It ain't balmy here in Byzantium-on-the-Hudson.
I'm already using the air conditioning in the car. We hit a record-breaking 83° either last week or the week before. I'm depressed about this summer.
Seems awesome. Better snow than in Colorado. But not too much. Okemo looks fabulous, just right. Less snow than here in Boston.
2: OMFG. I have complaints, but they're not climatic.
Funny, I'm staying right by Okemo. Skiing Killington, though.
High of 6 degrees tomorrow. Perfect skiing weather. The ancient Greeks would have skied nude.
Maybe all those Greek statues with important bits broken off are just realistic depictions.
5: The snow there doesn't look quite as good.
BG beat me to it. Totally come to Boston! Ten degrees warmer than Killington - it's barely below zero right now - and seven and a half feet of snow on the ground.
I hope someone has managed to carve a little ski mountain into the snowbanks. Toboggan run? Not little?
9: I was thinking okemo over killington, though mt sunapee has great snow right now.
If I had a Subaru, I'd have taken off last week...
Or Missoula -- temps in the 40s, no snow for weeks now.
Sorry, from now on all snow has been relocated to heavily populated areas with dense road networks, no particular mountains to speak of, and no need for snow to contribute to the water supply. To suggest alternatives to this plan, please consult President Reagan.
Saturday was in the 80s and too hot, but otherwise the weekend was very nice. We could use some snow in our mountains for sure, though thanks to Unfogged's institutional commitment to stunningly moronic ignorance about the water system in the West I'm now reluctant to mention any issue involving water at all for fear of moronitude. Anyhow, Vermont seems like the skiing would be awesome right now.
Hey, some of us have non-moronic perspectives on Western water issues!
Ocean Beach was like the Mediterranean today, so long as no part of your flesh touched the water. There were actual beach umbrellas, not just wind shelters, and several dozen young women assiduously cultivating wrinkles.
We have a perspective on Western water issues?
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re: 18
That there isn't any? and the people in the west use it profligately, I thought?
Weather Underground showing -15°F there. We are heading up this afternoon for a a couple of days at Holiday Valley in western New York where I was brought up short to see that it is currently -31°F. Warming somewhat over the next several days, however.
it was nice in bali again today. not like that time it rained for part of the day three days ago. nope, 94 degrees, tropical blue, enough scale-like glistening white to make the sky interesting, yep. well, like, way too hot to want to walk anywhere. or really do anything. what with the sun hammering on you with aztec fury. pretty hot, really. swimming, mebbe? I'm stuck here (in a good way, visa-fixing-issues, insh'allah) but girl x just had her appendix out and is in agony. the antibiotic they put in is burning down through the port into her arm, just hurting like hell. I've never been away from either of my children and they've been sick. I feel miserable and helpless. I am the person that firmly insists people get a morphine drip NOW. I yelled at my husband when they were in the recovery room because she wanted to talk to me and said, "mommy, please, it hurts so bad, make daddy make them stop." when he got the phone back he said "well, we're going up to the ward in a minute and--" "you are a professional dr. white guy! use your social capital! yell at someone! they can give you any kind of drugs in the recovery room there's fucking doctors right there!" then I had to apologize because of course he's doing his best and didn't need to get yelled at. "don't yell, then, just insist ever-more-firmly." they gave her paracetamol when she came out of 2+ hours of surgery and was begging for them to make it stop hurting. I wanted to go hit someone with a lead pipe and then hand them an aspirin.
so, yeah, you can get last-minute deals on hotel suites with bigbpools! like $90 and will sleep 2 adults and 2 kids. it's a shame the flights are so truly awful from the east coast because SE asia is very fun and reasonably priced. I should be having some awesome meditative experience or something but instead I'm just whatsapping my parents to hear about their cancer treatment and talking to people in singapore and dorking around on the loserweb, albeit nude and poolside. they said she might be in the hospital for 7 days--what? I'll have to go back if there are complications obviously. not that I even have my passport. I gave it to the #2 guy at the immigrasi kontrol place in denpasar, which sounds legitimate, except I hung around the front while my dude romi explained whom he needed to see, then waded through all the sunburned australians waiting for their queue numbers to appear and went out to the canteen, which is like a crummy warung, really, with waxed cloth tacked to the tables. #2 man smoked cloves he was bumming from his youthful assistant, examining my passport in a meticulously thoughtful way, like it might be from another country if it were upside down, while my employee explained my problem. a beautiful young woman at his left politely pointed out it would likely take longer than the 30 days he was proposing to extend my visa for me to get a KITAS for my own newly-founded company. youthful assistant brightly volunteered that it would be better for me to be hired by an existing company in exchange for me paying six months of their taxes. (why six? won't it make rather a lot of difference what they do? I don't want to get taken on at bosch indo.) this produced general agreement and a possible sense the lad was going somewhere. (this is taking place in bahasa with minimal translation but is reasonably clear.) "what is your highest degree?" I'm surprised to be thus interrogated by the #2 guy. "um...I have an MA in ancient greek I guess?" "all right." (his somber expression seemed to indicate he thought this passable, but just.) "give me your ticket stub that got you here." OK, glad I have my boarding pass for no reason, but sure. "romi (my guy), give the papers of incorporation of ibu alameida's company to [going-places-lad]." he, for his part, was already scanning his samsung galaxie and calling people, leaving him only a pinky and ring finger with a cigarette with which to indicate, delicately, and in a way surrounded by arcing tendrils in the greasy heat, that he would take the manila folder. so then, after thanking everyone profusely, I walked out without anything. "this is GREAT!" says romi. I was letting him go straight home because I had hired another driver. "yeah, thanks man. that was good that you know that guy." for real! very solid! just sort of humorous and I have a deep feeling of anxiety without a passport or any, you know, receipt. officially #firstworlddevelopingworld problems.
21: that was my understanding. halfordismo is predicated upon the supreme leader's secret knowledge of an infinitely deep pool under the rockies, the entrance to which is guarded only by graves--because dead men tell no tales. some believe a man will come out of the desert known as "ian muad'dib hill" in the end times.
that's the worst, knecht. illnesses should have common decency. speaking of which, poor romi from the tale above--his daughter has dengue fever and all the hospitals he can afford are full. I am really tired but might need to front up in a shitty emergency room with credit cards and/or wads of cash.
I went skiing in Manchuria back in January 2006. It was -35 C, and the snow had long been compressed into ice. The hill was maybe a 25 degree slope, and it was mosh-pit packed with people who had never been near a ski before. The best part was at the bottom of the hill was a solid wall of people and skis that you would just kind of have to ski into. There's supposedly a ski place that has opened locally, with artificial snow. It's about $20/day to ski on a weekday, though lessons are $30/hour. I haven't gone but I'm curious as to how it compares.
Below zero and I'm heading out. I should maybe upgrade my long underwear to Canada grade.
It's actually maybe more expensive for the full day. Maybe it's $20 for 3 hours?
it's in fucking nusa dua no wonder. of course I run out of all my meds too because I was supposed to go back before and DHL wouldn't send non-narcotic meds with the prescription. they said no to my maid twice, once after making her go get the prescription! I have to send official white man up in there. and that doesn't even cover how I really will run all the way out and not be able to see my doctor and they will have to fill my scrips in absentia. I'm hoping to find dr. feelgood, frankly. god romi is fighting for the last damn room there too? you know they have empty rooms reserved for tourists in scooter accidents. fuck this. she's eight.
maybe I should show up and pretend to be injured and then smuggle her out of something. "ha, bitches, it's a child with a mosquito-borne illness! fuck you!" no I should try to sleep for a while before someone drives me to a wall-to-wall ER and I don't even have enough pain meds to have made it to 1 this afternoon. FUCK. welp, if you got any prayers, chuck'em at girl x and romi's baby. and if you see me fighting with someone on the internet please tell me to STFU and go to sleep. don't freeze, ye nor'easterners!
12: Crested BUtte was 45 degrees yesterday...
10: That MIT snow mountain is fantastic. They should commit to not removing any of the pile, and have a pool on what day it all melts by. (A chance some snow would make it all the way through until next year? Not sure.)
So, date of melt or height (in inches) of pile on Thanksgiving Day. (Given that it is piled snow--so quite compressed--I'm thinking it would last.)
Just had another speaker cancel a visit due to weather. Given the number of classes and talks that have been canceled so far this month, I think I really should have just decided to spend all of February in SoCal or Italy or something and told my students we'd catch up in March.
I just read Into Thin Air and my universal advice is TURN BACK AND NEVER LEAVE HOME AGAIN.
Is that different from what you advised before reading Into Thin Air?
It is too cold for me to ski. We went down a bunny slope once and dove for the lodge -- we've been inside for a half hour and my toes have just stopped hurting. We'll try another run soon.
39: Have you tried skiing inside a dog?
37: I just heard an interview with Beck Weathers where he said that getting frostbite and losing his hands, toes, and nose were the best thing that ever happened to him. So maybe frostbite isn't that bad, after all.
AIMHMAOPPTT, I froze the skin off my ears once. Not all of it. Just the outer layers. It was unpleasant, but it grew back.
It was a sudden, unexpected storm. It was just like being on Mount Everest except for it being 27,000 feet lower and being within walking distance of a farm.
Not really, but we did need to get a permit from the government of Nepal.
12 -- Spoke too soon: we got a dusting last night. Maybe it'll last until noon.
39
Surely it's not colder than -35 C. What you need is more layers.
The x-country skiing and snowshoeing in the Boston area is awesome right now.
Or so I'm told. I haven't ventured out except for the daily shoveling and snow-blowing.
I'm adding brown fat all day, I hope. Anyway, I'm wearing several layers and I am still a bit cold. My coworker is wearing those gloves without fingers, like Bob Cratchet.
The ski slope in 27 sounds awesome in a diabolical sort of way. I can't imagine wanting to do anything at all in -35 degrees except stay inside.
39: you need better insulation.
sorry ellbee, that's way lame. it's almost spectacular, but probably not at this moment. romi got baby girl into a room in the end and she's finally on an IV which is good because she was severely dehydrated. I convinced them girl x needed a morphine drip to break the pain cycle and she slept at last and woke up feeling WAY better today.
V glad to hear appendectomy went well, went through that with a seven year old, scary even though in hands of excellent surgeon, must be hell mot to be able to be with her.
I am worked about double posting
It warmed up a little yesterday (got up close to zero) and we got some skiing in. (Take a run, go indoors, take a run, go indoors, and so on.) It ended up being about half as much skiing as we'd normally do in a day, but not a total loss.
Today should be marginally warmer -- we both have lessons scheduled, which scares me a little; not sure that instructors will reliably take warming breaks.
This is odd weather -- we're staying in a little house surrounded by trees up a long enough driveway that you can't see anything but trees, and I keep on thinking that this is literally weather that could kill you. I don't have that thought much in NYC.
The one immutable truth of ski vacations is that weather that is too cold is far better than weather that is too warm.
Also, that the weather can kill you just as easily in boring places with no moving chairs to save you from climbing.
I keep on thinking that this is literally weather that could kill you.
I have this thought in the height of the summer, here.
Whenever I think of heat and death, I think of that poor German family in Death Valley.
Scarecrow Burn victim My wife about to go commit mass murder* battle the elements and the slopes.
*She is in fact wearing an old helmet of my daughter's illustrated with hand-drawn Invader Zim characters.
Can someone pull freeze to death vs heat to death stats for the continental US. I'll bet the latter beats the former b/c old people plus babies in cars plus population distribution.
60: Is she going skiing in the Uncanny Valley?
56: That is what I was thought with regard to the OP title. Many ways to have iller conceived ski vacations.
61: It depends on how you define things.
We don't usually ski at temps like that. Maybe XC, because that gets you pretty well warmed up.
Not a problem under the new climate regime described by Ned above: our 10 day is mid 40s except tomorrow into the 50s. Trees are already getting ready to bud, some griz have come out of hibernation -- basically an epic disaster in the making.
It's an old school mask from her youth so probably 40+ years old. With her goggles down you can barely see it.
When I was successful at losing weight, I ate snacks with a little fat (apple w/ peanut butter, say) but I also ate super low calorie stuff that was kind of filling, especially pickles and marinated mushrooms. Vinegar has a way of quelling my appetite.
66: I myself am not partaking in the downhill portion of the competition. Am possibly going to snowshoe, this comment part of inducing myself to do so. (Not sure the knee is up to XC--or more precisely the inevitable awkward sideways fall).
55: this is literally weather that could kill you
Was thinking something somewhat similar driving up. Stopped at this nice rest stop (a bit more snow than in the picture) which rocks a Dr. Zhivago Varykino vibe, and I was thinking, "What makes people think they have any business living places where it is like this half the year?" And yet ...
Not a problem under the new climate regime described by Ned above: our 10 day is mid 40s except tomorrow into the 50s. Trees are already getting ready to bud, some griz have come out of hibernation -- basically an epic disaster in the making.
We've actually gotten less snow than usual in south central Pennsylvania, but our high isn't above 35 anytime in the next 10 days.
Snowshoeing is a great way to stay warm.
We've had one of those split personality winters. A total nothingburger up until sometime in mid-January, and then pretty wintry since (although not tons of snow like our New England brethren).
63: Nice. And yes, if you spell "Uncanny" like "Holiday."
Off to swim. (Actually a nice feature of this place is a pool that extends out-of-doors. Great to sit in when it is really snowing hard. (Good use of energy, too.)
65 -- hmm. So heat kills you faster, but more people die from being cold all winter. Or something like that.
I assume the cold-related deaths are homeless people, and the heat-related deaths are people enclosed in some way.
I kept waiting for the article in 65 to explain whether or not the CDC was including people who have heart attacks shoveling. Obviously weather-related, but also avoidable by paying a kid $5.
LA was unpleasantly warm on Friday, and impressively smoggy yesterday morning. OTOH, traffic was almost nonexistent between Palm Springs and LAX*: I'm pretty sure actual travel time from where we stayed to the rental counter was about 2:15. I truly never thought that many people had President's Day off.
*this does not make up for the 4+ hours it took to go from downtown LA to PS on Friday afternoon. At one point it took me literally 2 hours to go 20 miles. Amazing.
The kids in your neighborhood must be desperate.
63 made me smile in an eerie, almost lifelike way.
77 - Or cold related deaths are also correlated with something else that causes trouble. A lot of darkness, greater social isolation (from everyone staying indoors) and snow/ice/generally treacherous sidewalks/etc. would contribute a fair bit to an increase in deaths during winter.
77: Maybe the hot weather deaths are discovered a lot faster.
80:$5? It's a lot more than that around here.
Or cold related deaths are also correlated with something else that causes trouble. A lot of darkness, greater social isolation (from everyone staying indoors) and snow/ice/generally
At night, the ice weasels come.
I remember when I was a kid a bunch of neighborhood people would offer about $5 to shovel their driveways/sidewalks, I assume as a result of remembering their childhoods. Mostly it amounted to us getting about a third of the way through (at best) the heavy wet snow and then thinking "Oh well screw this" and leaving.
OK, I have no idea what it would cost to have a sidewalk shoveled. But in my case I'd be paying for a 30' long strip, one or 2 shovels wide. Kid better not expect much more than $10 (depending on snow depth, obvs).
It took us 4 hours to shovel out our cars on Sunday.
88: You have to get it over a 6 or 7-foot snowbank right now.
Except for chipping ice or something, I mostly just use a broom to get rid of the snow.
I just spent the morning shoveling out my driveway, and when I was done, one of my sorority-girl neighbors asked to borrow my shovel to do her driveway. So I'm pretty sure I'm an honorary member of a sorority now.
Sorority girls in parkas isn't the most widespread of porn themes.
There's also the scene in It's a Wonderful Life where George saves his brother from drowning in the icy pond and is rewarded for his bravery by the women from a nearby sorority who saw the event looking out of their window.
It looks like the sorority girls quit on the shoveling plan and just hired two guys to do it.
Yes. And they had a pipe freeze so there's also a plumber on the way over.
But who could forget the old classic, Nanookie of the North?
Or Ididarod?
14, 17: I am not sure whether I would bring the moronic attitudes towards western water or counter them and whether I am being missed sarcastically.
But there is no need to miss me! I am still here, reading all of it. (Although not as much on weekends.) I just have less to say.
101. Water, Megan! Talk about water! Where's it going to come from?
Isn't that one of the things the comet lander was supposed to help suss out? I don't think I heard the answer.
105. That particular comet has weird water that's different to ours, apparently.
"We are all made of star stuff. And so is all the stuff around us. So, really, what's the difference between the urinal and the side of the building?"
Under and I have thoughts about skiing but cannot post.
what's the difference between the urinal and the side of the building
It's harder to write your name in the urinal.
Ume not under
And apparently we can post. In the Czech republic there is enough snow but there are too many people not all of them German
The weather is agreeable in Europe
I feel surprisingly disappointed that there isn't another foot of snow predicted for Boston at any point in the next ten days. At this point I just feel like anything that heightens the ridiculousness of the "back in the winter of 2015..." stories I can tell when I'm old would be a net positive.
I truly never thought that many people had President's Day off
Toldja!
111: I think that we are on track to get a few more inches. That will make this the 2nd snowiest winter. I was sort of hoping to get to first place.
Because 112 violates the sanctity of off-blog communication, I do not recognize having been told so.
He totally predicted it here, too, didn't he? I mean, what other reason could there have been for dire traffic predictions?
Aside from driving to LAX in general.
How can it be hard to get to something that is actually called "lax"?
107: If you'd read Zizek you'd know the answer to that question.
11: though mt sunapee has great snow right now.
Hey. I think of Mt. Sunapee as fairly dinky for a ski mountain, so it surprises me to hear anyone mention it.
But that's not why I'm here, speaking. Rather: my mom's house (my house, in NH, on Lake Sunapee) is right across the lake from the Mt. The house looks across at it. I worry about how the house is doing after all this weather. Anyone have any information about circumstances, snow-wise, in Newbury, NH, aka Mt. Sunapee area?
Gorgeous day of skiing. Took a lesson, sidled cautiously down a black diamond, and bumbled around the mountain with Newt in the afternoon. I am now collapsed on a couch back at the house -- skiing is about the most exhausting thing I ever do. I may stand up before the lifts start running tomorrow, or I may not.
119: they got a lot, because they ate closer to Mass. Is there a neighbor you can call who could check in on it?
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Holy hell. Neighbor kids (each 1yr older than ours) are here this afternoon. Ohmigod. They're killing me.
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The ski lift or you have one of those old-people lifting-chairs?
121: Sorry to be seeing this so late. Yeah, there are actually two year-rounders living on the same cove (most of the houses are seasonal, summer only, so it's kind of deserted in winter). Actually, the people who own Mt. Sunapee live on the same cove ... but I don't know them. They're new! Meaning they've only been there for about 10 years, and keep to themselves anyway. Hm.