weather or not

Hey it was 14 degrees below zero (F) yesterday. Luckily I had no burst pipes and the truck started in the morning. Today it went all the way up to a balmy 10 degrees. Sweet! Tomorrow there's good news and bad news. The good news is that the temp will be up to 30. The bad news is that it's going to snow again. I may be out of touch for a bit. Stay warm everyone!

 

My truck mirror said it was 7* as I came around the mountain here yesterday. I finally broke out my windbreaker. A friend of mine shared the following with me (I grew up in Madison, WI):

COLD IS A RELATIVE THING.

65 above zero:
Arizonans turn on the heat.
People in Wisconsin plant gardens.


60 above zero:
Californians shiver uncontrollably.
People in Wisconsin sunbathe.


50 above zero:
Italian & English cars won't start.
People in Wisconsin drive with the windows down.


40 above zero:
Georgians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, wool hats.
People in Wisconsin throw on a flannel shirt.


35 above zero:
New York landlords finally turn up the heat.
People in Wisconsin have the last cookout before it gets cold.


20 above zero:
People in Miami all die.
Wisconsinites close the windows.


Zero:
Californians fly away to Mexico .
People in Wisconsin get out their winter coats.


10 below zero:
Hollywood disintegrates.
The Girl Scouts in Wisconsin are selling cookies door to door.


20 below zero:
Washington DC runs out of hot air.
People in Wisconsin let the dogs sleep indoors.


30 below zero:
Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.
Wisconsinites get upset because they can't start the snowmobile.


40 below zero:
A LL atomic motion stops.
Wisconsin public schools will open 2 hours late


50 below zero:
Hell freezes over.
People in Wisconsin start saying...'Cold enough for ya?'

 

Damn! Being born and raised in Cali, I am freezing when it is 50 degrees. I think I would die in that kind of whether.

Ay dios mio!

Abner

 

Oops!!!! It would help if I spelled weather correctly.

Abner

 

So the 'Logger Lover' must have been from Wisconsin, eh?
The Pete Seeger version:

As I sat down one evening,
'twas in a small café
A forty year old waitress
to me these words did say

I see you that you are a logger
and not just a common bum
'Cause nobody but a logger
stirs his coffee with his thumb

My lover he was a logger,
there's none like him today
If you'd pour whiskey on it
He'd eat a bale of hay

He never shaved his whiskers
From off of his horny hide
He'd just drive them in with a hammer
And bite them off inside

He kissed me when we parted
so hard that he broke my jaw
And I could not speak to tell him
he forgot his mackinaw

I saw my lover leaving
sauntering through the snow
Going grimly homeward
at forty eight below

The weather tried to freeze him
it tried its level best
At a hundred degrees below zero
He buttoned up his vest

It froze clean through to China
and it froze to the stars above
At a thousand degrees below zero
it froze my logger love

I lost my logger lover
and to this café I come
And here I wait till someone
stirs his coffee with his thumb

 

In related news, I signed a price guarantee with my home heating oil company, "locking in" the maximum price of oil at $2.99 per gallon, meaning that I would pay the going rate for any price below that, but if market rate goes above $2.99, I still pay $2.99.

This insurance cost me $210, back when prices were in the $4+ per gallon range, but so far, the highest home heating oil has been this season is $2.79 per gallon.

I might as well have taken that $210 and burned it in the fireplace for additional warmth; with temps this week not getting out of the single digits overnight, I could use the help.

 

As fate would have it, I bet if you did not buy that "lock in", the prices would have shot way up. It always happens like that for some reason. Same with other types of insurance.

Abner

 

The snow storm is winding down at this point. We got about 6 inches of powder. Too much to just ignore it but not enough to cause any real problems. The snowblower came back from the shop a few days ago and so I'll fire it up in a little while and clear some of the pathways. I heard a rumor that there are a couple of football games on TV today. I have to admit that I can be a bit of a sore loser. If it's not the Patriots playing then I just don't care too much. This next week the temps are supposed to be in the 30s with no more snow forecast. Statistically, if there's going to be a huge blizzard it is most likely to come in the first week of February. I'll be ready.

 

Yep. I locked into a guaranteed maximum price this winter for a fee of CAD96.20. The oil company in previous years had been absorbing the price fluctuations and not passing them on to their clients. However, with market volatility during the spring and summer this year the oil company decided to charge a small fee to lock in a price cap. We have had a few weeks of unusually cold weather (-25 C and lower not factoring in the windchill) since January 1. The oil tank was filled just before Christmas and is already below 1/2 full mark; this is approximately 25% more consumption than a normal winter month.

 

Sorry Kizmet. Another dumb question. What does a company do when there is a snow storm and people cannot come in to work for several days? Do the workers get paid by the company? Or does the State pay them unemployment? Just curious.

Abner

 

The rules on this vary a bit from place to place. Where I work, if the company "officially" closes then the workers get paid. On the other hand, if the company is open for business and you can not get yourself there (because you own some sort of silly car that won't work in the snow) then you eat up your vacation time. If you have no vacation time left then you don't get paid. There's no unemployment in the equation because you're not unemployed (at least not yet). You're just a not-smart human driving the wrong vehicle. Stupidity has its costs. Mostly the towns and the state do a good job plowing the snow and clearing the roads. You can usually get where you need to go but you have to allow a substantially larger amount of time because traffic moves much slower so as to avoid accidents. I went out today to my local mega home improvement store and the roads were almost empty. Because of the holiday everybody is taking their time clearing their driveways, etc. By mid-day on Monday everything will be back to its normal level of craziness. This is just the way it is in New England. It's even worse in some places. Winter in the Rockies is incredible. Anyplace that appraoches Canada probably has a harder winter than what I have to deal with.

 

It actually worked out great for me a couple of years ago, which is why I did it this year. I forget what the price differential was between market rate and my locked-in price that year, but it was substantial to the point I was concerned the company was going to go under if too many people took that option. They apparently had insurance of their own.

Also, it looks like I'll be snowblowing/shoveling about 6 more inches of the "wintry mix turning to all rain" that the meterologists around here predicted.

Is there any other occupation where you can be so wrong, so often, and still keep your job??

 

That's funny, I always say that about weather guys. I should have been a weather guy. Oh, well. Things have worked out pretty well. It's just good to be working nowadays.

On another note, have you tried snow boarding? I am a surfer, so they always said to try snow boarding, but I don't like the extreme cold. I don't mind going up to the mountains, but I would rather be in a hot jacuzzi with some nice brandy. I do love rain storms though, they make me happy for some strange reason.

Abner

 

Snow? Whats that?

 

Just spoke to a co-worker for Wisconsin and he said it was 5 degrees and a girl scout was selling cookies this weekend. Also, he went to dinner and it was 15 degrees so he had to wear a t-shirt and a flannel shirt.

 

The debate is over....it's FREEZING!!!

 

What? Selling girl scout cookies in 5 degrees! Damn. That girl scout would be laughing at me while I was saying "Ay dios mios, hace mucho frio!!!!!". That statement would be peppered with many damns and other expletives.

Abner

 

Hey it's gone all the way up to 35 degrees today so there's been a little melting and some cool icicles forming on the edge of those old gutters. All you warm weather kids are missing one fun activity. I'm talking about sledding. There's a few places in my town where all the kids go to do some radsledding. Sometimes the older kids go too. Bring your favorite vehicle.

 

OK, so a bit of time has slipped by and now it's supposed to be 80 degrees tomorrow (it's a bit of an aberation but still,) IT'S SPRING!

I'm building a grape arbor. It'll be fantastic!

 

Saturday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 82. South wind between 10 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.

Houston...