snow

All posts tagged snow

There’s s*** on my car!

Posted by Photonstopper on November 23, 2012
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Photo: Icy snow on the top of a car. Photo by James Guilford.

Icy-snowy bits littered my car when I found it in the lot.

There’s S*** on My Car! Thanksgiving Day was very pleasant. Despite my misery from a head cold and the OTC med I took to stop the sniffles, we had an easy drive and a good visit with relatives. The day brought partly-cloudy skies and mild temperatures. Today started off damp but well enough. As the day progressed, however, clouds continued to thicken, the winds came up, the temperatures went down; when evening came it was prematurely dark and snowy-icy bits were falling from the sky. I walked from my office to the car and found it covered with a thin layer of s***. Tonight the wind is howling and, whereas we started the day with a temperature of 52 degrees (F), it is now 31 and feeling like winter. Suddenly the Christmas carols that some radio stations here have been playing don’t seem to be so premature!

Snow day!

Posted by Photonstopper on February 25, 2011
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Photo: Fallen snow blankets the neighborhood. Photo by James Guilford.

The view from the dining room doesn't include a trace of the driveway that runs past. If my car was in the picture you wouldn't see much of that, either!

A much-heralded winter storm struck in the hours before dawn this morning. Most all schools were closed for the day as was my workplace. The employer of She Who Must Be Obeyed was open for business but She wisely chose to work from home. So I spent the day on the Web Edition of the annual Calendar project whilst She participated in a conference call, did office work via the ‘net, and Tasha supervised. Around midday I shot a few photos of the snow (from the comfort of the dining room) and was happy I didn’t even feel the slightest bit of guilt over not going to work… they were closed, after all! It’s not snowing much now and the winds have died down. At around 4:00 I ventured outside and dug my car out of the drifts. I’d guess we got about 8 to 10 inches of snow but, since it blew around a lot, it was hard to be sure. As I finished excavation the clouds began to part, blue sky showed, and sunshine broke through! Maybe a little self-centered on my part but it wasn’t a bad Friday for me at all. A guilt-free say at home, personal projects done at my own pace, and a bit of pretty weather at the end. It’s a snow day!

Photo: Tasha the cat. Photo by James Guilford.

Tasha watches the snowy world from the comfort of a place mat on the dining room table. Photo by James Guilford.

That four-letter word that starts with “s”

Posted by Photonstopper on March 26, 2010
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Not Down for the Count
Not Down for the Count

Yeah, we got s*** last night! You heard me… snow! There, I said it! Two inches of heavy, icy, crap all over everything. It's supposed to be sunny today and the temps are over freezing now. I'm expecting to not have to deal with the frozen stuff –much– when we take Tasha to the vet late this morning. It's a followup visit and an expected second antibiotic injection. (She continues to improve, by the way.) In the mean time, as I've said before, it's a good thing those "delicate" spring flowers are really quite tough; look what happened to one in our patio garden.

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The mysterious world just outside our door

Posted by Photonstopper on March 7, 2010
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Arctic Yard
Arctic Yard

These could easily be scenes from the arctic, achingly bright, marked with long shadows colored blue by the shockingly clear skies. Front yard snowdrift moguls could be glacier-draped mountains. A passing dog's paw-prints become those of the mighty wolf. The late-day sun reveals the mysterious world that lies just outside our door.

Arctic Tracks
Arctic Tracks

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An excellent, sunny day

Posted by Photonstopper on March 7, 2010
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The day dawned overcast but soon cleared to an amazing, dazzling intensely blue sky. We spent most of the day around the house: She, cooking, I finishing the publishing project. I ventured outdoors with camera in hand to enjoy the sunlight, shadows, textured snow, and fresh 45-degree (F) air.

Ice Planter
Ice Planter

Next to the door sits a planter, until recently covered in more than three feet of piled snow. The now-icy white stuff retreated gradually all day exposing a hopeful sign of spring… tiny green shoots poking out of the wet ground and out from under the miniature glacier.

Ice Plant
Ice Plant

We knew in our hearts those tough little plants would be waking up, even under the deep drifts; after all, they do it every spring. Still, it was good to see on this excellent, sunny day.

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Ice house

Posted by Photonstopper on March 1, 2010
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Ice House
Ice House

My "vacation" week ended today. I'd taken time off to complete my annual publishing project. It didn't get done. A mixed bag this week with good days and bad:

  • Got called to work on an emergency when a primary server began malfunctioning.
  • Didn't need to commute in bad weather but…
  • Shoveled lots of snow.
  • Installed updated publishing software (Adobe InDesign) which works great.
  • Still struggling with publication layout due to lack of inspiration.
  • Had nice days out with She Who Must Be Obeyed yesterday and today including a stop in Olmsted Falls and their shopping area full of restored/rehabbed historic buildings.
  • Wrote my first DVD video review for posting on Amazon.com: National Geographic's Five Years on Mars.
  • Tasha's skin disorder –severe itchiness about the head and neck– we thought resolved has relapsed. Depressing.

So back to the paying job tomorrow. The ice house photo came out well also further proving the new Canon "L" lens is of excellent quality.

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Snow and ice in ever-growing heaps

Posted by Photonstopper on February 17, 2010
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Columnar Icicle
Columnar Icicle

Our house seems to grow a decent crop of icicles just about every winter. This season, however, seems to be an extraordinarily good one for the propagation of giant icy spears. We've seen one, at a neighboring house, that reached from the second floor roofline to the ground. At our own place an icicle has formed a complete column between the icebound eves trough and the garage roof below; at least it is now self-supporting and hopefully placing no more strain on the gutter system! We've been lucky in that large, potentially deadly ice hasn't formed above our entryway as it did at a neighbor's; they actually had a crew come in and knock down the dangerous stalactites! Snow? I guess we've been fairly lucky there, too. While it has snowed just about every day for ever so long, it seems to drop only a few inches of fluff daily. We are able to keep our walk clear with a snow plow-shaped shovel using it to push the snow away instead of having to lift and pile it in ever-growing heaps.

Snowy Sidewalk
Snowy Sidewalk

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Back to the gray grind

Posted by Photonstopper on February 16, 2010
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Ice at Office Window
Ice at Office Window

The day started out sunny and frosty. I thought the thermometer on our patio read something like 14 degrees as I left the house. At one point during my travel, however, I glanced at the dashboard… the car's thermometer was reading 6 degrees (F). I'm not sure what that was about. It didn't seem that cold to me! The natural beauty (and light traffic due to the Presidents Day holiday) made for an enjoyable drive to work. Put in a nice, solid day of effort including a configuration tweak on our new MozyPro backup software — it needed to have a dedicated Temp directory set up on a drive with more free space along with a small Windows registry edit. Rovin, the helpful young man on the phone from India, had the right solution on the first try. Unseen by me during the day, clouds were thickening and by the time it was time to go home, it was lightly snowing. I took a look out the office window from which I spied the insanely beautiful snow drift sculpture not many days ago. There, wet from unseen thaw above, a small forest of icicles was forming on an evergreen tree. I shot a few photos before leaving for a snowy drive home. Back to the gray grind of work and winter weather.

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