I wrote about the "killer" ice storm last week.

Granted, it did ice, and it was slippery, and it was best to be off the roads. And maybe a bunch of journalistic pseudo ("pseudo"="false") panic gets people thinking about staying off the road. So maybe some good stuff came out of bad (not "the ends justify the means"; The ends never justify poor means.

(I did have a hilarious voice message from an acting buddy of mine as he dropped his phone and slid off the road; he's fine.)

Anyway, "they" sanded my hill during the ice storm (relax, it's a small hill; I'm still one of you, you classist bastards).

To clarify, they didn't just sand my hill; they established a beachhead.

I have this theory that every state gets the same amount of sand and salt for winter -- independent of the state's climate. So Texas gets as much salt and sand as Idaho. And Texas came together like the republic it is, and rushed emergency sand and salt aid to Central Texans in need during our "KILLER ICE STORM 2005".

And they dumped it all on my hill.

When I go running, I start my loop by running up my hill. This was a problem with my newly installed beach.

I was slipping and sliding all the way up. I couldn't get traction, and I was seriously worried I'd sprain an ankle on the way up. Cars were passing me, grinding course sand to dust, clogging my lungs and making it feel like I was running through a quarry (done that in the past, too).

When I finished my run, I dug out my leaf blower and blew sand off of my driveway and away from the street in front of my house. Who knew I owned a leaf blower? (Truth be known, a leaf blower has a ton of alternative and entertaining uses.)

That's Austin for you -- hide form an ice storm one day; break out the leaf blower the next.