Tag: weather

Little Trina Two Topic

Sheesh, this week I seemed to have only talked about two things – my new phone/PDA/whatsit and the weather. This post is no exception.


The Aftermath

The day after Faux-Blizzard ’08 and things are looking pretty good. Before you become all impressed with my L33T shoveling skills, I’ll own up to the fact that someone came by my door this morning wanting to know if I wanted my walk & driveway ploughed. Hell yeah! And I had them do the parental units’ walk as well.

When I finally did get out this afternoon, the sun had done a great job on getting the snow in hand. I took some photos with both my camera and the phone for comparison purposes. The one thing I notice with the phone is that the sky had a lot more noise in it than my regular photos. (They both take 3 megapixel photos, interestingly enough.) When you shrink the photos down for e-mailing and/or LJ posting, however, the noise isn’t noticeable. (The above photo is a phone photo.)

The official measurement out of Dayton International Airport was 13.2″ of snow. This came in second to the storm of ’04 when we got over 16″. #3 was an actual blizzard – ’78 with its 12.9″. Here’s hoping we’re done with the big storms this season. (Here’s really hoping that the forecast of 40+°F for Friday holds true – don’t wanna drive to Cincinnati in snow or ice.)

Blizzard 2008

OK, it probably wasn’t an actual blizzard, but it was missing a good chance. At any rate, the snow didn’t stop til after 4pm and we got between 10-12 inches here. I haven’t been out yet to experience it myself – maybe tomorrow.

I spent most of the day playing with my new toy – downloading games for it. Took me awhile to decide if I wanted Bejeweled or Bejeweled 2, but I finally decided on 2. 🙂 Also installed, euchre, free cell, sudoku, mah jongg, sokoban, tetris, and Galaga. Most were free, so yay. Still need to put some songs on as potential ringtones.

I’m currently rewatching Porco Rosso (I watched it in Japanese first and when the ending arrived, I was like WTF??? So I’m rewatching with the English soundtrack thinking maybe it’ll make more sense. Heh.)

Tomorrow’s plans are to do laundry, clean house (heh, we’ll see) and maybe grade papers. Perhaps I’ll shovel. Should be a good day regardless. 🙂

The Land of Glass Trees


Welcome to the Land of Glass Trees

Today is our 7th calamity day of the school year. OK, so we’ll have to make it up later, but for today, I’m going to stay inside and enjoy the view. (Maybe it’ll melt enough so that I can get to the post office before they close this afternoon.)

Thank Goodness for DP&L

Yesterday it got up to 70°F and was sunny in the morning. Today it was near freezing and raining all day. And then it went below freezing and was still raining. Our superintendent made a smart call and dismissed school an hour early. After all the kiddies were gone, we teachers were allowed to leave. So I did, and headed off to the polls.

I actually drove today (I usually walk) because of the threat of ice later. I don’t mind driving short distances in ice, but walking home? Gah! My rear window and passenger-side window were covered with ice, but the windshield and driver’s-side window weren’t.

Ohio has Closed Primaries, which means you have to declare your party before you vote. I’m Independent (or at least I was when I entered the church where we vote) and didn’t want to just vote for the one issue on the ballot, so I decided to vote Democrat. (Which is almost as boring as voting Independent in this county, except for the presidential candidates – any other Democrats there were unopposed, though most of the positions were Republican only. I mean, there are five guys vying for coroner and NONE of them were on the Democrat ballot.) I voted for someone I wouldn’t mind seeing as my future president. 🙂 (I know, I know, that’s most of the folks on the Democrat ticket.)

Once I was done with my civic duty (congratulating a first time voter on her way in – that would be Suzanne W, Becky’s next door neighbor, Amy. Doesn’t that make you feel old? Sure as hell makes ME feel old!) I headed back home. I spent a few hours online enjoying myself and was just thinking about working on college stuff when, at 4pm, the power flickered on & off. And on again. And off. Repeat for a few minutes. Finally it went off for good.

So I got onto my laptop and read one of the files for this week’s curriculum class (which I’d saved on the laptop, though I’d forgotten to save the questions the professor asked) and wrote up a short essay on how we do curricula here in Ohio. Was reading the second paper when my laptop warned me it was 10% to go on battery. I turned it off and thought about what to do next.

I realized that I don’t actually have any landline phones that don’t require power (I should get a cheap-o one just for such an occurrence) so I called dad with my cell phone. He was at the Flamingo Hotel getting ready for the big Westar Conference taking place this week. We chatted for a bit, then I said “bye” and decided to make supper. Yay for peanut butter & jelly sandwiches! 🙂

I listened to a David Tennant-read audiobook on my iPod (whose battery lasted long enough for the book and then some) while I ate supper. I even got out my Nintendo Gameboy Advance for a bit and was delighted to see the battery was still charged. Even without power, I was geeking. I love being a geek. (Still, I’m not as cool as elsaf, who, during the Detroit power failures a few years ago, was still able to get online. GEEK!)

Well, four hours and eleven minutes later and we have power again. Hooray for DP&L! Hooray for heat! Hooray for electricity and batteries! 🙂

Sleet Day!

I went to bed last night knowing we were on a 2-hour delay already, which made me happy (I like to sleep in an hour on 2-hour delay days).  I turned on the news at 11pm and it looked to me like the whole thing was going to miss us, so I was feeling sorry for our superintendent (and the dozens of others) who had already set the delay in place.  But when I awoke, we had gotten plenty of freezing rain overnight and the roads weren’t all that good, nor were they looking to improve.  So we had our 6th Snow Day today. 

I spent the day fiddling about, mostly on a series of web pages for a friend of mine.  But I also got some coursework done that was due today.  And I called mom & dad during the sleeting time.  It was so loud mom could hear it when I held the phone up to the window.  Heh.  The streets, which had been getting better, were back to worse again.  After taking some photos of the sleet covered roads, I turned back and saw the kitties on the sofa.

Awwww, ain’t they cute?

The Lingering Summer

Just when it looks like we might be getting rid of the summer heat, the heat comes back… Yesterday & today were wonderful autumn days (low to mid 70s F) but it’s going back to the 80s tomorrow and the rest of the week.

You know, Autumn, you need to be more aggressive. Tell Summer to get stuffed!

The transience of Hoar Frost, the permanence of Fog

I know that judiang will be jealous, but today school was closed. The reason wasn’t some new snow storm that rolled through, but rather some very dense fog that rolled through. That and the layer of ice which had covered the sidewalks and roads made for difficult travel this morning.

Despite the bad weather, dad and I carefully walked into work around 8am this morning. We slipped several times, but neither of us fell down, thankfully. And we worked all day with a nice hour home for lunch. And the fog? It’s only just now dissipating! This is the longest I remember fog hanging around. It was out when mother headed into work (she had to be there at 3am!!!!!) and now around 4pm it’s finally clearing. Visibility was only about 50 feet when dad and I headed into work and it hadn’t improved all that much when we left for lunch.

The good news about working with no one else in the building (OK, so there were a few folks, but not many!) is you can get a lot of stuff done. We managed to clear up quite a few work orders during the day and that’s a nice ease on my usual stress. Sure, we’re still behind, but not as behind as we were! 🙂

The big drawback to the day off today is that we’ve already had our 5 allotted Calamity Days. So today’s day off will have to be made up at the end of the school year. Currently I’m of the opinion that it was worth it. 😉 (I may feel differently on May 31st, heh.)

Oh, and regarding the title of this journal entry – one of the neatest things about today’s odd weather was on our walk back home. The trees were all covered in hoar frost and they looked beautiful. Alas, I had no camera on me, and when I was near my camera, the frost was already gone. Quite an interesting and (thankfully) productive day. 🙂

Watch out for brass monkey balls!

It’s cold outside. Very cold outside. And windy. And because of the cold and the wind and wind chills in the -20°F range, school is closed today. Yay!

OK, so I’d prefer it if it were lots of snow keeping us home, but staying home is nice regardless. The one drawback to this is that I’m not going in to the school to work on me own for a bit, which I’d do with lots of snow. It’s too damn cold out there to walk to school! So I shall stay home instead. 🙂

Spring?

So, what’s this I hear about it being Sping? All the snow on the ground says otherwise. In fact, they wound up having an early dismissal for the students today due to promised inclement weather (it did look pretty bad for awhile there). But then the weathermen were wrong in their estimates. By the time students were dismissed, the roads were already clearing. The weathermen have barely been right all season regarding snow. But hopefully, today will be the last of our winter weather. 🙂

Teachers were allowed to go early too, but I had a 2:30 appointment in Troy that I had to go to, so I worked on chemistry quarter exams and stuff until I drove off to Troy for the meeting. The nice thing about being in Troy was getting to stop & pick up season 3 of Bewitched, just out today. 🙂 Watching it now.

En Enero Hace Frio?

There’s a rumor going around that it’s January, but I’m not believing it. The other day, I walked home in the rain. Yesterday, it was almost 60°F and my lawn boy got a lot of work done on the shrubs in my yard. This morning? Thunderstorms.

This is Ohio, not Florida!

The rest of the month is currently forecast for temperatures in the 40s during the day. Good grief! Where’s my cold weather? Where’s my snow? What does this foretell for February? Will we have to have snow in April to make up for the loss of snow in January? I guess time will tell!

(The title of this post, btw, is from a poem we had to memorize in Spanish when I was in school. I only remember the first stanza. “En Enero, hace frio/En Febrero, tambien.” This means, in January it’s cold, in February, likewise. Must be some new definition of cold. 🙂