It's kind of surreal when hundreds of cars are involved in accidents near where you live, and you hear nothing about it until the next morning.

I have a 15-minute drive home, and although I had to sit in my car in the lot at work last night for 15 minutes just so that the engine would warm up so the defroster could melt the sheet of ice on the windshield, I made it home with no incidents. People were driving noticably slower � come to think of it, the roads were unusually empty for 8 p.m. on a Thursday � but it was an uneventful drive home. And we watched TV and went to bed. This morning, I went downstairs early to clear off the car, but it was mostly snow, just a coating.

But I came into the office to find a message from Dylan, who left at 9 p.m. and got home around 3. His drive is normally about half an hour. Steve, who lives down near my parents, sat for four hours on I-80 (as Dylan did) and, when he finally could move again, checked into the first hotel he saw at the next exit.

It's like chaos erupting around you, and not noticing it. It's as if the movie Daylight (hey, I saw the beginning of it on TNT a few weeks ago) happened (an explosion sealed off the Lincoln Tunne, but Sly Stallone saved everyone he could) and you didn't hear about it until the next day. That's what it feels like.

So now it will be interesting to see if we make it out of here by 5:30 like we're supposed to, because the builders are doing some work where they need to take some computers offline and shut down a section of the office. There was an e-mail yesterday explaining this and asking people to come in early to ensure we're out by 5:30. Our workday is supposed to start at 9:30; it's now 9:45, and there is maybe 25 percent of our workforce here. But some of that may be attributed to the weather, so I guess I can't bitch and moan.