Letters to the Power Plant #66 — A Blizzard at Dell

After I left the power plant and went to work for Dell on August 20, 2001, I wrote letters back to my friends at the plant letting them know how things were going.  This is the sixty sixth letter I wrote.

2/14/03 – A Blizzard at Dell

Dear Sooner Friends,

I hope I’m not disturbing all of you.  I know how busy it must be, with the “mini-overhaul” and all.  I just thought I would write and let you guys know how things are going down here.

We had a blizzard last weekend.  It was all over the news that we were actually going to have a snow storm in Austin.  People all ran out to the stores to stock up on food and other accessories.

Some put on their snow tires and put bags of sand in the backs of their trucks so that they wouldn’t slip all over the road on their way to church on Sunday morning.  People put plastic over their bushes with little heaters so that their bushes wouldn’t be burned with the big freeze!!!

The kids were all excited, because they hadn’t seen snow since we visited Stillwater during the Christmas vacation.  So they were looking forward to Sunday Morning when they would be able to go out and frolic in the snow.

So early Sunday morning, just as the sky was beginning to glow, I peered out my bedroom window and looked out over the backyard.  As I began to search the frozen tundra for signs of white flakes, my eyes lit upon a piece of wood in the backyard that the dog uses as a chew toy.

To my great surprise and delight, there was a layer of white substance dusted lightly on the top of it.  As I glanced around at the grass, I couldn’t find any other signs in my backyard that it had snowed during the night.  Looking up at the rooftops of the houses around me, I could see that there was signs of snow on the roofs of many houses.

A little while later, I heard the sound of my son running down the stairs and to the window to get a look at the Winter Wonderland in our backyard.  He was happy to see that there was snow on the roofs of the houses, but he asked me why it hadn’t snowed on the ground.

I turned on the news and they were talking about how the snow storm had moved through the area last night.  My daughter called a friend of hers, and they said that they had been out playing in the snow that morning.  They had made a snowball by going around to their cars and collecting the snow off of the back windows until they had enough to make one snow ball big enough to throw at each other.

What fun I thought!!  On the way to church, I could hear the hum of the snow tires on the cars going down the road, and felt out of place, considering that I didn’t even have snow tires.

When we were sitting in Church during a moment when it was rather quiet, I could hear the sound of a truck driving down the road outside wearing chains on it’s tires to gain added traction while the blizzard-like conditions persisted.

There were many accidents reported on the news attributed to the snow storm, and I thought it must have been because when the flakes started to come down, people forgot where they were, and just stared up into the sky with an amazed look on their faces and their mouths hanging wide open, until they ran into the car in front of them on the freeway.

You guys know the look I’m talking about.  The blank stare with the “mouth wide open” look  You have all seen it before.  It’s the look that Max Thomas would have on his face whenever he walked into the control room after doing his rounds.

Come to think of it.  It’s the same expression that Max Thomas had when he was sitting in the break room drinking coffee or walking out to the parking lot to get into his car.  You know.  He would sit there with his mouth hanging open.

One time, I said,  “Hey Max,  you’re mouth is hanging open.” and he said,  “Yeah,  I know.”  I asked him, “Aren’t you worried that a fly is going to fly in your mouth?”  He said,  “Naw.  It doesn’t matter much anyhow.”

So I said,  “Max,  Why are your finger’s twitchin’ like that?”  (If you remember, Max would stand there, and his fingers would be twitchin’ like he was playing an invisible piano or he was unconsciously using sign language to spell out what he was daydreaming about).  Max said,  “Yeah, I know, I just like to do that.”

I think I had a dream once where Max was playing a piano and his mouth was wide open as he was bellowing out an opera in Italian (Something like “Oh Solo Mio”).  It was a strange dream, and I knew I was dreaming, because Max was wearing a tuxedo.

It’s strange how dreams are.  I mean, I can picture Max playing a piano, and I can even picture Max bellowing out an opera with his mouth wide open, but when I saw Max wearing a Tuxedo, I immediately thought, “Naw.  This HAS to be a dream.”  And I was right.

I hope everything is going well with you guys.  I’m doing fine down here.  —  Trying to stay warm and out of the blizzard conditions outside.  It’s supposed to be in the mid-70s today.

I’ll write later.  It’s good to hear from you guys,

Kevin J. Breazile

______________________

Kevin J. Breazile

Dell Computer Corporation

(512) 728-1527