Gassing up JBE1 at Pownal Center Store before heading into the teeth of the snowpocalypse.

Last night, I watched a press conference by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. If this was a comedy sketch, it couldn’t have been funnier. It wasn’t. I posted the video in my previous JBE post, so check it out.

The entire presser seemed geared to people that had never experienced snow, or a snowstorm. It made me wonder if there had been a secret influx of people to the Northeast from regions where snow wasn’t the norm.

Apparently, government’s only role has become that of serving as a helicopter parent to a population of dolts lacking any kind of common sense.

I won’t go down the list of suggestions/recommendations that Patrick and his surrogates were offering viewers of NECN. Just as ludicrous was Mayor Thomas Menino, recommending that Bostonians basically crawl into their closet and huddle under a blanket for the next few days.

Fear-fogging like this really sets me on edge and brings out my defiant side. That’s why I decided  on covering the storm on my own, at least for a few hours, before the winds and intensity of what’s basically a traditional nor’easter, picks up.

There was a time in my life that I drove professionally. For close to 10 years in the late 1980s and into the mid-1990s, I worked for a power company and I had to go out in all kinds of weather. I’m very comfortable driving in bad weather. Today’s conditions, at least right now, are nothing compared to other storms I’ve been out in.

Now that my current work requires me to travel up and down the interstate, I run studded snow tires and have for the past four years. With the JBE1 outfitted with Hakkapelita 5s by Nokian provides the kind of handling that allows me to feel secure running in snow, ice, and other inclement conditions.

If you don’t feel confident out on the roads, then by all means, stay at home. Miss Mary has that option today. But for those of us that are ok with snow and going mobile, then have at it (until an actual state of emergency is declared or Marden’s closes).

Maybe that’s why I resent being told by nanny staters that I can’t leave my house on a day that it snows.

The LL Bean boot doesn’t mind the snow.