Category Archives: weather

city council, weather

The Ghost of the Past

5 Comments

I was back in my old stomping grounds tonight, appearing before the city council on behalf of my new job. It would give all the habitat-for-humanity guessers false hope if they knew that much of the time was spent on the intricacies and failings of the current zoning code in the city.

You’d have been proud of me. I kept my presentation short and to the point. (Especially since the water engineers in front of me were scheduled for a 35 minute talk and it ran to over 100 minutes – not that I was counting or anything. {*grin})

I did get a chance to give the new council and city manager a hard time. At the entry to the council chambers is a rogue’s gallery of photos of the council and the mayor, etc. I noted that according to the rogue’s gallery, I was still the mayor as it was still my picture hanging there. That got a couple of mutters of “Omigosh, we haven’t changed that yet!” out of the staff. That is what happens when you are mayor for three terms – they forget how to handle the transitions. {*grin/2*}

After that, I stopped by mom’s on the way home to pick up a bunch of stuff from her freezer. I’d promised her I’d do so. That way she’d have space to clean one of her freezers. More to get things organized than cleaned – at least so it seems to me. In any case, my solo freezer is now full to the brim with all the additional stuff. I have even begun to suspect that there is creature living on the bottom of my freezer. It has been that long since I’ve seen the bottom. Probably won’t until summer gets here and then it is time to reload.

Today was wonderful since the temperature finally got above freezing for the first time in a bit and some of the snow started to melt. I keep my fingers crossed in hope that it will finally get rid of the sheets of glare ice covering the roads and parking lots. It would be nice to have that cleared away before the next snow storm wonders in. We’ll have to see. I still don’t think it will be warm on Christmas Day, but a man can hope.

The next hint for the job guessers: I was a founding board member of the organization and think I have actually mentioned it here on the blog once or twice.

giveaway, odd question of the day, weather

Philosophical Questions

6 Comments

It is sifting fine powder snow at the moment, but there is little wind so conditions are actually quite fine. Here is Molly standing in the 0 degree weather and asking why I am not joining her in frolicking in back yard.

She is clearly disappointed that I won’t venture out to help her scout for squirrels. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that squirrels seldom frolic on days like today. If I were a faster photographer, I might have been able to capture Molly rolling in the snow and then laying on her back in the snow. With all that long white fur, cold never seems to bother her. (And I love the powder because it leaves rooster tails behind her as she sprints out to the tree hoping to catch a squirrel unawares.)

Newsflash – the weather bug on my desktop finally hit 1 degree – a heatwave.

On a more philosophical note, I have a question that was triggered by an email after yesterday’s re-appearance of the tattered moccasins. It seems some  shopping/retail organizations run web spiders to pick up blog posts that might tie in to their promotional efforts. Something about my worn moccasins tickled the fancy of couple, at least enough to generate an email or two. So the question posed is this: Would you run a giveaway on a non-giveaway blog?

I ask because we all obviously see giveaways on various blogs to increase readership, etc. And of course there are blogs that are primarily giveaway oriented. But for the small, non-commercial blog like this one, I run headlong into my belief that holding a once in a blue moon giveaway is a violation of the implicit contract with you the reader. It would seem that running a giveaway and forcing/offering following as a method of entry would indeed be a short lived gain when there was no more moolah forthcoming. Am I insane in my beliefs?

I already answered the emails in the negative for a giveaway on this site, so you don’t have to worry about changing my mind. I am really more curious about the feelings and thought processes you undergo on the topic. Feel free to flail away in the comments or email. I’ve been called worse things than crazy before, so feel no compunction to hold back.

Time to get back to work. It will be interesting to see if the weather changes enough to impact the Christmas reception hosted by the college tonight. Only time will tell.

spelling, weather

I’m Back …

4 Comments

Since I wussed out and went to bed early last night, I know you have been waiting with baited breath for this post. You can now breathe. I am here. {*grin*}

And did you know that the built in spell checking in most browsers doesn’t grok “wussed out”? But it does grok grok and is happy to suggest wusses! I therefore conclude that the people who write the spell checkers are Heinlein fans with little exposure to everyday language. Now that I have insulted the all-powerful spelling Geeks, watch for the number of mis-spellings here to rise exponentially. I’m already preparing a burnt offering to appease them.

Since it is nearing noon and the temperature is finally close to hitting double digits (i.e. 10), I think we should celebrate. After all, this is supposed to be one of the warmer days this week, so a little

is in order to keep our spirits up.

We only got a dash of snow yesterday, less than 3 inches, but I loved it because it was dry powder snow. That meant when I walked out to get the paper Sunday morning, every step made that characteristic squee-scrunch that happens with powder snow when the temperature is near single digits. Made me want to traipse around making more squee-scrunches in spite of not having my coat on and wearing these moccasins in the sub-zero wind chill.

Note that Jenners feared I might wear these in public clear back here. (Just to allay her fears, no one else was out in the cold and snow at the time.) It was fortunate that we didn’t get more snow or the open toe design modification would have failed when packed with snow.

The weather forecasters are predicting we won’t reach 20 for the high until Friday or Saturday, so most of the snow we have will sit and glow in the brilliant sunlight. I love that blinding glare when it is clear and cold and snow covered. I suppose I’d better enjoy it today since tomorrow is supposed to be interesting*. At least it is not forecast to be the blizzard conditions forecast for the areas to the south of us.

Time to get some more work done. I need to get some stuff finished for the Scout committee meeting tonight and then get busy. Don’t eat any yellow snow.

*Issued by The National Weather Service
Denver/Boulder, CO
11:35 am MST, Mon., Dec. 7, 2009

… WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 5 PM MST TUESDAY… 

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN DENVER HAS ISSUED A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW… WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 5 PM MST TUESDAY. 

SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 4 TO 8 INCHES ARE EXPECTED ACROSS THE PLAINS OF NORTH EAST COLORADO BY 5 PM MST TUESDAY… WITH THE HIGHER AMOUNTS OVER LARIMER COUNTY AND THE FAR EASTERN PLAINS. 

rant and rave, weather

Five Rants and Raves

6 Comments

Since Angela seems to have dropped off the face of the earth in recent weeks, I’ve decided to temporarily suspend the Friday High Five. We’ll see what the new year brings to determine if it returns.

Today I want to rant and rave a bit instead. To set the mood, let’s begin with a little Stray Cats for visual inspiration

followed by this important admonishment

Rant – The wind and the cold has Molly the dog pacing the floors and being a real needy girl. This is despite the fact that we went out for a five mile walk in the 4 degree wind chill today. It was cold enough that we were the only people out walking. The gusty wind out of the north had both Molly and I walking sideways to keep from exposing our faces when we headed north. (And Molly put her big bushy tail between he legs to keep warm when we faced south. I unfortunately am missing that appendage.)

Rave – There looks to be a good college football game on tonight. I am already beginning to suffer withdrawal as college football heads into the bowl season.

Rant – The weather forecast says it will warm up to highs near freezing for the next few days, but then fall back to a series of days with highs in the mid-teens. I really want this to be one of those years where Christmas is 70 degrees. I don’t think the weather is going to co-operate.

Rant – The bird that kept clunking into the bedroom window this morning, hoping to come in out of the cold. It got Molly all excited and made me get up and shoo the bird on its way and calm Molly down. It sat there in the bush and looked so cold just a few inches from my face in the pre-dawn light. I had to wave my arms and jump up and down to finally get it to depart.

Rave – The stark beauty of the outdoors the last couple of days as Molly and I walked. There is something absolutely wonderful about the stark windswept plains when it is frigid that makes my heart soar. (And getting home to fix a warm bowl of soup – priceless.)

weather, winter

Ol’ Man Winter

6 Comments

Today was on track to be another glorious late fall day – the sun was shining, temperatures were in the 50s, it was calm to breezy. Then Ol’ Man Winter opened his gaping maw and turned on the wind machines. By the time Molly and I got out for our walk, the temperature was dropping 8 degrees a hour and the wind was blowing to drop the wind chill well below freezing. It caught me by surprise, but in retrospect it should not have. The weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow involves snow and large northern cold front settling in. As a consequence, it is supposed to be in the low 20s tomorrow and then drop into single digits as the night closes in. Winter is supposedly on its way. Now all we have to do is see if the weather critters are right.

Speaking of weather critters, am I the only one thinking of writing a “truth in weather critters” application? Since the weather forecasts generally come out in 7 day blocks  and are re-issued each day with new (and often a very different forecast for a given day), my thought is to capture the weather forecasts so one could have a little applet that not only gave you the prediction for tomorrow, but the associated trend line in how the weather critters are changing their predictions. I realize that if you live in SoCal, this is utterly boring since the forecast is always sunny except for those ten days a year when it says partially cloudy and the one day a decade when it says snow. But how about those who live where there is real weather. Doesn’t it irk you to have the weather critters change their forecasts after you have made your plans. Don’t you wish you could hold their feet to the fire? I sure do sometimes. Maybe even add a retrospective feature to show what the weather was and how close or far the weather critters actually were.

Time to get back to checking on the batch of turkey soup that the last of the holiday bird is fleshing out. Think cold and snow and we’ll see if the weather critters get it right.