittest - and then I built a garage so I didn't have to park on the street. Nyah, nyah, nyah.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/nyregion/30ride.html?hp
this article also in the NY times is a good point.
i have no problem with people saving their spots with furniture. what bothered me, was the argument from people on the thread about plowing in cities. "its not done soon enough" "we cant move our cars anywhere for the plows to get through" "the city is ignoring us" "i cant park 3 blocks away and walk, the area is too dangerous"
my thoughts are, if you CHOOSE to live in a CITY and own a car, you have to deal with all that entails, whether it is snow, bad towing, street cleaners, bad neighborhoods, etc. you CHOSE to live there. just like i chose to live in the snowy country and yes, they plow, but i know that the roads are going to be bad for at least 1 or 2 days after a storm. no, we dont have street parking, yes, the roads will have 2-12" of snow on them until the plows get caught up. you dont complain, you nut up or shut up. its the lifestyle you chose. get rid of your car if you dont like dealing with street parking related incidences.
Blog
Shauni, I agree with you. I get annoyed with people who constantly biitch about how their city sucks at plowing snow. I understand that there's only so much manpower and so many plows, and that my neighborhood is pretty low priority, so I try not to complain.
I think a lot of people in the thread were more responding to other posters who were saying things like, "I don't understand why this is even an issue". As though it's a moot point because the streets should be plowed. One person basically blamed people who park in the street as the reason why the city can't plow, and I think people were trying to point out that there's not really a choice.
I think there is just a gap in understanding. There are very rural areas, like where Shauni lives (assuming) and uber-urban areas like NYC. But then there are also crowded 'burbs. The area where I used to live is city-crowded with virtually all on-street parking - but there is inadequate public transportation, so if you want to go anywhere, you have to drive. All the downsides of city-living with none of the perks.
One thing that the NYT article didn't point out, either, is the class-war that erupts in urban areas (maybe all areas) when snow like this happens. They showed on the news last night that Bloomburg's street was completely cleared - like it had never snowed - while there were whole neighborhoods in Brooklyn & Queens that hadn't even been touched yet - and that's not just a byproduct of the streets being parked full of cars.
I admit I don't know too much about the 'class war' aspect - the nicer neighborhoods in Baltimore, I've been told, actually hire independent contractors to plow their streets. Obviously that's a class distinction, but it doesn't mean the city is biased. From what I've seen, it seems to be the busier streets in the heart of the city that get cleared. Often there are problems because the streets around your job may be clear, but the residential districts are not so you can't get to work even though your boss thinks you should be able to.
As far as choosing to live in the city, I was thinking more about this. I think it's ok to complain about problems in your city, it's human nature. It's when people get obnoxious and unreasonable that it grinds my gears. And it's not really a 'choice' for everyone - we never wanted to live in the city, but there simply aren't a lot of non-urban places with good biochem programs, and the likelihood of us both getting a position in the same place in a smaller town was just nonexistent. It's not something that was in my head when I decided my career choice, since I certainly don't have to be in the city when I finally have a real job. I suppose you could argue that we could have chosen less-respected programs, or maybe done an LDR if we managed to find spots in two different rural areas, but I think that's beyond the original 'you chose to live in the city' argument.
All that being said, I don't generally complain about city life, but about individual shiitty things that happen. Sure, I probably wouldn't have gotten spit on while walking down the street if I didn't work in the city, but does that mean I don't get to be upset about that? With regards to my fits of rage during Snowmageddon, none of it had to do with living in the city; it was all about people being inconsiderate or just plain stupid, and it could have happened anywhere.
The article made me laugh because saving spots after snow has always been normal for me. I grew up in townhouses in suburban Baltimore where you had a block of houses, a cross street, and then another block of houses. The block my house was on could not handle the number of cars for the people who lived there. There was always a mad rush to get home before a snowstorm to get a decent spot. But there was also the issue that people parked like assholes on a regular basis and I'd typically get home and park 2-3 blocks from my house because two or three cars couldn't comprehend that if you didn't leave 3 foot in front and back of your car, other people could park there too. Genius concept, I know!
It was pretty funny during the blizzards last year because I lived in an apartment complex that didn't plow for 3 or 4 days after each snow. Everyone saved their spots afterward and the leasing office sent out letters saying we couldn't do that. Everyone ignored it. About a week after the last blizzard there was still a ton of snow in our parking lot and most people were still saving spaces. I came home and someone had taken mine. There was 1 spot open so I took it. Near the spot there was a chair with a note taped on it saying "I've dug out this spot 3 times and one of you fvckers keeps stealing it. If I find out who you are, there will be issues." Feeling bad that I may have stole the mean persons spot, I added to the note 'Hi there. Your chair wasn't in a spot when I came home so I hope this isn't yours. If it is, I am truly sorry, but could you beat up the fvcker that took mine so I can have it back?" The next morning the note said 'its cool. I saw the fvcker who took your spot so I left mine open for you."
Married / The Cookaholic Wife
Bwahaha I love this. I've never saved a spot, but I don't blame people for doing it at all. Unless it's in a business district, or after the snow has been cleared. Then you're just a douche. However, slashing someone's tires for taking your spot (which gets mentioned in the article and the thread I C&Pd) is not cool. In general, the person taking your spot probably dug themselves out of a spot earlier and then came home to find theirs taken, so it's kind of the circle of life.
This town where I went to college was like this. We had some good times with space savers.
In that particular town, they just did not plow any streets that were not main streets. I think you have a right to complain when 2 weeks since it's snowed, there are still 6" in the road. My corolla was not very fond of that. However, H had a Tundra at the time. (As a matter of fact, we usually used the corolla as the space saver. H would pull the truck out, I'd park the corolla so it was in the middle of both spots.)
A couple of times, the people on the block would pool money together to pay the fire chief to plow the road for us. (With his personal truck) Otherwise, it would never get done.
Then again, that town was known in the area for being awful with anything road related. I got to go home from work first quite often because management knew I lived there. There were a couple of times that I tried to get home and ended up having to spend the night at a friend's parents house because there was no way to get into town.
The Princess of Anything is Coming!
Had a dream I was queen.
Woke up. Still queen.