Category Archives: cold

cold, eagle, weather

Random Thoughts

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It’s 3pm and the thermometer has finally hit a blazing 10 degrees, but the wind chill has never gotten above -5. This morning at 9am it was still -10 degrees with a wind chill around -25. What you might call a slight cold spell typical of January. Looks a bit like this:

The bad part about the cold is the timing.  I am a pallbearer at a funeral tomorrow and the indoor part of the service will be no problem, but the cemetery is out on the plains with no shelter from the wind and the cold. He was a military veteran, so the graveside part of the service may run on for a bit by the time the secular and military services conclude. I’m just hoping it is above 5 degrees by that time and that the services proceed apace.

On a completely unrelated note, there are bald eagles gathering in the area for the winter this year. A rarity somewhat symptomatic of climate change and of improved fishing at the reservoir.. They are out by the reservoir as is their wont, munching fish, sitting in cottonwood trees, etc. At least 20 adult and younger eagles are hanging about. Earlier (before the snow and cold) they looked like this:

(Photo by Jessica Elbert and TheDenverChannel.com)

Now it is a bit colder and snowier and they look a bit cooler:

A sight I never thought I’d see in this area. It’s good that the eagles are recovering.

blizzard, cold, weather

The Week From Hell

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Last week was one of those weeks I’m really happy only rarely occur. A week ago Thursday we got our first real snow of the season – with blizzard and white out conditions. Of course, that also happened to be the day I started to come down with the creeping crud that is circulating here abouts. It turned out to be a dud of a blizzard, mainly wind and cold with only a half foot of snow.

Friday more than made up for the dud blizzard of Thursday with more snow and wind and real blizzard conditions. The temperature stayed in the single digits, the wind blew at 35 mph with gusts to 50 mph and the snow dropped out of the sky with a vengeance. When it finally stopped snowing around 3pm on New Years Eve, the wind continued to howl at 40 mph and wind chills were in the -25 to -35 range. The snow was drifting into drifts as deep as 7 feet in places.

(Photo swiped from Google – not one of mine.)

Remember that crud I mentioned? It came on strong and my nose would not quit running. I was supposed to go to a New Years Eve dinner, but I had to call and beg off. I was in bed and trying to sleep by 6pm that night. New Years day I got my snow shoveled and the MIL’s snow shoveled (it was challenging to travel the 5 blocks or so to her house just to shovel) and then crawled back into bed. By now my throat was raw and I was hacking along my merry way.

On Sunday, my throat was so raw I couldn’t swallow, my ears ached, my nose and lips were cracked and bleeding – I felt and looked just wonderful. Couple that with the fact that the infection was throwing my diabetes control off and causing my blood sugar to spike and drop in spite of the insulin, etc. and it was beginning to look like it might be time to visit the emergency room. Fortunately, I finally started to stabilize by evening.

On Monday I still felt like crap, but no worse. Of course it was then that my voice completely disappeared. I slowly got better over then next few days and actually began to feel human by Thursday – just couldn’t talk and had no energy. Today I am pretty close to recovered modulo tiredness and an episodic hacking cough. I could do without another week like the last one. Ever!

Here’s hoping your week was much better.

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?
cold, meeting, water

TGIF

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My cold finally quit running my nose like a faucet, but then morphed into the ache and shiver stage.

It didn’t help any to sit for five hours (we even had lunch in to keep on working) with several others all in various stages of recovery. But at least we won’t have to do this again for at least a month. The bad news is that now the project costs have escalated to ~$24 million and 15% of our water due to additional requirements from the the EPA and CDPHE. At least we have identified some possible funding sources. If I were even more cynical, I’d believe it is all part of the mandatory water conservation plan that we have to file with the project plan. After all, if the water costs the citizens too many $$$s, they will tend to use a lot less. Probably one of the more effective conservation plans.

Today was as warm as it is going to get for the next week or more. The cold front is supposed to blow into the state starting tomorrow and settle in for Christmas. When I talked to my wife up in the mountains, she said they were predicting winds in the 40 mph range coupled with sub-zero temperatures. So the skiers and snowboarders may find it a bit chilly with wind chills in the -50 degree range over the weekend. It shouldn’t be quite so bad down here on the plains.

Tomorrow starts the college football bowl season. On the down side, I need to clean the house  for Christmas, so it may cut into my viewing pleasure a bit. On the up side, it is early enough that it isn’t the most interesting games yet either. All in all about neutral.

Off to have some hot soup and call it an early evening.

cold, EPA, gift, water

I hab a cold!

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It had to happen. I awoke this morning to the familiar runny nose and sense of displacement that could only mean one thing – I have a cold. Given that everyone I have been meeting with for the last couple of weeks has been in some stage of recovery from the cold going around, it was only a matter of time before I became the next victim. So now instead of a well planned post, you’re going to get a random rant and thought as I honk my snorter between keystrokes.

I guess it’s fitting given that I have a five or six hour meeting tomorrow with the engineering firm about our EPA mandated change in water treatment. May as well be miserable and as well as in sticker shock. We are going to have to spend somewhere between $15-20 million to remove the granite decay products from the water here. The levels in the water haven’t changed in 2 or 3 million years, but because the congress critters changed (to levels even the EPA though were “unsupported by scientific evidence”) the limits, all of us out here in the water scarce plains are being forced to spend like loons and waste precious water in the process. We are spending this money to remedy a problem that *might* lead to one (yes 1!) excess death every 300 years in a town of our size. Historical data from the 1900’s on shows no statistical effect from the ever present granite decay products, but … Even the official EPA stats claim that if you drank 2 liters of the water here every day for 70 years, you would increase your chances of getting ill by less than 1 in 10,000. Oh well. It just seems that there are a lot of ways of spending that much money that would produce much better results.

You may remember my words about the community benefactor from this post . Here (if you read this latter, select the 2008-12-17 link in the box at the bottom) is one of the official reports of the unveiling of the gift. They have chosen to honor their son (L and I’s classmate) by donating and naming an oncology center in his name. Thank you Frank and Gloria and family! And here’s to the memory of Dave!

I’m off to snort my honker and drink tea. At the rate of tea consumption today, I’m going to have to become English or give up my coffee drinkers card. {*grin*}


P.S. And I just looked outside and notice that it has snowed some more.