Snow - In General

[Uncle Al]

Sorry - I couldn't resist........

2 Feet of snow.jpg

Uncle Al

[Taj]

That was "cold." There is presently about 6" on my driveway so far and its still coming down. Another day of unscheduled forced labor for the Denver area. Can you tell how I feel about snow?

[crfriend]

There's 3 inches of "widowmaker" snow in the street, and a bit more on my driveway and front walk. I am not enjoying this. At least with the last storm when we got just shy of three feet it was light and fluffy; this s**t weighs a good 20 pounds to the shovelful and possibly a bit more (I can occasionally hear the aluminium handle creak a little bit under the load of lifting and throwing).

I am *so* ready for spring.

[Uncle Al]

I had to resurrect this from 2008 - - It's kind of long but worth it
(Please don't read this while drinking coffee, or anything )

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Diary of a Snow Shoveler

December 8 - 6:00 PM
It started to snow.
The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for
hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven.
It looked like a Grandma Moses Print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again.
I love snow!

December 9 -
We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of
the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a lovelier place in the
whole world? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had! Shoveled for the
first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the
sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the
sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again.
What a perfect life!

December 12 -
The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment! My neighbor
tells me not to worry- we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on
Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of
winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. I don't think that's possible.
Bob is such a nice man, I'm glad he's our neighbor.

December 14 -
Snow, lovely snow! 8 inches last night. The temperature dropped to -20.
The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I
warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life!
The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn't
realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back
in shape this way. I wish l wouldn't huff and puff so.

December 15 -
20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow
tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife
wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly.
We aren't in Alaska , after all.

December 16 -
Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting
down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was
very cruel.

December 17 -
Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity
was off for 5 hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing
to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should've
bought a wood stove, but won't admit it to her. God I hate it when she's
right. I can't believe I'm freezing to death in my own living room.

December 20 -
Electricity's back on, but had another 14 inches of the damn stuff last night.
More shoveling! Took all day. The damn snowplow came by twice. Tried to
find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they're too busy playing hockey.
I think they're lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about
buying a snow blower and they're out. Might have another shipment in March.
I think they're lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done
and bill me. I think he's lying.

December 22 -
Bob was right about a white Christmas because 13 more inches of the white
**** fell today, and it's so cold, it probably won't melt till August. Took me
45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel and then I had to piss.
By the time I got undressed, pissed and dressed again. I was too tired to
shovel. Tried to hire Bob who has a plow on his truck for the rest of the
winter, but he says he's too busy. I think the asshole is lying.

December 23 -
Only 2 inches of snow today. And it warmed up to 0. The wife wanted me
to decorate the front of the house this morning. What is she, nuts?!!
Why didn't she tell me to do that a month ago? She says she did but I think
she's lying.

December 24 -
6 inches - Snow packed so hard by snowplow, l broke the shovel. Thought
I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the son of a ***** who drives that
snow plow, I'll drag him through the snow by his balls and beat him to death
with my broken shovel. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me
to finish shoveling and then he comes down the street at a 100 miles an hour
and throws snow all over where I've just been! Tonight the wife wanted me
to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was too busy
watching for the damn snowplow.

December 25 -
Merry freaking Christmas! 20 more inches of the damn slop tonight -Snowed in.
The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. God, I hate the snow! Then the
snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with
my shovel. The wife says I have a bad attitude. I think she's an idiot. If I have to
watch "It's A Wonderful Life" one more time, I'm going to stuff her into the microwave.

December 26 -
Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever move here? It was all HER idea.
She's really getting on my nerves.

December 27 -
Temperature dropped to -30 and the pipes froze; plumber came after 14 hours
of waiting for him, he only charged me $1,400 to replace all my pipes.

December 28 -
Warmed up to above -20. Still snowed in. The ***** is driving me crazy!!!

December 29 -
10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in.
That's the silliest thing I ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?

December 30 -
Roof caved in. I beat up the snow plow driver, and now he is suing me for a
million dollars, not only the beating I gave him, but also for trying to shove
the broken snow shovel up his ass. The wife went home to her mother.
Nine more inches predicted.

December 31 -
I set fire to what's left of the house. No more shoveling.

January 8 -
Feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me.
Why am I tied to the bed?

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Now that wasn't so bad, was it

Uncle Al

[john62]

Well down here in the South Melbourne has 4 weeks over temps. over 30C day after day, snow does not sound so bad. And of course almost no rain in Jan. or Feb. so far.

John

[crfriend]

Well down here in the South Melbourne has 4 weeks over temps. over 30C day after day, snow does not sound so bad.

That's because you blokes are hanging upside-down from the underside of the ruddy planet! Of course, looking at this one might not get the impression. (Note to self: That's a great April's Fools' joke for the "Big Board" on the monitoring system at work.)

And of course almost no rain in Jan. or Feb. so far.

That bodes ill for the coming months indeed. Couple no rain with the planet being closer to the sun at this time of year than 180 degrees about the orbit just makes it hotter. Here's hoping that Fire Season will be done with for a bit. Perhaps snow doesn't sound so bad.

[Tor]

Nice map. Perhaps it's just Antartica seeming to be missing, but it almost seems like some landmasses are outsized to boot. Hanging that up sounds like a brilliant April Fools joke - especially if there is an existing map to replace or cover with it.

[crfriend]

Hanging that up sounds like a brilliant April Fools joke - especially if there is an existing map to replace or cover with it.

There is -- one with real-time icons overlaid onto it showing the aggregate status of each of our offices worldwide. Since I was the bloke that did that one, doing the gag version will be trivial; the main question will be how long it takes folks to cotton on to the new one (if they notice at all, that is).

The other one I am contemplating is submitting an urgent help-ticket to invert gravity in the computer room so hot air will sink and so improve cooling efficacy.

[Tor]

Good thing I have some experience with laughing with my mouth full.

As for the map, it seems that even one person noticing by noon might have a sufficient effect by the end of the day. The latter option, however, I could see becoming almost as legendary as IP over Avian Carrier, albeit known to a rather smaller region:)

Tor

[crfriend]

Good thing I have some experience with laughing with my mouth full.

That's a useful skill, especially around a smart crowd.

The latter option, however, I could see becoming almost as legendary as IP over Avian Carrier, albeit known to a rather smaller region:)

'Tis a pity it got turned down, but I submitted an April 1 RFC to the relevant authorities pertaining to the tunnelling of IP traffic over Morse Code on baseband carrier. The spec was sufficiently advanced to allow humans to interact with the protocol using telegraph keys. It lost out to the IMP (Infinite Monkey Protocol).

The intent was to implement using a PDP-12 at one end and potentially a human at the other end as a test case and some early coding had gone into the -12 side of things to get a relay to tap out Morse. The Morse algorithms were adaptable enough that a human with a steady "fist" would be able to talk to the computer at human speeds. (Of course the computer could outrun a human up to the maximum bandwidth spread permitted by the FCC and international authorities, but the notion of gigabaud Morse speeds is just plain silly.)

[skirtyscot]

I can see what's wrong with that map - Britain isn't in the middle!

[Tor]

Bummer on the morse code. I suppose those blasted monkeys are just a little too impractical to compete with a joke RFC so near to being actually implemented and perhaps on its way to being a joke genuine standard:). Hmmm... dates are wrong for that; the last shouldn't have been a concern then.

Gigabaud morse? Sounds like you'd long since have gotten past being able to use relays to operate telegraph keys. (my electronics background is rather more limited than yours, but...) Taking a 100µs reaction time and figuring an average of 4 times that for a dot or dash, and a (somewhat long, but easy to calculate) average of 4 dots or dashes for a character, one ends up at about 2ms/character - or 500cps.

Tor