Tag: facebook

Lol, not a snowflake in sight, yet they are already waiting 🙂 actually, that’s commendable

Came to Harris Teeter for a snack, and here are the lines to the checkout counters with 20-25 people, standing with full carts.

I have a bad feeling about the storm…

Entered the library, saw a book, couldn’t resist and signed up again. Now I owe two libraries – Washington County and Fairfax County.

The realtor asked today, do I have any debts. Now I know what to answer.

The book is cool. Sitting in a café, eating a salad, and reading.

Bad English. A history of linguistic aggravation by Ammon, Shea

I’ve noticed that the weather forecast in the USA takes up significantly more airtime than on our channels. It’s explained there by some bald guy, not a model girl, and everything is very well visualized. Presumably because there are a lot of natural disasters happening here and they need to warn people professionally.

There is a special TV channel called The Weather Channel.

A certain Winter Storm Jonas is currently approaching Washington, promising a record amount of snow in two years, up to 50 cm, on Friday and Saturday. My family is arriving on Saturday in the afternoon – I wonder if the flight will get delayed, or if it will be diverted to somewhere in New York. And it’s interesting to see how I will make it to the airport. The weekend promises to be eventful)

Here’s a report about it: http://www.weather.com/series/the-lift/video/winter-storm-jonas-expected-to-impact-travel-this-weekend

Interestingly, the forecasts are more accurate in the US than in Europe, because the American continent is more affected by long-lasting ocean anomalies (they are linked to a constant water temperature, which doesn’t change for quite a prolonged period). Hence, here on weather websites, everything is detailed down to the hour, and the weather maps look precise.

It feels colder here than in Moscow at the same subzero temperature. I can’t explain it. The humidity in both Moscow and Washington is about 85% during the winter months. Probably, the question here is about the sea winds – when they are present, the humidity somewhat increases making the cold feel sharper.

Here are 186 mutual friends with a certain Philippe Fila, how do you add new ones, huh? Without looking?

This is how we work

Went to lunch at Tyson’s Corner Center.

Tesla Motors, a Microsoft “apple-store style” shop, some eatery with a conveyor belt full of treats. They pass by you, and you can pick them directly off the belt.

This is a vending machine that dispenses cash in exchange for phones. It gives $135-200 for an iPhone six. A Samsung tablet is valued between $20 and $40.

A light snow has fallen, five degrees below zero, and it’s not even slippery anymore, yet schools are closed all over the district. Just like that)

Hooray, I passed the written exam at the local DMV, tomorrow is the road test. The written exam consists of two parts – signs and everything else. You can choose to take the exam in Russian. You can’t make a single mistake on the signs. For the rest, you need to score at least 80% correct. Yesterday, I made a mistake on the signs, somehow assuming I knew them.

Here’s the sign where there were four answer options, two silly ones and two like this (I’ll write ~): 1) if you are driving in the right lane – reduce speed, 2) if you are driving in the right lane – switch to the left lane.

The retake costs 2 bucks, and you can retake it the next day. After three unsuccessful attempts, they send you to driving school to study the theoretical material.

Some questions from the second part are smart, some not so much. For instance, a sign of a cyclist in a yellow diamond and the question – what is this, with one of the four options being a sign involving a cyclist. But there are some tricky ones. Like how many seconds should you count at speeds of 45-70 mph to estimate the braking distance. Or how many feet should you drive with low beams at night, instead of high beams (subsequently with some numbers, close to each other).

In preparation, this really helps: http://driving-tests.org/ It works with a different interface on mobiles, really convenient.

At the DMV, there’s always a queue to the load balancers, reaching up to 40 people. If you arrive in the morning – you get your electronic queue ticket first. I arrived 20 minutes before opening and was first in line. They ask for proof of residence, SSN, two documents, and consider Russian driver’s licenses (without them, the procedure is different). The electronic queue directs you to one of the tables, each equipped with a vision test device, and a tablet for signing. At the DMV, they not only issue licenses but you can also buy a cool license plate number for yourself, for example. It seems they also offer extras like registering births and voter registration.

By the way, dealing with the proof of residency is tricky. Despite having lived in a hotel all January, and the hotel providing a certificate, for the DMV it’s not really a valid document. But utility bills or a lease agreement with the landlord are quite acceptable documents.

So, without looking it up on Google, does anyone have an answer to the puzzle from the second paragraph?