6 in 6

This has to be an all-time record for the Denver area. Six snows in six weekends, back-to-back! Saturday morning's snow only left an inch or so of light fluffy stuff, which melted off the streets by the time our HOA annual and board meetings had finished at noon. Sunday was awesome - clear and sunny - it got warm enough to be able to comfortably soak up a little vitamin D on the deck. It didn't last, though. This morning it was 9 degrees, and I'm reading that the forecast is for snow on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday this week.

5 in 5 - Fox, Snow, Health

It's a beautiful day today, blue sky with no clouds in sight, and warming up through 45 degrees. I just watched a fox wander across our neighbor's back yard and into ours, disappearing onto the patio under our deck. They're such beautiful wild animals. Speaking of the wild, however, the news article about a mountain lion attack in California on Thursday was unsettling. It happened not far from where Otamay lives, and Mikele is visiting right now. I hope they're being careful to keep their eyes open when they're out walking. Probably they wouldn't have a problem, since between them they have four dogs that would scare most anything away.

I posted some new neighborhood snow pics from two weekends ago at http://picasaweb.google.com/shushing3/0114Snow

I guess I've fallen off the riding/walking exercise wagon, after all these weekend snowfalls. I still do my stretching and minimal exercises in the mornings, but I've let the inconvenience of walking through snow, slush, and ice in subfreezing temperatures and gusty winds, keep me from my appointed rounds for the past several weekends. We've had five weekends in a row of significant snow, and just about all that time it's been below freezing. I was glad to have the new snowblower last Sunday, after the forecast 1-2 inches of snow accumulation turned into an actual 9-12 inches. This snowy weather pattern is very unusual for here. And there's more snow forecast for tomorrow, and then again later in the week. Yikes! It must be Winter! Global warming... bah, humbug!

Work's been busy - supporting our existing software installations, talking to our new partners, and starting some new projects. I'm finally getting to work/play with some Linux systems, although we're on a pretty tight schedule, so it's not the relaxed kind of playing we all yearn for. I won't say this is a new lesson, but I've quickly relearned the old "unix is not unix" lesson with regards to Linux. Red Hat and SUSE present quite different interfaces to the system admin. I hope our developers won't see as much difference between them, or we'll never get done in time.

K's been dizzy, nauseous, and out of breath a lot, the past few weeks. Her pulse has been low - in the 40s - and BP has been high. It's probably due to a medication switch, but the symptoms are real and troubling, even if the cause might be known. The cardiology office just called to offer her an earlier appointment, which she accepted.

Dad says Adele's surgery went well yesterday. It was bigger than they thought, so they couldn't do the arthroscopic approach. They say she'll be recovering in the hospital for five days. Here's the info for the hospital:

  Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

  1275 York Avenue

  New York, NY 10021

  212-639-2000

Also see http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/5365.cfm

And that's all for now, folks...
-

3 snows in 3 weeks

We had another gorgeous sunny day today, reflecting off the bright white landscape, after getting yet another dump of snow on Friday. I spent the day working from home, since the news was reporting that the roads were miserable. After three major snowfalls in as many weeks, I'm certainly tired of hefting snow and ice from the driveway and paths, and throwing it into the yard. The News is reporting that this has been the most snow in repeated snowfalls in a such a short time, since 1913.

Our neighbor Mika got tired of all the shoveling, and ordered an Ariens model 5524E Sno Thro from Home Depot. We and 3 other neighbors split the cost with her, which made the cost of this 5.5 HP compact snow removal device affordable. I spent some time with it today, going over our driveway, and knocking down strategic parts of the big berms alongside the driveway, and in the street, that had grown to almost my height. The results were very gratifying. I looked up "rewarding" in the Webster thesaurus, and almost every word they suggested seemed appropriate: cheering, comforting, encouraging, fulfilling, gladdening, gratifying, heartening, rewarding, satisfying, affecting, inspiring, moving, edifying, elevating, uplifting, exciting, exhilarating, rousing, stimulating, thrilling, pleasing. Oh, yeah!

New Year's Walk

Ken and I took a (short?!) New Year's Day walk down to mail some letters and pick up some milk, then head back home via the Platte River and Lee Gulch trails. We found it a somewhat more strenuous than usual walk, since for most of the way, every step was in crunchy snow that gave way to the layer a few inches below it. Then, once we found the milk at the Phillips 66 station on Santa Fe, we found ourselves bushwacking our way through quite a lot of deep virgin snow as we took a "shortcut" to the Platte River from where we were through Hudson Gardens. We came out at the Oasis on the Platte. It was a beautiful day for a walk, though, and as tired as we were afterwards, we enjoyed it thoroughly.