Oh, it's not so bad right now -- above freezing and the roads are only wet. But the day after Thanksgiving we got 10 inches of snow up on the bench where I live (compare that to DC, where one Christmas I saw abandoned cars on Kemp Mill Road after a snowfall that left blades of grass visible). Or the 24 inches we got last January (or the 44 inches we got one January in South Bend). 900 residences lost power right on the 28th when winds of 61 mph took down some power lines.

Back to vacuums...I'm going to wait until the Consumer Reports February issue comes out and buy the top of the line self-propelled bag model. I want a big, bad sucker.