#SNOMMED Panda
Originally uploaded by alex.priest

Hoping I can start giving you more regular photos, since I’m failing pretty bad at giving you guys regular, substantiative updates. I’ll try to give you an interesting pic as often as I possibly can.

This one I snapped today on campus. These pandas are all over campus, bought by the university a few years back as part of a charity auction. This one, somehow, got placed just by the giant metal and glass awning that collapsed, and then buried by about three feet of snow. Also, note the caution tape.

Warrior panda survived the #snom of 2010. Good job, Panda.

In other news, this week is insane already and not looking to slow down any time soon. Lots and lots-o-work on the desk, not to mention I’m reformatting my iPhone (damn thing’s been running like molasses lately), I’ve got my first intermediate statistics exam on Thursday, and plenty of research to catch up on for my capstone project. Ah well, I do it to myself.

On the more fun side of things, tomorrow night I’ll be headed to my first DC PR Flacks meetup and I’m so excited! It’s looking like it’s going to be a ton of fun and I’m thrilled to finally meet some of the people I’ve been talking to on Twitter for so long.

This storm seems to be the worst so far. It’s unbelievable the amount of snow we’ve got on the ground, and when you add in more snow and tropical-storm-force winds, it makes for a lot of mess. A really beautiful mess, but a mess nonetheless.

Earlier I was out with a friend and took a quick video of the storm in action. It’s a little long and not terribly exciting, but skip through it and you’ll see a puppy, us, and a lot of snow.

So, yes, today is my birthday! I can hardly contain myself. One person had congratulated me on passing the last birthday with a real advancement in privileges–I suppose he’s pretty well right. It’s pretty exciting.

Because it’s my birthday, they canceled class today. Ha, ok, ok, well they canceled class because of the snow. But I’m allowed to think they canceled just for me because, well, it is my birthday.

But in all seriousness, just wanted to offer a quick thanks to everyone for the great birthday wishes, both on Twitter and on Facebook. They really do mean a lot, and I’m lucky to have such good friends out there, both in real life and those of you I only know through Twitter!

I do my best to respond to each and every one because, well, what better time than a birthday to make a digital friendship a little more personal? Plus, it’s a snow day and I’ve got plenty of time to do it. So if I don’t give you a shout out, a thanks, or write back in some form or fashion, give me a holler and make sure I do!

Thanks again all, and I hope you have a wonderful day! For those of you here in the northeast, be safe in the snow and enjoy snopocalypse number three!

American University

So as you may have heard, D.C. has been absolutely trounced by snow this past week. And it doesn’t look like it’s over yet.

Now the National Weather Service is predicting 10-20″ tomorrow and Wednesday, to add to the two feet plus that we already have on the ground. Insanity.

The federal government was shut down today and likely will be tomorrow. D.C. public schools were closed yesterday (despite our Mayor at first declaring a two hour delays) and now are closed tomorrow, too. Almost every other school system around the Washington metropolitan area, in both Maryland and Virginia, is closed until at least Wednesday–although with this newest storm they’ll likely remain closed all week.

American University, my school, was closed today. Still wondering if we’ll have class tomorrow, but if the storm tomorrow night is as bad as expected, no class Wednesday (and possibly Thursday) is almost guaranteed. We shall see.

For now, I’m doing my best to stay productive. So far doing alright for staying on top of schoolwork (and got lucky, one exam was pushed back to next week) but there’s always more to do. Also, I’m trying to keep up with blog posts–be sure to check out my post from earlier recapping the Gibraltar Associates social media event from Thursday and discussing how to create a new “need-to-share” culture within governmental agencies.

Now on to more work. Got one more part of a paper to write, a few blog posts to draft, and then lots-o-reading to do. More updates soon and, as always, on my Twitter.

Yes, that’s #snom. As in, a snow monster just nom nom nommed all over our nation’s capital, leaving over two feet of snow in its wake.

Sure, it’s inconvenient. It’s expensive for the local government. And really, it’s detrimental to the productivity of our local businesses, schools, and government. But it’s just FUN.

Between last night and today I spent a fair bit of time in the snow, playing, exploring and just overall enjoying the largest snowstorm I’ve ever been in. This afternoon we even had a giant Alpha Kappa Psi (my co-ed professional business fraternity) snowball fight in the quad on AU’s campus. It was a blast. Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, here’s some pictures of the #SNOM–the great D.C. Blizzard of 2010.