Twists and Turns

No, this is not a post about the ski trip. It's a post about the days leading up to it, also known as my winter break. I will post about the ski trip ... tomorrow, when I'm at a Christmas party containing all of 0 kids that are my age, plus or minus 15 years.

Winter break is strange this year. I really have no work. No obligations, other than the promises I made myself to start studying discrete math. Unfortunately, I easily get sidetracked. At least now I am ... productively sidetracked, if that's possible. I ended up in linear algebra, and from there progressed to very basic abstract algebra. Hooray, I'm clearly prepared for that discrete class next semester.

Since I really have nothing, my parents are actually okay with the fact that Eric basically lives here now. We spent an entire day on our computers coming up with ideas for and producing epic banners, which can be viewed here.

So to go along with what everyone else is doing, I will post some incredibly artsy and original pictures of the snow.

Just kidding, I have no such talent. Still, the snow looks beautiful.

There was quite a lot of snow. We decided to use the table on our deck to measure, and it came out to 19 inches.

Unfortunately, that much snow has negative impacts on things, like my car.

It was not going anywhere anytime soon.

Once we were able to leave the house and Eric went home (not for too long, don't worry), my mom took me out to Tyson's Corner to buy Christmas presents. Christmas presents ... for me. That I "do not know about." I'm not really sure how that works.

I wanted to drive on the way back, but I had forgotten my license. To compensate, my mom allowed me to apply my expert navigation skills. She sorely regretted it. Here is a map displaying the optimal route from Tyson's to my house (or well, not exactly my house, since it occurs to me it is not a good idea to post the location of my house on the internet ...) This is listed as taking 10 minutes, and is a total distance of roughly 5 miles.

Allow me to present my alternative and far superior route! As soon as I got home I mapped it out on Google. Trip length is approximated at 28 minutes, with an approximate distance of 10 miles.

Don't worry. Each of these twists and turns has a justification behind it. Just for fun, I will explain all of them :D

So to begin with, it was the 22nd. Cue the mad Christmas shoppers rushing to the mall right after work, all at around 5 pm. Just as we were leaving. That was not great timing on our part. All the roads even remotely close to the mall were backed up beyond belief.

"Man ... I hate 123. It's always so congested. Let's get off."

"We've been on this road for too long. Quick! Make that illegal left turn over there!"

"Ved, we're back where we started."
"Yes, but now we can avoid 123!"

"New strategy! Drive as far away from Tyson's as possible!"

"In addition, all major roads are backed up. Therefore we should drive on roads we have never heard of."

"Hey! I know that road! Let's go that way!"

Finally, we had found out where we were. The trip at this point had taken about an hour due to severe traffic. Apparently, my idea of driving on completely unfamiliar roads was not a great one. You might think the rest of the trip home would be uneventful. But no! I was not finished with my navigation innovations. As we approached Great Falls street, it occurred to me that it might be heavily congested due to its proximity to Route 123. Therefore I suggested a slight deviation from the plan.

This impeccable method takes us through some beautiful scenery, roads that are not exactly snow-free, and a lovely trip down a dead end that indicated to my mom that I had no idea what I was doing. If that much wasn't clear from my previous directions.

If you consult the first map, you'll see that the recommended path and my path are quite similar from this point on. This is most likely because my mom decided to go against her word and not listen to my brilliant advice. The trip had taken 2 hours to that point. Coincidentally, we arrived home about 5 minutes after she made this rather rude decision.

My mom always complains about how I don't spend enough time with her. I don't think I'll be hearing those complaints for a while.