"Pittsburghers take pride in their practical solutions, especially the quirky ones, such as the 'Pittsburgh chair'..."

"... that we use to save the parking space we shoveled out after a snowstorm. There are folding chairs, barstools, even an occasional upholstered chair — whatever your choice. The chairs are sacrosanct, and they help avoid neighborhood disputes. Or the 'Pittsburgh toilet' that stands alone and unobstructed in the basement of many older working-class homes — porcelain artifacts of when the mills were booming. It made practical sense when the men returned from the mills to wash off the grime in the laundry tubs and finish their business in the basement before going upstairs for their meal. But there has been no easy solution for keeping schools open when an expected 500,000 to 700,000 visitors attend events...."

Writes Duquesne lawprof Joseph Sabino Mistick, in "Schools are closing for the NFL draft. What does this teach students? Pittsburgh prides itself on showing up and working hard. Students should, too" (WaPo).

An angel gets his wings.

Me and Meade, after the blizzard:

AND: Here's Meade's video of this morning's sunrise:

I love the music he chose — "Wichita Lineman." The lush instrumentation prevented me from really liking it at the time, but it's great now. I enjoy the subtle evocation of telegraph noise, which made me think of another old song with a representation of telegraph noise. It's much noisier:

That's "Western Union," by The Five Americans. I played it out loud for Meade, and then I played another Five Americans song with a title that had caught my eye.

Meade liked it and asked me what it was called. I told him and he sent me another video:

 

At the Snow Blow Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

***

Some of you would like to know if I lost my snow bet. I win if there was no more than 10 inches of snow. I'm seeing 10.9 inches in one place. That may be right, so I probably lost. Let me know if you have a more accurate reading. The stakes are zero.

The blizzard so far.

Meade is a snow sweeper:

How New York City really looks in the snow.

My son Chris happens to be sojourning in NYC in the midst of the big blizzard, which doesn't seem too overwhelming. 

He sends these pictures, which make things look more amusing than calamitous:

Hey, that's a cop car!

Things I'm not talking about.

1. Susan Rice.

2. Mamdani's snow shovelers and the 2-ID requirement. 

3. Trump's re-tariffing gimmick.

4. Our war with Iran.

5. Photograph of Prince Andrew.

I'm not judging these stories to be inconsequential. I just have nothing to add, nothing that fits my approach to blogging anyway. I like them as items to list. The list signifies that I feel some pressure. They're nagging at me. But I'm resisting. Feel free to talk about them in the comments. They're actually all good topics. I'm just not feeling the value of my own yammering on them. Maybe you think I've already said too much, what with that one word.

"Gimmick" is "Originally U.S. slang," according to the OED, which defines it like this: "A gadget; spec. a contrivance for dishonestly regulating a gambling game, or an article used in a conjuring trick; now usually a tricky or ingenious device, gadget, idea, etc., esp. one adopted for the purpose of attracting attention or publicity."

The oldest appearance of the word is an entry in the 1926 "Wise-crack Dictionary": "Gimmick, device used for making a fair game crooked." 

Sunrise, 7:13... afternoon, 3:58.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"School called and asked why one of my children have not logged on. I explained that me and my wife both work and suggested that maybe Mayor Mandummy could come by the house to help the kids get connected."

From the comments section to the NY Post article "Remote learning is not for the weak — here’s how a day of it went thanks to Mamdani’s no-snow day verdict."

And here's the most popular comment:

I looked at my grandkids this morning and said - "OK, here is the deal. Get dressed for the snow, as we are hitting the park, and NO computers today or Tue. We go back to school on WED.......but today and tomorrow is fun, french fries, milk shakes, pancakes - with lots of nutella"

They screamed, and we had a blast.

They ran and ran and ran around in the snow and they were so adorable.

Sunrise — 7:20, 7:25.

Please use the comments section to begin topics of discussion — topics not already under discussion in other threads. In particular, I'm putting the discord in Minnesota off limits. Go to this post or this one to talk about that. The overnight open thread is not a place for anger and repetition. Bring some light.

AND: I put up an even newer post on the immigration strife. I'll update the time of this post so it can continue to sit on top of the day's travails.

"New York City Could Get a Foot of Snow. Mamdani Knows It’s a Test."

The NYT puts its finger on why this foot of snow is such a big deal. It's hitting political hot spots.

Subheadline: "Plenty of New York City mayors have faced blowback over their handling of blizzards. In several appearances this week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has sought to show he is prepared."

I guess his opponents are hoping for a snow nightmare.

As for Mamdani, he's getting out in front of Snowmageddon and endeavoring to seem lovable:

Stay warm, stay safe New York. pic.twitter.com/aFbDsOkzLn

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) January 18, 2026

Sunrise — 7:00, 7:11, 7:14.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

Crunchy snow steps at sunrise.

Those are Meade's crunchy snow steps. I was struggling with my iPhone which was acting like a camera with the lens cap on. I thought I could just point and shoot as if I could see what I was doing, but I couldn't.

Here's another Meade video, the western view at 7:26 a.m.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

Sunrise — after the big snow — at 6:37, 6:38, 6:40, 7:00.

Not wanting to drive the car to our vantage point, we set out on foot. It was quite the trudge — a mile out and a mile back — mostly through 9 inches of snow on uncleared pathways. 

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

I opine on the snow — before and after.

At 7:22 a.m. yesterday, as the snow is beginning to fall:

And at 11:22 a.m. on today:

Had to dust off the old "I was wrong" tag.

"'I find it very difficult to convey how horrific it was... It was suffocating, wind so powerful that you had to sit down and curl into a ball...'"

"'... and turn your back to it so it didn’t knock you down the mountain. I couldn’t breathe with the ice and snow blowing so much in my face and then attempting to go up a very steep climb. It was just too many things at once.' They were two miles from their base camp and the large group of trekkers decided the safest thing to do was continue climbing for another mile or so in the hope of reaching a refuge. They would later discover it had been shut because park rangers had left to cast their mandatory votes in a presidential election the day before...."

From "Patagonia blizzard survivor: Our holiday turned into a ‘horror film’/A friend of the British woman who died while hiking in Chile said that park rangers had abandoned a refuge without telling them" (London Times).

"The blizzard struck on Friday evening, coinciding with China’s eight-day National Day holiday, a peak season for hiking and tourism in the area."

"Trekkers had flocked to the Karma Valley, a high-altitude trail at over 4,900 metres (16,000 feet) that leads to the Kangshung Face, Everest’s eastern approach, making rescue efforts particularly challenging."

From "Blizzard traps nearly 1,000 hikers on slopes of Mount Everest/Rescue effort under way for trekkers stranded on mountain following sudden snowstorm" (The Telegraph).

I read this headline out loud to Meade whose response exemplified what human minds can do that A.I. will never do. He said that Hillary Clinton should get herself in shape and climb Mount Everest. I knew where that came from and said we need to write a political satire in which Hillary Clinton, returning to her "Politics of Meaning" roots, gets in touch with the spirit of Sir Edmund Hillary, her (supposed) namesake, and trains to climb Mount Everest.

Normally, I would give this post my "unwritten books" tag and move on, ever onward and upward, but I yielded to the temptation to prompt Grok to outline the book.

"When I saw her in that dress, it stopped being cold for me. It was magical."

Said the groom, quoted in "Finding Happily Ever After in a Snowstorm in June/After their wedding was spotted on a webcam, pictures of Jamie and Chris DeBruhl getting married at a mountain resort in Montana spread quickly online" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see the photos, with the bare-shouldered bride in the snow).

The first day of Spring — 6:49 a.m.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments. And support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

ADDED: I left this in draft overnight. Sorry! It does say "Published on 3/20/25 6:41 PM" in the sidebar, but somehow it ended up in draft. The accuracy of the post title depends on the date being March 20th.

Mike Snowplowski, Sno'diggity, Snowceratops, Anne Pathaway, Princess Sleigha, and Plower to the People.

In what was a democratic process, the city of Madison has named 6 of its snowplows.

At the Lakeside Café...

... you can talk all night.