Tornados, fire alarms and snow.. (oh my)

This time of year, for the past five years, I've travelled the state with my counterpart at our state association conducting professoinal standards training seminars. In a nutshell these seminars help the REALTOR volunteers who serve on local grievance committees and hearing panels. Most of the local REALTOR Associations require these volunteers to attend the training each year to be eligible to serve.

We began the tour this year in State College on March 16th and then Harrisburg on March 17th. Yesterday we drove to Wilkes Barre. The first year we did these programs we did them in February and early March and had significant weather issues resulting in rescheduling. So we decided to move them later in hopes of avoiding that. Still we have snow in at least one location each year. It snowed in Wilkes Barre on Wednesday night into Thursday. I left my house in freezing rain at 6:00 a.m and arrived in Wilkes Barre two hours later to a Winter Wonderland. There as about 2 inches of thick snow on the streets and trees. *I* thought it was pretty. I was in the minority.

Today we presentated in Plymouth Meeting, PA at the Doubletree Hotel. All was going more or less ok until the last hour of our presentation. The room got very cold. I found out later this was because the front doors to the hotel were being held open to ventilate the lobby. Workmen were applying some kind of very strong smelling varnish type thing. With about 15 minutes to go in our presentation the fire alarms went off. It turned out to be a false alarm. Something the workmen did set them off. However, with lights flashing and a recorded voice saying (over and over) "There has been a fire emergency detected. Please leave the building. Do not use the elevator"... well we lost our audience. That was a 'you've got to be kidding me' first.

So now we have a week off before heading to Bucks County on April 4th and then to the 'west coast' April 5-8. There we will make stops in Meadville and Greensburg, PA. Here is where we often see snow (even if April). Snow would be the least of my worries at this point. If you've been reading the news lately, you'd know that on Wednesday-Thursday while Wilkes Barre was getting snow, Greensburg was hit by a tornado. This story calls it a possible tornado; it was confirmed later.

All in all I think I'd rather have the snow out west and have it wreak havoc on our schedule than meet with a tornado.