I missed it too, I thought Chris was commenting on one of the pictorial girls...

 

LOL. I'm reading and laughing. All's good.

 

I haven't viewed the news today so I'm unsure how this SENSATIONAL/CATASTROPHIC winter storm played out. Hard to imagine Homo sapiens have made it this far.

I think I'm about in the middle of Goldfinger (as I recall) before zonking out for the night. Developed a really sour stomach/cramps/bloating as the night progressed. Didn't sleep too well during the 1st round of sleep. Second round of sleep was a winner. Ya never know what's the deal w/ gastrointestinal events. I made myself a killer omelette yesterday morning - it may have been the eggs since they've been in the refrigerator for two weeks. Salmonella loves eggs. Who knows - glad it's passed.

 

Hi everyone.

No ice storm here. I got up with Tiger around 630 this morning and it was raining, and felt sort of warm. Then when we got up at 9 the rain had quit but things were starting to freeze. At 10 when I went to Mom's the car was completely encased but the roads were okay. Right now some of it is melting but doesn't look promising. Our evening might be rather short after dinner, I don't want to go home late and have everything frozen over. Don't want the high-powered V6 Charger to take the ditch with Tiger in the car. Or ever.

The french toast looks scrumptious, DAN, but mine would be sans the reddi whip. Because I would have shotgunned all the reddi whip before hand.

Chris the cinnamon rolls look excellent. Would you sent me one?

Got some laundry going and we're going to be here all afternoon so I gave Tiger a big rawhide bone. He about flipped. When I closed on my house my agent gave me a bag of 5 and I've been giving Tiger one once in a great while, and I'm down to two. This one and one more in the bag. I don't ordinarily give him rawhide because for one it's usually made in China and they use formaldehyde to make it. And for two, every dog I've ever seen will chew it down to about twice the size of their mouth and then try to swallow it whole. As long as I'm here with him I know he won't do that. Because I'll take it away from him. Then he'll growl. Then I'll smack him.

Walmart today was almost a pleasure. Hardly any people to camp out where I wanted to be, and check out was a breeze. There were a lot of shelves empty, though I found everything I needed. And Mom didn't have to fight for an electric cart.

I guess I'll find something inside to do. Hope everyone is doing well in this supposed end-of-times storm.

 

Storm is winding up here. I have a lot of snow. I'll go stick my T square into the snow on the picnic table here once it stops here in a few hours.

 

We got hammered. Official snowfall in Pevely is 11-inches for the last 24-hours and it's still flurrying. The winds have been in the teens and it's drifted to probably 2-feet in areas. Just got in from snowblowing a big area for the dogs to do their business in the back, snowblowing the driveway, and shoveling the front porch, walkways, and rear deck and steps. Our Toro snowblower is a beast and does a great job, even in the grass. Dawn snapped these pics from the slider door in the kitchen. One as I was just getting started on the back yard, and one when I was close to finishing.

 

Chris do you set the snow blower up a bit so you don't have torn up turf in the spring? Maybe you could run heat strips under the grass and it would never accumulate.

It's about 37 here and raining pretty good. A branch from my neighbor's pine tree broke off and took out a section of my back yard fence. Not to worry, it's garden fence and I can bend it back into shape easily. Actually now that I look up I think the rain has stopped.

Ice must be heavier than I thought. There's a rogue pine tree outside my office window and it was leaning over and hitting the window. Now that it's rained the ice is gone and the tree is standing upright again. I didn't think the ice was that thick. Hm. That tree needs to come down anyway.

 

Mike - Both my neighbor (who I co-own the snowblower with) and I have concrete driveways with joints. To avoid the snowblower from catching on the joints we have the skids set a little higher than if we were running it on a perfectly smooth surface. With it as it's currently set-up it really works pretty well in the grass, and when it does catch a little bit and tears up a little turf I'm not worried about it. I'm just very thankful I have an easy way to clear it for the dogs!

Glad the ice was not too bad for you this morning! 👍 I'd much rather deal with this snow than bad ice storms. I'd really rather not deal with any type of frozen precip. I'm just thankful I'm not living in the Great White North anymore, and that we don't really get much snow here in StL.

 

Norm - Glad your stomach Issues didn't persist too long. Hoping you're still doing fine! 😃

 

Thanks Chris. So far so good.

 

Good deal! 👍

 

Watched about a dozen Bond films besides other movies the past two weeks.

 

Nice job Norm, I think you've surpassed me as King Couch Potato! 😉

 

‘For Your Eyes Only’ at the moment.

 

Bond, the gift that keeps on giving. I had doubted I would like the Bond movies with Daniel Craig until I watched one of them and I really liked them all.

 

No storm here, this time. But damn cold. The other morning when I saw -13, wife had gotten up earlier about 3 am and saw -20! Today better @ 4 above... Weather guessers say cold gonna stay a while. So be it....

 

Greg - Whew that's cold!

I was gonna complain about the conditions here . . . and I'm still going to. Even with bright sunny skies it's O°F right now at 0830, with a windchill of -15. I think the high today is suppossed to be around 10°. I don't think it's supposed to get above freezing all week, although it may get close on Wednesday.

I hope everyone has a good day and stays safe out there if you have to be out on snowy/icy roads! 😃

 

Going to be chilly wooly boogers for some time.

 

Yep, and that's one of the things that's very unusual about this particular system we have right now here in StL. We're not strangers to single digit or even 0° low temps, but they usually only last a day or two, definitely not a week or more!

 

Good morning everyone.

The sun is out and nothing is frozen, though the temp is only in the 20s. Someone must have added alcohol to the puddles overnight.

It was still close to 40 when I left Mom's last night around 11. This has been a funny system. Not funny haha.

I have a couple errands to run this morning, that is if anyplace is open. Our bad weather was a fraction of what they got up north, yet everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon, bad weather we can't open. If I were a betting man I'd say a lot of people called out of work today.

Well have a great Monday everyone.

 

Mike - I'd bet the puddles are a result of the chemicals put down on the streets last night, "just in case"? Anyway, be careful if you're out running errands, if it's in the 20's there's probably some slick spots out there somewhere.

All the schools are closed here today, and my daughter was able to stay home and work from there. My daughter and another lady are in charge of all the in-house continuing Nurse Education at her hospital and a couple other peripheral hospitals in the same system. If she isn't scheduled to teach a class on any specific day she is allowed to stay at home if she wants and work on paperwork or future curriculum, etc. I'm not sure if her husband is working today or not. I just found out last night he had taken a side job over the weekend driving a large front end loader to keep a Parking Lot cleared at a major shopping area in our area. The job offer came from a friend who has snow removal contracts with multiple locations. They offered him a small fortune to work 18-hour days Saturday and Sunday and he couldn't pass it up.

 

WORK is a huge four letter word for anyone around here where I live. We didn't get any portion of the storm - some cold weather & some light drizzle. Enough for them to remain at home. It took 3400 workers to build the Empire State Building in 1 year 45 days between March 17, 1930 & May 1, 1931. There's no one in this country who knows the meaning of work.

EDIT: A country of pussies.

 

Norm - As a generalization that applies to a high percentage of the workforce I certainly agree. However I have to chime in that Nurses (both my daughters), my SIL Justin who's an Ironworker who works outdoors in our very hot and cold StL weather, and my other SIL Mike who's a Fire Fighter/Paramedic, have very difficult and demanding jobs. I'd say all of them have more demanding jobs than I ever had. I certainly wouldn't trade what I had to do for what they have to do! Just sayin!

 

Completely understand the sentiment; yet, this country has no work ethic any longer - period.

 

Agreed! I definitely think it's directly related to, and dependent on, the environment the individual is brought up in. I actually witnessed hope along these lines yesterday. Two young boys (16-18?), with a pickup truck and 2 light duty gas power snowblowers in the back, going door to door asking folks if they'd like their driveways blown out. I'm sure they were charging a decent fee, but it was damn cold out, and they were doing excellent work, not leaving a smidgen of snow on the folks driveways or walkways.

 

Maybe, I'm simply a grumpy old fart.

 

I have to agree on the work ethic. My neighborhood hasn't had any mail in over a week. One of my neighbors called the Post Office to find out what is going on, and was told that they are understaffed, and cannot get new hires, plus when the shitty weather was forecast, they had carriers call in, WTF, wear the proper gear, they have good pay and benefits. I tested for the post office over forty years ago, scored a 93. Not good enough. The reason being that I was not a vet, which gave them extra points for having served. No problem with that, but I was told that I needed to score a 97. I would have gladly done the job.

 

Around here the mailmen drive a truck to each house, how hard is that? Well, going the right direction and getting the right mail at the right house could be challenging for some of these people. Where I grew up the mailman parked his truck, grabbed a satchel, and walked a beat. I'm sure the majority of carriers are too tender for that duty these days.

Ran my errands today and surprise of all surprises everything was open, and we got mail. Now, that doesn't mean every place was open, just where I was going. Chris there were no chemicals put down, even though the ice was predicted. I guess that shows that our county doesn't give a rat's patoot about us. I also made several phone calls and one of them gave me a message that they were closed due to the bad weather. They were in the Chicago area. It was funny to hear that message with the sun out here.

My guess is the good work ethic is running about 50/50. Norm I think you are a grump. Although I become a grump when I'm at work and everyone is sitting down for no apparent reason. I worked on planes over night that had to go out in the morning, no matter what. If they didn't, passengers were delayed. These kids I work with, in the shop, have no sense of urgency. They never see the airplane, they never see the passengers.

Okay time for bed. Hope everyone has a good evening.

 

Mike - The majority of time you spend talking about your work (Big D) it is a continual daily beat-down of every single lead who works there and every wall man. In seven years I don't recall you having said one good thing about any lead who works in your shop. From one grump to another - you are a grump.

 

The USPS is a frickin cesspool! Mismanaged from the Top - Down, and like most Federal Agencies, it's almost impossible to get rid of poor performers, even with excellent documentation. The place needs to be gutted and start from scratch! Just my 2-cents!

 

Chris - You hit the nail on the head.

 

Thanks Norm, wish I wasn't right! 😟

 

Dan - Likely a good thing you never worked for the agency whose claim to fame inspired the term to “Go Postal”. That place is a disaster.

 

Mostly dug out. Snowed from noon Sat to Sun 4pm. Dug driveway yesterday, top of driveway and car today. 11 inches. Light and fluffy.

 

Good morning everyone.

Cold as a mother. The temp in the car said 14 and it never changed all the way to work. Everything is clean and dry so I'm not complaining. Gonna warm up to almost human temps this week but still be cold overnight.

Norm you are absolutely correct. I think ungrumpy is the exception for me lately. And you are also correct in that all the leads in the shop, and also the management, are inept and clueless. I have had good leads in the past, but mostly those who become leads have a chip on their shoulder and want to stand taller than anybody else. Now for the wall guys, I've had several good wall guys and the bad ones are mostly gone. Actually we have a pretty good team but they fall into pack mentality sometimes and you need a fire hose to get them back to reality.

John that's a lot o'snow. I'm twitching just looking at it. I don't know why I thought your truck was silver.

Funny about the post office. Once upon a time I was going to leave my cushy desk job at Big D and become a rural mail deliverer in Geneseo, IL. This particular post office requires you use your own vehicle, and I was planning a custom build. Then I started looking for a place to live. Prices were mostly good but the taxes in Illinois are absurd. And with starting pay being about a third of what I make now it didn't take long for me to abandon my plan. Too bad, it would have been a cool vehicle.

Things are slow to get going. I could go get a few supplies for the week. Hope everyone has a good day.

 

11 degrees in the not so sunnny south

 

Jamesbo did you get hammered with snow and ice?

 

John - Even with it light and fluffy that's alot of shoveling pardner! Our snowfall totals were very close. I'm sure you can get down the hill, but can you get back up, or just leave the truck at the bottom of the hill?

 

Mike/Jim - That's some nasty cold for you southerners, especially when you're not used to it! Hope you only get a day or two of it at the most. I don't think we're suppossed to get above freezing here all week, and looking at more single digit or below lows next weekend.

 

Oh Chris, I'm just a transplant. This is really just a drop in the bucket for me. It's been awhile since I've been in regular temps like this but it's like riding a bicycle. You never forget.

I've probably told this story before. Years ago we had an ice storm, lots of freezing rain, sleet, the like and I had a couple inches of ice built up on my driveway. It angles down a little and it was tough getting the car in and out. So like I had done for decades up home, I grabbed my ice scraper which I had brought with me and started chipping and scraping at the ice. Had a pretty good bit gone and my neighbor and his two boys came out and asked what I was doing. I said I was getting the ice off the driveway. Why? Because that's what you do when you have ice on your driveway. They laughed and got in their truck and left. A little while later I was still out there and they came home. Couldn't get their truck up the driveway, kept sliding into the yard. So they got out shovels and whatnot and started chipping at the ice. I called over, what are you doing! They just looked at me. Rather gratifying, make fun of me will you!