Hurricane Harbor: Is Amazon Coming to Raleigh? Snow is Melting & Life is Slowly Going Back to Normal. Black Ice Warnings This AM & Probably Tonight. Greyhound Bus and Cruise Ships. Why don't they check the weather first? Things That Make You Wonder. Alzheimer's Research and Thank YOU!

As Mike from www.spaghettimodels.com shows in a photograph that we are dealing with winter weather today. The Hurricane Season and everything tropical takes a back seat to the deep diving winter weather that dove all the way down to the Sunshine State where Jack Frost visited Tampa Florida. Some discussion today on life in one of the cities nominated for Amazon's new 2nd Headquarters or however the actual wording goes....

Another great pic

@weatherwes

Wes Hohenstein.

Great image...

Sometimes photos tell a story well.

Speaking of photographs.

You should really follow him on Twitter.

He puts poetry into photography.

Melds them together.

What else is on the menu today?

Some discussion on winter weather in a city not used to winter weather and for the most part loving it as if we were given a true Winter Vacation.

Some discussion further down the road on why... "just why" does Greyhound emulate the crappy attitude of cruise ship companies that feel it okay to endanger the lives of their passengers for profit. Just why do they ignore a carved in ice winter weather warning and take chances with the lives of their passengers by ignoring weather forecasts until the snow piles up and their drivers refuse to drive. But more on that later.

I'm quoting an on air news person from WRAL who said "the trees are tall and the shadows are long" trying to remind people not to go out and drive around unless they have to ... until the ice on the roads melt. Yes, we have a Black Ice Warning... school is out and kids are home looking to build snow men and have snow fights. Raleigh doesn't get this sort of snow often, much like Seattle which I'll talk on later, it gets light dustings that melt the next day. A real snow event makes everyone here either hide under the covers or dance in the snow. If you like the seasons Raleigh is a wonderful place to live. It has a long fall and a long spring. The winter in Raleigh along with the dead dog days of summer are shorter than many places. I timed the visit to Miami to get back in time to see Raleigh turn into a Winter Wonderland. Enjoy it fast as Sunday we are flirting with sunny and 60 degrees!

The bright sun is almost blinding.

Even when the roads are plowed!

I just want to add one thing to people online who think they know so much about "Black Ice" but they seem clueless about the reality of human nature or anything beyond their own skill set. The picture above illustrates the dangers on the road today around Raleigh. Yes, you can't see the ice in the dark and that is why it is called "black ice" but most people who are not used to winter weather are clueless how to handle a car when it starts to slide on "black ice" or any ice. Not everyone knows what to look for or how to drive on roads that have not been plowed or were plowed and are now covered in slick icy spots. Again... this doesn't happen often. It's much like Miami and hurricanes as only the old timers there know what to do and how to prepare properly. Raleigh, much like Miami and Seattle, is a city that has a diverse transitory population. People move here to work on projects at various tech companies and then often put down roots. We have the three of the top colleges in the country with many out of town students who don't always know how to handle the hilly streets in Raleigh or the roads when covered in snow or ice. The city and the school board errs on the side of safety and asks people to stay home and off the roads. In a day or two everything melts or ends up in slow melting piles if it has been plowed and we go back to normal.

No Swimming today...

...though the sun feels warm!

Raleigh is in the mix for the prime prize Amazon is awarding to a city it deems worthy of their incredible presence. I know how incredible it is as my son interned and worked there and I've spent some time at the Amazon buildings in Seattle. Amazon should stand for #Awesome when it comes to adding life and energy into any city lucky enough to host it's new headquarters. They are modern, ecological minded and they even allow people who work there to take their dogs to work for the day when needed. From something as small as pets to tall beautiful buildings employing people from all over the world it's a win win for any city who does indeed wins this prime prize.

Raleigh is a great city to live in and I mean pretty much throughout the whole year not just a few months here and there such as Boston which is beautiful but too cold or Miami which is wonderful but really hot and humid most of the year. Raleigh is a lot like Seattle in that we have abundant water for fishing, sporting, boating and taking great #selfies and mountains near enough for a nice weekend away. We have a wonderful airport which would get much more crowded should we become an Amazon city but it's new and easy to access as are many cities such as Seattle as it's easy to fly out and in unlike some cities that are wonderful but... they have limited access. I love Savannah and Wilmington but the airport is smaller and you have to get off the highway to get there. Amtrak is building a new Train Station in downtown Raleigh and there is a brand new station in Cary. It's an easy place for people who like to commute or travel often and we all know I do. Beaches are not far away though a bit too far for me though the beaches in Seattle are mostly scenic vs the ones you find in Florida.

In Raleigh people are so friendly at times you want to puke .. if you come from a colder, impersonal city where people pass each other without even blinking. It's a great place to raise a family and there are many places downtown to party or hang out at night. If you were raised on Miami Beach it's a bit boring, but boring is usually good when you are a young family trying to pay off your student loans while living in a very affordable large home in a safe neighborhood. I do complain often to my friends but in truth those are unique complaints that I have that the average person living here does not have such as a nice trendy Kosher restaurant or any kosher restaurant for that matter. But being a Southern Jew whose family goes way back in the South several generations I do love many things about Raleigh. I still think it's Eastern Tennessee but that's another talk for another day.

I also want to warn you that riding Greyhound Bus into Raleigh is akin to taking your life into your hands if you get stuck at the Richmond VA bus station which happens often to people it seems. Raleigh has a nicer bus station (new) and the people are friendly. My daughter took a bus to Raleigh as she is on a budget and has taken the bus here before and it was "okay" in that it is always easy to jump on a bus for a fast ticket out of town on a when you are on a budget. Plus you can use your power stick that stays full for up to 260 hours and play video games or watch TV while you are traveling those friendly roads.

During the winter when Winter Storm Inga was threatening for days and there were Winter Weather Advisories and Winter Weather Warnings Greyhound in NYC insisted there would be no delays or problems riding their Express bus to Raleigh the night the storm was beginning. She never would have gotten on the bus had they not insisted that there would be no problems and there were no weather concerns. Obviously..... Greyhound ignores winter weather advisories the way cruise ship lines ignore hurricane warnings. Their need for showing they can get their passengers where they want to go seems to beat out common sense and concerns for safety. It seems their bus drivers refused to drive the bus even when Greyhound insisted they could safely drive through Black Ice Warnings. I know this as the bus drivers had fights with their managers in Richmond in front of their passengers who after sitting there for more than 4 hours with no information began to argue so much that the police had to be called in to stop the fight. I suppose the Captains on the cruise ships are less likely to abandon ship in the middle of the ocean. Either way it's pretty pathetic. I was worried she would get stuck in Richmond and equally worried no one would be able to pick her up at the bus terminal as we had black ice warnings until Noon in Raleigh yesterday.

My daughter who lives in Brooklyn is pretty tough, she has driven from Ottawa to Miami more than once and traveled extensively and lived in North Miami Beach in an area that is pretty tough at times if the wrong person gets upset but the scene in Richmond was something out of a bad movie. Greyhound seems to have a Cowboy mentality and they put you on the stagecoach and they drive it until the driver disappears into the dark night while they are watering the horses. To make this more ridiculous their website insisted there were no travel delays so I suppose it's a sort of FAKE NEWS issue by them because if they don't report they are having a travel delay there is no delay. She did get in around 4:45 PM yesterday (8 hours late) while the sun was still up and we were able to pick her up and run to Trader Joes on the way home to buy Ice Cream before they closed at 5 PM due to safety concerns for the black ice that forms as soon as the son goes down around here during a snow event. She brought freshly baked chocolate chip cookies with her that we crumbled over Trader Joes Vanilla Pareve Ice Cream after a nice warm hot meal. Glad she is here but seriously it's pathetic she had to go through that but I guess it could have been worse. She could have been locked in her cabin cruising through a Hurricane for hours and hours. We have this great organization called the National Weather Service they might want to check it out.

http://time.com/4916794/hurricane-harvey-cruise-ship/

http://fox8.com/2017/01/30/bus-gets-stuck-in-snow-spins-tires-catches-fire/ a few weeks ago...

So........ this is why so many people I know who don't like to fly (and there are many) drive cross country rather than trust others to get them where they need to go. That said Southwest and JetBlue that fly out of Raleigh are usually very good as is Amtrak as they are quick to inform travelers of safety problems.

Lastly I'm going to post some pictures here to show the beauty of Raleigh in the Snow. And....thanks again for taking the time to read my blog in the winter when I go long on personal matters and muse about life vs informing the public of the latest tropical trouble. I do appreciate your feedback and your follows on Twitter.

Speaking of personal. My youngest daughter had a birthday yesterday in Miami and rather than hope her friends and family bought her presents she asked everyone to donate money to Alzheimer's research. Facebook lets you post a page (they need time to approve the charity by the way.......) and it can be posted and shared in social media. The link to her page is below. She did achieve her original goal and has far surpassed it but you can still donate. As I said online elsewhere Alzheimer's and dementia is an equal opportunity disease and cuts across all boundaries of race, color, religion or political persuasion. It is the one equalizer that finds a way to hit all of us where it hurts the most. Be it a parent or a friend's parent it's painful and it hurts to watch a person slowly slip away. Money makes the world go round and it pays for research to find ways to prolong people's lives with a better quality of life and hopefully one day we will have a cure. So any amount donated makes a difference as we are truly a village (honest) and we all one human family. Thanks to all who donated and I appreciate it greatly as does my daughter who is happy to have made a difference. Know you can do this on Facebook with your family and friends as well.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

http://act.alz.org/site/TR?fr_id=11139&pg=personal&px=9601092

Link above helps you navigate to the page :)

Ps... enoy the pictures :)