Icy Storms Hit Dallas, Cause Airport Havok, and PUA Goes Postal

Really, the life of a Pick Up Artist / Dating Expert is sooooo very glamorous.

Here I am at Las Vegas' McCarran Airport stuck on standby because of the insane ice shit storm that came down on the midwest. Flights got canceled and, as per my norm, I arrived an hour early. Turned out I would need way more than that because the U.S. Airways / American West line went OUT the building. Absolutely insane SNAFU.

So here I am and tired as all hell. I got some sleep, but it was the kind of sleep that I might have been better off not getting. You know the kind, where you get a few hours sleep but still wake up groggy. I should have just stayed up and konked straight out at the airport waiting, hope beyond hope, that some dink will get stuck at airport security and let me on the flight.

Damn slot machines are blaring and blinking, annoying twits are flitting about spewing trivial inanities about their life, while I wait here uncertain that I can even get on. Yeah, this is the life. LOL.

Ice storm slams N.E. after leaving Oklahoma, Missouri in dark

• NEW: Slick roads disrupt King holiday celebrations
• Death toll rises to 36 from Texas to Maine
• Missourians might not have power until Wednesday
• Ice knocks out power to 50,000 in New York state

ROCHESTER, New York (AP) -- A storm blamed for at least 36 deaths in six states spread into the Northeast on Monday, coating trees, power lines and roads with a shell of ice up to a half-inch thick and knocking out power to more than half a million homes and businesses.

Slick roads disrupted Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observances from Albany, New York, to Fort Worth and Austin, Texas, where officials also canceled Gov. Rick Perry's inauguration parade on Tuesday in anticipation of another round of ice.

The weight of the ice snapped tree limbs and took down power lines, knocking out electricity to nearly 70,000 customers in New York state and New Hampshire.

Even in Maine, a state accustomed to winter weather, a layer of sleet and snow on roads forced the shutdown of numerous businesses, day care centers and schools. (Watch drivers sliding in ice and snow Video)

In hard-hit Missouri, the utility company Ameren said it would probably not have everyone's lights back on until Wednesday night.

Overnight temperatures were expected to drop into the single digits. As of Sunday night, about 330,000 households had no electricity. (Watch Missourians plunged into darkness Video)

Missouri National Guardsmen went door to door, checking on residents, and helped clear slick roads.

The St. Louis temperature hovered just above the freezing mark Monday morning, and the wind chill was 24 degrees, the weather service said.

About 112,000 homes and businesses blacked out in Oklahoma, some of them since the storm's first wave struck on Friday, also were still waiting for power Monday.

About 136,000 customers were without electricity Monday in Michigan.

More than 160 flights were canceled at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Before dawn Monday, a car slid into the path of a dump truck on an icy New York highway in Sennett, 20 miles west of Syracuse, killing the car's driver and two passengers.

"It was very icy, rainy, a snow-sleet mix, so definitely the road conditions had a lot to do with this," Sheriff David Gould said.

Waves of freezing rain, sleet and snow since Friday had been blamed for at least 15 deaths in Oklahoma, eight in Missouri, five in Iowa, four in New York, three in Texas and one in Maine.

Seven of the Oklahoma deaths occurred in one accident, in which a minivan carrying 12 people slid off an icy highway Sunday and hit an oncoming truck. (Full story)

Most of the Missouri power outages were caused by the weight of ice snapping tree branches and dropping them onto power lines, officials said. (Watch tree limbs snap under weight of ice Video)

In New Hampshire, 4,500 outages occurred, some caused by vehicles sliding into utility poles. But in the northern part of the state ski areas were celebrating their first significant snowfall of the season.

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