What's on your mind?

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Not complaining mind you, but it looks like this Nor'easter was a dud. It has been snowing off and on all day here but they said 3" to 6" and we've only got 1.5" so far.  Out on Long Island they were initially saying 6" to 12" on Thursday, and then they bumped that up to 1 to 2 feet or possibly more late yesterday morning, but they've only got 2.5" so far. Looks like the storm has moved completely passed Surge and Mark already, but I still have a few hours to go. Our Father looks to be in the thick of it up there in Beantown, could keep snowing on him most of the day today. It is a big storm though, stretches from the southern tip of Newfoundland all the way down to the Bahamas. Fortunately it's mostly out over the ocean though.

 

47 minutes ago, Sheol said:

Is this a euphemism for cocaine?

No, snuff is a tobacco product. Regular snuff comes in a little tin and you put in your mouth between your cheek and gums and then either spit or swallow the tobacco juice, it's fucking nasty. Nasal snuff you sniff it up your nose like cocaine, which sounds pretty fucking nasty too. 

[FatherAlabaster]

I was promised a blizzard and I can still see nearly to the end of the block! This is almost as disappointing as the first time I heard Blizzard Beasts. I want to see the manager.

 

We have what looks to be several inches so far (that's several x 2.54 for you metric lot) and we're looking at another 6 or 7 hours of snowfall. I don't think we'll get to the upper edge of predictions but I'll definitely be able to take the young lad sledding tomorrow. It looks like fine powdery stuff right now. Visibility really is garbage. Not as windy as it could be. Love the muffled quality of sounds from outside when it's like this. Also apparently muffled thoughts. Slept way too long and I'm not sorry about it at all. Coffee. That's what's on my mind, coffee.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Downtown Lowell 2.5" as of 10am (not sure what time they'll update the Accuweather snowfall map, this info's 90 minutes old now) 2" up in Nashua NH but 3.6" down in Bedford, 4.2" in Cambridge, 3.4" downtown Boston, 4.8" Marlborough, 4.5 out in Worcester, 6" down around Providence RI, 7" in Foxborough. Yeah looks like it'll be snowing up by you guys well into the evening hours so these numbers will go way up and you'll have marvelous sledding tomorrow.

Marky Mark only got about a half an inch, won't even have to shovel. Surge just under 2", 4" and counting here by me with a couple of hours left to go, 7" and counting out on LI.

I guess I'll give the manager a break this time, they said 3" to 6" I'll probably end up with about 5" so that's in the range, looks like they got this one right.

[SurgicalBrute]

Yeah...it may have been a little more, because it did manage to cover the grass, but as far as I can tell it never got to a point where the roads showed anything. If I'm lucky, the sun will melt it off the driveway and I won't have to go out and push it off to the side. That stuff was wet and heavy when I stuck my head out last night to throw the garbage out

[FatherAlabaster]

28 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Downtown Lowell 2.5" as of 10am (not sure what time they'll update the Accuweather snowfall map, this info's 90 minutes old now) 2" up in Nashua NH but 3.6" down in Bedford, 4.2" in Cambridge, 3.4" downtown Boston, 4.8" Marlborough, 4.5 out in Worcester, 6" down around Providence RI, 7" in Foxborough. Yeah looks like it'll be snowing up by you guys well into the evening hours so these numbers will go way up and you'll have marvelous sledding tomorrow.

Marky Mark only got about a half an inch, won't even have to shovel. Surge just under 2", 4" and counting here by me with a couple of hours left to go, 7" and counting out on LI.

I guess I'll give the manager a break this time, they said 3" to 6" I'll probably end up with about 5" so that's in the range, looks like they got this one right.

I'd guess at least 4" now but I'm just judging by what I can see out the window here. It's windy enough that what would normally be piling up on branches and rooftops is blowing off and turning into drifts. No idea how much we'll wind up with. They're not running the plows yet, no point. Things are still passable for 4wd vehicles... Not the apocalypse, but a nice snow day at home nonetheless.

[Parker]

7 hours ago, Sheol said:

Is this a euphemism for cocaine?

😆

LOL, absolutely not! But thank you for getting me to chuckle. Nasal Snuff is finely ground tobacco that is sniffed up the nose.  

[AlSymerz]

What's on my mind? Cold, thanks to you lot and all your talk about snow!! Thank god I never see that white stuff around here, I might have to stop wearing shorts.

[SurgicalBrute]

Snow is awesome...

...when you don't have shovel it and the cold isn't fucking up your pipes

[AlSymerz]

I went to the snow once when I was a kid, hated every second of it. Then I gave it another chance about 15 years ago when it snowed up the road from us, it was still the same. Unless it's changed in 15 years I'm still going to say it sucks.

[FatherAlabaster]

I won't have to shovel until at least tomorrow morning, so right now I'm just enjoying beer o'clock.

[markm]

Lucky where I live in MD west of 95 and  Baltimore we got just a dusting....you guys up north are going to F'ng nailed. Hope everyone keeps their power. 

[FatherAlabaster]

Still coming down here, and still really windy. Wouldn't be surprised if it wound up being over a foot all told. We've been fine with power so far. Apparently they're having outages in Boston. The stuff on the news looks a good bit more dire than my experience so far.

"Guy In Lowell Says He's Doing Fine, Storm No Big Deal" 

"Local Man Discounts Misfortune Of Others In Quest For Personal Relevance Amidst Weather Event"

[AlSymerz]

Last night on the news they were talking about Darwin and parts of Northern Territory being cut off by flood waters and shops in Alice Springs struggling to get stock because of it. 3 minute news reports about shortages and how it wasn't panic buying but all the shelves were empty. They then spoke to the public and the first guy says he came in to get something for dinner but there wasn't anything there, the second woman said she got everything she wanted and didn't have any issues. They then cut the feed and went to another story!

 

[SurgicalBrute]

You all saw that jumbo jet at O'Hare?

Skid off the snow covered runway, and ended up sucking a cargo bin through it's engine

[AlSymerz]

Just now, SurgicalBrute said:

You all saw that jumbo jet at O'Hare?

Skid off the snow covered runway, and ended up sucking a cargo bin through it's engine

Didn't see that but I saw the US Navy dunk an F-35 into the South China Sea after it missed it's landing...that wasn't snow related though.

[SurgicalBrute]

19 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

Didn't see that but I saw the US Navy dunk an F-35 into the South China Sea after it missed it's landing...that wasn't snow related though.

Yeah...saw that too. Now they're racing to get it pulled back out before China claims it...

...so, go team U.S.A....I guess

[AlSymerz]

I don't know if an aircraft carrier has the means of retrieval, I guess it would make sense that they can. 

I would also have thought that it wasn't a case of racing to get it, I would have thought maritime law would state whether they are or are not allowed to retrieve it no matter how fast the Chinese are to get there. But again I don't know how these things work, but you can understand why the Yanks want it back. In fact we probably want it back in US hands too because Australia purchased 72 F-35s which are yet to be delivered, and I doubt we'll get a discount if the Chinese get hold of one before we do.

 

[SurgicalBrute]

1 minute ago, KillaKukumba said:

I don't know if an aircraft carrier has the means of retrieval

I think that's the issue...they really don't. So they're trying to get ships out there that have the equipment to do it...which could take up to 15 days.

I guess it's because even if they pulled it up to "help", leaving it in their care for that long would give them too much time to look it over. Though I wouldn't be surprised if China already has most of that info to begin with

[AlSymerz]

It does take quite a bit to retrieve something from the bottom of the ocean and aircraft carriers don't often lose planes (I don't think), so as much as it might make sense to have the ability to retrieve the logistics of such a thing probably makes it impractical if not impossible.

If they get it back I hope our blokes here check each and every one of out F35's for water damage when the US deliver them!

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

3 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Still coming down here, and still really windy. Wouldn't be surprised if it wound up being over a foot all told. We've been fine with power so far. Apparently they're having outages in Boston. The stuff on the news looks a good bit more dire than my experience so far.

"Guy In Lowell Says He's Doing Fine, Storm No Big Deal" 

"Local Man Discounts Misfortune Of Others In Quest For Personal Relevance Amidst Weather Event"

 

Powerful nor’easter pummels East Coast

 

They already have just over two feet on the ground down around the Braintree, Randolph, Brockton area. Still snowing out in Montauk, through Conn, Mass, all the way up through Maine & NB, Nova Scotia into Newfoundland. You probably still have another 2 hours til it's completely past you. Nantucket's fucked though, they're all but washed away.

It stopped snowing here a few hours ago, we got away with just about 5" and the power's still on so I'll take it. Got cold tonight though, 10° going down to 6° overnight so after I did all the dishes I went down the basement turned the water off and bled it so we won't burst any pipes.

 

Ohio man builds igloo featuring multiple rooms — and he’s not done yet

 

[FatherAlabaster]

It stopped snowing here about an hour ago. Looks like about a foot. We might get a little more overnight. When are your insulation people coming? This sounds like a pretty brutal winter for you and the kiddo.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

My insulation was installed on Tuesday, but then our main heat source the pellet stove broke on Tuesday as well. Just can't win. Ordered a new auger motor for $120 which came Thursday. We put it in yesterday but the auger still won't turn. Called Tractor Supply and miraculously they agreed to take it back and refund my $1,300 so I went on the website yesterday and ordered another one which they'll ship to the local store and we'll go get it in a few days.

In the meantime we have two quartz heaters and I have a propane tank-top jobsite heater that I bust out when it really gets cold. Thing throws off a lot of heat, it can raise the temp in here by 10° in about 20 minutes. Can't run it too long or the propane will run out. I turn it on a few times a day for about 20 minutes at a time, and I do have one backup propane tank. But we're OK, it's 50° at my computer desk right now at 11pm and 44° in the kitchen.

Fortunately the boy doesn't seem too bothered by the cold, he has on a long sleeved T-shirt and a hoodie with the larger space heater blowing in his direction and he says he's fine. I have on 6 layers with a blanket over my legs and the little space heater blowing on me, guess I must be getting thin-blooded in my old age. It's supposed to bottom out around 6° overnight so it'll probably be down into the mid 40's in here by 7am. But we'll get through it no problem with the extra blankets I have on the bed.

I ordered a couple of corn bags on Amazon, they came Wed. You heat them up in the microwave for about 3 minutes and they stay quite warm for 20 or 30 minutes. You can use them to warm up the cold bed sheets before you get in, or just put them inside your jacket and enjoy the warmth.

Good news is after tomorrow starting Monday it's supposed to get up over freezing almost every day for the next week or 10 days and only down into the mid teens and 20's for overnight lows, so I won't have to turn off the water at night, we're OK when it stays in the teens. So yeah I guess it's a brutal winter for us but we're dealing with it successfully. If it was really bad there are other types of heaters I could buy like kerosene or whatever but it's really hasn't been so bad. I just keep telling myself in only another 8 or 10 weeks it'll start to warm up again. 

[SurgicalBrute]

That was how it was with my heating oil line for a long time. As long as it was above freezing during the day, and stayed in the 20's at night we'd have no problems, but a day like today where it was below freezing the whole time and dropping into the teens tonight, we were usually fucked...the oil would get thick and condensation would freeze up and cause the line to block. Oil guy finally told me to go out and buy a heat tape for the stupid thing...it's made life much easier

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Yeah we put heat tape around the water lines that froze up a few weeks ago and that has allowed us to be ok down into the single digits. Only problem is we have a well, and the skinny little half inch plastic line that runs from the water pipe coming out of the pressure tank up to the pressure switch that tells the pump when it needs to make more pressure is what freezes on us. But at least I've figured that out now so I turn the tank off at night when it's going down under 10° and bleed the water out of the lines, and then I hit that line with a heat gun in the morning to thaw it out when I turn it back on the next day once it gerts up around 20° and that seems to do the trick.

[Dead1]

I was tallying up my collection and holy shit, poverty is starting to bite.

In 2021 I only acquired a grand total of 7 albums/EPs (4 on vinyl and 3 on CD).  Of these only 2 CDs were acquired in July-December (Iron Maiden and Carcass).

This year I've acquired 1 EP for $10 (local band Nosce Teipsum).

Backlog is growing massively too.

I hope I can at least afford the new Midnight album in March!