Category Archives: weather

google, Molly, weather

Unsettled Tuesday

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Today was full of ifs, buts, and maybes. And it must not have just been here that it was that way. How do I know?

First off, all morning and most of the afternoon, my iGoogle home page looked like it had been redesigned by a crazed color blind Tibetan monk. No info, no listing of my RSS feeds (all those lovely blog posts – ignored), no news, no anything like normal. Only a lonely search box begging forlornly for me to type at it. Worst of all, the problem seemed to be mainly affecting Firefox. Opera looked almost normal. Of course my internal ordering of browsers runs Firefox, Opera, and finally if life is nearing an end, Internet Explorer. So I was just one step away from the universe as I know and love it coming to an end.

I might have figured it was just me and my machines, but then on the Google developer forums there were confirmatory messages mentioning the same problems. So it must have been either Mozilla or Google having a bad day. Now this evening, all is back to normal and I am so happy to return to the news of Balloon Boy and all the coulda-shoulda-wanna-be sports stories written by the mid-week wound licking losers. (Anyone else notice how the Google news feeds seem to have a real emphasis on the negative slanted stories? Why is that? Have they joined the Fox News Network and I just didn’t notice?)

Then to add insult to injury, it was overcast and dark here all day. The sun seemed to run off and hide, afraid that the brown and gold and orange colors of fall just weren’t enough. It looked like a snow storm was eminent all day long. By late afternoon is was misting – you know, the billions of wanna-be snow flakes unable to make it in the real world and falling to the earth like a living fog bank. So it was damp and cool and breezy and dark all day. Weather ultimately conductive to lifting the spirit and making one happy to be alive – *not*. It was bad enough that by noon the normally chipper Molly had retreated to her bed and wasn’t going to pull her nose out from under her paws for anything short of Armageddon.

It seems that the gloom of the day must have infected others. Every call I got today had a note of gloom and doom and rant and rave in it. I can’t wait for the weather to turn sunny again.

Oh well, I have beans soaking to make soup tomorrow and Molly has decided she should come to life. So I leave you with Molly and the chew toy of death. Let the battle begin!

cold, snow, weather

Snow!!!

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Last night, as the temperature dropped, that strange wet and white stuff magically appeared. By morning it was a winter wonderland.

This is the view out the back door from my workbench:

This is the view looking across the little patio:

Last, but not least, this is the view out the front door towards the driveway (which you might note I hadn’t shoveled yet):

It had warmed up to a blazing 25 degrees by noon today. Will the Rockies game in Denver (about 125 miles further west and 900 feet higher elevation) be played today? Do many baseball teams have a snow removal plan? Inquiring minds want to know. Of course, I also wonder how long it will take the weeping willow to drop its leaves now that it has frozen hard.

After shoveling a few walks and driveways, I feel perfectly content to watch a college football game. The only question is which one. So as I make my decision, I leave you with the following:

What did it look like in your yard today?
drear, weather

The Day That Wasn’t

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It was a dull and dreary day here today. In a rarity for the region, it was cloudy and overcast all day, making it look like it was twilight even at noon. It finally even broke down and drizzled a little late in the day. So of course, the thermometer hung at a lowly 42 all day and didn’t get energized at all. A perfect day to watch football on TV and take a walk in the dark breeze.

Molly thought it was dreary as well – after getting up this morning when I did, she quickly snuck back into the master bedroom and curled up in the corner to sleep for another few hours. Seeing her curled up there brought to mind one of the questions I have been pondering: Do dogs tell time by the amount of light? I suspect that dogs do indeed tell time by degree of lightness. As evidence, consider the following. I normally give Molly her doggie treat at around 8pm. All summer was not a problem and Molly was very good at knowing the right time to appear with baited breath. Now as it is been getting dark earlier and earlier, Molly has begun nudging me when it is about the same degree of darkness as 8 in the summer (meaning as early as 5:45 now). Then she repairs to the laundry room and sits and stares at the cabinet with the treats. Every time I tell her “No, it is too early.”, she goes and lays down for 15 minutes and then repeats the process. Finally, when it reaches 8pm or I get tired of the game (which ever comes first) I give her her treat and literally make her day. It will be interesting to see if the process reverses itself when spring rolls around.

At least the Broncos won today. I was about to give up after the first half when it looked like the Broncos were clueless. But the second half was a much better game and I was glad I watched. I tend not to be a rabid rooter for any one team, but instead applaud the team that is playing really good football. That goes for college as well as pro games. I tend to like college football a bit more since there is more uncertainty and the level of play depends greatly on the motivational skills of the coach with all the hormones floating around at that age. Enough ranting about that.

It is time to clean up the kitchen since I cooked egg plant tonight and made a bit of a mess. It was an interesting meal – salad, egg plant sliced and dipped in egg and seasoned breading and then fried, and some plain steamed brown rice. It was tasty, but I wasn’t motivated to get it all cleaned up earlier, so now I need to get to it so I can head for the bed.

council, water, weather

Too Much To Do Tuesday

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Tonight will be a quick post since the pre-council meeting and then the council meeting with the water issue public hearing took up a lot of time. At least the public hearing went well. We had people from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) present to explain what happens if the issue doesn’t pass on the ballot and the engineers present to detail all the options and treatment methods we considered and their estimated costs, etc. There were less than a half-dozen citizens that testified and asked questions, so I think the public informational meetings along the way really helped. But we did have a nearly full council chambers for only the third time in the last 6 years.

When I came home, it was really beginning to rain and the temperature was already down to 45. The higher altitudes to the east (up around and beyond Denver) were predicted to get snow tonight. I guess fall really is here. Of course when I got home, Molly was waiting and wanted to go out. So I let her out and went to grab a towel or two. There are few things less pleasant than an affectionate greeting from a soaking wet long haired dog, towels in hand or not.

Molly told me about her day as I fixed my late supper. Her discription consisted mostly of woofs and growls from what I could understand. There were also squeaks of the chew toy and a few low rider sprints through the house as well. Of course, as soon as I sat down at the table, she wanted to rest her wet head on my lap.  I’ll leave it to you to imagine just how thrilling that is.

Finally, two readers have signed up to follow my twitter account in the last week. Proof positive that people have too much time on their hands. If you want to follow, I’ll save you all the detective work of those two – I am djones666 on twitter. Just be forewarned that I twit (note that I called it a twit, not a tweet) very seldom and on very random topics. Someday I may even put a button over on the side to let people follow, but for right now you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.

Time to put together a couple of notes for the radio show in the morning and then hit the sack. Probably better get the names of the CDPHE people written down so I can attribute them correctly. {*grin*}

water, weather

Fall Is Coming!

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Today is definitely a harbinger of the fall to come. Saturday for the garage sale and yesterday for my booth duty at Sugar Beet Days, it was in the 80s and sunny. Later in the day yesterday it turned rainy and started cooling off. Today it drizzled most of the morning and reached a high of 54 degrees as the northern cold front settled in. Definitely fall weather. L reported that it was snowing in the mountains today. Fortunately, it is supposed to be back in the 70s by the weekend and not freeze yet down here, although it will be in 30s the next several nights. Guess we picked the ideal day for the garage sale!

In the aftermath of the garage sale, it’s amazing how one finds odds and ends laying about the house that were intended to be in the garage sale but never quite got hauled out. Oh well, it gives one a start on the stuff for the next sale seven years hence. After a day of no more heavy lifting, my knees are returning to normal.

Tomorrow is yet another public hearing on the water issue here in the city. This one will feature the engineering report on the technical details of the new treatment plant. Other meetings have have concentrated on the community impacts and and non-technical overviews. It will be interesting to see what the tenor of those who actually attend this meeting will be. Engineering reports tend to be a bit dry {*grin*}, but they also attract all the “but if you just did this illegal thing or that illegal thing it would be cheaper” crowds. Because of the size of this project, we had two separate engineering firms look at the plan and estimate the construction costs. They were in agreement to less than 1% on a $27 million dollar project. That tells me the numbers are right and have little wiggle room.

In any case, the engineers and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) will be in town and so I’ll be tied up in meetings before the council meeting and public hearing. Given the full agenda to follow the public hearing at the city council meeting, it may be a late evening. (Just in case you are wondering, CDPHE is the agency responsible for administering the EPA front line enforcement in Colorado. They have been a good organization to work with thus far – I often feel sorry for them and the EPA heat they have to take through no fault of their own).

It will be interesting to see if the young man who called me last night to inquire when we met for city council will be in attendance. He needed to attend a council meeting for one of his Boy Scout requirements. I got a laugh out of it since I sit on the committee for another troop and knew exactly what requirement he was working on. I still asked him to explain it to me and he did a very good job. That’s why it will be interesting to meet the young man. I was reminded of his call since I was preparing a proclamation for another young man’s Eagle Scout ceremony next week. (I issue proclamations for Boy and Girl Scouts who reach the highest rank – it’s my personal abuse of the power of mayor if you will. Actually, the power of proclamation is one of the few unfettered powers a mayor has. My policy has always been that if it isn’t illegal or immoral, I’ll probably proclaim it.)

Time to resume cleaning up the aftermath of moving out the junk fine consumer goods for the sale. In other news, I got lucky enough to get a password into the second level of the Rockies ticket raffle for the playoffs. L and the Son both got the “Thanks, but you lose” emails. Maybe I am heading into a streak of good luck. Wish me luck!