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I've posted a few pictures from the past winter. We received more snow that what we (or most Philadelphians) are accustomed to over the course of three or four snow storms.

The snow lasted for days.

There were streets that were never plowed (ours, for example).

People... started to go crazy.

And by crazy, I really mean that most people were living according to how they exist. That is people were afraid, so they protected what they had. People were selfish, so they hoarded what they had. People were greedy, so they took more than their portion.

When I say people here, I am not intending a universal sense of the word but one in which there was a large consensus of many who declared, "this is mine," in one way or another.

What I mean by all of this is that (for those who own vehicles) parking was hard. Some people resorted to "marking" their space by leaving various things to say, "this is mine!" I even heard of a story where an older "gentleman," began arguing with a young lady (not my wife) because she was trying to take a spot that had been marked off in front of his house by means of a bucket in the street.

She was pregnant.

For now, I am leaving out my interpretation of my own judgement of what people were doing. The pictures I'm posting are garish; they were taken at night and I tried to squeeze in between cars on the other side of these respective streets to get a face forward view of what I was seeing. The light from the flash is harsh. Up to this point, none of these are edited (I will do cropping etc later). I think it just provides a stark reminder of how folks can be in this city.

As a post script, it didn't help that the mayor encouraged this behavior. It's mentioned on a story you can read by clicking here; it's about a woman who had her tires slashed for moving a trash can.

You can check out more of the MySpace pictures by clicking here (or the link on the title of this post)

Gene *Hearts* Winter.

No, winter is not the name of a person, not in the particular context I'm speaking of anyways.

Winter is the time of year when you breathe in the type of air you can taste - air that comes from high atop mountains from far away, that falls slowly from thin clouds in the sky, and that infiltrates through your very flesh and into your bones. It is that time that makes you draw close to others out of necessity, an not mere desire. Winter is definitely a time of year that I love.

You may have already seen some of these pictures on Laura's blog, but I'm posting a few here. It was such a fun time for us - which was a much needed relief from the monotony, divisiveness, and heartache of life. We probably saw more snow than we've seen in our collective lives and generally loved most of the time we had with each other.

I couldn't help but post this picture of Laura because it really encapsulates the fun we had with each other. The blur beside her right hand is a snow ball that she threw at me [without as much success as some of her others].

I also love winter because of the season it brings - we've enjoyed having Laura's family up over this weekend and are currently taking a "time out," from running around (we walked all around NYC yesterday and around the Schuylkill River today - we plan on heading out again tonight). I love the idea of reconnecting with family and friends and hate the fact that I don't do it more often.

On another subject, I read through The Road about a week and a half ago and think it may definitely be worth your read. I'll be posting a review soon.