Winter Doomwatch 2015 [Final Update]

It's morning!  We made it!  The local newscasters said no one would survive, but, through what I can only assume was Divine Providence, we made it!

Here is the devastation from the back window:

And here is an example showing how locals deal with "driving in a straight line in snow"(Flash required).

Last night they made the call to cancel work for today, so there is nothing for it than to have chat with an OCD neighbor who decided that 7AM sharp was a good time to spend 40 minutes convincing himself that a (I assume "rented") snow thrower is not some sort of magical vacuum cleaner before giving up and switching to a shovel.

Breaking News: Winter Doomwatch 2015

ALERT! ALERT! At great personal risk, I am deviating from my usual custom of sometimes posting stuff at 7AM to bring you Breaking News on what many in this room are calling "The Storm of the Century".

Here's what the view of the deck looked like a mere 90 minutes ago:

and now...

Experts (me) predict that in another hour and a half the scene could look like this:

And it just gets worse (see my last post):

Storm Mode!  Storm Mode!  No shovels!  No Salt!  That poor woman... Pray for her, please!  In our own household, it has come to this:

Truly, the living envy the dead...

Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod!  My cell phone tells me an alert has just been issued from my kid's school - they have cancelled classes for tomorrow...  assuming there will even be a tomorrow...

I will keep you posted as long as I am able.

Going for a Five-fer?

It’s cold out there.  Cold enough to need to keep the taps dripping and yesterday was windy enough to blow the deck chairs around.  Storm’s a-comin’…

We are expecting six inches of snow and ice to fall here starting at 4:30PM today.  I get no sympathy whatsoever from relatives of mine that live here:

Yikes!  I’m pretty sure weather like that is what turned a bunch of fed-up folks into Bering Strait pedestrians 20,000 years ago…

I’ve already mentioned that it only takes half an inch of accumulation to cause official two-hour delays for many schools and businesses in the area.  Here’s a handy chart that covers a wider range of snowfall totals:

0 to 0.5 inches - Drive normally.  No signals ever, near-constant Swervy McTexty contests, horribly underestimating the amount of gas one needs to successfully cross a miles-long bridge.  You know… normal.

0.5 to 1.0 inches - Two-hour delays everywhere.  Annoying non-stop work chatter about the hassle of brushing snow off the windows of the car with the swipe of a hand.  The roads are coated in a quarter inch of loosely-packed sand because it makes them 10% safer on straightaways and 20% less safe on curves than just doing nothing at all.  Gotta be proactive about these things.

1.0 to 3.0 inches - Before the snow: As tradition dictates, stores are looted for all the bread and milk the locals can get their hands on.  Maybe they build little forts or something with the supplies.  After the snow: The citizenry has split into two groups.  The first group of people think that driving at continental drift speed makes the world a safer place, and the second group has 4x4s and therefore thinks that they are invincible as they slalom from lane to lane around the first group coating everyone and everything with tsunamis of slush.  The ditches begin to fill with a 50-50 mix of both groups.

3.0 to 6.0 inches -  Before the snow: Grocery stores begin gouging folks for “snow melt” which comes in 10-pound bags for about eight bucks each.  This “snow melt” is a uniform mixture of gravel, sand, cedar mulch, ashtray fillings, cow corn, barber shop floor sweepings, and rock salt.  After the snow: The primarily snow-shovel-less citizenry quickly find out that push-brooming or garden-troweling the snow aside is too hard so they begin to hopefully chuck handfuls of Morton’s, Epsom, and bath salts onto areas where they remember their sidewalks were once their single bag of snow-melt runs out.

6.0 to 12.0 inches - Before the snow: “Snow melt” is available only through black market sources for $25 per 10-pound bag.  All of the propane tanks for gas grills have been purchased or stolen.  After the snow: It is illegal to drive unless you are actively involved in ticketing people who are trying to get to their job at the hospital or military base. The guy down the street takes out his cross country skis and tools around the neighborhood yelling “Pay attention to me!  Pay attention to me!” the whole time.  Kids discover that building a snowman or even a decent snowball requires a certain type of the white stuff and is a lot more labor intensive than cartoons let on.

12.0 to 18.0 inches - Before the snow: All of the ammunition from the gun shops, Walmarts, and Bass Pro Shops is gone.  The excited chatter has died out.  Even the world-weary jokes about global warming have sputtered to a stop. It has gotten quiet.  People have started mentally sorting their neighbors by “feebleness” and “probable deliciousness” for the eventual cannibalism is bound to result from this storm.  After the snow: Every third person has the idea to design and sell t-shirts that commemorate the event, but don’t actually follow through with it.  Next time, maybe.  Cell phone service grinds to a halt as all of the 3G and 4G networks find themselves unable to deal with the volume of snow-based selfies that have been unleashed upon the world.

18.0 inches and up - Possible temporary loss of electrical power in some areas.

Since the snow is scheduled to start soon and go on through the night it is very likely that school and work will be cancelled tomorrow, and, believe it or not, maybe even Wednesday turning this three-day weekend into a five-day weekend.

Fingers crossed!

Why Must You Turn Our Fridge Into a Wall of Lies?

I came home from work recently to discover this tacked to the fridge.  It is thoughtful.  It is touching.  It is complete and utter fiction.

You see, in the entire history of the time I have spent dropping my kid off at various daycares and schools never has what you see here ever, ever happened.  We could spend the entire 30-minute drive talking about cool stuff we could build in the shop, or a hard level on Xbox Lego Star Wars that is kicking our butts, or singing songs together to the mix CD I made, or simply riding in silence so he could finish up the new Magic Treehouse book, the second the door to the idling truck opens I may as well have never even existed.

“See you later, buddy!  Have fun today!” I say (I don’t refer to him as “son” as is depicted in the drawing because I am not time-traveling from the 1950s nor am I a cartoon billionaire) each and every time.

I don’t shout “I’ll miss you!” or  “Be good!” or “Make me proud! (again, not a cartoon billionaire…)” or any of about a million other things that could totally destroy him socially in front of his peers.

A muffled “Ok” is pretty much the best I can hope for as he dashes off to join his friends, who have likewise dismissed their parents as nothing more than the ethereal figments of a delusional ghost’s imagination.

I’m not asking for much, here, am I?  It’s not like I’m asking him to snap off a salute or anything.  Just a quick smile.  A little wave, maybe?

Something…

Oh, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not sad.  And I’m certainly not bitter.  I definitely prefer him excitedly running in to join up with his chattering classmates than clinging to the inside of the vehicle whining and crying and begging me not to make him go to school that day, you dig?  I’m very, very glad he enjoys the place so much.

Still, though…  “Insert smiley face emoticon followed by heavy sigh here,” right?

New Corkboard Puzzle Hint

Wow!  It's been years (years!) since I posted a hint to any of the puzzles on the Secret Puzzle Page.  

What is the Secret Puzzle Page, you ask?  Well, you can find a link to it in the sidebar on the left (on non-mobile devices) or under the Pages header at the top of this page if you are on a mobile device.  You can find all the other puzzles and hints there, too.  This one is hanging in my kitchen, btw...

Why now, you ask?  Well, it turns out that someone is actively interested in figuring out the Corkboard puzzle so I thought I would put out a new hint for everyone.  My largesse knows no bounds, apparently.  No, I didn't get a Word of the Day calendar for Christmas... I pulled that "largesse" phrase from the latest episode of Archer.  Anyway, here is the hint:

Hint #5 (Posted 1900 121315): Lbh cebonoyl pneel gur xrl gb fbyivat guvf jurerire lbh tb.

As usual, I put out hints in ROT-13 format to avoid spoiling the puzzle for those not ready for a clue just yet.  If you copy and paste the above gibberish here, you can have the hint automatically decoded for you instead of having to work it out by hand.  That's not "cheating" by the way...

Good Luck!

Bamboo Ghosts

I am a fan of working with reclaimed wood.  Old tabletops, boards from a century-old dilapidated barn, discarded pallets, cedar leftovers from a playset, you name it.  I like the challenge of dealing with the imperfections in the material and, often, the reward is an unexpected beauty shining through that would be difficult to duplicate with new stock.

Also, the reclaimed stuff is usually free, so there's that, of course...

I had been holding onto a retired bamboo cutting board for a while and I wasn't too sure what to do with it. Since I have run out of cipher disks and little fish I figured a new batch of geocache swag was in order.  I wanted whatever I was going to make be small and simple, though, since I have a number of irons in the fire right now.

The splits in the board determined the dimensions of the final pieces, really.  I needed to cut fifteen to save ten.  After rounding an edge on the belt sander the idea to make little ghosts came to mind.  Some finishing work on the bandsaw, some decoration with the wood burning tool, some stain, some sealant, some googly eyes, and there we go - geoswag shortage averted. 

I have a bit more of this stuff left over so I am thinking the next bamboo group will be little cartouches or something like that with a hieroglyphic message or something burned into them. 

I think the next batch of whatever will make creative use of my kid's crayon maker, though.  We will see.

What Do You Mean "They Wrote Back"?

Recently our boy wanted to pitch some ideas he had to Rovio, the makers of Angry Birds, about some game levels he thought would be cool.  Here is what he dictated to the wife:

Dear Angry Bird Makers,

My name is Ethan, and I am 6 years old.  My mom is letting me send this email to you.  Could you please watch the Harry Potter movies and make a Harry Potter Angry Birds game?  Could you please make one of the levels with the birds fighting the "Piggy Willow" which is like the Whomping Willow?  Can you make them fight Dementors too?  Can you have a level where they save Ron's car and destroy the Whomping Willow?  Can you make a level with Harry Potter fighting Professor Quirrell?  Could you have a level with the Chessboard Queen fighting Professor Snape? If you launch the Chessboard Queen and press it, it will split into 10 different Queens.  Could the last level of the game be Harry Potter and the gang fighting Voldemort ? When they destroy Voldemort and all the Dementors that keep annoying you and getting in your way, the Dementors will disappear and Voldemort will disintegrate.   Also, please make Harry Potter Angry Birds Toons.  Could you make a level of the gang fighting Aragog on Ron's Dad's car as it moves down the hill?  If Aragog catches up, you lose the level and Aragog crushes the car to bits.

Thank you.  Please ask J.K. Rowling for permission.

Signed,

Ethan

We figured “Hey, why not send it?  They will probably just ignore it and move on with their day.”  We told him that big companies are usually very, very busy so don’t expect an answer for a while (“or ever,” we added to ourselves).  This morning at about 6:30, though, we awoke to find this in the inbox:

Hi Ethan!

Thank you for writing to us! We always love to hear what kind of ideas you fans have, and what you would like to see in the games we make!
You seem to be a huge Harry Potter fan :) Most of us are, too! It also seems like you have given a lot of thought to what kind of things the game should feature. How great that you have been inspired so much both by our games and the Harry Potter movies!
We have already many plans for what will happen to our Birds next. They will be very busy appearing in new games this year. Hopefully you'll find the updates and games as exciting as we do. Keep popping those pigs! Squawk! :)

Kind Regards,

Veera
Rovio Support Team

I just want to say “Thank you, Veera from Rovio games” for absolutely delighting a six-year-old with your email!  Even though he is 99.9% sure this is how grown-ups say “No”, this letter is, by a wide margin, the classiest response I have ever heard a huge company give anyone in response to a fan letter like this and it made him smile super big to get it.

You guys really made his day!

A New Shirt

Hey!  The new t-shirt arrived from Zazzle.com!  You know... the shirt I had made based on one of my kid's notebook pages.  I told you about it a while back...

Oh, you never listen! (Cries, eats ice cream, watches six hours of South Park reruns)

Here it is.  I think it turned out great, but, when the boy saw it, he said he was afraid he might have spelled "saber" wrong.  I told him not to worry about it.

I was afraid that I ordered waayyy to big, like, car-cover big, mainly because the design appeared to take up a tiny fraction of the front of the shirt.  It turned out to be an optical illusion of sorts and the garment looks a lot different on a person than it does spread out on the table.

It shrank up perfectly after a wash and it is very comfortable.  Nicely done, Zazzle!

It's Finally Out There!

I attended a meeting of geocachers a couple of weeks ago where I met bdramatic.  We were talking and I mentioned I had a cache container taking up space in my garage - it was fun to build but I was not really all that psyched about being a CO.  I showed her a couple of pics and left the meeting (it was outdoors and super cold and windy that day).

A couple of days later I got an email saying that she would like to be the CO for it and she already had a place in mind.  Fantastic!  It gets put to good use and some much needed real-estate in the shop gets freed up - win-win!  We made plans for placing it out in the woods for this past Saturday but the park was closed to let hunters cull some deer.  Crummy luck, but the weather Sunday was going to be awesome, so we re-scheduled for then.

That morning I bundled up the tools I needed (a rock hammer and a cordless drill) for mounting the container on a post off the forest floor. The post looked like a hiking pole and the tools were in a small, nondescript black canvas bag so no worries about drawing attention on that front.  The basketball-sized cedar d20, though, would certainly result in some odd looks if I were to simply walk around with it in the open.

I didn’t have any boxes (as if that would have helped…) so my options were limited.  I had an old white sheet I was using for painting in the garage that I fashioned into a small bag so I could carry the thing around without looking weird…

Because what could be more normal, right, than a couple of people laughing and chatting merrily as they walked into the woods with what looks for all the world like a human head in a makeshift bag?   “Well, officer, they walked off the path into the forest with this… thing… then I heard a bunch of pounding and some power tools, and they came out about an hour later without whatever it was, smiling and sharing pictures.”

I can’t really say too much more about this until the cache officially posts.  I will say, though, we were a little worried about the location being too visible from the road but as soon as we backed away from the cache about 50 feet it basically became invisible.  There is only one angle that we found that the thing stood out at all, but it is a very small angle and you have to know what you are looking for.  The springtime growth and natural weathering should camouflage it even more.  Still, though, the reason that spot was available in the first place was because her giant ammo container was stolen…

I hope it lasts a while (at least 6 months) before nature or people destroy it.  In any case, it’s finally out there and I am excited to call that a “win”.

A New(ish) Painting Project

Some projects get pushed to the back burner and neglected for a time. This one, though, got chucked into a virtual oubliette and we are just now getting back to it, mainly because I am tired of walking around this thing in my garage. It's been, like, a year (yikes!) since we started this.

What? Oubliette?  Yeah, I just re-watched Labyrinth recently... 

The last paintings the boy and I did had the rule "we have to use only the supplies we already have in the garage".  It turned out great and the pieces hang in the upstairs hallway.  This one has pretty much the same rules as that but this time we are allowed to dip into his old poster paints as well.   Why?  Well, the old paints (both in the garage and in his craft bin) need to be used up before they become dried up, useless disposal headaches.  This is a cheap and fun way to do this.

Well, I say "fun" but it has been sitting around for waaayy too long for a reason.  It's fun but not as fun as about 100 other fun things I can name. Still, though... Time to stop circling the runway and land this puppy. 

I am doing the taping, he (mainly) is doing the painting, and I will be doing the touch-up work and "idea integration". The colors you see will be muted and the harsh edges will be eroded by the last many, many layers which will complete this painting of a nighttime city in a rainstorm. 

I will post more pics as we soldier on.