Blue skies return to the region

A view from my top-floor window of icicles hanging from my neighbor's roof. Ice is dangling from all of the roof tops here in Sterling, Va. The good news is that the sun is out and the storms are over. The bad news is that it's not going to get much above 30 degrees for the next several days.

We have gotten more snow than Madison, Wisc., in this unusual winter. Northern Virginia is still not out of the woods, with repairs from two blizzards ongoing and March looming as another snow-producing month for an area that has already set snowfall records.

Waking up to white-out conditions

Four days after one of the biggest snowstorms ever in the Washington D.C.-metro region, we have white-out conditions this morning as another foot or more of snow is being dumped on top of the 30 inches that fell last Saturday. Visibility has been zero much of the morning as winds are gusting around 40 mph. Drifts are reaching six feet. Power company crews have stopped working to get electricity back on in parts of Virginia and Maryland because conditions are too hazardous. Some folks have been without power for four days as night-time temperatures plunge into the lower teens. Suffice to say, many people are about to snap.

No one in these parts can recall anything like these two back-to-back storms. Trees and roofs continue to fall. Snow-removal budgets were exhausted weeks ago, shortly after the Dec. 19 mega-storm, which seems like a distant memory now. Hundreds of millions of dollars from the local economy have been lost as most businesses are closed. As of 9 a.m., the Virginia Department of Transportation said there were about 200 accidents working. Milk, bread and other basics have been gone from the store shelves during this stretch. A house burned down in Great Falls -- about 10 miles from where I live -- because the fire trucks couldn't get through the snow. Even local television meteorologists have a bewildered, grim look on their faces. And those guys usually live for this stuff.

It's an uneasy feeling waking up to pure white and winds that are shaking a house with thousands of pounds of snow already on the roof. Virginia wasn't built to withstand this sort of weather. People move to this state for its relatively moderate seasons. We have several more weeks where more snow could pound the region. It's scary to think what might happen if we get hit with another blizzard later this month or in March. One has to wonder where all the water will go when the snow begins melting and how businesses and municipal budgets, already crushed by the recession, will recover.

Who are you?

This is The Who, intact and at their height of creative energy and musicianship. Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, Keith Moon and Pete Townshend -- each rock legends in their own right. Two of the four are dead now. In fact, Moon has been dead for decades. But make no mistake about it, the late Keith Moon (drums) and John Entwistle (bass) were every bit as important to The Who as Daltrey (vocals) and Townshend (guitar). You can't say that about a lot of bands where the rhythm sections can be replaced without much notice from average fans.

Because half the band is six feet under, I hesitate to refer to the group that played at the Super Bowl in Miami yesterday as The Who. When Jimmy Page and Robert Plant briefly toured together after their famed Led Zeppelin days were long over, they simply referred to their new act as Page & Plant. And they picked appropriate venues to play in where they didn't need to fill the room with unbridled energy and laser-like precision. They sounded fine, played in a more subtle manner and connected with audiences. They drew heavily on their Zeppelin roots, performed a lot of the old songs, but updated appropriately to the times and to their latest band configuration and aging vocal cords.

The remaining members of The Who tried to pull off something that doesn't play to their strengths anymore. There is nothing Woodstock-ish about a football game run by corporations. In fact, the Super Bowl halftime show is a tough gig for any musician. The production problems alone are a nightmare. The only truly super Super Bowl musical performance I recall was turned in by Prince a few years ago. And I am not a big Prince fan.

It's tough to make a frantic 15-minute performance into something that is artful and true to the music. Most Super Bowl halftime shows are as much about the eye candy as the songs. That challenge and risk are fine for bands of lesser historic status, but groups like The Who shouldn't open themselves up to all the AARP jokes by being a part of this spectacle, especially with somewhat diminished skills. I still like seeing the old guys playing, and enjoy the old tunes, but in a more appropriate setting The Who would have fared much better. Give me Roger and Pete at Wolf Trap on a summer night in front of a few thousand folks and I am sure I'd have a far different take on their performance.

Of course, if you give me the choice of watching The Who or T-Pain at halftime, I will take The Who every single time. I don't care if Pete and Roger come out in wheel chairs and hearing aids. OK, that would be a little sad, but it would still be music.