Your bias is revealed by the fact that you bundle <20 into one group. This winter I've had to break it down further for morning commute-
<0: Take the bus or car, won't bike
1-10: Have to bundle the kids in goggles, snow pants, boots, extra layers; long underwear or wind pants for me
10-20: (ie today, March fucking 4): Make sure kids wear hats and gloves
20-32: Not too bad, wear lighter gloves for biking, kids can choose if they want snow pants or neck warmers
32-40: Reasonably warm
41-50: Pleasant spring-like
etc.
Temperature-related:
Nice frozen Niagara Falls pictures. (Ignore the headline, which is wrong.)
And sadly so far the Lake Superior ice bridge to Isle Royale has led to one "unfavored" wolf leaving the island and subsequently being killed and no new arrivals. But then the moose only got there ~1900 (this time around, I assume it happened various times in pre-history) and the wolves in 1949.
Yes, below 20 (F, obviously) embraces a whole universe of different badnesses.
Is a neck warmer just a scarf that comes pre-circled?
Yes, it's a fleece loop about the diameter of your head, about 8 inches wide.
1: Mine is similar, although luckily DC is warmer. I have a 30 min walk to work.
Below 10 - real winter gear including down parka, maybe take transit
10-20 - two layers of clothes, mittens over thin gloves
21-30 - pack regular shoes, wear boots, thick gloves
I think I've explained somewhere in the archives my feeling that the temperature inside Mammoth Cave is precisely right: somewhere in the mid-50s Fahrenheit, year round.
Peepie??? Maybe I need to reconsider my pseud.
It's, like, perpetually a pleasant fall day, if only if it were not underground and dark.
Maybe the Morlocks were on to something.
Man, 30 and above really is gloriously spring-like and comfy. Someday.
I think I picked the wrong year to quit living in California.
If all the stink bugs die, I'm fine with the cold.
You should have seen people when it hit 45 the other weekend. I'm not sure I actually saw anybody picnicking in shorts, but that was the vibe.
Yeah, basically endorse 1. Although it is funny how the length of this winter has changed not just my emotional response to temperatures (42°? Hooray!), but also the physical. E.g., in January I'd wear thick socks and insulated boots for pretty much anything below freezing; now that's reserved for below 20° or lots of snow still on the sidewalks.
On the OP, I'd agree with more or less the whole thing, except that I never really swim outside, so I don't think 85-90 has much to recommend it.
Meanwhile, Pgh Public Schools has more or less given up on delays and closings. Back in December, they'd have a delay for air temps below 10 or wind chills below 0; now school starts on time pretty much unless there's significant amounts of snow coming down at 8 am.
16: Yes. Are all the mosquitoes dead? Good.
I saw that the air temp was 9 this morning. But it will be 32 after work. I can run in that without even discomfort. Discomfort from the temperature, at least.
One of my FB friends linked the When May I Shoot a Student article and commented on her disgust with it. I don't think she got that it is satire.
2: Niagara Falls is so beautiful in winter! Did you see anything on the Crystal Beach ice caves on the Lake Erie shore? Several relatives went to check them out and got awesome pictures.
Seriously, this winter has destroyed the last vestiges of my southern California you-can-go-outside-any-time-you-want lifestyle. Now I'm all make-sure-there's-plenty-of-food-in-the-house. Just like my mother. SIGH. Also I wonder how many squirrels and birds starved to death this winter?
I have discovered that if I wear two layers of socks I will pretty much be warm. I haven't had to wear my big coat this winter at all. I did wear long johns a couple of times, and a hat can be nice, and for shoveling my warmer gloves are helpful, but it turns out the socks are really the key.
23: It really is hard to tell sometimes.
We've been getting rain. And increased avalanche danger. (The woman rescued from that avalanche the other day passed away yesterday.)
Despite the cold it's nice that there's more light and that it's getting lighter so fast (hooray for sinusoidal functions). It's almost still light when I get home now and within a couple weeks will be.
The light is confusing me. It doesn't feel anything like spring!
Though I'm hoping that the greater darkness in the morning will trick Zardoz into sleeping a bit later at least for a few days.
Fair warning. Babies don't get "daylight savings" at all.
It is certainly fascinating to observe the process of snowmelt purely from sunlight, not from temperature. Lots of neat melt patterns.
33 gets it right. On a lot of the roads around here, the south-facing side still has a snow bank extending onto the pavement, and the north-facing side has no snow for ten feet of grass until the farm field starts.
I mean the south side and the north side. Don't know what "south-facing" would mean.
When I was 33, it was a very good year...
I think I picked an awesome year to move to California.
I have a 30 min walk to work.
Doesn't count unless you wear a pedometer.
If you know your average rate of walking in steps per min and have a pedometer you can calculate how long your commute is.
I have a new watch. I bet I could compute her average rate of walking, if she comments "GO" at the precise moment she leaves her house and "STOP" upon arrival.
Until 2 weeks ago I hadn't ridden my bike to the train since before New Years, as I had reassured my wife I wouldn't ride when the temperature was much below 20.
But the bus connection this necessitates is so variable, and can insert 35+ minutes into a commute either way, that I started to ride anyway. And I found that with the zipped-front balaklava my son gave me, I'm ok down at least as far as 0.
The improvised head protection I'd been using turns out to have been the only obstacle, and this is a great thing. Below 10 I'm usually the only bike on the road.
I think my ideal temperature location would be NYC -5F with no serious humidity in the summers. Where I grew up it was NYC +5 in the winter and -10 in the summer. Summers were pretty great, winters just dreary and would have been significantly improved by being a bit colder. The nice thing about cold weather is you can keep adding layers while the reverse isn't true. In NYC half the time in July and August it's unpleasantly hot even just wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals.
33 is sublime
Very well put. My father, a physical chemist, always insisted on this distinction.
(The woman rescued from that avalanche the other day passed away yesterday.)
That made our local news this morning in Chicago. Any more about the cause?
I think my ideal weather would be around Oklahoma or Arkansas. Hot summers, but slightly shorter than Texas. Snow every winter, but not for very long.
This might be the first time in history somebody said Oklahoma had their ideal weather.
I'm not sure if I should look forward to my impending trip to Beijing. The highs are in the 50s, but the air isn't breathable. Interesting compromise.
50: Without all the twisters and poverty.
I'm looking forward to the weather in northern England. So mild!
Poverty. Everybody talks about it, but nobody ever does enough to make things worse for those who experience it.
55: I was in Lancaster and it was indeed very mild. I was there January through July and never experienced a freeze or an unpleasantly hot day.
41/42: I've now read the word pedometer so many times that it's starting to look funny to me, like it should be related to pedophiles. The walk is something like 1.3 miles, and I am slow. I do know (thanks, marching band), that I take 8 steps per five yards.
A lot of OK gets "wintry mix" rather than actual snow. Also, OK is extremely windy year-round, which can be unpleasant.
56 is bullshit, because he fits right in with many of his fellow legislators back in the state, destructive jerks that they are. I mean, funny, but also sad but untrue.
Well, further west than OK and it gets too dry. Further east than Arkansas and it gets too humid. Further north it's too cold, and right there it's too windy. Shucks, I guess I'll just stay right here and be my own little bunny.
I always assumed Oklahoma must suck because if Andrew Jackson sent the Cherokee there, it must have been the worst place he could think of and he'd been to South Carolina.
I've now read the word pedometer so many times that it's starting to look funny to me, like it should be related to pedophiles.
Likewise. It's a gadget for measuring the propensity to molest children.
64: In France, here it's the pedofoot ... wait a minute.
Let's play "where and how is nature most likely to hurt you." CA earthquakes fires mudslides. OK tornadoes. New England blizzards, Lyme disease. FL everything.
One of my favorite animated gifs of the season There is also a full video where you see that he comes out OK.
67: That seems incomplete. How about "How much do you have to pay to defeat nature?" Because keeping from freezing consumes a reasonable portion of my income, something far higher than the actuarial cost of earthquake insurance for somebody in LA or something.
FL everything.
North Florida was just swamp and mosquitoes. We never got a hurricane until after I left home.
And apparently dehydration. But that one was solved.
Also, lots and lots of lightening deaths.
Proportional with the golf courses. To 75 and 76.
24: When I told Kai that Lake Erie was frozen over (which has caused many of Erie's gulls to come to Pittsburgh's non frozen rivers), he asked if we could drive up to see. If the ice caves were on this shore, I'd be tempted...
Apparently, soccer really pisses Zeus off.
Below 10 I'm usually the only bike on the road.
I have been truly shocked by how many cyclists I've seen in the various wintry weathers we've had. Every morning at the kids' bus stop I see at least 1 and usually 3, and that's over a 5-10 minute period. Those are regulars, of course, but I see others out as well.
Back when I bike commuted, I mostly saved it for the (relatively*) nice winter days, although my opportunities were limited by the middle of the commute being on a non-plowed bike trail - a day after a snow, it would be nothing but icy ridges, unridable with a heavy workbag on.
*as in, sub-freezing, but not actually shitty
15: I picked the right year to move back to California.
81: I saw a guy with giant-ass tires on his bike. Bigger than mountain bike tires. I assume that's for traction. Is that common or helpful?
We never got a hurricane until after I left home.
Have they asked you to move back?
83: Those were invented (I'm pretty sure) for sand dunes; it's not clear to me how much they help on snow. The advice used to be that you wanted hard, narrow tires on snow (to push through the snow to the hard surface) and knobby, soft tires on ice (for max traction), but I don't know.
I have seen those giant tires too, they sell them most places, even the sports aisle at Target. My wife got a studded front tire for her longtail bike. I tipped my cargo bike (without any kids in it) on an unplowed road a couple weeks ago- it's heavy enough that it never goes that fast and has pretty good traction, but it was the ridges that knocked it over.
76: Also, lots and lots of lightening deaths.
Never go to the light!
I think there have been 4 days this year I wouldn't bike- one temperature, three precipitation.
CA earthquakes fires mudslides. OK tornadoes. New England blizzards, Lyme disease. FL Australia everything.
There's been a whole movement in the Upper Midwest for the giant tired bikes. They were developed in Alaska, although dune-riding was an influence. They won't fit in an ordinary frame, and the components, not to mention the tires cost hundreds all together.
But they permit winter trail riding in heavy snow, so for avid cyclists it's worth it. Also the crowds--I'm using a truly Lindberghian, Pa Ingalls standard here, but I can hear the call of the Wild every so often--are gone.
83 -- Yes. Snowbiking is gaining in popularity -- I know that Schweitzer, a ski resort in northern Idaho, has snowbiking trails. I haven't seen anyone riding this winter, but ran into several people on the trail last year, and saw folks riding them in town the winter before.
Also, lots and lots of lightening deaths.
Starvation and blood loss both involve death, preceded by lightening.
I thought it was a comment on Trayvon/Zimmerman.
Every time there's a snow big enough that streets are empty, you see people out on them with their fat-tire snow bikes. They all have the same "Woo hoo, making use of my Pugsley!" look on their faces.
16: If all the stink bugs die, I'm fine with the cold.
Ha. I wish.
After a cold winter how long does it take for insects to reestablish an equilibrium? With fast life cycles and exponential growth it can't take long, right?
Australia everythingterrifying poisonous creature.
99: Stinkbugs possess antifreeze proteins! Wow. You kind of have to admire that.
We'll see how things pan out in the spring (the true spring, not the false 50-60 F days we've had interspersed with another bout of ice/snow/freezing temps two days later); I'm killing a couple per day in the house, still. They're coming out from wheree'er they're hiding in order to warm up, I assume. Can't blame them.
||
We had an earlier discussion about a slideshow documenting examples of micro-agressions.
Labrys just sent another example done by a woman who adopted to girls from China, documenting the comments that they have received.
I thought the other one was powerful and, again, I think it does a good job of taking comments which you can imagine someone saying without intending to be hostile and showing just how horrible they can be for the person on the receiving end. The expressions of the two girls holding the white-boards just says, "how can you say that?"
|>
From the OP: "Dahlia Lithwick gets it right."
The Lithwick piece is weird, because it seems to be as much about the personal economic impact of cold snow weather as about just the sheer tiredness one -- or at least I -- get in these circumstances.
I mean sure, things are harder and money flow slows (our book sales lately, let me not show you them), but I dunno: if our lives are so premised on fair weather, we have a problem, and putting in place ways and means to keep things going along in the absence of fair weather seems appropriate.
I'm seeming sour-faced here. All I mean is that I listened to my work partner the other day explain in a pained manner some NYT article about the "hidden costs" of bad weather, and the article was apparently about a dentist who was complaining about how much it was costing him to have his parking area plowed. My work partner thought this was really terrible.
I observed that that wasn't really a hidden cost: it was a cost to the dentist personally, but it benefited the people who do the plowing, and that's how the economy goes 'round, doncha know.
I didn't get a good reception for my feedback. It's about the dentist, and how much it's costing him!
According to my brother up in Mass., the school system is thinking of canceling April vacation in order to make up for snow days.
Parsi, 104 is one of your weirdest rants ever.
107: Sorry. I'm as frustrated by recent weather events as the next guy, and had a wave of despair yesterday myself. Crashed my car into the guard rail last week on slippery roads. Son of a bitch, and all that.
I understand that parents are frustrated at having their children home, and having to stay home themselves. With the children impacting their ability to earn an income.
Um. I guess I'm thinking about childcare, that's all. Its availability to some, its unavailability to others.
So my friend's daughter made this hat: http://www.universalhub.com/files/styles/large_image/public/images/photos/babyheadhat.jpg?itok=jy8afuo-
No, really? Hilzoy linked it on Facebook as awesome.
That's a very interesting piece of something they got going there.
Um. I guess I'm thinking about childcare, that's all. Its availability to some, its unavailability to others.
I think I entirely missed the point of 104 then, because the point of the Lithwick article is about childcare(/having your children at school). And its unavailability because of snow.
I can't say that I entirely followed 104, but I do feel as if you see a lot of stuff published that really boils down to, "I don't like/am tired of winter, and therefore will use my journalistic perch to PROVE that winter sucks."
That's a tiresome kind of article in any circumstance (it's usually a lifestyle thing: What's REALLY wrong with hipsters, or Why environmentalists are secretly the WORST).
Right, school is a form of childcare.
I think I'm having a negative reaction to the Lithwick piece because it sounds as though she doesn't like her children -- or, they don't fit into her lifestyle -- unless there's school / childcare to handle them when she doesn't want to, or can't, handle them.
As someone who hasn't had children, this clangs badly with my understanding of what having children should be about. In an ideal world, shouldn't you celebrate having home time with them? But of course, not if your workplace insists on your producing regardless.
I suppose I'm generally down on a structure that can't handle snow days.
In an ideal world, shouldn't you celebrate having home time with them?
There's a point where diminishing returns set in.
or, they don't fit into her lifestyle
Right, that "having a job" lifestyle.
I know you sort of kind of get there in your comment, but come on, parsi. Don't be a dick about people with kids not being enthused enough about their kids.
I suppose I'm generally down on a structure that can't handle snow days.
Welcome to my world. Snow days + sick days = massively fucking behind, so just the illustration from the Lithwick piece nearly made me weep.
As someone who hasn't had children, this clangs badly with my understanding of what having children should be about. In an ideal world, shouldn't you celebrate having home time with them?
1. Work doesn't close when school closes. (As you nodded to.)
2. ...No? Not necessarily? Children are great when they're great, and horrid when they're horrid, and house-bound for too long is a formula for horrid, and seriously you should get a pet howler monkey and celebrate having time home with it flinging its poo at you and howling.
I bow to no one in finding parenthood annoying, but "parenthood is annoying" pieces are perhaps even more annoying than parenthood itself.
119 will never, ever be used against you, I'm sure.
118 et al. see three year olds are assholes comment.
Did I mention how I took care of a 2 year old for 8 hours a few weeks ago, and it nearly drove me insane? I slept for 11 hours after that.
Imagine how much more all of this sucks for people who don't have cars, and thus have to negotiate strollers/buses with squalling kids and diaper bags and the whole 9 yards. My friend, the one with the 2 year old, has basically been housebound except for work, which is a sore trial.
Thankfully, we are having a bit of a thaw over the next week, so that is good.
To the OP:
>32F Time to break out the shorts and flip-flops
20F to 32F You probably want long sleeves
10F to 20F Seriously, put a hat on
0F to 10F You know, scarves aren't necessarily a mark of weakness
-10F to 0F Now, you really need some gloves
-20F to -10F Silk long underwear is a good investment
-30F to -20F If your boots don't say "Sorrel," "Cabelas" or "LaCrosse" you're probably going to have to spend some time rubbing feeling back into your toes tonight
-40F to -30F Make sure the kids are pointed the right direction when you send them to the school bus stop
-50F to -40F You know, it might be nice to visit Cousin Merle in Tucson next year
The model of parenting where one person isolates theirself with their, and only their children for most of the day has to be pretty recent, right? Hillary Clinton was right; we need to go back to living in villages.
Sorry, forgot about the less than sign business. Under 50F was "Welcome to Warroad!"
Or maybe she meant we should stop raising children. I didn't read her book.
Also relevant: http://www.vita.mn/best-of/243851421.htmlhttp://www.vita.mn/best-of/243851421.html
I've seen young ladies out on the town in 0 degree weather in outfits that would have seemed abbreviated if they were handkerchiefs.
where one person isolates theirself with their, and only their children
Oh, Eggplant, you have got to be kidding. "Theirself with their and only their" ????
Thanks -- you gave me a laugh. If there aren't defenses of this use of "their" forthcoming, I will be disappointed.
Because anyone who would try to kill me for saying this is probably snowed in, I have to say that having our girls at a daycare/after-school program through a charity that focuses on low-income families has meant there's a place to send them whenever school is closed and it is wonderful not to have to miss work without warning and to know that they're safe, fed, and having fun. On the other hand, they've only had one five-day school week since mid-December and with kids who are unusually needy about having reliable routines to follow, I am as ready to go back to the old normal as the parents who are growing deranged at home on snow days.
"Theirself with their and only their" ????
Right, who are we kidding. It's obviously always a woman.
Well, it should be "Themselves." "Theirself" is wrong.
Sorry, that should've been "Themself".
130: having our girls at a daycare/after-school program through a charity that focuses on low-income families has meant there's a place to send them whenever school is closed
Sounds great. But how does that work? Because around here, if schools are closed, it's very unlikely that any daycare facilities are open: it's basically too risky on the roads.
Eggplant's just a little confused because on snow days he has his red panda put on a mob cap and care for the pit bull and so the vision of a world in which all children were raised by a village of red pandas was so stunningly right
Don't know the source for "theirself" but seems I've heard it it all my life. "Themselves" seems perfectly idiomatic, but lots of speakers prefer the former. You very seldom see it written though, and hence some confusion about how to spell it.
135: If the roads are good enough that I'm expected to get to work, the same holds true for the school director who's doing the same commute in reverse, and several of the workers and many of the families live within walking distance, as do we. If our schools are closed, it usually has more to do with things being unsafe for buses and/or too cold for the majority of kids who walk, and the superintendent tries to keep them open as much as possible so that there will be heat and meals for all the kids.
(When the fuck did I become unable to close tags? It's the second time I've done that in the last week, and I'm not usually such an idiot.)
133: Hogwash. I'm on record with having no problem with him- or herself. Or him/herself. or her- or himself.
135. There are two kinds of school closure, at least here.
Administratively closed= nobody in the building
Administratively open= no classes, but building's open so daycare and other staff can use it.
It was infuriating that the Chicago Public Schools changed whether there would be a snow day on a Sunday evening in December when they first started, after every other district had done so, leaving parents to scramble. Since then there's probably been a bit of an overreaction, calling them early and often. My daughter's been able to help with our little cousins, but that's fortuitous.
138: Huh. So the daycare facility opens as a sort of 'essential personnel' thing. Makes sense. I hope they're paid well!
133: Hogwash. I'm on record with having no problem with him- or herself. Or him/herself. or her- or himself.
Hogself?
My university is famously unwilling to ever cancel classes. Senior teaching staff are, of course, able to cancel their classes if they'll be unable to make it in. What fun this is for junior teaching staff! Especially junior teaching staff with small children!
Anyhow, I think parsimon's "wait, I thought people had kids because they lacked the desire to do anything but spend time with kids ever again" theory is a fun one, and look forward to reading more about it.
I do not think that that is what "hogwash" means, redfox.
143: Our daycare is affiliated with a private charity and not with the public schools, but their aftercare/summer camp program follows the school calendar and is open on teacher in-service days and snow days. Parents only pay if they send their children on those days. Most of the teachers have their own children in the program, so they aren't being inconvenienced on that front by having to go to work on snow days, and because there are fewer children and they consolidate classes it's okay when a few of the teachers need to stay home.
I doubt that there is any extra pay for it, though. It's just another day. And I don't think the pay for any non-elite daycare worker is very good, though our program is about to get the highest level of certification and I hope that will bump things up a bit for the staff.
Or if I'm not being clear enough, the hard thing about school closings is that it's often only schools that close. I'm expected to be at work unless the interstate is closed. Lee is hating life because even when her school closes, faculty are expected to report, which is indeed pretty obvious bullshit. Occasionally there will be something like churches and our local library were closed on Sunday because of an impending storm, but that's not at all usual and adults just count on going to work if the roads are passable or working from home somehow if they have to stay home with kids. I don't know any other businesses that close on any sort of regular basis.
I imagine the prevalence and wisdom of businesses or other institutions closing is a matter of region.
Suck it snow losers! It's your fault for living in various shitholes.
But as far as I know, pretty much everywhere schools close long before workplaces do generally.
Just want to make sure that all regional perspectives are represented here.
Sign me on to the 114 pile-on and if Halford shows up to troll about the weather, sign me on to that too. It's too upper-insipid-range out for me to actually do it.
Don't come to us for sympathy in a mountain lion/mudslide/wildfire event.
151: snow's just another word for water you can't have.
154 uncannily composed before seeing 151.
156 to be sung to the obvious tune.
"...water ain't worth nothing, but it's wet"
158: I got as far as "Water isn't sunshine, but it's wet/Agriculture's easy, Lord,..." but got hung up on a rhyme for "have" at the end of the line. I'm so impressed by people who toss off impromptu verse parodies. I never got the hang of it.
"eating snow was good enough til Bobby froze and died..."
156 to be sung to the obvious tune.
I think that would be challenging, actually, considering how different the syllable count it, but I'm sure somebody could prove me wrong.
Unless you're thinking of a different tune than I am.
"dehydrated from the snow he et..."
That took a dark turn.
It's your fault for living in various shitholes.
This is absolutely right. Having lived in Palo Alto, where it really is in the 70s and sunny most of the time, I'm convinced that people who claim to enjoy the weather elsewhere are suffering either from Stockholm Syndrome, or some compulsion to relive the trauma of the weather they're used to. Remember, "seasons" is just shorthand for "times when the weather sucks."
Kahneman (Kahneman! Does whatever a Kahne... man?) did some research on whether pleasant California weather really made people happy. His conclusion, to summarize what I half-remember from maybe a talk I heard a long time ago, was yes! it made people much happier as long as they were specifically thinking about the weather, which they almost never did.
a mountain lion/mudslide/wildfire event
Yeah, Halford, when you're buried under an immense pile of barbecued mountain lions*, you...well, you'd probably like that.
*Could have written "hot cougars", didn't want to make it that easy.
which they almost never did.
That's their own damn fault. Every morning I'd go outside and think "Another sunny day in Northern California." But I need to stop thinking about this, or I'll slit my wrists.
Yeah to be fair when I lived in [ hilariously ideal weather-ville ] I would walk out of the house and think "wow, what a beautiful day!" every single day.
Every time I've ever visited California, I have spent a fair amount of time looking around wide-eyed and thinking "Wow. Everything's pretty. It's just nicer here."
But I enjoy suffering, and have difficulty crossing running water.
166: But wouldn't people in bad weather think about the weather more and be less happy? What's the baseline?
Oh look POTUS is coming through the neighborhood tomorrow and closing lots of streets during the evening commute. Thanks Obama!
I'd slit my wrists if I could find them under all the moss and mold.
Sure, Palo Alto is a good place to live, but I also get mockery from people living in Tucson and Las Vegas. Your town is running out of water, you dingus. 5% of the current human population should be living there. Get ready to re-emigrate.
Doesn't that apply to California south of San Francisco generally? Not at the same level of intensity, but while it's pretty, it's technically uninhabitable. (Assuming that one uses my private definition of "technically".)
But when the earthquake takes out the Delta levees and massive saltwater intrusion decimates the water transfers that irrigate pretty much all the fruit & veg the rest of you eat, it'll suck to be you, too! :)
My primary unhappiness with the weather this winter was when the big storm promised for Sunday/Monday turned into just 2.5".
Californians never seem to understand that more than one kind of weather is enjoyable.
I'm chafing mightily under the analogy ban here. Suffice it to say that repeating the same pleasant experience daily for your entire life isn't considered, under most circumstances, the pinnacle of human experience.
"Wow. Everything's pretty. It's just nicer here."
Me too. Also: How are all these blossoms so much denser and bigger than anywhere else? How is this place so Eden-like?
I console myself that the people must be more annoying, in equal measure.
176 last is completely untrue. Coastal regions do not equal deserts, and (under normal non extreme drought conditions) there is plenty of water as long as you use infrastructure to bring it to a city, which is also the case for e.g. New York. Actually even under drought conditions there's plenty of water for cities, just not for cities+intensive agriculture that needs subsidized cheap water to survive. Yeah water management is a problem in the West but "I live in a shithole that has a river next to it" = nice try Pittsburgh but you still live in a shithole.
151, 154, 164: I'm in.
I notice the weather and appreciate it more than once a day. If I somehow don't notice it going to work, I definitely do during the rivercreek trip with the dog.
Coastal regions do not equal deserts
Some certainly do.
176 last is completely untrue
Are you claiming to know my private definition of the word "technically"? Because unless you are, I don't see how you can make this argument.
Anyhow, one of the things Kahneman found was that people's intuitions about how happy the weather made them were way off, so you're all wrong. (I mean, I'm wrong too, but I know I'm wrong so can compensate.)
Oh, that's not the only private definition of yours I know, my friend.
Huh that looks simultanesously gross and stupid when written out. Oh well. Onwards!
LB's private definition of technically uninhabitable: mediterranean climate, gorgeous terrain, full of large cities...
Was it Mike Davis who identified the optimal resident of Los Angeles before civilization as an aquatic camel?
I don't know but Mike Davis turns out to be full of shit about pretty much everything.
177: , it'll suck to be you, too!
We'll eat our sugar beets.
187: The very essence of Halfordismo.
Aquatic camels were wrong about the ecological underpinnings of 20th century capitalist excess in the Los Angeles area, but not in a way we can understand anymore.
151 gets it exactly right. Speaking of nice weather in LA, Halford, have you decided who gets the VM tickets yet?
Not yet. So far here are the front runners in order:
1) Trapnel. Strong expressed desire to go, out of town and would enjoy it, unemployed and therefore virtuous. Downside: incorrect intellectual property views may suggest this is all being set up by the PirateBay.
2) K-Sky. Also wants to go, would enjoy it, in town so can go for sure. Downside: Probably can see these cast members some other way just by virtue of being awesome.
3) MacManus. OK, Bob didn't contribute to the charity, is kind of an asshole, and hasn't expressed any interest in going. Still, how awesome would this be? What if it somehow led to MacManus getting a job as a host at Turner Classic Movies? Wouldn't you pay to have tape of MacManus trolling Kristen Bell about Neoliberalism and women in Japanese culture? I kind of would.
Anyone else who wants to be in the running, LET ME KNOW SOON.
This thread seems tailor-made to increase my self-doubt and longterm misery. Please ignore Halford, people, and talk more about how CA is going to run out of water!
Von Wafer, considering how stridently you are working toward your own longterm misery, I don't see how this thread can make anything worse.
I hated winter in Northern California, and didn't much care for summer either. I could enjoy a week in SD, I think, just as I'm fine with the first 36 hours of visiting Florida.
Went XCing Saturday: 5F but sunshine. It was great.
Do they run foreign movies on TCM? Hasn't McManus taken a vow of celibacy with respect to Hollywood movies? If McManus did get a hosting gig at TCM might actually have to get cable...
I can't believe the plush-sloth-featuring nude selfie wasn't even worth listing in the summary of my candidacy. O tempora, O mores.
You live in Davis on good terms and chose?are choosing? to move away. What you have in mind can't be taken as a sound guide to anything.
Californians never seem to understand that more than one kind of weather is enjoyable.
California has more than one kind of weather but all of them happen to be nice. Except for much of summer in much of San Francisco.
Except for much of summer in much of San Francisco. the Central Valley. And a month or so of the winter, too.
I've never spent summer in the Central Valley but I suspect I'd prefer it to the humid summers I've experienced in the east.
Yeah, it is pretty rough here for a month in the winter, when it is overcast and shit.
205: definitely. Humidity is the worst.
I was just about to write 203. Everyone is making my life easy today.
I am fond for different types of weather, but I think a lot of it is connected to nostalgia for youth. I miss summer camps spent hiking in New Hampshire, the secret worlds of snow days in high school, the romance of first days of college springs after the winter chill. I hear adults talking about "missing the seasons" when they first move to California, but I don't hear a lot of adults enjoying the seasons when they live elsewhere.
I would like to do more season-oriented tourism. But who wants to be a permanent resident?
We do have seasons. This is purple season, when the hardenbergia, ornamental plums, magnolias and redbuds are all in bloom and the rose leaves are still dark red.
207: You really are making this entirely too easy.
210: it's not humid there. I mean, compared to Oakland it is. But everywhere that is the Mojave is humid compared to Oakland.
Apparently it's Mardi Gras, which reminded me that a year ago I was on this ridiculous train trip across the country to California, because I had saved up tons of vacation time and I might as well take this grand trip to California since when the hell would I ever be there again. Oh life, you kittenish thing.
As long as people are bragging, I'll say again that Summers here are great. Not too hot, and it stays light until 9:30 or 10:00.
If you can put up with 4 months of rain and clouds, the Pacific Northwest offers quite a bit in terms of natural beauty and a nice climate.
I think I'm having a negative reaction to the Lithwick piece because it sounds as though she doesn't like her children -- or, they don't fit into her lifestyle -- unless there's school / childcare to handle them when she doesn't want to, or can't, handle them.
!!!! She's trying to work with some unexpected distractions around. She's frustrated. That's all - seems quite mild to me. Bloody hell, what on earth did you think of the "go the fuck to sleep" man? And have you never actually spoken to any parents?
The only real problem I had with Vancouver in May and June was that it was so beautiful it made it tough to sleep.
4 months of rain and clouds
Are you fucking kidding me? You only get 4 months up there? Why the hell am I still in this sodden shithole?
Are you fucking kidding me? You only get 4 months up there?
It depends on the year. The prior two years it's been wet and gray through June. But this year January was clear and beautiful. Granted, that's unusual.
It's true, 4 months is probably an understatement.
I really miss the fog in the Bay Area. Driving up the hills in the East Bay and hitting a visible cloud bank is intensely comforting to me.
My primary unhappiness with the weather this winter was when the big storm promised for Sunday/Monday turned into just 2.5".
This was perhaps the happiest weather event of the winter for me.
Yeah to be fair when I lived in [ hilariously ideal weather-ville ] I would walk out of the house and think "wow, what a beautiful day!" every single day.
Different hilariously ideal weather-ville but man, me too. It was a daily bucket of delight.
It was a daily bucket of delight.
The very first house I lived in in the Bay Area had an unobstructed view of the Golden Gate. Seeing that every morning from my bathroom never got old.
The very first house I lived in during my first stab at the Bay Area had a view of the entire bay, three bridges (I think? Bay, Golden Gate, San Ruh-fell?) I was so miserable here people would express envy and I would kind of shrug.
Meanwhile 76-84 is probably my favorite temperature range! Well, 76-90 is all good really. Above 90 is fun for a garnish once in a while and below 40 is unacceptable.
