When I returned from working as a researcher in Central America a few months ago, I did not have any immediate prospects for employment-now that my most recent project was complete. So I got to work on becoming an independent consultant, which now fills some of my time. As my own boss, I am ineligible for a government unemployment insurance handout, but as someone working from project to project, I am sort of unemployed. At least during the gaps between projects. Gaps=sort of unemployed. Sort of unemployed=free time.

So recently, I decided it was time to start collecting unemployment benefits. Not the kind the government makes you light yourself on fire and jump through hoops for, but the kind that the much-more-generous Mother Nature offers, without any interviews, paperwork, or stigma. With word from the weatherman of impending powder, I headed over to a friend's on Tuesday night for a strategic jump on Wednesday morning's goods.

The day was great. The beauty of the east coast is that while many love to ski, most everybody is terrified of driving within a few hours of heavy snowfall. If four inches or more are in Wednesday's New England forecast, you can put your wampum on packed grocery stores after work on Tuesday, school closings announced by dinner, and normally-clogged roads as deserted as the parking lot at your local Bear Stearns by sundown. So on a midweek powder day, the ski mountains are crowd-free. This was no different on Wednesday and the conditions just improved as the day went on. January has been damn good to New England. We've already received more snow this season than we average for an entire winter, and the snowiest month-February-looms yet.

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