Tag-Archive for ◊ winter ◊

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• Friday, February 05th, 2010

I’m a bit silly-punchy right now due to being on the reception desk all day, so if I really go off on a strange tangent or don’t sound quite sane (for me – be nice), that’s why.

It’s odd to know that there’s a raging snowstorm coming up the East Coast that’s going to absolutely bury some places in 20-30 inches of snow, yet in Rhode Island there isn’t even a flake in the forecast. Amazing how these systems work. I’m so used to hearing the Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore-Washington, DC announcement on Amtrak as if the megalopolis is this continual, reasonably small area of land that sometimes it’s easy to forget that no, it really isn’t.

In any case, my mom will be in this storm, though not in the worst of it. I’ll give her a call at some point to check in tomorrow.

My weekend should be fairly tame – I’m going to stitch all day tomorrow. Literally. Erich and Matt are off to play Dungeons & Dragons (well… a Star Wars campaign actually, but it’s tabletop roleplaying…) all day. They’ll probably leave sometime around 10 a.m., and I expect them home pretty late (10 or 11 p.m.). I’ll have the house to myself.

So stitching’s the plan – and lots of it. I’m going to be working on my Stitching Olympics rotation for The Wagon tomorrow. Unsure how many projects I’ll actually stitch. The official turnaround is at 2 hours. I am going to stick to that as best I can, but I do tend to be a slow stitcher. 2 hours may not give me a lot of progress. Still, it will be good to put stitches in a bunch of things. I have UFOs that literally have not been touched since before my wedding. I’m using the Olympic challenges to form my rotations for the rest of the year, too. I want to figure out which projects are strongly appealing right now and which projects I have a reasonable chance at finishing at some point this year. As far as I’m concerned, the more I can clean off my list, the more new projects I can start. :) But now I have a healthy group of projects to choose from, so no more from me until a couple others are completed, I think.

I also became the moderator for the new 2010 UFO Round Robin over on The Worldwide Round Robins board today. Susan’s a bit busy with work and other projects, and I was happy to jump in with the experience I have from years past in non-stitching exchanges. The RR’s scheduled to have its first mailing on March 15th, so if anyone’s interested in participating, pop over there, look for the 2010 UFO RR board (bottom of the page, currently) and drop me the info required. The more the merrier!

Time to go home soon, so I’m going to start tidying up around here before heading to the boat. (I drove to Hingham and took the ferry today)

Happy Friday!

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• Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

We’re having a very uneventful holiday here at the geek house. All playing World of Warcraft, munching on junk food, and just being lazy. We have no presents under the tree, so tomorrow will undoubtedly be very quiet as well.

I’m rooting for Chinese food tomorrow, and then will make some sort of a yummy roast for dinner on Friday night (since I have no money for groceries at the moment).

I hope those celebrating have a very Merry Christmas. :)

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• Monday, December 22nd, 2008

It’s 18 degrees. Balmy to those in the Upper Midwest, I realize, but it’s the coldest air of the season here so far, so it’s a bit of a jolt to the cold tolerance.

Today’s 90 minute train ride included:

No heat (bundle of fun in a big metal tube that probably hasn’t been used all weekend)
A breakdown at… wait for it… MANSFIELD! (What a surprise, eh? Black. Pit. Of. Doom.)
An idiot IM’ing someone on his iPhone, complete with rapid chiming. (the noise… we hates it!)
Icy walkways in Boston (where the city never plows sidewalks… idiots)

So I’m now about done with coffee #1, soon to go back for coffee #2. And I imagine hot drinks will be the order of the day today. I’m just hoping I will feel my toes sometime before this evening.

Meh.

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• Sunday, December 21st, 2008

(being snarky) Remember… Axial tilt is the reason for the season…. (/snark)

It’s a snowy one here – it’s been snowing almost consistently since Friday afternoon. We’re up to about a foot, give or take an inch, and it’s coming down pretty heavy now. Supposedly it’s going to change to rain later, although honestly I hope it doesn’t. Since it’s the first snow of the season here, there’s a pretty, peaceful feel about it. I’d love it to be a white Christmas this year.

After then, it can go away. :)

I’ve received quite a few cards this week – thank you all! :)

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• Thursday, December 13th, 2007

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• Tuesday, November 20th, 2007

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• Monday, November 19th, 2007

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• Friday, December 09th, 2005

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• Friday, December 09th, 2005

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• Friday, January 16th, 2004

“Good morning Boston, it’s eight below with a windchill of thirty-seven below….”

This was the first thing that Erich and I heard as our radio alarm went off this morning. It’s like the radio station timed it so we’d hear that entire sentence perfectly.

We both groaned… audibly.

Now, I grew up with frigid cold temperatures. I was used to doing the mad dash in the Senior High parking lot to the RX-7 with my friends, huddling in the little car, hands shaking as I adjusted the manual choke to start the car and hope to god that I didn’t flood the engine while doing so.

I waited for the school bus a few times in this cold– with these windchills.

It’s still fucking cold. I don’t care where I’m from, or where I grew up.

God damn cold.

minarae called last night to make sure that Erich, Jason, the cats, and I hadn’t turned into ice cubes inside the walls of our apartment. I let her know about the disconcerting ice forming on the inside of the window panes in the bedroom… but that no, we were okay. Just a bit… nippy.

or nipply.

Or both.

It’s cold enough that when I went to clean off my windshield at the gas station (since the tubes for my wiper fluid are frozen over), the blue juice at the gas station froze on my windshield in strangely shaped rivulets of blue-tinged ice. Thankfully my defroster took care of the problem– by the time we got to work, of course.

And have I mentioned how much I’m thankful for heated seats? And have I mentioned how thankful that I can drive the Jeep again that has said heated seats?

The odd thing, however, is that going out this morning didn’t feel physically as bad as yesterday since I’ve had a day to acclimate to it. It’s still cold regardless. But I didn’t feel the earth-shattering pain in my hands when I ran from the car to the apartment without my gloves after dropping Erich off at the train this morning. And because I did grow up in this stuff– I do remember the little things my parents taught me about caring for cars in the severe cold… not to let the gas tank go below a quarter (or a half, if you can help it), don’t use your wiper fluid because you don’t know what ice is in the tubes… drive slow until your car can warm up… that kind of thing.

It’s not fun, but it is survivable– and it gives everyone something to bitch about for a while. The weird thing is that out of my roommates, I’m the only one who has dealt with this kind of cold before. The news stations are calling this the coldest weather in *generations* (not decades, or years). The record low that was shattered this morning was from 1920. They’ve had ice-breaker ships out in Boston Harbor several times this week. And schools are closed everywhere so kids don’t risk frostbite while walking to school or waiting for busses– which had problems with their diesel fuel congealing yesterday.

Which means I might get to fix the chaos that was my office this week by enjoying a day where so many people are at home with their kids.

Minarae, is that travel offer still open? :)

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• Thursday, January 23rd, 2003

I had this earlier in my journal, and hit clear just as I was ready to finish it. *sigh* And of course, work beckoned.

Anyway…

I had an… interesting morning. We’ll chalk this one up to “Things Mel has become complacent about due to three mild winters in a row.”

All of the following happened between 9:10 and 9:25 this morning. And no, I hadn’t had any caffeine yet.

I get down to the car a bit after 9 this morning– running a little late, but not too badly. I have to be to work by 9:30, and as long as I am on the road by quarter after nine, I’m generally there, give or take a couple minutes. So no worries. I get into the car, turn it on, and then turn to the left to get the seatbelt.

And out of the corner of my eye, I see this weird brownish goop thing on the inside of the rear passenger window.

What. The. Hell. Is. That?!?

Ew. Okay. Great.

I get out of the car– leaving it running in hopes that it will warm up a bit from the frigid single digit air outside. I open up the back door, and what do I see? A pile of shaved ice crystals on the floor of the car right behind the driver’s seat, which had origins from five now-exploded cans of diet vanilla coke.

*groan*

Not only did these ice crystals form on the seat. The goop managed to get on the back of the driver’s seat, a little on the passenger seat, on the door, the previously mentioned three-inch-long goop on the window, and somehow– a goop on the ceiling.

Ah yes. Mel remembers the warning– too late, of course– that full sodas should not be left in a freezing car.

The current car appearance is why this should not be done.

I swear a bit, get back into the car, and drive it to the other side of our parking lot (all of a whopping thirty to forty feet) and park right next to the dumpster. I get out of the car again, this time turning it off. I go again to the back seat and grab the 12-pack box and as many of the cans as I can to get rid of them before assessing the damage.

Thankfully, the majority of it is on the floor of the car. And more specifically, on the floor mat. I pick it up, shake it out over the pavement, and give it a few good thumps against the back tire. I scoop out as many of the shavings that were on the floor as possible and dump them on the pavement. I then begin to brush off whatever will come off from the other surfaces. The goop on the window and the door are stubborn. I’ll need some warm soapy water for that once it warms up again. The rest seems to come up okay. A bit here and there that will have to be tended to, but all considering, I’m left reasonably unscathed.

I replace the floor mat, grumble a bit because my bare hands are now really cold from the coke crystals, and turn the key.

The car won’t start.

It keeps churning, but it won’t friggin start. I try cranking it a bit too long, hoping it’s just a bit too cold, but it won’t agree with me. As I bring the key back, I smell gas.

Shit. It’s flooded.

*sigh* I’m going to be here for a little while.

I reach for my cell phone to call Linda to let her know I’ll be late– as it’s now about 9:20.

My cell phone battery is dead.

I give a slightly louder– and expletive inclusive– growl of frustration, get out of the car, lock it, and head upstairs to make my call. While I’m up there, I decide to grab my phone charger, give the cats a few pets, and head back down to the car.

It takes four more tries to get it to start– and only does so when I pop the gas as if I were starting a clutch.

I got to work at 10 a.m. and scraped yet more coke crystals from my car.

Really… can it get any worse than this today?

It might. It just might.

*winces*

~ Mel.

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• Wednesday, January 22nd, 2003

Even for a Montana native like me, this weather hurts like hell. And it feels like it’s creeping into the office building. Gah. *shivers*

I’m hoping that I won’t freeze in yoga tonight. I’m worried that I didn’t bring appropriate layers to keep warm during class. Perhaps I should bop out of here a few minutes early and go over to Marshalls to see if I can find a long-sleeved shirt in the men’s department or something (since I can’t count on plus-sized women’s exercise clothes there).

*shivers*

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• Wednesday, January 08th, 2003

Heh… I’m getting attacked by porn spam on my Diary-X guestbook.

Oh wait, now it’s gone. Two messages to some “teen porn” site. And the interesting thing was, when I went to delete it manually from the guestbook, there was no option for it. Now only my message commenting about said porn is still there.

Perhaps it was already deleted by the guestbook server. How nice of the guys. I just dropped them an email to ask how I should go about it. I was hoping I wouldn’t get a hotmail-esque “just start over” type of email.

Cool.

Anyway, it’s day six of the “we’ve had measurable snowfall today” around here. While I’m sure Tan is still buried with the dumping they got last weekend, we probably have around 3-4 inches in Randolph. There is a little less than a foot here around work. Mother Nature is definitely making up for not only last year’s mild winter, but the two preceeding winters with Her behavior this year.

Thankfully, the snow this week has been what we referred to at home as “sugar snow.” Meaning it’s pretty dry stuff, albeit not quite as dry as it is in the Rockies. You can still make a snowball out of this stuff around here. But getting the car cleaned off in the morning isn’t too bad– it’s not forming ice on the windshield. I just have to use the brush and brush it all off. I can deal with that. It’s the scraping that I hate. I’ve heard rumors that the lows on my birthday are down in the single digits this weekend, and that we’re supposed to get little snow squalls at least every day for the next few days. They must have heard that the weather forecasters were bored last year or something.

Ah well, it’s winter. It’s supposed to be snowy. And I’d rather it snow a little everyday and hide that ugly brown snow to keep it looking relatively pretty than have it turn into disgusting grey-brown slush.

~~~~~~~~

I’ve noticed an interesting thing on the roadways this week as I drive in the morning to work– people in Massachusetts have no clue on how to merge in traffic. And it’s not the people who are physically merging onto the road. It’s the jerks who are already ON the road who have this desire to block others from also getting into a lane.

LGM mentioned this a while back, and how it was a difference between New York and Massachusetts drivers.

I’ll beg to differ with him on that, having driven around Manhattan on the interstates and expressways. Upstate New Yorkers know how to merge. The tri-state area is questionable.

Massachusetts drivers just suck. It’s all because they don’t want to lose that one precious car-placement spot in the line of cars. Because heaven forbid they either scoot over a lane to just make it easier for all involved, or slow down a bit to allow someone in. Instead, they keep at a pace and car spacing placement that just prevents anyone from scooting their car into the lane at all. The result is that traffic gets completely gummed up as cars are trying to shove themselves into the lane, and asshole aggressive drivers just make things worse by shoving themselves right into the thick of things, and then getting all pissy that it doesn’t instantly move to the side so they can pass.

*sigh*

This is the joy of my commute in the morning, in particular, at the junction of Route 24 and I-93 south (which becomes I-95 north about 4 miles after I get on… it’s all quite mindboggling until you actually see the map). Route 24 north ends at I-93. It’s a three-lane highway that literally splits in half to continue either north or south on 93. With the way the split is designed, rather than have the route 24 cars enter I-93 on the right, as with most normal highway entrances, it enters the interstate on the left lane. But instead of temporarily dropping a lane at the exit ramp onto 24 about a half-mile prior to this onramp, the left lane on I-93 continues, and the more aggressive drivers take advantage of the less crowded lane to speed for about a half-mile. Before, of course, they run into a lane and a half’s worth of Route 24 traffic trying to merge, which does include large 18-wheelers who need to immediately move into the center lane, since large trucks are not allowed in the lefthand lane on the highway. The aggressive drivers don’t want to let THEM in, either. And when a large truck gets gummed up, just forget it. Generally you’d think that someone will eventually realize that even a large SUV isn’t going to win against a big old Mack. But for some stupid reason, these drivers try to block off these big trucks.

And for what exactly?!? One precious ten-foot long spot on the highway, that was instantly removed by these jerks anyway?!?

Ugh. I hate them. I really do. But I realize that unfortunately, it’s a behavior that continues out of necessity for some people. There are just enough aggressive drivers to make it necessary to take a survivalist attitude on the highways. And as much as I resist it and hope that there will be some polite souls out there, they’re rather few and far between on the Massachusetts roads. Driving here is ruthless. So much so that I noticed how amazingly different it was out west, and how my newly-learned (and as Erich can attest, nowhere near the normal aggressive level) Masshole skills were going to cause problems out in Montana with reckless driving risks.

We won’t even mention the fact that I’m currently driving the Jeep without the updated insurance policy card, will we? It expired on January 1st. My mom called me to remind me yesterday, and faxed over a temp copy of it until I get the real one with birthday gifts sometime late in the week.

Eesh.

I’m so screwed.

At least I can unwind and let the shitty traffic go by while I enjoy dinner with Roberto and Ellen from work tonight, and hopefully have a safer, less stressful commute home. Those dijon-coated scallops at Skipjacks are calling to me…

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• Monday, January 06th, 2003

Southern Massachusetts did not get, in any way, shape, or form, a bad snowfall on Friday to Saturday. We got rain. Lots of it. And it melted most of the snow that was currently sitting on roadways and grassy surfaces, with the exception of the piles formed by snowplows in the large parking lots.

In fact, we probably have gotten more this afternoon in the whopping couple of hours that it’s been gently falling than we got in the “disaster storm” all weekend.

Up north? Well, New Hampshire’s a completely different story. The piles around Tan’s house were quite impressive. The fact that the maniac plow guy for their landlord didn’t kill someone or run into a house while quickly trying to plow at 9 p.m. Saturday was also impressive.

The progression of no snow to “DAAAAAMMMMNNNN” on Saturday as Erich and I drove up I-95 and Route 3 was quite impressive. It’s amazing how much of a difference there can be in snowfall in only a few miles. Parts of the drive were absolutely beautiful with snow-flocked trees, still plastered white from the wind.

As much of a pain as snow can be, particularly while driving or having to shovel it, I do prefer snowy winters. It’s just… normal. Last year threw me for a loop, and I always felt off because we really didn’t have a winter. It seems that this year, Mother Nature is not only giving us a winter, but making up for the lack of snow last year. Every other day or so it seems we’re getting flurries.

Now if only my ankle were sturdy enough to go ski, I’d be in heaven.

~ Mel.

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