Short Shoveling

It's warmed up considerably this week, so I decided to put on a pair of gym shorts and go out to break up some of the larger piles of snow that have accumulated on the local streets. By breaking up the piles and exposing more of the pavement, I'm decreasing the albedo effect, creating better conditions for further melting. I've had enough of cruising around the neighborhood at 4:30AM looking for a parking spot, or parking on the street by the local school and getting up after two and a half hours of sleep in order to move the car before the 8AM no parking hours.

I typically use a coal shovel for this work (I keep one in the car throughout the winter, you never know when you're going to have to hit someone with a shovel), it is better at chopping ice than a snow shovel. Besides, I don't have anything to prove, so I prefer a "less weight, more reps" approach to shoveling. I also have a snow shovel handy so I can slide the piles of snow around the pavement to speed up melting.

Like I did in yesterday's post, I'm going to crib another of Thunder's categories, specifically "My Left Foot", which I suspect he cribbed from Christy Brown:

In the background, you can see my trusty coal shovel, used as an improvised hanger for my trusty plaid shirt, which I took off because it was warm enough to do without. In the course of my shoveling I cleared out two parking spots, which is important because my mom is coming up to visit for a week or so!!!!!