Betty's Pub 20.1
Main Menu => BETTY PEARL'S PUB FOR SISSIES => Topic started by: Betty on January 07, 2014, 07:11:25 PM
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A significant portion of southern Canada & the USA is experiencing unusual extreme cold with high winds... triggering storms in some areas. Single digit (F) temperatures in even Atlanta. Teens (F) in parts Florida.
http://news.yahoo.com/swirling-39-polar-vortex-39-over-northern-us-201025164.html
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/GSSLOOPS/ecwv.html
So what's your warm sissy/AB stuff? Or warm sissy/AB stuff you want. Long sleeved heavy Victorian style dresses, footed sleepers, pink jamies? Or do you just waste a lot of energy cranking up the heat, & spending a small fortune on your energy bills?
Although I like my pink or patterned footed sleepers, I can't answer the door like that. But late, when I don't have to worry about it, to unzip it, & pull it down to my knees to go poo on a cold toilet seat in a cool bathroom in the middle of the night isn't fun with my bare torso exposed to the cold air.
I keep an electric heater in there to warm things up fast, or so I don't freeze getting out of the shower or bath, but when I go poo, it's only warmed up enough by the time I'm almost done anyway.
So for me it's usually either a long-sleeved, over the knee frilly red Victorian style dress I got from Milanoo years ago or my pink or patterned girl style sweatpants & sweatshirt or girl's hoodie. Not very frilly but cozy, comfy, & girly on a cccold night.
What's your favorite cozy warm outfit on a cccold night during the "Vortex"?
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VORTEX... LOL. Last year we would have called this a dip in the jetstream, but a vortex sounds much more dramatic, like we're all being sucked into a black hole or another dimension on Star Trek. My driveway here in Allentown in Buffalo is still blown bare, but the yard next door got a couple inches over the past 36 hours.
No blizzard here, just lots of cold wind. But again, the national news is showing peeps buried up to their tits in snow in Buffalo. Nope, that's 40 or more miles away from Buffalo, & they're standing beside snow banks made by snow plows & snow blowers. In the deepest far regions, it's up to the knees. With the high winds blowing around, visibility is bad in some areas, not from falling snow but from the stuff already on the ground, blowing around.
But it's very cold & windy here.
What little snow we got is blowing around like a sandstorm because it's too cold for it to stick anywhere. The news is comparing it to the blizzard of '77. Huh? I've seen the pix of the worst hit suburbs. There's no comparison. I remember at least a couple dozen storms worse than this since 1977. And every winter we get some single digit or below zero temps. What is unusual is that the cold effected such a vast area off the continent.
Can't afford too much heat, so let the heat inside get down to the 40s F by morning. But the kitties & I were cozy under the blankets with my pink patterned sleeper. But holy shyt was it cold going to poo in the morning. Couldn't warm up the place fast enough, before I couldn't hold it anymore.
56F inside now. Wearing pink girls sweatpants & hoodie. Fuzzy warm red Christmas socks, with fuzzy warm red underwear. So I'm nice, cozy & warm. Kitties don't mind cold until it gets down to the 40s when they want to sleep. But then they curl up with each other against me when they're sleeping & are fine.
They won't go to their favorite window in the unheated back room I use for storage anymore. It's their best view of birds, squirrels, & other wildlife. It just got to cold even for them. I kept their litter box, food, & water back there, & keep a curtain hanging over the doorway to keep the cold out of the rest of the place, but still allow easy access for the cats to get back there.
Their water dish froze back there, so their box, food, & water has been moved to the kitchen. I used to keep that stuff in the bathroom, but they get into too much mischief & trouble in the bathroom (playing with my hairbrush, toothbrush, pulling the towels onto the floor, & shredding the toilet paper), so don't want them hanging out in there, where I can't see them anymore.
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Don't want to feel the Vortex blowing up my skirt so on days like this I wear pink silk panties under my fleece lined tights. Then on with my cords and shirt and heavy knit sweater and a big coat with hood to go out and try to clean the ice off my sidewalk and driveway. What a waste of time that was so I went in and made coffee and put on a thick cotton diaper under two pairs of plastic pants and then the tights again and into bed to watch TV. Fell asleep for a couple of hours as I had a noisy night listening to the frost quakes popping nails in my attic and walls and on my fence and deck. Not heard it as bad as that for years so I guess my spring job will be to see how many nails have popped and fix them all before next winter. Hope you are keeping warm Betty and glad you have your kitty's to help keep you snuggley and warm.
Andy G. hope you too are keeping warm in NYC and are getting to work OK. The nice thing about retirement is going back to bed when you feel like it if you have no appointments to go to. The worst thing about it is retirement income doesn't go up like the heating bills do. Stay safe and warm all of you, luv & hugs Angela M...
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A pair of black tights on my legs keeps me warm on colder nights. They feel great hugging your legs, and they keep your legs, feet, and toes warm like footie pyjamas. And you don't have to be worried about being spotted in them. Just put a pair of pants over them. They are a tad more sheer than socks and don't have the ribbing that men's socks have, but unless someone were staring at your legs they wouldn't know you were wearing tights instead of socks, especially if you put on shoes too. And if you were really concerned that someone would recognize them, you could always put socks over them as well.
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Hey Alison,
I have loved tights all my life and have many many of them in all colours and types, from sheer shiny Danskins to lovly fleece and cable knit tights I wear all winter. The cable knit ones look like socks so I don't have to hide them unless I pick a pair of white or purple or other colour that may give me away. My favourites are the light pink Ballet tights I wear when exercising or figure skating but of course when out I wear them under pants and socks. Of course my favourites for winter are the new fleece lined ones I got last Christmas and again this year also in black, brown, grey and purple.
Luv & Hugs Angela M...
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I have been watching with a sense of awe the extreme weather you are experiencing at the moment. If we here in the UK have more than a sprinkling of snow the country grinds to a halt. Luckily we do not suffer your extremes of cold weather but that doesn't mean we can afford to turn up the central heating either. I like to snuggle in flannel, sometime a full length nightdress or a pair of pink pyjamas. The nighties are fine for lolling about in but I must admit they are no good for actually wearing to bed, the pyjamas are more practical I find. I hope you all survive your big freeze unscathed.
Bertha
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Hi,
No sissy apparel but I've been going outside looking like the Michelin man, five layers of shirt, down vest, sweatshirt, flannel shirt and heavy coat, along with the hat, earmuffs, scarf and gloves. I've been lucky in that I haven't had to wait very long for the bus in the morning. My biggest frustration is that I can do my job from home but my employer is elderly and doesn't believe in the virtual office. Which is ironic as he is in another state and we transact all our business over the Internet and phone. But I'm just holding on a few more years to build up my nest egg so I can ditch the commute one way or another.
Andy G.
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Hey Andy G,
don't forget to include the cost both monetary and timewise when you are ready to retire as you will save more than you think each week you no longer need to do that. I was surprised at how much I saved each week no longer driving to work or packing lunches and snacks etc. and also clothes needed for work as well. My diet has also improved as I no longer need to eat as much as I did and eat smaller more healthy meals and no snacks. I have also become a coupon clipper for my weekly shopping and save $10 TO $12 a week by doing careful shopping. I must say though it was in part something I had started to do before retirement for my mothers sake as she was worried she would not have enough money to last her lifetime and asked me to watch what I spent. She lived a good life until age 90 and lacked for nothing she needed, kept her car going and often would go out for lunches and dinners with all her friends. There may still be a nice little nest egg left after the lawyer is done with the estate if I watch things carefully.
I am still in my own home and find it cheaper than renting an apartment so far but when the upkeep and expenses are greater than a retirement home that provides meals, laundry and housekeeping etc. for my own unit, I will consider that and will be looking for a new place to live. I was looking to place mom in something like that but found the costs to be between $3,000.00 and $4,000.00 a month in our small city and way more in the bigger centers near by.
Keep warm Andy and wish for an early spring like I am.
Luv & Hugs Angela M...
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Hey Bertha,
I have been watching the extreme weather the UK is having in some areas. The weather patterns have changed somewhat for the little blue planet we live on. We have not had extreme weather like this since the 70's and 80's if my memory serves me right. I remember extreme cold after I bought me first house and heard the cracking and creaking of Frost Quakes at night as the nails were popping in the attic. I also have photo's of my Camaro sitting in the driveway totally covered by a blizzard that took days to dig out from. I was just getting used to the milder winter in Southern Ontario the last few years and then we got zapped this year with snow and Ice storms that wreaked havoc at Christmas and cut power to many homes and businesses over the holiday season. Hope your doing OK in your part of the UK, I have family in Wales, Manchester and London areas. Luv & Hugs Angela M...
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Whew! Had a long, hard cold weather related emergency last night. It's a good thing I wasn't dressed like a sissy because everything happened so fast & there were lots of people running around frantically. It took me 23 hours to get things almost back to normal. By the time I'm done typing this I will have been up for 24 hours. It's a long story, so I'll leave that for another section here: http://unclegadget.com/BettysPubs/SisBoard/index.php?topic=433
Wow! Fleece tights sound wonderful. Where can I find them in colors cheaper than a dress? And a fleece-lined long sleeve leotard to go with it. Can't find shiny tights anywhere anymore either.
The tights I have aren't warm, & itch my legs after a couple hours. But they were the cheapest colored girl tights around, so they're probably not made from good material.
The last time I was outside it was 12F. I wore 2 pairs of socks, long underwear, sweatpants, & heavy jeans over them all. On top, t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, hoodie, & then my very heavy, quilted-lined leather jacket. Very long scarf, fuzzy-lined leather gloves.
The leather jacket is now 20 years old. Not exactly new looking anymore, but still is in remarkable shape for it's age, & for what it went through over the years. It has that "broken in" look. It's very warm, & fashionable enough for any gay or straight man... but not very sissy-like.
I stayed in when it got near 0F
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They're predicting snow melting temperatures by Friday around here, & a rainy 53F for Saturday. With all that snow melt & rain, I'm sure there will be flooding in parts, or at least lots of mud.
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Yesterday the temperature here in the Chicago area was up to +16. After experiencing the sub-zero temps on Monday and Tuesday it was downright balmy. This last cold spell reminds me of January 1982 when we had successive weekends of -20 with wind chills of up to -80. I feel as if we're returning to those cold, snowy winters that were so common in my childhood.
When growing up I was a bed-wetter and was kept in night diapers until I was almost 14. For some reason I used to have control problems in the daytime if it was extremely cold outside--I'd dribble pee and couldn't help it. Naturally if you keep on dribbling you can become very wet. As a precaution (up into 6th grade), my mom would take the precaution of putting a diaper and plastic pants me before I was allowed to go out and play in the snow. Once diapered, I had to wear a pair of corduroy pants over them (no front fly and they had an elastic waistband-very childish). I also had a heavy coat, mittens, a hat with ear flaps, and a scarf. But Mom also made me wear snow pants and for some reason there was a stigma associated with wearing them past age 5 or 6. I was worried about the other kids discovering I had diapers on, but then I wound up being teased about the snow pants .
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Hey Betty,
so sorry to hear about your troubled night, it must have been a lot of work for you to clean up the apartment, wish I could have helped out.
I found the fleece tights at the local Home Hardware store in basket by the checkout. They were $9.99 and I bought black and brown pairs last year and this year they were there again so I bought grey and black pairs. They are made in China but still pretty good quality and nice and warm in this weather. I saw them again before Christmas in a basket at the local drug store for the same price so someone in the area was distributing them I would bet, perhaps having bought a truck load for maybe $ 1.00 or $2.00 a pair. I would do that in my working days selling stuff to co-workers that I bought cheap somewhere and it was a nice little sideline for awhile.
Hey Spankypants 2 I had days like that when I was 11 or 12 and had to walk everywhere in the winter doing papers and errands and always needing a bathroom before I could make it home. I resorted to wearing 2 or 3 pairs of my sisters thicker cotton panties and cable knit tights under my clothes with plastic panties under the tights in case of an accident. When that did happen I had to hide the evidence until after school and I could wash and dry the things before everyone came home. Sometimes when I was out sledding or skiing I would wear my sisters snowpants if there were not too many people around. It made me feel like a little girl and I liked that feeling.
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Monday and Tuesday we were down around -20 degs. F. Monday was very windy and after being outside for 30 seconds one could feel their face becoming very painful. Since the business across the street was closed both Monday and Tuesday I was able to venture outside to get the mail in without anyone seeing me while I was dressed. That was a thrill! They were talking wind chills of fifty to sixty below. Today we are about 32 deg F. Go figure.
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The arctic vortex returns to freeze the balls off the people in a significant portion of the USA & Canada. Currently 3F (-16C) this morning here in the cccold & crispy Allentown Arts district. Fortunately the wind has calmed down, so it won't be dangerous to your heath to be out there just a few minutes. All the snow melted over a week ago during a thaw that lasted several days, but we got more snow a few days ago. Only a couple inches here, but some of the suburbs & nearby towns got more, but nothing serious.
They're expecting a high today of 9F (-13C), & a bitter low of -2F (-19C) tonight. I hope the property management figured out that some of the pipes in unheated areas of my building must be kept warm enough not to freeze & burst by now so the disaster we had during the last vortex doesn't happen again.
Won't be wearing any thin light short dresses or other light sissy stuff today. I want to stay warm & be dressed in case we get burst pipes again... lots of people all over the place running around frantically in the middle of the night last time.
I left the heat cranked up a bit last night, so when I got up, it was already a toasty 52F (11C) inside. I usually let the place go down to the 40s F (40F=4C) overnight because I'm nice & warm under blankets cuddling with the kitties. But last night I couldn't feel warm enough, so I left the heat in the 50s. Ran out of sugar Friday, so maybe I have less calories to burn to keep warm. But 50s inside feels toasty now, dressed in heavy sweatshirts & jeans.
I have COPD, so have a hard time breathing when traveling outside the house or far in unfiltered polluted air. Breathing is even worse or impossible if I'm carrying heavy stuff, like groceries. I sold the truck after the fire, so I'd have to walk to the store. Fortunately, I find I can get many grocery items cheaper online delivered to my door, than I can buy them locally, esp. dry goods & non-perishable (non-refrigerated) items. The trick is to watch for free or cheap shipping offers. You don't get what you're out of, that's on a list, you buy what you can get a deal on shipped cheap & stock up on it, if it's something you use.
So I am getting sugar, cat food, & kitty litter, among other things delivered sometime today. But to get any decent deals, you buy in bulk & store it (as long as it's storable). With the very large bag of cat food, litter, & stuff, it'll be around 60lbs of stuff I'll still have to carry up all the stairs with COPD. The last time, I had to remove the heaviest stuff out of the boxes, & carry them up separately to make the boxes lighter. I had to stop to catch my breath for about 5 minutes every trip up or down the stairs.
Once it was all inside, I had to sit & rest another 10 minutes before I started putting it all away. With COPD a simple task like getting groceries up the stairs & all put away can take a long time.
I really had the urge to dress up the past few days, but with this cold, risk of frozen pipes again, & a delivery expected, I won't be able to for a while.
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A lot of America is turning into Antarctica!
It's windy & freezing outside. There goes my heating bill again. Can't turn the heat down inside any more without the kitties or I getting sick. The heats running a lot as I see dollars going up the chimney.
They're closing schools because of the cold. They never closed schools when I was a kid no matter how cold it got outside. Only if the buses couldn't run, or half the school staff couldn't make it in did they close schools.
I remember waiting at bus stops as a kid of 10 y/o in below zero weather for "late" buses for an hour. Nobody cared that we were freezing & couldn't feel out toes anymore.
It looks like I won't be wearing thin short frillies this week. Brrr!
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You are right Betty, they never closed the schools because of the cold when I was a kid. In 1963 we had to wait up to half an hour for the buses to arrive and once they did we hoped they would be warmed up. There was maybe a 50-50 chance of that happening. By the way 1963 Jan - Mar was one of the coldest winters on record. The great lake where I live was almost completely frozen over. Farther to the north it was.
I still remember fondly all the girls waiting at the corner with us fellows. In those days the schools still had a dress code and the girls had to wear skirts or dresses. They got very cold and I can remember looking at them with extreme jealousy because that was something I wanted to experience as a girl also.
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Ah yes. The girls froze their legs off. All the schools wouldn't allow pants or jeans on girls, but unlike the older days, nobody wore dresses down to their ankles anymore either. Even if they did, the hems of a dress would have been soaked in salty, muddy slush. Their coats were no longer than the dresses... above the knee in the 1960s.
Most schools are closed again today. So most haven't opened all week.
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We didn't start "forced school busing" in my town until 1967. That's where after the 1960s race riots, they made "affirmative action" & integration laws to try to get everyone to get along. They bused kids to schools from nice neighborhoods into bad areas, & bused kids from bad areas into nice neighborhoods.
In my neighborhood, it was a mixed neighborhood. Blacks, hispanics, native Americans, & whites all mixed together. We all got along fine... all the kids played with each other. There was no riots in our neighborhood in the city. We were all friends. Before "forced" busing we all went to the same school & church together.
We didn't understand the riots. We were all friends. Why smash & burn your own homes, businesses, vehicles & neighborhoods in a riot? It didn't make any sense. Those were thriving nice neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods never recovered from the riots in my city. The hardworking black people were the first to move out & abandon them. Many got out during the riots. It seemed any black person who had a job or owned a car was being attacked for being an "uncle tom".
Forced school busing was a disaster. It ruined the cities & most neighborhoods. City kids were forced to go to school with kids who had at least 1 parent or older sibling that did serious prison time. Then half those bad kids were now bused to nice neighborhoods, smashing rocks through windows, vandalizing things, breaking into cars, houses, mugging people, & throwing garbage everywhere on the way to & from school.
Massive amounts of people moved to suburbs to get away from all that.
In the schools, those bad kids had their way with anyone smaller & weaker with them. There was a 2 year period where I got beat or robbed or both almost every day in school. This wasn't regular bullying like today. These were hard core inner city street gang criminals who hated everyone, & were out to do serious damage & harm. Because it was just after the riots, they really hated us white kids too.
They used to rob my lunch money or lunch every day. If they didn't like the lunch I packed they threw it in a toilet. Swimming class meant attempted drownings. Gym class meant getting slammed in the face with a basketball so hard my nose bled, or getting kicked in the balls or ass. For 2 years, I didn't have lunch.
I started kindergarten at 4, & skipped the 4th grade. So I was a couple years younger than anyone else in my classes. I was born premature, so was very small for my age too. So I was much smaller than anyone else in my classes. The kids in my classes stood a foot or more taller than me.
Before & after school I had to get on the bus with those criminals to get beaten & harassed by those gangs some more. These weren't yellow school buses, these were regular city public buses I had to take through the ghetto. I had to take 3 different city buses to get all the way home or to school. So I had to stand in the cold & wait 3 times for a bus every day to get to & from school.
Eventually I figured out a short cut on railroad tracks, through fields, parking lots, behind warehouses, abandoned buildings, through bad neighborhoods to walk miles home. Passing hoods, bums, muggers, addicts, & alcoholics on the way, it was still safer than taking a bus with those kids. So I stopped taking the bus & walked miles in all sorts of weather instead.
A few months after I started walking all the time instead, a good friend of mine was stabbed to death while riding the same bus I would have been riding if I didn't walk. The story goes, that they tried to rob him. When the kid tried to get away the gang dragged him to the back of the bus & killed him.
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Up until a month ago we had about 1/2 dozen squirrels rummaging & playing around in the back yard, & walking around on the tops of the wooden fences. 2 weeks ago we only saw 1. For a week now I've seen none. I only see 1 bird every couple of days. I think all this cold has wiped out a lot of the local wildlife. I haven't seen any outdoor cats wander through in over a month either... not even the big orange one who used to pass through several times a day for years. I hope those kitties are still alive & staying inside warm somewhere.
You know it's bad when they find rabbits frozen solid huddled together http://www.simcoereformer.ca/2014/01/09/killer-cold-takes-toll-on-wildlife
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It's eerie. Going on day 5 without seeing a single bird in my area. Haven't seen squirrels, other wildlife, or even some of the area's outdoor cats in weeks. My home workspace, bedroom, & kitchen windows are in back. I have a view of back yards to over a block away since the trees are bare. It's been completely dead & motionless out there except for bare branches swinging in the wind, & the snowflakes. Not a footprint or animal print in the back yards anywhere. No bird prints on the rooftops either.
One of the things I always loved about my home workspace was all the trees & wildlife visible while I was working. It been like looking out at Antarctica or Siberia these days. I have no view of the street because I live in the back of the building. My breathing & COPD has been worse than usual for almost a week so I've been staying inside. I haven't been called for any work outside my home either. I haven't seen any other living thing except my 2 cats in a week (and on TV). I hear my neighbors in the apartments next door come in & out. So I know there's still life in my building.
My cats stopped going to the windows days ago because there's nothing out there but bare white snow & ice.
It will get up to 27F (-3C) Wednesday & maybe 32F (0C) Thursday. That will feel like a heatwave compared to these near zero (-18C) or below temperatures & wind chills. We'll see if the local wildlife comes back out by then or if they all died.
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Cuddle those kitties, Betty and stay warm & healthy!
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We're trying to. My heating gas bill is about 1/3 more than it was the month before. It's also up about 1/3 more than last year... & that's just keeping things to a minimum & not wasting energy.
I wear layers of clothes indoors to keep the house in the 50s in the day, & in the 40s at night. I'm also keeping 1 whole room in this small apartment sealed off & unheated.
Under the blankets at night it's very warm so I can keep the heat down pretty low without being uncomfortable. I have several radiant heaters (square & dish-shaped glowing reflector types), to quickly warm specific spots I'm hanging out in or spoil myself with a little extra heat once in a while. Very handy when I have to go to the bathroom right after I get up in the morning when the apartment hasn't warmed up above the 40s yet... just point it at the toilet, & the whole area is toasty in seconds. It's also nice for getting in & out of the shower or bath... it feels extra cold when you're naked or wet. By the time I dried off the top of me, the little electric heater has dried my legs.
It's not cheaper to heat with electricity than with gas, but it is a lot cheaper to warm up the small area you're in, than the whole room, apartment, or house.
The kitties don't seem to care about the cold at all... except when they're sleeping. Then they curl up with me at night. During their day naps they curl up with each other or in my lap. Cats, like people need it warmer when they're sleeping. We generate less of our own heat when we're not active, or relaxing.
They're as big as my old cats now... much bigger than any of my sister's or friend's cats. My cats always grow larger than other's cats... even though the other cats eat much more expensive cat food, & they have larger play & exercise areas than my cats.
I think because I'm more interactive with my cats, play with them more, & I rotate what they eat instead of feeding them the same stuff all the time makes them grow more.
Anywho, because they are big, both can't really fit in my lap. So they pile on each other to squeeze in. Frequently I'm typing with the keyboard on top of a cat in my lap. They don't care & sleep right through it.
When I'm stretched out, or laying down, they go end to end on me with 1 cat's head or front paws on my belly stretching down to almost my knees, with the other cat's head on the first cat's butt or belly, stretching down to my ankles. When I'm asleep at night in the fetal position, they're either curled up at my belly, my legs, or against my butt.
Just like the last cats, they don't sleep all night though. They'll get up several times a night to do their rounds, & poke around. At least they've grown to learn to be quiet about it most of the time when I'm sleeping to avoid getting yelled at or squirted with the water spray bottle... which I keep right at the bed side. But at the slightest hint of light outside the windows, & they're walking all over me & make noise. I stayed up late last night online blocking & banning lots of spammers & crackers trying to get in.
Also just like the old cats... why do they spend 10-20 minutes making lots of noise digging & stirring the litter box just to take 10-20 seconds to pee or poo? Seems like a lot of waste of time & energy just to use the kitty toilet for a few seconds.
I see the footprints of a single bird on a rooftop this morning. Also what appears to be squirrel prints leading to under the back porch next door, so there's at least 2 survivors of wildlife in my neighborhood.
It's not just freezing to death that they have to worry about, but with this cold it takes more food to keep warm too. Everything's so frozen solid for so long, it makes it difficult for wildlife to rummage for food. Usually when they break through the thin layer of frozen ground, there's soft ground underneath to rummage for food. With this cold, for long periods, there is no soft layer underneath. Underground water mains buried many feet underground are freezing & bursting all around the area.
The wildlife can't even rummage through the area's garbage cans & dumpsters for food because anything thrown out freezes solid in a minute or 2. Below 20F, ice gets a lot harder... as hard as rocks. Animals that can gnaw & chew through very hard stuff may survive, but at a cost of permanently wearing down, damaging, or breaking their teeth. There are no birds in my area that I know of that can peck or claw through solid ice, frozen food, or frozen ground.
It looks like it's not gonna hit the 30s F tomorrow after all. Maybe next week.
Brrr. It's still -1F (-17C) outside. Usually an hour or 2 after the sun comes up, it gets a few degrees warmer, but not this morning.
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Good morning from the beautiful Allentown Arts district on my tiny part of the planet. Good afternoon, evening, or night to the other continents of the world.
We're finally getting a little warmer today here in the colonies. -10C (14F) this morning here... that's toasty compared to most mornings we've been getting recently. And they're expecting a hot -2C (29F) this afternoon!
But the east coast of the USA is getting severe ice storms, & some snow where they're not used to any, or just a little. With the heavy weight of ice, they're getting a lot of downed trees, & power lines. Almost 400,000 people are without electricity in S.E. states.
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/GSSLOOPS/ecwv.html
Up north, where we live, that storm would be nothing, we're built for stuff like that & more, but they rarely if ever see weather like that down there. Last week we got 10" of snow. It didn't slow down or stop anything here. It was like, "Oh wow, we finally got more than a couple inches... how pretty & fun!"
But this severe cold is killing off wildlife. Even this far north, they're not used to so much cccold for so long. Although it's a little warmer down south throughout the rest of the USA, it's still much colder than usual for a long time. So wildlife there, that's not used to it, is dieing off too. Down south, they also grow crops, & livestock food year round. It's been killed off too.
There goes our food prices world wide. Although many countries depend on producing their own food, they all import food too. The USA exports a lot of food cheaper than anyone else in the world except China... but who wants that dirty poisonous Chinese food?
A decrease of the world food supply will drive up prices for everyone.
Update: Just heard on the news that some of those southern eastern states MAY get up to 18" of snow or ice! Those states usually only get 0-3" of snow so won't be able to deal with it. Infrastructure, power lines, & rooftops down there aren't designed to withstand the weight of all that snow & ice. Trees don't grow there able to handle it either, If they or their breanches fall, they bring down power lines, homes, other structures, & vehicles with it.
The northern edge of the storm just hit NYC. It's snowing about 1" per hour, & heading to the N.E. states coast. I'm far on the other side of NY state, so we'll only get a sprinkle of the storm.
Meanwhile, the Olympic games are thawing & melting.
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We had a few warmer days last week, but now we're getting yet another polar vortex.
Enough already! WTF!
Meanwhile, in Anchorage Alaska, they're currently having highs in the 40s F, & lows in the 30s F.
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Brrr. Got colder plus we had 5 inches MORE snow yesterday. They're predicting 36F for Saturday afternoon, but by that night it will get extra cold again at least for another week!
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Betty is your area in the strike zone for the new storm, in the place I live they are hinting around 15+" by the time it's over.
Living anyplace down south is sounding better.
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According the the maps I'm looking at, a portion of that front will hit far north of us (maybe Toronto), & another portion of it will hit just south of us Saturday evening... probably our southern suburbs, as usual. It looks like we'll only get a couple inches from the edge of it right in the city so far, unless the winds change.
http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/index_loop.php
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/GSSLOOPS/ecir.html
Not too concerned about more snow. I can deal with more snow. More worried about starving or getting evicted into the ice cold streets because I can no longer afford these higher heating bills. It's never this cold continuously for days or weeks in a row around here in the past. When we get a break, it's only for a short time before another wave of a week or more of extreme cold again. Can't turn my heat down any lower without risking my & my cats health. Already keeping the place in the 40s F overnight, & around 50-55F in the day to cut heating costs.
Won't be wearing any very short dresses soon.
These regular extreme low temperatures aren't normal for around here. We've had extremely cold days before now & then, but never before did we have so many, & never so many in a row. My budget can't handle it. This is way too much cold for way too long.
Since I've been laid off, I've been self employed. But nobody's calling or contracting out extra work because they're too busy paying their heat bills or absorbing other business losses due to the extreme cold. So it's a double whammy for me. Higher bills than last year, & a lot less work than last year. I have fair credit, but that only goes so far before there's no credit left.
I'm actually surprised they haven't shut off my phone yet. When the weather breaks, my bills go down, & I get more work. This arctic freeze can't keep going on anymore, or I'm in big trouble.
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Yeah, I know what you mean about high heating costs. I just got my bill yesterday and I haven't had one that high in about three years. I do manage to dress though but then again I keep my house at around 65 to 66 degrees. Don't worry though Betty. Today is the first of March. Normally our groundcover is gone around March 10. That doesn't mean we still don't get snow though because some of our biggest snowfalls occur in March but they usually don't last long this time of year. Last year was an exception because we still had groundcover going into the early part of April. One thing I like to think about is that month after next is May! Stay warm!
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Quick update on the big storm coming here, it looks as though it's gone south I couldn't be happier.
Instead of 15+, we are set for as little as 2 inches, now I hope they are right.
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We didn't get much snow either. We're expecting some snow every day, so through the course of the week, it'll add up to about 4" of additional snow.
But it's still F'n cccold. It's expected to be about -3F Monday night.
Currently from the rest of the world.
London @ 6:30am: Partly cloudy 37F (3C)
Stockholm @ 7:30am: Fog 34F (1C)
New York city @ 1:30am: Cloudy 32F (0C)
San Francisco @ 10:30pm (still Sunday there): Partly cloudy 55F (13C)
Miami @ 1:30am: Clear 70F (21C)
Brisbane @ 4:30pm: Showers 77F (25C)
Alice Springs/Pine Gap (Australia's area 51): Sunny 93F (34C)-Currently our hottest visitor.
Kirkland Lake (Canada): Snow -11F (-24C)
Regina (Canada): Partly Cloudy -13F (-33C)-Currently our coldest visitor
Anchorage: Clear 25F (-4C)
Tokyo @ 3:30pm: Partly cloudy 50F (10C)
In Washington DC, they're expecting a coating of slippery ice, then get 6-10 inches of snow dumped on top of it. With all that ice underneath, & them not ready for much snow, everybody's vehicles will get seriously stuck.
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/GSSLOOPS/ecwv.html
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It's an unseasonably warm 73F (23C) today. Normally it would be around 60F this time of the year.
But tomorrow we're expecting a couple of inches of snow, with a low of 21F (-6C). WTF!
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They just updated the weather. Now they're saying it will get down to 18F by Tuesday night. That's a 55 F degree difference in under 2 days! It's already 30 degrees colder than last afternoon.
Everything gardeners & farmers just planted will probably get killed off.
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We got snow in the middle of April!
The trees are still bare, & don't even have buds on them yet. It's a shame. Since they finished restoring the old abandonded building next door, with all the trees around my place, I usually have a fairly nice view out my windows. But all the bare trees just look like giant dead sticks, sticking out of the ground right now.
Below, view from my windows today.
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If you got snow, you should be glad the trees don't have leaves. A year before Sandy hit, there was a snowstorm in PA and NJ in October. The trees still had leaves on them, and the snow was a wet and heavy snow. Many branches came down and took out power lines with them. If the leaves had been off the trees, less snow would have stuck to the trees and the branches wouldn't have come down.
Being close to the coast, the weather was moderated and I didn't lose power, and only had a trace of snow. But a friend about 20 miles inland lost power for a week.
There's a reason why the trees drop the leaves and start to regrow them when they do, as they have adapted to the climate.
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The Canadian weather office is reporting this as the coldest April 15 in 70 years. I remember being in Niagara Falls, N.Y. for Easter with my cousin in 1969 and the Falls were mostly still frozen over and the snow was heavy on the ground. We stayed at the Holiday Inn in Niagara N.Y. and drove around to places we usually walked to because of the snow. One place that was our favourite was a Steak House called DeDario's not far from the Falls with the grill in the front window. It was not much to look at but the steak dinners, with baked potatoe, salad and dinner roll were good and cheap and so was the booze at all the local shops. We went over at least once a month back then when the drinking age in Canada was 21 and only 18 or 19 in the US.
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Hey Betty,
nice view from your window, almost like a tree house. Did you ever go over and skinny dip in the neighbours pool late at night or perhaps in a cute girls bathing suit? I would do that quite often when I had my pool even though it was in full view of three or four neighbours houses. Sometimes I would have the yard lights or pool lights on as well when I was feeling really daring. I noticed some tiny buds on the Forsythia trees at mom's two weeks ago and cut some branches for my dining room table. Within a few days in the warmth they were in bloom full of yellow blossoms and then I did it with Japonica and other flowering varieties also. It looks wonderful indoors when it is bleak outside.
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The trees still had leaves on them, and the snow was a wet and heavy snow. Many branches came down and took out power lines with them.
We had one worse than that in October 2006. Snow & ice. It was so severe, that it didn't just tear off big branches, but also toppled over trees... some of them over 100 years old. It was estimated we lost almost half the trees in Western NY State. They were still chopping up & hauling away bits of trees the following July. Almost everybody lost power for weeks in 20-30 degree weather. I was lucky that I was living behind a TV station at the time, so their power got priority. I had electricity & Betty's stayed online through it all.
Interestingly, I'm one of those disaster preparedness people. So I'm more prepared for power & energy failures than most. I hadn't had a power failure since 1993. But I used to get power failures 4-5 times a year before that, so I learned to be prepared for it.
Looking at most of the trees that survived, even the ones in my back yard, one can see where large chunks of the had broken off & are missing. Many of the trees in the city are small replacement trees.
I remember being in Niagara Falls, N.Y. for Easter with my cousin in 1969 and the Falls were mostly still frozen over
Sometimes Easter is in March. 2/3 of March is still winter anyway. I remember many St. Pats days with snow & temperatures in the 20s F, but there were a few 40s F ones too.
They haven't used that pool in a couple years. I don't know what's up with that. When it was in use, I only saw 1 older guy ever use it on a few of the hot days. Maybe their kids all grew up so don't bother with it anymore, or due to the economy, they can't afford a new liner & other maintenance on it (filter, chlorine, etc.).
I may complain about the cold & some snow, but for the first time in over a week, my breathing was good since late yesterday morning with the change in weather. Got a lot of housework & stuff done that I had fell way behind with over the past week. Confident, I decided to run out to a couple stores last night for some stuff I really needed. Ugh. I guess my breathing wasn't that good, but it needed to get done. Got a little out of breath just getting ready & bundling up for the cold outside but not too bad. Every block or so with my COPD, I had to sit on some stranger's steps to catch my breath. But I continued on & did the same to get home.
My nose was running, I was gasping for air, & coughing up goo by the time i got home. I was fine about an hour after I got home with my well filtered climate controlled air. I find I breath better when it's a bit cooler than most people like. Even as a child, I'd have difficulty breathing in high heat & humidity, but could work & play all day in the snow. Even before COPD, on the hottest humid days I'd get headaches, dizziness, & nausia... as sure sign of heat stroke.
On Sunday it got up to the 70s. But my breathing got so bad I couldn't go outside. In the evening when it got a hazy 96% humidity, with the effort of just walking across the room or going to the bathroom caused me the seriously start gasping for air. The only thing I could do was sit & lay around all day. Couldn't even breathe good enough to shower or bathe, or cook much.
The kitties loved it because I stayed in one place a lot so they could get lots of cuddling, playtime, & attention. They hate it when I'm busy & ignoring them.
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Nice beautiful sunny afternoon today at 62F outside. Usually my breathing gets a little better in the afternoons, but not today so far... maybe if I spent more time inside with the filtered air again.
I see the weather peeps are goofing up again. How can they say the high will be 54F, and then in the same forecast, in the same paragraph, say it's currently 62F. That means the high today will be at least 62, not 54! Don't they check their work before they open their mouth?
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Suddenly it got real dark outside in the middle of the afternoon. They're saying in might snow tonight or in the morning.
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It was balmy when I left the restaurant this afternoon, I made one short stop for gas, and went home by the time I got home it was noticeably colder.
I do live at a slightly higher elevation, but I didn't go up that high to loose temperature that fast.
This dam winter doesn't want to give up, I have a bad feeling we are in for a short cold summer in the northeast US.
I hope I can sell that car I bought last year to fix up, no one buys a convertible when it's cold.
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LOL. Is it a 4wd convertible? That's what need for a winter up here. I miss my convertible. I'd put down the top, put on a coat, put the heat on high blowing right at me, & drove around in 50F weather like that. It was fun. Snow & ice is rough on the tops though. Even though it was only FWD it would plow through deep snow, mud, & off road rather well. With the top down it reminded me of driving a dune buggy or giant go-cart. I never used year-round tires though. Usually somewhere around Thanksgiving, I'd be putting snow tires on any vehicle I owned. I don't like to get stuck in the snow or plowed in.
Of course I miss all my vehicles now. I sold my truck after the fire because I could use the money for business. I was gearing up for a busy spring & summer just when the fire hit & I lost everything. So I had to sell it, & borrow a lot of money to continue on schedule & meet my commitments/contracts for my busy season. Since then, the place I worked for 16 years being sold & closed, getting a severe flu that caused a heart attack & lung damage, I never got around to getting another truck.
You could see all of my old cars in this thread, I think you'd get a kick out of them.
http://unclegadget.com/BettysPubs/SisBoard/index.php?topic=474.0
I liked a lot of the big old American cars. I used to buy them old cheap & fix them up myself. Amazingly all the vehicles still had good engines & transmissions, so were still good runners. But bodies & stuff would be rusted out. Then there was all the little things that were shot or almost gone. Carburetors, brakes, steering, bearings, exhaust, shocks, radiator, heater cores, water pumps, etc. At about 40,000-60,000 miles all American cars in those days had that stuff wear out. But the engines & transmission would last a long time as long as you took care of them, & didn't abuse them too much.
So I used to fix them up & all the body work myself. I usually bought them in running condition so I could drive them as I fixed them up, as long as it didn't take a large scale restoration to get them nice. I usually worked on the body right on the street through the spring or summer. Mechanics was done even in winters outside. Many times laying in snow working under them in freezing cold. I had a friend who had a body shop & used car lot who painted & rustproofed them for a fair price after I was finished with the body. I've torn apart a few engines in my time too.
I sold almost all my vehicles for more than I paid for them, but I did a lot of work on them.
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OK. No snow stuck to the ground. It didn't get cold enough. It only got down to 36F (2C). Warm compared to what we went through this past winter & early spring. It's still only 36F right now. But that's very cold for near the end of April around here. It feels even colder after a few days above 60F too.
My sister had a few flowers bloom in her yard this weekend. Maybe because they were planted right against her house, & has a basement, some of the warmth from the house warmed the ground next to the house a little. They're on the side of her narrow driveway between 2 houses, so they were shielded better from the elements better than being out in an open yard. None of the trees in my area even have buds on them yet.
We've have more birds around this month, but not as many as we did in previous years. Lots of crows, & just a few smaller birds. I saw a squirrel for the first time in months a couple weeks ago, but haven't seen another since. I think the cold killed most of them off. Usually they're all over the place year-round because we have lots of trees.
They're saying it might get down to 28F tonight. That might kill some plants. It'll probably annoy a lot of birds that just migrated up north too. No 60s F expected in the near future.
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Buying and selling cars is how I made my living, I had jobs working for new and used car dealers, but my main living came from buying and selling cars.
Most I bought what my friends called go fast cars, big engines were my thing, a well tuned big engine will do the same gas mileage as a small one if you drive it like a human.
I had my share of all type of cars, American and foreign I bought and sold almost everything, the cars I buy now are more like specialty cars, they have to be the cars I love and enjoy driving, I rarely buy anything I don't like the look of.
When I hit 65 this year I promised myself that from then on I would only drive corvettes, they were always my favorite, all the ones owned over the years I had to sell to keep myself alive I don't need to do it now I just like to keep busy.
I can't think of anything that I enjoy more than working on cars, but now I don't have to do it I do it because I love to, big difference.
Before I had a drivers license I bought my first car, sold it a week later at a profit, right then and there I saw my future and I liked it.
I tried counting how many cars I had and sold once, liking one car to the next while doing nothing on a trip out west, I came up with 400 cars that was in the mid 70's.
I slowed because of taking care of my mom because I had to spend all day with her, so those 10 years I didn't sell many, but after she past I started up again.
Then I got hurt and that slowed me to nothing, it took a long time to try get back up to speed, but I could never do as much as I did.
I do it for me now, I like it much better and I don't have to sell anything if I don't want to but I do limit myself to 3 cars at a time, and being that my truck is one of them that leaves me with only 2.
If it wasn't for my pain I could do more, but I do all I can do and live halfway decent.
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I guess a Corvette would be a prime choice up north with long winters & lots or road salt. With fiberglass, galvanized steel, & aluminum alloys, there's a lot less to rust out than on other cars. Up here, cars rust & rot out before they actually wear out. But most modern cars don't rust like the old American ones did. Back in the day, just a couple rough winters would cause some severe body rust at least around the fenders, & the bottoms of the doors. By the end of a third winter it wasn't unusual to see the street through a rust hole inside your trunk or the bottom of a door. By the end of a fourth winter springs & shocks may have already broken through the trunk because there was nothing left to support them but rust. But the engines would still run great even long after they were retired to the junkyard.
I question some of the modern vehicle efficiency technologies. Although the black limo was rated at 12.5mpg highway & 7.5 mpg city (the 4-door, not 6-door stretch), on a perfect flat mostly straight long run, with few hills, little wind, & a constant speed of 55-65mph, I could squeeze 17 mpg highway out of it. In the city I would get 11-12 mpg. But unlike most drivers in American cities, I wasn't accelerating as fast as I can to the next stop light or stop sign, flooring it as soon as the light turns green, & never felt the need to pass everybody who's going just 1 or 2 mph slower than I want to go or than the speed limit (just to stop at the next red light with everybody else who just passed by).
1-2mph just never made much difference to me. Was it really worth the trouble, gas, engine wear, & a few risks or hazards to arrive at your destination just 1-5 minutes sooner? It's extra stupid for city driving too. Driving in the city, their destination usually on 1-4 miles away. So for all the effort to go a just a couple MPH faster, they saved only a few seconds in time.
Anywho, my truck, almost 1.5 tons lighter than the limo, with a modern V-6 fuel injected engine, electronic ignition, & less than half the horsepower did no better on gas than my 1970 V8 limo. Thinking I was gonna save a lot of gas, I was surprised my tiny 4-cylinder, fuel-injected VW convertible, with only 90hp (the limo had 5 times the HP & weighed almost 3 tons), only got 24-25mpg highway, & around 21mpg city. You'd think for an underpowered tiny car, it would have got at least 30 mph.
Back in the 70s. The only cars designed with efficiency in mind were fleet vehicles that would probably be used for commercial use, like limos, cabs, police/interceptor cars, & commercial trucks. Although gas was cheap, it still added up to a lot in vehicles for commercial use. Efficient advanced carburetors, more precision bearings, precision engines, & low rolling resistance made those fleet vehicles pretty efficient for their size & HP. Most of the modern engines today are designed for lower emissions standards, but efficiency suffers with strict emission limits. Let's not forget, those huge tires designed for those old cars offered a lot less rolling resistance than the tiny wheels on cars today too. I was able to push my limo on flat ground as easy as the tiny VW. I couldn't push the truck at all by myself even though it was a lot lighter than the limo. It took another big strong guy to help me, to get it to budge.
I didn't buy just any car that fit my budget. It had to be cool in some way so I'd enjoy working on it, & like driving it fixed up. So yeah, I liked doing it. A few of the plain looking Chrysler vehicles were former interceptor vehicles. I forgot to put a Plymouth Fury interceptor in the pictures. All the cars had to be running good enough for daily use as-is when I bought them, & pass inspection, or be able to with only a few days work on them. But I wasn't gonna drive an ugly, unreliable POS. So they had to be in good enough shape, that I could get them looking & running almost like new in 2-3 months in the spring, summer, or fall, on a limited budget. I had no garage or driveway most of my life, so except for new paint & undercoating, all the work done on them was right on the street, & it still be drivable every day as my daily runner.
There was a brief point my other half & I owned the limo, while I also owned the T-bird, & Pontiac all at the same time. but the rest of the time, it was always just 1 car at a time, no shared ownership, & I was the only driver.
With the way work & my handicap is going, I don't know if I'll ever be able to put another vehicle on the road. I'm sure I can find a vehicle & fix it as cheap as I do with my computers. but it's the required car insurance in NY state that's a killer. Even though I have a spotless drivers license, accident/ticket-free, & clean criminal record, the car insurance on a single male living in a city is outrageous. As bad as that is, if you haven't had a car in your name on the road in a year or 2, they put you in a risk pool for 2-5 years, which means the insurance is almost double.
Otherwise, if I shopped around, I'm sure I could find an old junker around that runs for almost nothing, that I can keep running good enough as a basic run-about with junkyard parts. But the $2000-$4000 a year in car insurance required in NY state is a deal breaker. I even thought of putting or building an electric bicycle on the road. The city, county, & state won't allow it.
Interestingly, if I was married, or divorced, had kids in the state (even if they're all grown up), living in the suburbs, I could get car insurance for $450-$600 a year... even with a bad driving & accident record. But just because I'm single & living in the city, I'm considered a very dangerous driver.
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I drive a fiat Doblo here in the UK 40 mpg around town and on one run i do on a regular basis (100 mile round trip) I get 51 MPG. If you were paying the same price as we do across the pond for fuel I think your choice of cars would be very different. Think about it, burning all that fossil fuel must be damaging the environment. Diesel here is approx £1.33/ litre. That's approx £6.00 a gallon! Which in US dollars is approx $9.60 a gallon. now you know why we drive small cars.
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Hey Betty,
like you my first cars were fixer uppers starting with a 1960 Pontiac Laurention that I got for $50.00. I was working out of town in '68 and was booting it home along a new stretch of highway when I drove two pushrods through the rockers. I was about a mile from home and a nearby wrecking yard so I stopped in to see if I could get the parts for a straight six engine and found in the yard a real good Pontiac engine like mine. I was able to borrow some tools and bought the whole rocker assembly for $2.00 and walked back to my car and fixed it right there on the side of the highway. My dad said thats what a man would do and patted me on the back ( a first time for everything) as he never thought me manly enough. I fixed that car up real nice and was very proud of it but one day I hit some railway tracks going a bit too fast and the back springs came right through the trunk. That was the end of that ride so then I bought my moms 1960 Chevy Impala and that was another beauty that I sure wish I had today. I drove that for awhile until it developed a short in the wiring that was taking me forever to find. I ended up letting a friend buy it because I was leaving town to work and could not deal with it. At about 42 cents a gallon for gas I didn't worry too much about gas mileage. When I was working fulltime back home again in 1970 I bought a new 1969 Envoy Epic from a GM dealer and loved it. It was standard and great on gas and very peppy. I put a lot of miles on that and it served me well for a few years until I found a beautiful 1970 Camaro in Burnt Orange with very low mileage. That was my next ride for a good many years and I sure wish I had that one today as well. It had white leather interior and I had white shag carpet installed and the girls loved it which was good because it got dirty easily but girls were willing to clean it for me so it worked out well. I have had a few more vehicles since then but now that mom has passed I just bought myself my last car for awhile or maybe forever. It is a 2014 Hyundai Tucson LTD, AWD with everything and I love it. My last one was a 2005 Hyundai Sante Fe and it was the best vehicle I ever owned and the first foreign one after the English Envoy Epic in '69. All my other cars were GM Chevs, Pontiacs or Oldsmobiles and one Chrysler mini van that was POS. I am hoping the Tucson will last me into my old age with the same reliable record as the Sante Fe as I need a reliable car to get around.
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I drive a fiat Doblo here in the UK 40 mpg around town and on one run i do on a regular basis (100 mile round trip) I get 51 MPG. If you were paying the same price as we do across the pond for fuel I think your choice of cars would be very different. Think about it, burning all that fossil fuel must be damaging the environment.
Yes, but I'm sure your delivery vans, trucks, & buses are not getting 50 mpg. When I had my last vehicle, I had to haul around sound, lighting, video stuff, ladders, & tools to jobs often. Including 2-4 subwoofers 4.5 feet tall about 2.5 feet wide, & about 2.5 feet deep each. My custom made 30-50 feet video screens with their associated framework, mounts, & ladders wouldn't fit in a small car. The gear for the concert you go to, the show in the park, or even for the band at the local pub wouldn't fit in most small cars. but it might fit in a big car, limo, or truck. Of course if I was regularly going 100 miles round trip, hauling stuff, I'd consider a diesel hauler. But I bet, even if I could fit 600-1000lbs of equipment in a 40 mpg vehicle, it wouldn't get 40mpg anymore, & I probably wouldn't be able to get it faster than 40 mph.
Although I have to admit, when I see someone driving a huge SUV or truck just to haul his golf clubs, or the biggest thing they haul is a few bags of groceries, I just don't understand it.
My sister explains it this way: Most of the people who drive like crazy are driving big oversized vehicles. You're more likely to survive one crashing into you if your vehicle is just as big or bigger. So here on USA roads, it's more like an arms race, where the one who can afford the biggest vehicle is more likely to survive.
I saw a drunk hit the rear end of a limo once. The was some bumper & trunk damage to the limo. But the front end of the drunk's car was totaled. Ever see a freight train hit a car? There's very little damage to the train, but not much left of the car. It's also a security issue. It's harder for a thief to hold you up or hijack a heavy sturdy car while your waiting at a signal light, than a small light car. The heavier car doesn't break open as easily, & they slow down the bullets a little more. And if you see them coming, it's handy to hit the gas & zoom away like a bolt of lightning.
50 mpg cars are also hard to find in the USA. 40mpg ones are pretty rare too. Most of the auto dealers here just don't want to carry many of them. Almost half the population of the USA are conservatives who think global warming & pollution is a conspiracy made up by liberals & democrats for all sorts of strange reasons. They view small & efficient cars as part of the conspiracy & un-American (or anti-American).
But it's just not an American love for powerful cars. Top Gear, from the UK is one of my favorite TV shows. It's rare they test or recommend any efficient or small cars. Most of them are fast & fuel guzzlers.
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I was able to borrow some tools and bought the whole rocker assembly for $2.00 and walked back to my car and fixed it right there on the side of the highway.
That was the beauty of those old cars. It was possible for an average person to do a lot of the work on them. Now everything is more complex. You need a degree in rocket science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, & physics, just to get everything off the engine, to actually get at the engine (and then put it all back together right).
Nothings really designed with the thought of, "What if somebody has to get it to fix it or replace a part" anymore. I'm seeing phones, tablets, & computers these days where you need special order tools just to get them open. They don't want you to fix them.
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I recently had to have the sparkplugs on my car replaced. $425.00. Years ago I could've replaced them myself for about $8.00 and half an hours labor. I looked up the repair book for this particular job and found I wasn't equipped to work on it.
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On many new cars you have to pull the entire exhaust manifold or engine just to get at them. On some engines with 60,000 or more miles on them, the exhaust manifold bolts won't come off anymore without them breaking off trying, or stripping.
With modern aluminum alloy engine blocks & parts, there's a big gamble & risk of stripping out just about anything you try to loosen or tighten. And the more you do it the more the threads wear down. Aluminum is just too soft to deal with bolts & threads very well.
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Hey Betty,
there were times I would listen to the engine and symptoms of a problem with a car and tell the mechanic what the problem was most likely to be. I was always told (in the last 15 years or so) don't worry sir our computer will find it. Nine times out of ten the problem was still there when I picked the car up. It always frustrated the hell out of me. I one had my Chrysler van in four times for a problem with the lights and each time they failed to fix it. I told them it was a problem with a relay and I could hear the chatter and smell ozone when it happened ( I knew this from working on commercial A/C units) so the last time I picked up the vehicle I asked for the oldest mechanic in the shop and explained it to him. We searched under tha dash for a small relay that was hidden way up and he could hear it too. When it was changed the problem was gone, GO FIGURE. My 2005 Sante Fe was developing a short somewhere and the computer failed to find it three times in the shop. The car would suddenly die and coast to a stop only to start up again and then go for a few days before doing it again. Their computer and their young mechanics were doubting me about this because nothing showed up and it never did it when I took it in. After owning it for almost ten years problem free, I figured it should become their problem and traded it in.
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Hi Betty,
Are you making out OK in what will no doubt in years to come be referred to as the blizzard of 014 and the storm of the Century? My co-worker pointed the stories out on Google this afternoon and he commented that it didn't appear to be making much of an impression anywhere. Outside of Buffalo that is. The stories were remarkable, the entire Thruway shut down, people standing in waist length snow, a real horror show. Hope you're home and warm and aren't doing any shoveling.
Andy G.
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We were on the edge of the storm so got hardly anything. There is one inch (2.5cm) of snow in the city, except around the southernmost edge of the city where they got up to a foot (30cm). It was clear blue sunny skies all day today, & now a clear starry night. It hasn't snowed since last night in most of the city. But it was a chilling 18F (-8C) most of the morning through early afternoon thanks to polar vortexes (which were rare until last year) arriving early this year. Daytime temperatures around here this time of the year should be between 40-50F (4-10C). There goes my heating bill. Good thing I found this efficient place so I save a little on it. I read that it got down below 0F (-18C) last week in Denver.
Towns south of the city & a few far east of the city have had 30-48" (.76-1.2m) of snow, with more currently coming down at a rate of 3-5" (8-13cm) per hour. In some of those areas they're expecting 3-5 feet (.9-1.5m) more snow by Wednesday or Thursday. In those towns to the south, Lancaster & Orchard Park, they're reporting snow up to their shoulders in parts. I have friends & family out that way.
I'm still collecting some pix of it.
We may get up to 1/2 a foot of snow (15cm) right in the city tomorrow, which would be nothing to deal with for us. Maybe a little more Wednesday too, & a lot more on Thursday. But you know those longer range forecasts are almost never close. They're lucky if they get it right just for tomorrow around here.
Sunday it will get up to 55F (13C), & maybe close to 60F (16C) by Monday. So all of it will turn to muddy, slushy, goo, & swampy. With all that snow melting, I'm sure there' ll some severe flooding in areas too.
Here's some pix from my window from this morning (7:46am). Only one inch of snow, but there's a few spots where the wind blew it into 3-4 inch (9cm) humps. Contrary to the news, this is the first snow fall in the city where it stayed on the ground rather than melt as soon as it lands.
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Well I'm certainly glad that it didn't impact you. This is my least favorite season, it was very cold this morning and tomorrow morning when I head out to the bus, it's going to be in the mid twenties. I probably handled it better when I was in my mid twenties, a rather distant memory now.
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I still haven't turned my main heat on this season yet. With the heat generated making dinner, 2 computers & monitors giving off heat, & the heat that comes off the back of the fridge, it felt comfortable last night, so I went to bed without turning on the heat. Under the cozy blankets with 2 warm cats on top of me, I didn't notice it got quite cold by morning until I got out of bed.
After I turned on 2 computers, made breakfast & coffee, & the fridge kicked on by opening it a few times, it started warming up so I didn't turn on the heat this morning either. Now it's down to 62F inside. But I haven't made any dinner yet because I had a late lunch. By the time I make something to eat, even in the microwave, & more coffee (coffee & grapefruit is my preferred treatment for COPD), it might warm up the place to 68F.
But I do turn on a little 300 watt heater or 400-800 watt one when to warm up the bathroom before & during a shower or bath. It feels extra cold if I'm wet, so always have extra heat if I'm going to get wet & naked.
I don't use my main heat much except for a few of the coldest days of winter. It's just too expensive to heat the whole place for one person, even if it is a smaller more efficient place. When it gets cold, I use the electric radiant heaters aimed at me to stay warm enough. Enough heat circulates from them to keep the rest of the place bearable with warm clothes on, & well above the risk of my pipes freezing. There's always one in the bathroom too if I gotta go in there.
Radiant heat (the orange glowing ones with a reflector), give off instant heat at whatever they're pointed at, so I don't have to wait long for them to warm the area up. Unlike fan-forced or ceramic heaters that circulate the heat all over the room including up to the ceiling, & under or behind furniture, radiant heat directs more heat where you need it. I have a couple 1500 watt good quality ceramic heaters. I never use them because a radiant heater on the 800 watt setting blows them away, & is much warmer.
Yep. I guess it's footed sleeper season now.
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Brrr. 14F in mid-November! 20-30 degrees colder than normal. 3-4" additional snow in the city... quite manageable for us, but the surrounding areas got much more. All towns south of us, & a few east of of have a ban on travel.
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Hi Betty,
In a Bloomberg article I read it said that parts of Buffalo will have received six feet of snow by tonight with another storm coming tomorrow which will drop another two feet. The absolute arbitrariness of weather is shown by this quote from the article, “Snow totals are hard to come by and it varies over short distances. They got 60 inches in Lancaster and you go six miles to the northwest and they got 3.5 inches.”
And it was 15 degrees on the thermometer in my back yard this morning when I awoke. The weatherman said it was 22 degrees in my town but I will believe my thermometer over his.
Snuggle up and stay warm.
Andy G.
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My buddy he was telling me his thermometer read 6, he lives a little higher up the mountain than I do, I would guess I would have been around 10 had I checked.
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Ouch. Talk about an early polar vortex. 0F in Denver last week. We didn't have many extreme hot days like we used to in the summer, & some pretty cool days because these frequent vortexes continued over the summer. But because we live so close to, & downwind from the Great Lakes, it was quite uncomfortably humid. It was like being in a steam room even on cool days, making my COPD worse. But a cooler humid day was much better than a hot humid day.
All that damp moisture coming off the lakes, is exactly what causes these "lake effect" snows when the cold winds pass over them. Take a cold bottle out of the fridge on a humid day, & water quickly condenses onto it. Take a super cold frozen container out of the freezer, & frost condenses onto it.
Once again I was too cheap to turn on my heat last night. With the computers giving off heat, heat generated by making a meal & coffee, & the heat coming off the back of the fridge, it was 65F in the house at bedtime. Went to bed in a cute pink & patterned footed sleeper. Under the blankets I felt warm all night. But it was 53F inside when I got up. Brrr, but the sleeper kept my feet warm. After making some breakfast & coffee, it already warmed up the place to 60F. The fridge kicked in, so it's blowing heat off the back, so it should get warmer within an hour. If it doesn't, I may just fire up a small radiant (reflective) electric heater pointed towards me rather than fire up the main heat.
Kitties don't seem to care about the chill at all, except when we're sleeping. They'll curl up on top of, or against me, but they'll do that even in the summer except on hot days. When it's hot they prefer hanging near the AC, or in the cool hard bathtub & bathroom sink. They like it cool.
It looks like we got another 3-4 inches in the city overnight. Not much to talk about, but at the southern edge of the city (South Buffalo), they got an additional 8-12 inches overnight. Towns south & south east of the city got 12-18 more inches of snow overnight. Portions of Lancaster, Orchard Park, Hamburg, Lackawana, & southern Checktowaga have 6-8 feet of snow on the ground (about 2 meters). But my sister, in mid-Cheektowaga only has about 1/2 a foot of snow.
The deaths from the storm so far seem to be from people getting heart attacks shoveling or running their snow blower. When it get's deep & it's a lot of snow, even with a snow blower, it can be quite a workout, especially in single digit wind chills. People try to do too much at once, or more than they should for the shape or age they are.
Be careful out there, & take your time. You don't have to deal with all of it all at once if it puts your health or life at risk. Call for help, or even pay for help. Some of your neighbors will even accept an IOU to help. Or let them use your snow blower or gasoline if they blow your place too. You can trade food for help if you're better stocked than they are.
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As you can see by the radar & satellite maps below, this is only a very narrow storm band. The problem has been, that these weather maps are almost identical to previous ones since Monday. So it's a constant, continuous, narrow flow of snow lasting days. Buffalo is just north of this band. so in about 90% of the city the snow is only a little above the ankles now. 5-10 miles south of the city line, & it's up to 8 feet deep.
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Once again most of America falls into a polar vortex. Such vortexes were rare until last year, when by January they were almost constant, with up to 40F degree below temperatures in half or April. Half of April the ground remained frozen solid in my town. During last winter, average temperatures were colder than Alaska, & it's warmer right now in Anchorage than here.
Brrr, it cold out there, & getting colder. By tomorrow night they say it will be 4F with wind chill effects down to -15F.
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Hi Betty,
Yes, indeed. The weatherman tells me that tomorrow morning when I head out for bus it's going to be 7 degrees and feel like 7 degrees below zero. Really not pleased to hear that.
Andy G.
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Right now it's a windy 2F (-17C) here, with a wind chill of -16F (-27C)! Meanwhile far up north is in Anchorage Alaska, It's 17F (-8C)... toasty by comparison.
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We just had a new member join stories from Iceland. Far there in the north, it's currently a cozy 35F (2C) in Reykjavik, Iceland. So the ice in Iceland is actually melting. Our warmest visitors are in Perth & Sydney Australia where they're expecting temperatures near or above the 90s F today & tomorrow. But right now they're cooling down because it's the middle of the night there.
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Bad enough that we've been colder than Alaska, but I just found out we were also colder than the location of the Mars Curiosity rover.
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Holy shit is it cold. Got down to -2F last night with wind chills down to -18F! My floors were like ice this morning. Even though somebody lives downstairs from me, I think the airspace between the floors froze.
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Brrr. Got back down to 8F this morning. Can't complain too much after a weekend in the low 30s F, & daytime highs in the 20s F most of the week... pretty close to normal temperatures for this time of the year. Maybe it will even hit in the 30s for Friday & Saturday.
20s F may not sound like much, but compared to single digits & below, it's quite a relief & toasty. We didn't get many days as warm as 20F last year from January to March, & it was still cold & snowing through half of April.
Every time the furnace kicks on or I turn on a heater, I'm burning away a lot of money. No sissy stuff or sleepers are warm enough if I want to save some money by keeping the heat down a little. I'm wearing a hoodie over a sweatshirt, over a t-shirt to keep cozy. Below, 2 pairs of sweatpants. I look like I weigh 35lbs more with all the extra clothes.
I saw a squirrel outside my window yesterday for the first time since June. I wouldn't have noticed, but the poodle next door outside to take a crap, started barking wildly at one running along the top of the fence. Last winter's severe & extra long cold wiped out a lot of the squirrels, & year-round birds in my area.
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It's been relatively mild for almost a week, with no snow. In my neighborhood there was mostly bare ground than snow, until today. We had a light sprinkle of about 1/2 an inch. But it's getting colder again. Not near zero F wind chills yet, but that might happen on Tuesday & Friday night.
I'm hearing about blizzards of 1-3 feet expected from the New Jersy/NYC city area up to the state of Maine. I'm seeing pix & clips of the area, & it looks like just a light sprinkle to me. On the maps & radar I'm not seeing where this snow would be coming from, because there is no blizzard on the radar there. I am seeing a heavy snow storm miles east in the ocean, but it seems to be moving away from land & not approaching. I'm sure the fish won't care about the snow.
It's a false alarm if I'm right, & there is no mega snow storm approaching land. The thing is, I saw no chance of the storm yesterday on the maps either when they were warning about it. I saw one near the coastline heading out to sea then.
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Uh Oh. I spoke too soon. I just checked the maps again. The storm at sea just reversed course. It's now just beginning to hammer the coast of Rhode Island, Connecticut, & Massachusetts.
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People in the most affected areas, the coastlines of Rhode Island & Connecticut are reporting nice, pretty, mild snow flurries. No storm or wind yet, even though the weather peeps are saying they should be right in the middle of the storm right now. WABC radio in NYC just changed their weather forecast to 2-3" of snow expected instead of 1-2 feet.
86 y/o lady just reported a foot of snow with blizzard-like conditions in Queens, but another fella in queens reports 3" of snow. Could it be that 3" of snow looks like a foot deep blizzard to a little 86 y/o lady?
High winds reported on Long Island.
N.E. Radar tracking - People in the most affected areas, the coastlines of Rhode Island & Connecticut are reporting nice, pretty, mild snow flurries. No storm or wind yet, even though the weather peeps are saying they should be right in the middle of the storm right now. WABC radio in NYC just changed their weather forecast to 2-3" of snow expected instead of 1-2 feet.
86 y/o lady just reported a foot of snow with blizzard-like conditions in Queens, but another fella in queens reports 3" of snow. Could it be that 3" of snow looks like a foot deep blizzard to a little 86 y/o lady?
High winds reported on Long Island.
N.E. Radar tracking - http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/northeast_loop.php
Satellite image - http://www.goes.noaa.gov/GSSLOOPS/ecwv.html
Listen live to WABC storm reports on AM (MW) radio 770khz (on a good night you can even pick it up in the UK & Germany) or streaming at http://tunein.com/radio/77-WABC-770-s26921/
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16" of snow reported in Gilford Conn, it's getting windy, & their lights are flickering.
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Brrr. Got cccold as we're in the midst of yet another polar vortex again. It's a windy 9F(-13C) outside, bringing wind chills down to -5F(-21C). 4F expected later tonight with wind chills lower than -10F(-23C). Might warm up to 23F(-5C) tomorrow afternoon, but by Sunday night it'll be back down to 4F. -1F expected Monday night. It'll get up to a sweaty 34F(1C) by Wednesday, but then it's back down to 1F by Thursday night. There goes my heating bill. It looks like we're in for a repeat of last year's unusually arctic weather here.
Currently it's 23F in Anchorage Alaska. Maybe I should move far up north where it's warmer.
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Currently it's a windy 2F (-17C) outside. They're expecting it to get down to -5F (-20C) to -10F (-23C) tonight with wind chills down to -20F (-29C) to -30F (-34C). We're no longer talking arctic weather, that's Antarctic weather. My heating bill for last month was already too high keeping the place in the 50s F (10C) inside, in the day & 40s F (4C) at night. This month it will be worse.
My small in-wall gas apartment heater can't keep up with single digits outside. I have to use a couple electric heaters in addition to keep the place in the 50s when it gets this cold out. Than god this place came with some decent electric wiring to run them. But that means my electric bill will be sky high too.
I'm getting tired of hearing that this is the climate for around here. No, it's not. I was born here. I know what normal winters are like here. Although it was not unusual to get a day or 2 once in a great while this cold, until last year, we did not get a lot of severely cold days, or a lot of them in a row. And I don't ever remember snow on the ground in April before, or 0-20F temperatures through most of March.
We had only a normal amount of snow though. The past few years we've been getting much less snow than normal in the city. I don't care either way about the snow, but when it's regularly in the low 20s F or lower, I'm very annoyed with winter. 20s most of the time used to be normal for February, but after only a month it gets warmer so it's bearable. Regular constant temperatures around zeros to teens F through most of Feb. is not normal for here.
So where's that global warming? As the poles push their cold air down, it pushes our warmer air up to the poles. The north pole & Alaska are very nice right now compared to us. We're freezing our balls off as the glaciers up north are melting.
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It appears to be a visitor here from Pine Gap. The USA/Australia top secret space tracking & monitoring military facility about 18 miles outside of Alice springs. You know, the other secret Alien base. He's reading a juicy story on Windows 7 through a cell tower there, so I hardly think it's a space military investigation or those pesky aliens. Probably a scientist or other worker enjoying his lunchtime at stories. More scientists & industry prefer Windows 7 or XP over anything else. If you really need to get a lot of work done on a computer, it's the only way to go. Other OS's are good for you to play with, not to work with.
It's the middle of Summer there. It's currently 98F, & they're expecting a high of 104F later this afternoon. Did you notice those aliens like deserts? There's always more sightings around them, & nobody ever get abducted in a snow storm or in a Canadian winter. They must like it hot. But their large eyes & skin suggest a dark or perpetually cloudy place. Definitely not built for the desert sun. Maybe they evolved from a swamp, jungle, cave, or are an underground dweller. No webbed feet or hands, so not a good swimmer.
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You know it's really getting cold when they close schools, some government offices, businesses, & churches just because it's too damn cold out.
When I was a kid they only closed school when the snow was so deep the buses couldn't make it out. Even if it was so bad they were all an hour or so late, you had to stand out there, wait for it & go to school when the bus arrived. No matter how cold it got, we always had to go to school.
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Weather patterns are strange aren't they? Here in the UK, for the last few years we have had more extreme weather in winter than in living memory. Yet this year there has been no more than a few chilly nights with some frosty mornings and a tiny amount of snow. Of course the schools have been closed for quite a few odd days! Like Betty mentions, I went to school in the sixties when there were a few quite severe winters by UK standards, yet not once did I get an extra day off school. Referring to the subject title of this thread, before the advent of the onesie, pyjamas for adults that incorporated feet were unknown in the UK and seeing the popularity of the two piece variety in the US I was always eager to own some. I managed to source a vintage pair at quite an expensive price. (The delivery charge from the US was prohibitive) They are from Sears, flannel, pink floral. Sadly, I found them impossible to sleep in. For some reason I disliked the feeling of my feet being enveloped by the vinyl sole. I can wear them for a short time around the house but in bed no, such a a shame.
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Yeah, it feels a little like I'm wearing shoes to bed. Under the blankets my legs & feet always got too warm. I usually have to stick my legs outside the blankets to get it just right. Shipping varies depending on where you buy from. A lot of places, locally or overseas will deliberately mark down a price to be to good to be true, just to make up for it in shipping charges. If you look up the actual shipping service actually doing the shipping, & compare the size & weight of the package, you'll find the seller is marking up the shipping price by 2-100 times higher than the actual shipping cost. Yeah, I know it takes time & money to package & get it ready to ship, but not that much.
A 5 dollar part that weighs a couple ounces from Amazon or Sears in Texas, does not cost 10-20 dollars to ship to the UK or Buffalo. It cost 1-3 dollars to ship it to the UK. A warm sleeping garment isn't that heavy so shouldn't cost that much to ship. When ordering from another country, try to find distributors that specialize in shipping to other countries. Unless it's a one of a kind item, you'll probably find many companies carrying the same product or just under a different brand that's essentially the same thing.
I can find pretty sissy & Lolita dresses in Hong Kong for $56-$80 that will ship to my house for free with a $50-$90 minimum purchase. So why should I buy the same dress from the USA or Japan for $136-$200 plus over $50 for shipping? I'm all for supporting stores that sell products we like, but don't get overcharged & robbed for it. I would go without it, search or wait for a better deal, rather than have them steal from me.
You can but a pair of plastic panties from an ABDL store for $25-$70 plus $20-$35 in shipping, or buy it from their distributor or manufacturer for $5-$20, & $1-$5 for shipping.
I see on the national news, they're saying another blizzard-like storm is on it's way to the N.E. USA. Huh? I just looked at all the radar & satellite maps. I don't see any storm. Where is it coming from, or is this another false alarm from the weather peeps?
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I'm reading it won't even get up to zero F here Sunday. They're predicting a high of -4F & an overnight low of -10F for Sunday. With the wind chills, it'll be cold enough to make penguins & polar bears shiver. WTF!
There's a brief heatwave expected Saturday where we'll get afternoon high of around 20F. Get out the suntan lotion! I need a snow tan.
Gotta move to Alaska where it's warmer & the economy is better.
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Hey Betty,
you could probably get tech work up there in Alaska but what would it cost you to move there and I hear milk is $11.00 a gallon among other high prices to live there. Rental costs would probably be like renting a penthouse in Buffalo. They also get this snowy weather about 6 or 7 months a year don't they?
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Just kidding. But if I was younger & healthier as a year-round outdoors & camping person, I could handle it. Last year it snowed around Halloween, & got very cold & snowed a bit in early April here. So I don't see much different between there & here except they had warmer winters & springs than we did, & summers there aren't too hot.
It sounds like the media don't want Canadians going to Alaska, or perhaps Alaska itself doesn't want waves of people moving in. A liter of milk in Anchorage is $1.03 (USA). But a loaf of bread or a dozen eggs is around $3.35, & a Kg (2.2lbs) of cheese is almost $10. I can't understand why rice would cost $5.50 per Kg there. I can get 10 pounds of the stuff delivered to my door for that much. That's why I mostly eat Ramen or rice. It's incredibly cheap. City bus fare is the same as here. It's an oil state so fuel is cheap. Gasoline/petrol is 91 cents per gallon. Here in NY state gasoline is the highest in the country for no good reason. They say because it cost more to ship it here. But then why is it so much cheaper in the next door states & other states even further from the refineries?
Apartments in Achorage (except near downtown) average $880/mo but there are smaller or dumpier cheaper ones, & small heated cabins or huts too. Some people squat on free land or low rent land & just put up a heated yurt or tent. Some of that yurt living is very comfy, & luxurious (google it, you'd be surprised).
Long ago, when I was a lot younger & very fit, I just wanted to get away from it all for some peace, quiet, & solitude. I saved a little bit, & lived in a cabin in the wilderness in NY state in the middle of winter. The next nearest occupied house was almost 2 miles away. The nearest town was a little over 10 miles away. No electricity, gas, oil, running water, or toilet. I chopped wood for heat. It actually was quite cozy & adventurous. It was in the middle of the "snow belt" so almost all winter the snow got waist deep. I didn't rough-it, & forage for food though. 2 or 3 times a month I'd hike into town for supplies. Usually just food & kerosene for lighting. The main road (a dirt & gravel road) was only 1/2 mile away, & did get plowed a few times a month. I could actually hear the plow coming a half mile away, & from a tall hill barely see it.
I'd get up before dawn to hike to town. 10 miles is a very long walk on hilly terrain on a poorly plowed dirt road, usually with snow falling right after it got plowed. Sometimes by the time I got back it was the middle of the night. After about a month there I got well known as the crazy little hippy kid living in the wilderness. A few times a farmer driving down the road would stop & give me a ride. The town sheriff gave me a ride back a few times too. Everybody loved to talk to me about how I was doing up there & the adventure when I visited town. There were a few winter thaws where the dirt road was bare, & I took a bicycle into town.
There were a lot of camping cabins in the area, but nobody actually lived up there in the winter before. The cabins were generally used for summer weekends, vacations, of maybe a brief hunting trip. But at the time I was up there, there were no hunters either.
If you're not ready or prepared for it, you can die up there. I had spent winter weekends up there before, so I was pretty much ready for it.
Temperatures varied from the 20s F to 40s F all winter back then there. It would only occasionally got below 20F on a rare night (about 50 miles from Buffalo).
I got to use the cabin for free as long as I took good care of it. Food was cheap back then, so supplies were only around $40 a month. I got out of there in late spring before it got up to the 90s around there. I can't take 90F heat well.
Ah, to be young again. It would be very tempting to live in a yurt in Alaska. Many people do it there. I bet I won't need AC in the summer. Like most who were born there or in this state, we don't take 90F heat well. I'm Polish too, so I was bred for the cooler weather, but still don't like it constantly below 20F.
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28F in Anchorage. They're expecting a high of 31 tomorrow. When the northern air blows down to us, it pushes the warm air up north. So the glaciers are melting as we freeze out butt off.
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My tiny wall furnace apartment heater was left on the max all night & still wouldn't keep the place warm enough. Had to turn on two 800 watt electric radiant/reflective heaters to get the place up to the upper 40s F. Normally this place is cheap on energy because it's a small 1 bedroom place with low ceilings. I'm only 5'5" & I can touch the ceilings standing on my toes. With only 2 3x5 windows & a 1x2.5' window in the bathroom, not much heat can escape. But last night was so windy & cold it was freezing standing near them... and they're modern, new well insulated windows. The bathroom is remarkably large for a small apartment, about the size of a small bedroom. A total waste of space in a small unit short on space. I only see the room to pee, poo, or wash up. Give me a bathroom with enough space for the tub, toilet, sink, a cabinet, & enough room to walk between them & I'm happy.
The kitchen space is also wasted. 2 huge double basin sinks, & 12 large kitchen cabinets with 6 drawers. & full sized fridge for a 1 bedroom small apartment? This tiny unit is for a single person only. Most single family houses don't have a kitchen this big. They got it backwards. The areas where most singles would spend their time in a small, & the areas they'd spend the less in are huge. I like to cook, & cook a lot to save money. But I don't need a kitchen area that big, & don't spend all day there. It's also a waste of energy to heat all that extra space I don't spend a lot of time in.
The buildings & their heating systems around here weren't designed to handle regular Antarctic-like temperatures. This would be a bit chilly outside even for penguins & polar bears. They could easily handle it, but it's not within their comfort range.
By bedroom is my workspace & storage space. I leave that area unheated & the door closed. Jan-Feb as usual, has been slow with work. Hardly anybody has dropped anything off to fix or work on, or called to inquire about some project. So I didn't have to go back there.
My primary computer & laptop are near the bed, not at the workspace. So I can get online instantly even if my breathing is terrible that day. The living area is a single room with the kitchen on one end, & the living area on the other. I got it set up studio apartment style. So my bedroom is set up in the living section. In this small place the bed & pillows double as my sofa & easy chair most of the time. It's not a hide-away bed. It's a normal king-sized bed. I've got a few chairs, but I hardly use them, when I sit, lay down or relax, almost always it's on the bed. The cats sit on the chairs occasionally. But unless they're running about or playing, they're usually on the bed too. It's a huge bed so there's plenty of room for us to move around & play on it. But doesn't leave much space left in the living area. The computers, monitors, & speakers are lined up in a row between the kitchen & sleep area facing the bed to partially block the view of the kitchen so it has a more cozy & bedroom-like feel. The computers also give off a bit of heat, which warms up the area on moderately cold days. But it made no difference last night.
It was so cold in the place even with all that heat running this morning, I didn't want to get out of the warm bed. It was nice & warm under all those blankets. The cats didn't seem to mind, stretched out across my legs. A cat would be curled up in a ball, or around each other, or curled up against me if they were cold.
So I stayed in bed very late, awake warm under the blankets, until I had to go to the bathroom. But I didn't fall asleep until 3am, so it's not too bad. No work today again. It's President's day, a national holiday here in the USA too. After people spent money on Christmas, & have new toys, nobody is considering fixing, or upgrading their old ones this time of the year. With local winter bills high, most people will stall having something fixed or upgraded, unless they absolutely need it done.
I might of had a chance to fix somebody's huge snow blower that died in the suburbs for an elderly lady. But with no heated garage there, & it was way too big & heavy to lift up the steps to get it inside, with my severe COPD I wouldn't have survived the job. I would have had to get a ride out there too. I sold my truck after the fire long ago to raise money for replacement stuff. With my COPD, I'd be gasping for air just to yank the pull-starter a few times trying to get it started on a nice day. Usually cold doesn't effect my COPD. I seem too breathe better when it's cool. But not when it gets this cold. Just a minute out there in this weather, & I'm gasping for air.
Most of my work requires them to drop their stuff off for me to fix, & pick it up. I can't travel well most of the time. Even on a good day a trip up or down the stairs or to walk a half a block is quite an effort. It takes hours just to sweep my place because I have to keep sitting down to catch my breath. House keeping & chores takes me just about a week. I start & one end, & continue to the other end. By the time I'm done, it's been days, & it's time to go to the other end & do it all over again. I get out of breath just getting dressed or changing my clothes. It can take hours to just get undressed, take a shower or bath, get dried off, & dressed again, because I frequently have to stop, sit, & catch my breath.
So there's no way I could be able to go to the burbs work on a snow blower in below zero wind chills. I've done work for her before too. So I really hated to disappoint her, & turn her down. I think I was the last person to work on that old blower, many years ago. Work is extra slow now, so I could use the money. I'm a very handy person. It's a shame. All this experience & knowledge, but my lungs aren't up to the task to do most of the work I used to make the most money on. Setting up sound & lights for a band or event? Ha! Some of those speakers weigh more than I do. And I can't climb 10-50 feet in the air with heavy equipment to mount lighting & other stuff anymore.
It's a bit warmer here this afternoon because the wind died down from 24mph to 12 mph. I was able to shut down one of the 800 watt heaters, & the place is up to 58F. With warm clothes on it feels quite comfy now. Still the wall furnace & other 800 watt heater are running at maximum though.
-4F outside, that's the expected high for today, it goes back down from here. Wind chill -22F. Last night the wind chill got down to -34F between 4-7 am. That probably explains why my place was too cold for me to get up at 7:30 when my alarm went off. Since the 1970s, I deliberately keep the alarm far enough from the bed that I actually have to get out of bed to shut it off. That way, I never overslept. This morning I let it keep going, turned away from it on my side, & laid my arm over my ear so I couldn't hear it as much, rather than get out of the warm bed.
There is no snooze button. I just can't understand the concept of it. If you wanted to get up at 7:35 instead of 7:30, why didn't you just set your alarm for it? Even when I didn't get enough sleep, when it's time to get up to be somewhere, you gotta go, & it's not negotiable. To sleep that extra 10-30 minutes means when you get up you have to run & rush like crazy, forget stuff, run out the door, & dangerously race to your destination to be on time. I like to enjoy my mornings, coffee & breakfast. I give myself enough time to have a nice morning, & still make it to my destination ahead of time even if I didn't get enough sleep. I find once you get going with a good breakfast & coffee, you won't notice the lack of sleep until you're almost done with your job or project. You can have a nap when you get home or go to bed earlier. Getting out of bed to shut off an alarm works better than a snooze. Once you're up & out of the bed, thinking clearly, you don't want the snooze. People hit the snooze button while they're still in a semi conscious state, & not in the proper frame of mind to logically decide to snooze an extra 10-30 minutes or not.
Besides, if you didn't get enough sleep, or have a hard time waking up, an extra 5-30 minutes isn't gonna make any or much difference.
My alarm is actually my old shortwave radio from the late 1970s. It will either wake me up to very loud beeps or the radio. It runs on 4 D sized batteries for the radio, & 4 AA sized batteries for the clock & alarm. I use another radio for regular listening so the batteries usually last a year or 2 in it, & it wakes me up even when there's a power failure. Yep, I rebuilt that after the fire. After losing almost everything in the fire, it's nice to have a few items left around from long ago. I believe it might be the oldest thing I currently own since the fire.
I used to have a lot of antiques, that I restored myself, including some antique radios. But they got burned up, & never replaced.
Tonight will be about the same weather. -9F expected with wind chills of -30F.
The gas & energy companies gotta be loving this. I'm sure they're all making plans to buy a bigger boat or send their kids to a better college. My heat costs were way too high last month. It looks like it will be 2-3 times higher next time.
I'm surprised. I saw a bird outside. Last year when the cold got this bad for a while all the wildlife disappeared. Last year's cold wiped out most of the animals around my neighborhood.
The dogs next door get let out to poo & pee into their back yard. The big dog would want to go back inside right after it was done when it started getting cold. But the cute extra furry little poodle would run all over the yard for a half hour before she wanted to come back inside. With this cold, she doesn't go far to do her duty, & then wants to go back inside right away. The owner doesn't stand outside with her anymore either. She watches her inside from her back window.
It's totally silent outside. Even with the windows closed I can usually I hear cars pulling in & out driveways, people talking, dogs barking, & kids playing. There's a workshop behind my building, & I can usually hear them working in the day. I live in the city, so I can usually hear sirens in the distance every few hours. It's like a ghost town around here now.
The neighbors in the building & each side of me moved out last month, because their crappy wall furnaces couldn't keep the place warm enough when it gets this cold. It's a shame, they, & the girl upstairs from me were the only ones I got to know well enough in the building to become friends with. The lady upstairs, a student moved back home in the beginning of summer.
I don't hardly hear anybody else in the building. Sooo quiet.
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Got very cold in the apartment again this morning with the tiny wall furnace & electric heater running on full at night. Stayed nice & toasty under the blankets. Once again the cats were stretched out over my legs unaffected by the chill. Suzie is a bit fuzzy & a little on the chubby side, so she's probably well insulated. But Boy-Cat is a very slim short haired cat, & he doesn't care about the cold either. He hates the heat more than his fuzzy chubby sister.
When I got up, I turned every electric heater on in the place to get it up to the 50s F.
Unbelievably, unbearable cold outside last night & right now. Good golly, this is ridiculous. For 2 years in a row it's way colder than normal for around here. Even though in the summer we had some very hot days, most of the summer was way cooler than normal too.
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Well it's official. Lake Erie, one of the N. America's huge Great Lakes is now completely frozen over!
Scarey. It looks like Antarctica or Pluto.
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Hi Betty,
You've got me beat although when I woke up this morning it was zero degrees on my thermometer. Really glad I don't have to wait for the bus today.
Stay warm.
Andy G.
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About a mile from my house...
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7F, -10F wind chill. I long for nice hot days in the 20s. At least since the wind died down, it was easy to keep my place warm enough today... now that it's not like Antarctica or Pluto out there.
Local Mardi Gras parade has been canceled due to the cold. In other news, Hell froze over today.
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It got up to the teens(F) yesterday. As cold as that was, it was nice compared to most of the weather we've been having. But it didn't last long. Right now it just dipped to a very windy 0F (-18C) with a wind chill of -23F (-31C). Tonight it goes down to -11F (-24C) with wind chills below -30F (-34C). In some outlying areas & near the frozen over Lake Erie, they're even predicting wind chills may go as low as -40F (-40C!) due to the frigid high winds there. Unbelievable! Did I mention I'm not far from the lake?
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People in the USA are experiencing a phenomena not typical for our region. "Frost Quakes!" They're caused when ice in the ground expands until the stress causes something to crack. They're like small but loud earthquakes.
More: http://5dot4.com/psk/index.php?topic=28.0
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Hello to everyone suffering the extraordinary weather you are experiencing. I have been viewing the snow and ice deposits in New York and Boston via the BBC website, and am simultaneously enthralled and saddened by what I witness. It must be nigh on impossible to conduct your day to day business and the elderly and infirm must suffer greatly. Here in the UK, we rarely encounter weather extremes, be it freezing cold spells or insufferable heat, so I can only sympathise and pass on my hope that you have respite soon.
My only advice is to keep on wearing the flannel jammies!
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Last winter after the beginning of January was the coldest in a very long time. This year it was much worse. If they continue to get this much worse every year, next Feb. the area will be uninhabitable. 25 dead & $5 billion in lost economy so far this year due to the cold. Schools & businesses continue to close every day due to the cold. The ones that stay open don't get many people showing up to them. Anchorage Alaska is currently 30 degrees warmer than we are. Sunday it's expected to be warm & rainy there, having weather similar to much of the UK.
Our high in my neighborhood today was 1F.
The poles & glaciers are melting while we're getting Frost Quakes.
Now 80% of Lake Ontario just froze over.
http://5dot4.com/psk/index.php?topic=30.0
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Niagara Falls is still running, but it's slowing down as it begins to freeze.
More (with pictures): http://5dot4.com/psk/index.php?topic=31.0
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Hey Bertha. You might get a kick out of pix of our November Storm. I was lucky, I was just on the outside edge of the storm so didn't get as much as they did in the southern part of the city & just about everywhere just outside the city where they got 3-7 feet (1-2.3 meters) of snow.
Check it out. Some of it looks very pretty too (lots of pictures). It kind of worth it to go through all of them when you have the time on a quiet night. It's actually quite spectacular, & I threw some extras in there for comic or cuteness relief. They say if you lived your whole life here you can break a brick with your hands even if you're a 90lb girl or sissy... were they talking about me?
http://unclegadget.com/BettysPubs/community/index.php?topic=716.0
I'm reading a clear 3C (37F) at night in London right now. Looks like 10C (50F) by Tue. or Wed. Nice for winter! Thank that warm ocean Gulf Stream that surrounds you.
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Hi Betty, they certainly are spectacular, but as I was scraping a covering of frost off my windshield this morning, (Saturday), before I travelled to work, I was thankful I did not live in you vicinity!
Best wishes from Bertha
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Oops, I owe you an "R".
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Well I was outside for three hours this morning with the snow blower and it still kept snowing. Cleared my walk and driveway and that of my two neighbours as well as the walk for a block or so in both directions. I also remembered to clear around the fire hydrant in case it was needed as the city plows give no regard to any of these and just cover them as they go by. Of course they need to be on guard for all the vehicles parked on the road blocking their progress. You would think people would park on only one side of the street as the signs indicate but some don't care. They are always the ones to bitch about getting a ticket though. I guess you can't cure stupid.
I was toasty warm though wearing my fleece lined tights under my pants and a nice high waist panty girdle to help keep my back in good shape. Sure hope Spring gets here soon as I am running out of places to pile all the snow, it is five foot high on my lawn in front and back and only a narrow path at the side of the house to get by with the snow blower.
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North America satellite photo of snow & ice. This with the clouds removed from the picture, so all the white stuff is snow & ice, not clouds.
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It was such a nicer day at 5.5C (22F) & sunny. It was hard to believe it will get back down to -10F (-23C) tonight. It's already a breezy 9F now, & falling. A 13 degree drop in 4 hours. High of 0F (-18C) expected Monday.
Here we go again.
Antarctica returns!
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Brrr. 20 water main breaks in the city over the weekend. They had to call in outside contractors to keep up with it all.
I fear my heat & electricity will add up to almost what my rent does just to keep it in the 40s & 50s F inside this month. Work has been extra slow since this unusual super-cold set in, so I don't have money to run all this extra heat. When it gets this cold my small gas wall furnace can't keep up & I have to use electric heaters to help it it. If it gets in the mid 20s outside I need to run heat much less to keep the place bearable. This extra cold takes a lot more energy to keep the place habitable.
No fuzzy sleepers anymore. I'm wearing tights, & 2 sweatpants under loose jeans. T-shirt, 2 sweatshirts, under a hoodie to keep comfy inside. And I go under the blankets to sleep that way too. I feel like I'm camping, but do keep warm this way. I have more heaters to get things warmer if I have to, but they'll cost me even more money to run. So I'm keeping the place in the 50s in the day, & 40s overnight when I'm warm under blankets.
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Snow storms paralyze southern states like Texas, Georgia, & Louisiana. 10 inches of snow in Alabama. We're having a mild 8F this morning. Anchorage Alaska is expecting a warm 34F this afternoon.
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I have friends / family who insist on sending me greetings from the British Virgin Islands and telling me it is just warm enough to melt the ice in their drinks slowly. I promptly told them no fear I could send them lots more ice. They go there every winter but are complaining this year it is colder. Oh I feel so sorry for them. My parents would spend every winter in Fort Myers Florida but always remembered to thank me for taking care of their house over the winter knowing I was clearing twice as much snow as I had to, (their house and mine). I always kept the house looking like it was lived in each day by leaving lights on timers and picking up mail/newspapers and leaving the radio playing. In 10 years of doing so there was never a break in even though the house was somewhat isolated on a hill amongst the trees. I loved that old house.
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You don't have feel sorry for them at the British Virgin Islands. It's currently 79F there. I have a nephew that's a meteorologist, along with a few local/goverment/airport ones that I know well (weather people not meteor scientists who don't know the difference), so that's how I track the world's skies & weather better than the average old coot or sissy (I love science anyway).
I kind of wonder though how many born or raised in this area (we're practically neighbors on the world scale), could actually comfortably deal with half our days in a humid or very hot environment all the time without AC... ESP at our age. This may be too far in the ccccold direction for the past 2 years for here & the trend may get even worse. Due to climate changes, Anchorage, Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, & Yukon (Canada) actually have milder winters & not so hot summers than we do. Yeah, they get more rain, but compare that to all the snow, or no more rain than the UK, & it's not a bad deal to migrate due to climate change they way it's going in our neck of the woods.
Let's see how next year works out. If we have a cold spring wiping out more wildlife, & another cooler than usual summer, we may be forced to migrate if it becomes almost uninhabitable in Feb 2016.
The original theory of global warming was as the ocean loses it saltiness as ice melts. The gulf stream would slow down & freeze out most of the UK. They didn't expect the warm air from global warming to push warm air to the pole & force the arctic air down on most of our continent.
Glaciers & ice are still melting up north, but we can pray that it gets that warm down here in fall through spring or we're in for another ice age. 2/3 the continent is covered in ice or snow. Most of whatever heat we normally would get by March will be reflected back out into space, causing less warming for the spring & next year, & a chain reaction. Very scarey times.
If we see more of the same or even worse next year, seriously think of migrating. Meteorologists who can't talk about such things or don't want to cause panic if they're wrong, are very concerned with the way it's been in recent years, because it looks like every year may get worse around here.
Pulling up the predicted computer models, & satellite/climate data, future winters don't look good for our area, with future fall & springs getting worse too.
The people paying the anti-warming scientists thought that our continent would get warmer, more fruitful, plentiful, & profitable with global warming. Oops! They never considered that mother nature & global warming would change the winds & jetstream to give us polar weather from late Nov. to early April wiping out wildlife, crops, & people.
We had 20 burst main waterlines in the city this weekend. Over 50 in the county this week, Sunday-Thur. morning. The permafrost levels are way deeper than normal causing water & sewer line breaks & "frost quakes".
Frost quakes are usually unheard of except in far north Canada, Siberia, Greenland, & Antarctica! NY state, Pennsylvania, & Ontario are getting lots of them now. For some reason Tennesee is getting huge ones large enough to shake houses & sound like explosions. http://5dot4.com/psk/index.php?topic=28.0
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Hey Betty,
when I first bought my house in the early 70's, we heard frost quakes the first few winters we were here but as the winters got a little milder there was nothing more until this year. Have heard a couple but not that loud or frequent. This year I used the snow blower a lot more than the last few years and the people in my neighbourhood are mostly seniors so sidewalks don't get cleared as much as they should unless I do it. We have city bylaws that they must be clear in 24 hours after a storm but the last few weeks it has snowed almost every day to some degree. Two or three of my neighbours have gone south for awhile and it seems they have not hired anybody to clear away the snow. There is one house two doors down that two of my friends are renovating for resale but they don't even bother to clear snow either and they have a Bobcat that would make it easy. I did it once for them but they never seemed to bother so I won't be doing it again. Even with the snow blower my back is complaining more than ever now. They say spring is just around the corner but I looked and never saw it, just more snow.
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I own my own snow blower. Unfortunately with my COPD, I don't use it anymore. It's amazing how quickly my life changed. I used to be able to run, swim, & bicycle faster than people half my age. Then I catch the worst flu of my life, triggered a heart attack from drowning in my own fluids, & the flu did permanent lung damage. They can also blame breathing bad fumes, & dirty air at work for contributing to my condition, but the fact is after that flu, I suddenly always had a hard time breathing. Before that flu, I was in excellent shape & health. And even though I keep the air very clean & well filtered, it continues to get worse.
-18C (-1F) outside with a wind chill of -26C (-15F) this morning. It's March 6th for god's sake! It should be 30-40 degrees warmer by now. This is a repeat of last year all over again, except even colder.
Just got my electric bill... Oh boy! But it is a lot less than I thought it would be, even though it's a lot. I use electric heat near where I'm sitting so I don't have to run my furnace as high or as much. It's not cheaper to heat electrically, but it is cheaper to keep the area you're in bearable with a small electric heater than running a furnace to try to keep the whole place comfortable. I was able to keep the bills down a bit this year by layering soft cozy clothing indoors so I don't have to crank up the heat as much too. Extra blankets on the bed so I can turn the heat down lower at night. Nice & warm under the blankets, but it's sure hard getting out of the bed to a cold place, & start warming the place up. Got pretty cold in here last night, but didn't feel it under the blankets until I got up.
Kitties don't seem to care about the cold. It's the coldest in here at night, & they slept stretched out over my legs. They only cuddle up close when I'll be scratching their back, brushing them, or rubbing their bellies.
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Hey Betty, I hear you about the electric heaters, I use one in my basement workshop so I don't need to open all the furnace vents down there fully. The space is closed off from the main area and I don't want sawdust getting into the return vents and clogging the filter. I never noticed that much of an increase in the electric bill after using it but then it is only for a few hours each time I do. The pool pump/filter and the hotub used a great deal more hydro when I was using them in the summer but that's a few years ago now. I gave them up after I retired and looked for other ways to save money as my pension was sure not as big as I thought it would be. I may consider giving up the house in the future if I can find a nice apartment that doesn't cost more than the upkeep for the house. At least I would have some extra cash if I sold the old homestead although the housing market is slowing right down these days. I turn down my furnace to 65 degrees at night and put on extra blankets but sometimes I wear my fleece tights to bed also when it is very cold out. Come to think of it I have been doing that a lot this winter.
I have some family members who have COPD also and it is very trying in deed but one of them still insists on smoking with one lung at half capacity and the other not too much better. She never struck me as being dumb before but now I think she is playing Russian roulette with her health. Oh well you can't cure stupid. I remember at your old shop/apartment you would make extra cash doing snow removal as well as your regular job but that sure is not an option now. Sorry you are in that position now and sure hope the future will get better for you. Oh well we turn the clocks ahead on Saturday and spring is just around the corner I hope.
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LOL. I'm keeping the place at 55-60F in the day, & 45-50F at night. But if it gets to 40F or above outside, my place will get to the mid 60s running no heat at all. The heat from making coffee, the computers, cooking, & from the back of the 1970s fridge warm up the place pretty nice once it gets above the 40s.
But once it gets about 80 outside, it would be in the 90s inside with fans running in the windows. So in the summer, the place would be uninhabitable with COPD without AC. Breathing is actually better when it's dry & cool.
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It's a miracle at 25F (-4C) today. It might even hit 30F (-1C) later. Not very cozy with gusts up to 25mph (40kmh) though. But it's getting to be any day it's not near zero or below is a good day.
Saw a lady on the news the other day when it got up to 12F (-11C) scraping ice off her car. She smiles & says, "At least it's not cold today!"
With the sun getting higher in the sky, it's sure nice not to have it dark outside by 5pm anymore. Here in the colonies, we'll be starting daylight savings time a little earlier this year, & earlier than most of the world. Sunday night we move the clocks ahead 1 hour.
I sort of boycotted changing the clocks the fall. My TVs, computers, & phone had the correct time automatically. But my big wall clock & my alarm clock remain on daylight savings time because I don't want it dark out by 4-4:30pm in winter anymore. So of course, I'm aware if there's a an appointment to keep or a prorgam on TV & radio to catch, to check the official time so I don't miss it, but for the rest of my day to day activities I stay on daylight savings time year round. If I miss a program, I can almost always find it online somewhere later anyway.
My alarm clock is an AM-FM-SW-SSB radio. It the old Radio Shack DX-390 built in the late 1980s. It runs forever of 4-D batteries, but also has 4-AA batteries for the clock back-up & beeper alarm that only kick in if the "D" cells ran down. So they never die, but after a couple years in it it, I switch the AA batteries so they don't get old & start leaking inside the unit, & ruin it.
It survived the fire & runs good after I cleaned & dried it out, but don't look pretty after all it's been through. It reliably wakes me up every morning since the 1980s. Before it, I used a smaller non-SSB version to wake me up, but it did not survive the fire. I use rechargeable "D" cells in it, so about every 3 months, I put them in the charger for 4-6 hours.
I have other radios I listen to these days, & some of them have an alarm on them. But this thing always gets me up, & if I want a big almost boom-box sound from a radio, the DX-390 is my choice, but it's big so not very portable to travel with. Smaller than most boom boxes though.
With so many other sources of music these days, it's rare I use any radio just for music anymore. So my smaller radios are usually my choice for listening. My old Eton E5 that also survived the fire after drying it out, gets better SW & FM long distance reception. But the DX-390 comes close, & gets better long distance AM reception.
Below, my favorite radios. Starting with the one I use the most, & ending with the one I use the least. There are some small "cheapie", shirt pocket, or crap radios I have not pictured here because they rarely get used & I don't recommend them. Also my 2 scanner radios are not shown.
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I love radio, but I don't listen to what most people do on them. I listen to stuff you can't pick up on ordinary radios, or far away stations with unique programs.
Here's my other radios, starting with my old UHF-VHF scanner radios, to other disappointing but occasionally used radios. The kaito & Coby radio have the advantage of being the smallest AM-FM radios in the world with a built-in speaker (as opposed to "headphones only" or "FM only" radios). Very tiny, with a clock & alarm, their best purpose is as a very portable travel alarm & radio just a little larger than a tiny old flip phone. They cost only around 10 bucks. Local AM FM stations, clock & alarm, not a bad deal. When traveling, don't rely on just your phone to wake you up. I don't understand the bad reviews on them. Did they really expect it to perform as good as a $30 dollar or more radio 3 times the size, with an alarm clock too?
I got the super-radio on sale years ago because of rave reviews. It was in my downtown office during the fire so also survived. Little did I know that all the reviews were for the older model that looks identical but is not the same thing. All of the newer versions of the radio are garbage, don't buy them. The gold AM-FM-SW radio, I picked up for 7 bucks. Not so great. Can't complain for the price, & it does pick up SW bands. You can find the radio listed under many brands for under 10 bucks. It's the same Chinese radio regardless of what brand is stamped on it, if it looks the same. You will also see it in silver, grey, & some other colors.
It looks like a lot of radios & some expensive ones. But many of them I had since the 1980s, rebuilt after the fire, or were in my downtown office during the fire. Since the fire I bought only 2 mini pocket radios for around $10 each, & the gold radio for $7. I had a lot of radios before the fire including many antiques. Most of them were lost in the fire, along with many other antiques. I loved antiques. Most of my antique furniture was rebuilt & refinished by me. A few pieces of furniture looked like antiques but I actually hand made them myself.
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Hi,
I think this just about sums it up.
Andy G.
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It was nice & sunny all day here with a high of 45F (7C). But I see the east coast got hit with a snow storm.
For well over a week our temperatures have been about normal for this time of the year & no snow. Last year at we were in an arctic freeze most days through almost the first half of spring. It wiped some of the local wildlife.
Today I saw a squirrel outside my window for the first time since September. Yesterday there was lots of birds out there frolicking too, much to my cats enjoyment.
By Saturday night they say it will get down to the teens, & Sunday's high will only be in the 20s F (single digits C). Monday it might hit 30F (-1C), but they say it might get up to 50F (10C) by Wednesday.
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Spring was nice while it lasted but the arctic vortex has returned. It got down to 18F (-8C) last night. This morning it's a breezy 20F (-7C) making a wind chill of 7F (-14C). I see there's an inch of new snow on the ground outside my window this morning. They say it will get down to 11F (-12C) tonight!
They say we might have daytime highs the 30s on Tuesday, & 50s on Wednesday. But the vortex shifts again by Thursday night bringing temperatures down to the low 20s, & in the teens Friday night.
I had a laugh watching the local weather guy last week say we probably won't get any snow again until next winter. Yeah right... in your dreams. This arctic vortex has been going crazy for over a year now, with quite a few abnormally cool summer days too. I don't seeing this vortex activity stopping just because a calendar said it's spring. Plus more often than not we get some snow near the end of October too.
Of course all the stupid people will go outside, feel the cold, see some snow, & say there is no global warming, rather than look at the rest of the world. But those vortexes that push the cold downward, also swing back up, pushing our warm air towards the poles. So while we freeze our ass off, polar bears are sweating, & glaciers are melting. As ice caps & glaciers melt, the oceans become less salty. Salt water absorbs & retains more heat than fresh water. If the oceans get less salty they won't get warm enough, & warming ocean currents, like the gulf stream slow down or stop.
Without the warming Gulf Stream ocean currents, the UK would be covered by ice most of the year. So global warming can actually cause a mini ice age. But the stupid people see "mini ice age", & think we need global warming or it doesn't exist. With longer colder winters, & more of the world is covered in snow & ice longer, it reflects more of the Sun's warming heat back out into space & can cause a chain reaction, to cause a big ice age. Even though in the short term, global warming puts more energy into the atmosphere, causing more erratic & extreme weather or temperature changes, in the long term, it would plummet most of the world not near to the equator into an ice age. We'd freeze or starve.
And while most stupid people won't believe in global warming when it gets cold out or snows, or the pool isn't warm enough in the summer, here's some facts... Seattle had the warmest February on record this year. For several years in a row Anchorage Alaska had milder & warmer winters than Buffalo did.
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It got up to the mid-40s yesterday. It was raining all morning, but now it just started snowing real hard. The vortex returns with weekend overnight lows in the teens expected.
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Crazy weather, my fridge and stove both failed in the last week or so after 19 years of service. I have fixed the stove several times over the years but the fridge was great until now. It looks like brand new on the inside and outside but would be expensive to fix if I could get parts. So delivery was today for replacements and two hours before they arrive we get snow and slush just to make the walks slippery. Two big burly guys showed up after lunch and didn't have much trouble moving the new appliances in and old ones out even with the crazy weather. They put the old appliances out front on my lawn for Habitat for Humanity to pick up. They said the would take them to repair or for parts but after I called before supper they said thanks but they had nobody available to pick up until after Easter. Sorry bud but in this town they will be gone by morning for scrap I would think. Two hours later, gone. never saw who got them but they were gone.Hope somebody gets some use out of them again.
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They won't even allow us to put stuff like that out on the curb anymore, even if there's junk collectors & parts salvagers around. If it's electrical of any kind it's hazardous waste now. You either have to store it forever on your property, or haul it to an approved electronics recycler at your own expense.
LOL, my fridge is 40 years old. It came with the apartment & runs, but I bet it's half my electric bill.
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Wow Betty,
forty year old fridge, I believe it. They took pride in things back then and made them to last. That is why Rick at American Restoration in Las Vegas has so much success with old items people bring in to fix up. When I was working I had two crews of six to eight people and less than half of them were willing to make an effort to produce a good product and most of them were woman. The others spent more time looking for ways to waste time and get out of a full days work. Some were totally not trainable and were let go or given simple jobs they could handle when we had such work. Building heating and cooling equipment with complicated control panels meant there were not that many sweeping or insulating jobs to be done so many were let go in the last few years I was there. I worked there forty two years from the ground up with some night school courses and made a great salary and had seven weeks paid vacation but even when we offered to pay for night school these kids today either declined or dropped out after only a few nights. It is easy to see why industry is moving away to foreign countries where they are willing to learn. I also think it is our education systems that don't offer a trade any more to those who are willing to learn.
Any way that's my two cents worth for today.
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Yuck! There's about an inch of snow on the ground this morning, with more expected.
Happy Easter everyone!
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more snow again Betty,when do you think the snow will finished this year for you
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It's 32F (0C) now. But there's more snow expected through to Monday, & on Wednesday. Golly, that's odd though. They say it will hit 50F Monday, & 43F Wednesday. It can't snow at 43-50F according to science.
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They changed their forecast overnight from snow & 50F (which is scientifically impossible) to clear & 44F for today, & no snow for the rest of the week (but lots of cold rain). They entirely changed their prediction dramatically in less than 8 hours.
I don't tune in or look up the weather to find out what the weather is, I can look out my window to find that out, I want to know what the weather will be later or tomorrow.
What a job. They can be way off days in a row or more than half the time, & not get fired. With no degree in meteorology, & no weather equipment, yesterday I successfully predicted it would not snow at 43-50F (although it can happen, it isn't likely), & it was not going to get anywhere near 50F today.
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Betty,bet you are glad there may be no snow if the met office is right
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Yes, it is April, so I'm tired of looking at it, & also tired of slipping around on it. The maintenance guy they pay to shovel almost never does, & it's a long walk from my door in back to the street on slippery ice, snow, or deep wet slush. It would also be nice if it was above 50F... about the normal temperature for this time of the year around here.
I just noticed the last few bits of snow melted this morning... at least in my neighborhood. Maybe it will stay that way now. I see no lows below 33-35F forecast during the next 7 days.
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It's been almost seasonable temperatures for almost 2 weeks around here. Even several days above 60F (16C), with a couple above 70F (21C). I didn't even care about the wind or rain as long as the ice & snow was finally gone.
You'd think I wouldn't be mentioning the return of the evil vortex again until January, except maybe to compliment it this summer when it's not so unbearably hot, humid, sticky, & swampy.
The weather forecasts just said there will be snow Wednesday & Thursday with nighttime temperatures around 30F (-1C). Sure, that's not as bad as near 0F (-18C), but that's way too cold for normal around here near the end of April.
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised after having vortex problems as bad as last year. Here's a flashback photo taken last year from outside my window on April 15, 2014.
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Having normal weather for this time of the year for the past few days. Humidity went really high though making breathing difficult for my COPD. Just about a week ago though we had overnight lows below 40F & frost a few days in a row (In May). The week before that weather in the mid-80s F.
The past few weeks there has been some pretty severe storms & tornadoes in the mid-west USA. We don't get lots of users from the mid-west, but the ones we do get are long-time regular users. I've heard from almost all of them, & they survived the previous mess in good shape. But now they just had another wave of storms. Huston Texas, & other mid-west towns are under water. I hope our friends from that area are OK. I don't see them online yet. Hopefully it's an internet or power problem & nothing serious.
On the international news they've been saying America is in a drought for a month. Not true. A few states are, while the rest of the country is just as wet as normal or getting too wet.
Now it's our storm time. A big storm is on the horizon due to hit within the hour. The storm passing over the Great Lakes will be unpredictable. The lakes can intensify it, or pacify it this time of the year.
Either way, any lightning between me & to the north as far away as Toronto can cut off my DSL connection until it's over. Lightning overhead or to the south, east, or west has no effect on the DSL.
If it gets too close I will disconnect the line anyway for lightning safety reasons even if the DSL is still functioning.
My lightning detectors have only picked up a couple lightning strikes. Strong ones, but were still too distant to hear thunder from. The most intense part of the storm looks to be around 70 miles west from me, but heading straight for us. High wind & hail is predicted but so far, it just got cloudy & dark, with hardly a breeze, & only a few breif drops of rain.
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Have had a lot of high winds in the area for the last two days taking out some tree's and signs but only just got some rain the last hour or so. I heard reports of hailstones in the London area of Southern Ontario a few hours ago though. I finally turned on the A/C unit as it has been humid here the last few days and it was taking some time to cool the house. I went out to visit relatives and came back to a walk in cooler. The outside temp. had dropped dramatically in the last two hours. Mother nature is getting very confused these days and so am I.
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Got up to a humid 87F (37C) outside my window 12 hours ago. This morning it's 47F (8C) out there.
The mid-west continues to flood. Once again a few of our mid-west visitors were missing from Betty's for a few days, but they have all turned up here OK by this weekend.
We had some flooding in Warsaw, NY, about 40 miles west of me. I used to have family & friends that lived out that way. My parent's camping cabin/cottage & property was about 7 miles outside of the town. The property was a mix of some wide open spaces, bordered by some wooded areas & many miles of wilderness. In just 40 years it all has grown in to become a very heavily wooded area inaccessible to vehicles. The cabin, which is collapsing can only be found by a 2 mile hike through heavy brush & woods now. You wouldn't even see it until you're almost on top of it.
Most people don't realize it, but NY state is a pretty large state. About 2/3 of the area is wilderness that is undeveloped due to severe harsh winters in those areas & hot humid summers. About 1/4 of the area is farmland. A significant about of the world's grains, apples, maple syrup, dairy products, & meat comes from NY state. The rest of the state is just a few cities, & lots of small towns.
So if our growing season is too cold or short, the price of food goes up a little bit in London, Moscow, Amsterdam, Tokyo, & Hong Kong because NY state ships food worldwide. Unlike food from China & other areas, NY, Pennsylvania, & Ontario food is considered very safe & "uncontaminated".
To the north is Canada's Ontario, & to the south is Pennsylvania, both of which are mostly wilderness & farms too.
It's foggy right now. Rain expected until Tuesday night. Very heavy rains with lows around 46F expected tonight. Highs around the 50s expected for the next few days. We don't expect it to get up to 70F (21C) until Thursday.
In India last week it got up to 122F (50C). Wow, us northerners think 80F (27C) is too hot. Over 1200 people dead because of the heat, & the streets were actually melting in New Delhi.
More with pictures:
http://5dot4.com/psk/index.php?topic=53.0
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Hi Betty,
cold and rainy here for the last two days. Can't wait for summer to start.
New York state has some great wineries also and I have sampled some a few years back but am not really supposed to drink now with all my pills. I miss the wine tours in the Niagara region and elsewhere but as we age our bodies betray us. Another thing about getting older is I need to attend two family funerals next week.
Been watching the news about the flooding and we even had hail near the London area yesterday with high winds also. Crazy weather patterns these days and I just turned on the air conditioning and shut it off again the next day.
Hope you can cope with the crazy weather patterns these days and your health issues.
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45F this morning. A rare extra cold morning in early June should be in the 50s, not the 40s. A high of only 52F expected today. Highs of 70s & 80s F are normal for this time of the year.
It's not just complaining about the weather, but it's so unnatural for what we're used to around here. Don't get me wrong. Born & raised in this area, I prefer cooler weather, & can deal with frigid weather easier than unbearable hot weather. I could even get nauseous, dizzy, get headaches, (symptoms of heat stroke) & sweat like a pig on a humid day much above 80F. It's what our bodies get used to. With only 2-3 months above 80F but 6-7 months below 30F, we don't have a chance to get used to heat much.
Of course when one gets older, hot weather is even more dangerous to us. Also with my COPD, I my breathing gets much worse on hot or humid days. But 45F for a June morning is way colder than normal. After over a week in the 80s, we're not used to it anymore.
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Not too bad up here today, did a bit of gardening but the high winds made a bit of a mess of my flowers, breaking some of the taller plants off half way down. Luckily the Peonies are not out fully yet as they get quite large and heavy. Not had time to do my patio planter boxes yet. I love flowers in the garden as much as I love flowered dresses and panties. The large Lilac tree by my front door has a wonderful scent right now that you can smell when you go in and out and it is also by my office window so at night with a small breeze it wafts in the window.
When we have tea or lunch on the patio I cut some branches of it for a vase in the middle of the table. In spring and summer I can put flowers on the table often but in winter they are too expensive. When I was little living in England, I would put on one of mommies ruffled aprons and go in the garden my father planted to help cut flowers. He had a wonderful green thumb and grew so many beautiful flowers. When we came to Canada we rented apartments for a few years so we did not have one until we bought a house. By then my father was too busy with work to plant anything so at age 11 it was my job and I loved it. I would also be employed by all the widows in the street to help with their gardens and cottages in the spring and summer. I was a very busy boy and some of them had grandaughters my age to go swimming with although I was a little more interested in their swim wear and on some occasions I got to try them on if they were hanging in the bathrooms or cabanas.
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Was a few on & off drizzles & cloudy all day yesterday, with several hours of no rain. Got down to the 40s overnight & maybe will go down to 42 F tonight. Today they're expecting sunny & in the 60s F.
After tonight it will be nighttime lows in the 50s F & daytime highs of 60-70F. Very spring, April-like weather... wait a minute... It's June!
Yesterday the sidewalks actually dried out for a while by the time my UPS package came with a wifi router for me to review. So I was able to go downstairs in just my socks & outside to the front of the building to get it. It's a fad in my building. It seems everybody goes down the stairs or through the hall in their socks to answer the door when there's no snow outside.
I don't like anyone to wear shoes inside my place for fear of stepping on the cats. Without shoes you can actually feel stepping on their toes or tails before you hurt them or feel your toes bump them before you trip over them. Cat's, more than other pets have a nasty habit of cutting right in front of you when you're walking, & not looking down. And because they can be totally silent, you won't always hear them nearby. You can be busy, & step just one step backward, & there's unexpectedly a cat there.
If you're carrying something, especially something big or heavy, they will cut right in front of you & stop, forcing you to almost step on them or fall over them! They think it's something for them, or at least something interesting to investigate & poke at. Esp. boxes or bags of stuff. Even if there's nothing interesting for them inside, they'll love a box or bag to play in.
Yep, since around late fall last year I have another side job as a professional reviewer for a major international store chain. I've always wrote reviews for free about products I've bought just let others know if they were any good or not. Except for Betty's, I'm internationally well known for my reviews, but never made a cent on them.
They were usually reviews for electronics or other tech items, but there are so many reviewers who did the same. But after I got laid off, I started writing a lot of reviews targeted at other disabled & elderly on a frugal budget about cheap eating, survival, & tech for us to survive on very limited budgets & disabilities. Suddenly people were asking permission to republish the reviews, or quoting them.
Then in late fall an international store chain asked me to review stuff for them. No pay, but I get to keep the stuff. Write reviews to get free stuff? Sure I can do that.
About every 2 months they send me a list of a few dozen items to chose 3 of, that they'll ship to review. They were just small packages of junk food, cereal, or cheap trinkets that I don't need. But they were free. The total of the 3 items were only worth about $5-$8. Still, they were free, & I'd use them up anyway, so I'd review them.
The previous shipment, 2 months ago was a medium-size box of regular Rice Kripies, a box of Frosted Rice Krispies, & a box on Nuti-grain energy bars. I was required to write at least 200 words about each one, plus include a photo & video. Photo, video, & 200 words about Rice Krispies? It took some thinking, but I pulled it off, & they loved it.
This month they moved me up a grade. They offered only 1 item to review out of a list of several Remington & Norelco electric razors, & several wifi routers. $50-$150 in value. I selected the most expensive high-end wireless router to review. It listed at most stores for around $150, & I was getting it for free. No pay for reviews, but free stuff is always nice.
I didn't have wireless & don't have a router at home. To get online with my laptop, I have to unplug the DSL's ethernet connection from my PC & plug it into the laptop. I can only get online with the phone by plugging it into the computer's USB port in "tether" mode.
So my phone & laptop are now wirelessly online today. Can't afford a data plan for the phone. Technically the mobile/cell service is expired because I couldn't afford it anymore. But I found a way to still get text & Facebook messages on it free. I could still send or receive calls through the internet in a tether mode hack trick. But with wifi to my home connection, I don't need to tether the phone anymore to have phone calls & get internet on the phone. It was so nice to check my mail, Facebook, & make calls from a "no service" phone this morning while sitting on the toilet on wifi! Kitties seemed annoyed because that is usually a time when that they get some petting & back-scratching while I'm just sitting there.
I love my old Samsung smart phone. It does everything any modern iphone or tablet can. It's been very well used & abused, & still works perfectly.
The battery in the laptop died years ago. Built in 2005, a replacement is rare & expensive at $130. So it's not really wireless anyway because it has to be plugged into an electrical outlet. Still, it's 1 less wire I have to run to it, if I need to get online with it when my PC is busy with too many other projects. Usually these days I just leave to laptop plugged into a TV to use it as a media center.
It is was nice to turn it on today & be able to get online instantly though. I went downstairs to the front of my building today, & was able to pick up the new wireless router with my phone, so it's a pretty powerful router.
The battery is dieing on the phone though. It will last a couple days just receiving text & Facebook posts. But I'm down to less than 20 minutes phone call/talk time, wifi time, & after taking 10 pictures with it, without a flash, the battery is almost dead. The battery lists for $45, but I'm sure if I shop around I could find one for under $10. But I can't even afford to spend $10 for stuff unnecessary for my survival.
On nice days when it's above 40F & not too stormy, or not unbearable hot & humid I try to get downstairs & outside to stretch my legs & get some more exercise... except for days I can't breathe just trying to walk across the room & can't go anywhere. On a good day I sit on the side or front porch for a while too. If breathing is really good, I'll walk down to the corner & sit on a park bench in a nice park-like area for a while.
I'll fill a bottle of cool water, coffee, tea or juice to take with me outside... maybe earphones to play tunes on my phone or mp3 player. If my breathing isn't good enough to get out until the evenings, maybe I'll pour a little vodka in the drink & chill on the porches or back yard with the drink & some nice music in the evening or night.
Can't afford beer anymore, & it's too much weight to get up the stairs for what it's worth with COPD. But I can get 1.5 liters of really good, smooth, Rikaloff vodka for only $13. That's enough to last at least for a couple months.
Sometimes once a week or 2, I'll have some vodka at home in a drink, or have a couple shots of it while listening to nice music, watching a movie, or cuddling & playing with the cats.
Man (or sissy) does not live on bread alone. A drink on a day or night off once a week or 2 probably saves my sanity from being couped up or stuck nearby all the time.
One would think since I got laid off I'd have plenty of free time & cat play time but I don't. I work at home a lot, & force myself to keep a regular work routine even if no work is coming in, or it's a really bad breathing day. It's just that a lot of my work, after expenses ends up earning me $2 an hour or less, or some projects don't get me any money or profit... in the short term.
There's always some old used thing, piece of junk, or something broken I got for free (or almost for nothing) around that can be fixed, rebuilt, or upgraded if I want to spend the time & money on it... or just strip it down for spare parts & hardware.
A couple years ago I took an old 1990s 800mhz HP computer, & turned it into a Linux media center, including a great HDTV movie player (What do you think is running inside that roku box, DVR, or TVO?). My laptop serves that purpose now, plus I have an old duo 1.6ghz that can do the job. So it sat in a closet a long time.
Last winter a nightclub offered me a broken (but repairable) 32" Ocosmo/Scepter TV free. It's the same place I got my 26" Vizio LED/LCD TV for free broken, but fixed it up. As soon as the guy saw I was able to get it started & running for a minute before it died again, he wanted something for it. I traded the old 800mhz Linux media center that don't get used for it. So a couple year later, I did get something nice for all the work I did to it... a nice recent model 32" LED TV. And he's still likes that Linux media center!
A few years ago in my old place, I stored my vacuum cleaner in a room behind my apartment, I discovered someone had removed/stolen the rotor/beater brush mechanism off my very old but robust Kirby vacuum. It was my favorite vacuum cleaner!
Last year someone who didn't have much money needed their old computer fixed. But they had an old Kirby vacuum in their basement. It was water damaged from being down there so the motor & electrics was shot, but the front end, rotor, reusable bag, & power cord were in great shape. The rotor/beater brush sells for $60. So I traded it to fix & upgrade her computer. Her RAM upgrade came from another old & beaten computer I got for free.
So although I'm technically unemployed, I'm always busy working, or on some project, even if it doesn't deliver a big check.
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Feels quite comfortable with the temperature outside already at 77F with the humidity at only 37%. I'm still walking around in a warm (pink) sweatshirt with an undershirt underneath, & heavy jeans since the cool morning, & didn't even notice it was getting that warm. It's probably much warmer than 77F inside. Breathing is a bit rough but much better this afternoon than this morning & last night. Last night it got so bad I had to take a caffeine & grapefruit juice treatment in the middle of the night to make it better. Then the treatment kept me awake until almost dawn. Got up at 9:30am & it was bad again, but it's almost always worse in the mornings when the air & ground outside is the most damp, & my heart hasn't got up to full speed yet. I should start up the AC because cooler drier air makes me breathe better, but I save more money if I can leave it off longer.
They're expecting it to get in the 80s F & very humid/swampy today, but so far, it's fine.
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As the first day of winter is just a little over a week away for the southern hemisphere, you'd think our coldest visitor would be in the far south like New Zealand, or the bottom of Africa, & south America.
Our current coldest visitor is much further north in the mountainous region of La Paz, Bolivia in South America... almost 12,000 feet above sea level. It's currently a clear 34F with a wind chill of 28F. But it will get up to 57F this afternoon, & 61F Tuesday afternoon. A little further south, it's 36F in Santiago, Chile. But by dawn it will be a sunny 31F & he/she will be our coldest visitor.
India's heatwave has passed. It's still pretty hot there, but they don't make out hottest visitors list today. Our current hottest visitors are several from Phoenix, Arizona at 106F at night (after 11:30pm)... and they say it gets very cold at night in the desert - I guess not tonight. It will get down to 83-85F in the pre-dawn hours, then jump up to 108F by the afternoon. But it's a dry heat at only 11% humidity. More like standing in front of a hair drier, than that swampy, sticky heat we get in damper climates near water. It might hit 109F Tuesday there.
In the morning in London it's 52F & partly cloudy. High of 65F expected.
Across the state from me it's a rainy 67F in the middle of the night in NY city. They're expecting an 81F rainy afternoon.
In Tokyo, it's late in the afternoon at 82F.
Sydney 64F & rain.
Melbourne, 59F & partly cloudy.
Anchorage, Alaska 67F, clear. Will be 77F this afternoon as the polar bears sweat to death.
Right now at my house tonight it's 68F, foggy with a chance of rain. But with 98% humidity I'm having breathing difficulties. High humidity is really bad for my breathing. The high today will be 70F with more rain. So I guess once again Alaska is having nicer weather than we are, as global warming continues to push warmer air towards the poles, & cooler polar air down my streets.
Metric conversion: 20F=-7C 30F=-1C 40F=4C 50F=10C 60F=17C 70F=21C 80F=27C 90F=32C 100F=38C 110F=43C 1mile=1.6km 1km=3280 feet
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As the first day of winter is just a little over a week away for the southern hemisphere, you'd think our coldest visitor would be in the far south like New Zealand, or the bottom of Africa, & south America.
Ah Betty, you're using the logic of the Solstace's and equinoxes for your determination of the seasons, which (coming from the UK originally) I tend to agree with.
However, since coming down under, in particular NSW, I have found they start the seasons at the beginning of the month. So June 1st is start of winter (not 21st), 1st Sep start of spring, 1st Dec summer etc.
It does have a certain logic to it as June 21st is the highest the sun reaches on the tropic of Cancer, so could be interpreted as mid-Summer (or Winter). Either way, it's going to get colder before it gets warmer, down here !! Dig out the pink frilly thermals!
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I think the coldest night we had here last winter was -18F (-28C) with wind chills of -45F (-43C). Although the city was spared most of the really deep snow, the southern part of the city, & south of the city they had snow up to second story windows in some parts. 6-12 feet deep snow was typical south of the city.
I'm so used to it, I'd probably melt on a mild spring day in your town.
There's much discussion on the fall & fail of Buffalo since the 1960s. Yes, there was bad politics, bad decisions, & mobsters that contributed to the fall of the town. But Buffalo was big when the primary method of shipping was by boat & rail, & we were in the middle of all of that. Then is got to be the only thing being regularly shipped by boat on the great lakes & other nearby waterways anymore was for the auto & steel industry in the 1960s.
Japanese steel became cheaper & better, & the American auto industry didn't keep up with the times. So when they lost money, people moved out because there was not much to keep them here in winters almost as severe as Alaska, Quebec, & Siberia. So the fall of Buffalo had more to do with our miserable winter climate than anything else.
Unlike the rest of the state, we're right between 2 great lakes & usually right in the middle of those polar vortex streams, so have our own little isolated climate here. No industry would set up or move here if they didn't have to, & many preferred just getting out rather than freeze or constantly dig out of snow & ice all winter.
Sadly, the past couple year's it's been worse than ever. When I consistently, year-round see nicer weather in Alaska than here, the weather & climate has gotten seriously screwed up.
Climate change deniers freeze every winter so say there is no global warming, but don't notice that the poles are melting. It's suddenly got unusually warm in Alaska & Siberia. -18F temperatures, & -45F wind chills are supposed to be up there, not down here. When we were at -18F here it was 36F in Anchorage.
But you know something is up when paved streets in India that been around for decades start melting.
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The Farmer's Almanac is predicting a severe winter with heavy snow, & extreme cold this winter in the N.E. USA. Do they mean worse than last year?
Today we had a second day in a row at almost 90F, with more of the same expected tomorrow. That don't sound hot to most southerners, but being right next door to America's Great Lakes, it's very humid, sticky, & humid. We've had a few rare dry, low-humidity days near 90F this summer. That was much more bearable & comfortable than 80F with very high steamy humidity.
Even moderate humidity makes breathing difficult with COPD. If I want to breathe good enough to just walk across the room without gasping for air, I have to run the AC even on cooler days to the humidity as low as possible. It also helps reduce ozone (positive ions), which is higher on hot humid days & very bad for your lungs. With constantly running air filters to keep the air clean too, its keeps my COPD bearable & survivable so far. Air conditioners & air filters passing air through their fan blades & filters create some negative ions, & discharge the harmful positive ions or neutralize them as well.
Although outside city air makes me breathe worse, I do try to go outside & walk around to get some exercise every day - I do exercise indoors as much as my breathing will allow too. On days my breathing the worst I try to at least go down to sit on the steps or porch outside, or walk around the yard a little. Even during rainy or winter days I try to get outside at least for a little while.
As I do most of my work at home by people dropping stuff of for me to fix or mod, & being stuck inside away from the city air with my climate controlled filtered air to breathe evey day, I'd go nuts like being in prison if I didn't try to go outside when I can.
Since yesterday just stepping out in my hall, I couldn't breathe the hot humid air, & had to go back inside. It'll probably be the same tomorrow.
The S.W. USA is having another heat wave with some areas getting up to 110-120F. Currently our hottest visitors are from Las Vegas at 109F & Phoenix at 107F in the evening. Our coldest current visitors are from LaPaz at 45F & Dublin at 45F (at night there).
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Hi Betty, sorry you are feeling the effects of the humid weather. I have been running my A/C constantly for four days now just to keep the humidity down. Sure hate to think what the hydro bill will be like this month. I have twelve feet of garden doors and a large skylight on the south side of my house that is a heat magnet. It is great in the winter but not so good in the summer so I try to put up a shelter on the deck to shade the doors somewhat. I remember being in Las Vegas a few years ago and it was 104 F but not humid so I didn't mind it too much, in fact it was great for my Arthritis and I did a lot of walking with very little pain in my back and legs.
I remember the good old days in Buffalo in the 60's when my cousin and I would go over the border every weekend to drink in the bars and do some shopping. We would go to a Steak House in Niagara N.Y. for a great steak dinner with a baked potato, salad and beer for only $3.00, It was great. We also went to a club in Buffalo that had a carousel bar in the middle and a cabaret. Those were the days when the Canadian dollar was worth something.
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It's been warmer than usual for about a week, but being right downwind from the Great Lakes, extremely humid & steamy too.
They said it would only be in the low 80s F today, so I was worried my AC might be breaking down because it didn't seem strong enough today. I just found out it's 88F outside, so I guess the AC is fine. The humidity outside went down a little now, but that doesn't matter since I had the AC on full all day. With my COPD, I'm not going out there if I don't have to.
I moved to this smaller place from a much bigger place, so had 2 identical AC units. But only use 1 for this smaller place, & keep the other one in a closet. I got them on sale delivered to my doorstep for only $89.95 each about 8 years ago. So I guess I got my money's worth out of them.
Neither of them had to work as hard in the old place by running 2 of them, plus the old place was naturally cooler, so I needed them less. This place gets unbearable hot on just a moderately warm day even with fans in the windows. But because this place was smaller, I planned on only using 1 AC unit, so I rotated the usage by installing the least used AC unit, & stored away the one that got used to most in the old place - so I'm stretching their lifetime.
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Yeh I hear you about the A/C units. When I first bought my house it was about 900 sq. ft. and one 10,00 BTU window A/C would cool the bedroom and living room pretty good. We mostly needed it for sleeping comfortably but it was a good unit and worked very well. I actually built it myself from spare parts at the company I worked for so it contained some obsolete parts but I knew which were the best parts to install as I worked for Quality Control in those days. I had that unit for 10 years and sold it to a neighbour who had it for another 5 years and I serviced it myself to keep it in top shape. After that I built onto the house expanding it to about 1700 sq. ft. and added central air and a new furnace. That was in the mid eighties and I just replaced the furnace and A/C last year for more modern efficient units.
I was trying to work outside today but the humidity was bad and I got a bad headache so I went indoors and lay down for awhile. I can only guess how you feel in this weather but at least you have the A/C to make it a bit easier. I often wondered how the cats survive with fur coats. Mine would go down to the basement where it was cooler and curl up in a chair until we came home from work. I hear cooler weather is coming and even though I like summer, I think Spring and Fall are my favourite times. If I get cold I can wear tights and a sweater.
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Headaches can be a sign of oncoming heatstroke, Co or Co2 poisoning, or O2 deficiency. In hot humid weather you absorb less O2, & air pollution stay closer to the ground. Ozone levels are usually higher, & closer to the ground in hot humid weather too, causing breathing problems, & possible lung damage.
The weather just said since they started record keeping in 1890, we never had so many days in a row in the 80s F in September. It seems every year recently we're breaking a lot of weather records by a dramatic amount, plus coming close to some records made 60-100 or more years ago all the time.
Yet the deniers still swear there is no climate change, or it's all natural changes. Don't these people ever watch or read the news, or are they just watching 1 channel & reading only 1 paper for all their news?
By getting all your news just from people that agree with your opinions, you're not getting all the news & the whole truth. One may not always agree with the truth, & the truth isn't always pleasant, but by putting your head in the sand, denying & ignoring the truth won't make it go away.
If you don't keep yourself open & listen to other people's opinions, how can you possibly form an intelligent opinion of your own? Never have a favorite news channel or newspaper. You must get your information from many sources, so you can hear all sides of a story, & objectively discover the truth.
Climate change deniers are only widespread in the USA, it's are incredibly rare everywhere else in the world.
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Autumn has been merciful in my town. With summer-like temperatures today & tomorrow. But last week we had near hurricane force winds for a couple hours. Before & after those few hours though, it was just a real windy day. We have 1 1/2 months of autumn to go yet. Let's see if our luck holds out.
Meanwhile in some areas of Western USA states they've already had a bit of snow.
Our current coldest visitor is in Anchorage Alaska where it's 29F (-1.7C) while our hottest visitor is in Honolulu at 88F (31C).
This evening it's clear & 64F (18C) in my town & London, 63F in San Francisco & NYC, 41F (5C) in Moscow, & a rainy 63F in Melbourne. For the first time in a long time, the majority of our visitors are having pretty close to the same temperatures outside at the same time... but not all of them.
Not getting used to the clock change. Never get used to it being dark by or long before dinner time. The kitties know when it's their usual dinner time, even if the clock says they have an hour yet.
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Still nicer than normal temperatures around here for November. But it's no wonder this very long thread started in 2014. Winter weather dramatically changed worse in my area, which was already internationally known a rough area in the winter. Not quite like Sibera until recently.
I remember taking regular trips far North to Quebec city for their winter festivals. It was so cold up there, that I was glad our winters weren't that cold all winter. The festival was a fun visit every year, but I didn't want to live through the whole winter there because it was too damn cold. I was used to it more than most though because in my earlier years, I got shipped up there to do work year-round even for weeks in winters. But Quebec is no longer is colder than our winters thanks to those vortexes.
Maybe because I'm so used to cold, is why I can't take much heat well. My metabolism just isn't built for it. Anybody who has ever cuddled up to me remarks that I give off heat like a furnace. Handy on a cold night but not comfy in the hot summer.
On the news today, 2 large snowflake icons show up on a large world map that a society of the nation’s meteorologists compiled to indicate the most extreme winter weather in the world during 2014.
One icon over the Himalayas & one over my town. We rivaled the Himalayas for the most severe winter weather in the world for 2014.
The entire upper Midwest USA & Great Lakes region is covered by the icon, so it wasn't just my town but the entire area was hit by these pesky polar vortexes.
The year 2014 in Buffalo began under the chill of the polar vortex, followed just days later by Blizzard No. 1.
Then, Blizzard 2.0 came March 12.
And, then after a six-month delay - also known as the Buffalo spring-summer-fall – the double lake-effect snowstorm of November 2014 arrived. Luckily my area of town wasn't hit with as much snow as north, south, & east of me... to the west is, Lake Erie.
But it wasn't just the snow but the extreme cold over the past few winters, where Alaska was warmer most winter & spring days, rivaling polar, Siberian, & Himalayan temperatures. Indeed, many winter days they recorded warmer temperatures at the North pole than in my town. If it happens this winter again, I expect Eskimos & polar bears to move in.
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Dec 14th - 70F outside in Buffalo, NY!
Warmer than Los Angeles (52F), San Francisco (48F), Las Vegas (43F), Phoenix (47F), New Orleans (66F), Honolulu (69F), Mexico City (63F), Melbourne (63F), New Delhi (53F), & Rome (52F).
This is getting scary. You know when the cold air finally does blow in over those extra warm "Great Lakes", we're gonna get some serious "lake effect" snow storms & blizzards. Most of our snow comes from "Lake Effect" where cold air blows over the warmer huge lakes (larger than most states & many countries), & generates shitloads of snow.
Since November most days have been much warmer than usual, with only a few serious wind & rain storms. This time of the year last year, the southern most part of the city was buried under 4 feet of snow, & just south of the city line there was 3-6 yards (almost 3-6 meters) of snow since November. I was lucky. In the Allentown arts district, just outside of downtown, we only got a couple inches of snow in my neighborhood back then. But 2 years in a row it was frightfully cold, rivaling Arctic & Antarctic weather during winter.
Although it was unseasonably cold through spring 2 years in a row, with snow still on the ground in April, we've had no snowfall this season yet. Usually by around Halloween we've had at least a few sprinkles of snow. As of last week we officially broke all records since the 1800s for the longest time in a row that Buffalo has gone without even 1 snowflake of snow.
Not that I miss all that cold & snow, but these wild swings in climate over the past few years is scary. I see it has a definite very bad effect on nature & the wildlife. Just the veiw from my windows I see less than 10% of the birds, squirrels, & stray cats we did just 3 years ago. The over 100-200 year old trees I'm surrounded with are still fine, but they never get as bushy & full as they used to. Outdoor bugs around here are much less too... which some of the birds need to eat.
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Well, we broke another weather record as the high temperature of the day topped of at 71F, beating the highest temperature ever recorded in December before at 64F in 1901.
Snow expected Thursday night or by the weekend, with a low of 28F expected Friday & Saturday night. A 43 degree difference in just a few days. Crazy climate!
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Mid Summer here and our weather is the opposite to yours about 96 F today and over 107 F by Saturday.
I only wish I could get away with wearing a nice cool silky dress or even girls cullottes as mens clothes are really too hot and restrictive for this weather.
Luv Jeangurl :-[
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I thought mid-summer there was sometime in January & spring should just be ending for you in a week.
Wow. My weather feed from there is way off. It's showing that it's currently is 81F at about 4:30pm there (12:30am my time). Isn't it usually the hottest there this time of the year between 2-5PM? It shows the high was 77F yesterday.
My weather feeds shows it should be in the mid to upper 90s there Thur-Sun, cooling down to 69F Mon, & a chance of rain Sun. & Mon. Are my international weather feeds BS, or is some of it close?
Our current hottest visitor over the past couple hours came from Bangkok at a very humid temperature of 90F, making it feel like a very sticky 98F. Our coldest is from Edmonton Canada at a bone chilling 11F. They're expecting 6F overnight, with no snow expected this week. But that's nothing compared to the 0F or colder we had in March, & -10F with -45F wind chills here in Feb. The north pole & Siberia was actually warmer than Buffalo in most of Feb. 2014 & Feb. 2015.
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It's still been unusually warm here for December. It got up to the low 50s F today, & it's currently 48F. But just a couple days ago we had overnight lows in the 20s F. I was surprised near the beginning of the weekend to see on the national news that Buffalo got a lot of snow - - with deep snow in the pictures! Those most have been file images of previous year's snows or images from some distant town miles south of the city.
Living in the middle of the city, let me assure you we had no snow since April! However the airport miles east of the city did report one tenth of an inch of snow this past weekend.
We're expecting 63F tomorrow breaking all records for December, & 60F Thursday. But we'll only have a high of 48F for Christmas.
Lots & lots of clouds, & very little sun these days. With COPD I'm almost a prisoner in my home, because I can't walk far without getting out of breath. I also breathe worse outside, esp. on damp or humid days. With only 2, 3x5 foot windows, & a 12x18 inch window in the bathroom., it's almost like night in here on very cloudy days. This far north, we only get about 8 hours of decent daylight a day in winter. All my windows face north too, so it's even less daylight.
Fortunately, I stocked up on a deal on daylight CFL light bulbs right after the fire. So I can keep the place lit up bright for less energy than just one of my 2 air filters in the house consume. These were a quality brand that would last around 9 years of continuous use at room temperature. So the few that died, I still have lots of spares for. Because they lasted so long, I never got LED lighting except for battery operated lights & my Christmas lights. Except for the most expensive AC powered LEDs, I find they don't last nearly as long as they promise, or grow too dim to be useful in a short time. Some are even shock & fire hazards.
I don't really keep the place bright much though. For most purposes, a single 4 or 9 watt CFL in the main room, & a 4 watt one in the bathroom is all I need. But I'll turn on more light when doing projects to see better. When doing my hair & shaving in the bathroom I may turn on up to 20 watts of CFLs, which would be very bright in there.
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They are talking near or above 70 degrees F (21 C) on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the New York/Northern New Jersey area, which is crazy warm. Average high is about 45 F (7 C). I was out in short sleeves and sandals and no jacket this evening. And while I don't put too much faith in long range forecasts, they're saying right now that New Years Eve in Times Square will be above freezing.
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They had on the news that some plants are flowering outside because they think it's spring. Some trees have buds on them. They said because of it, there will be less flowers when spring gets here. Less flowers means less fruit, seeds on them, less food produced, less bees, & less for wildlife to eat.
When it does finally get cold plants & wildlife won't be ready for it anymore. It wasn't just a few days of unusually warm weather, now it's been a couple of months of it being warmer than normal.
All this dampness & high humidity is making my breathing terrible. I'm hardly getting anything done.
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Hey Betty, I drove down a street the other day and there were yellow Dandelions growing at the side of the road on somebodies lawn and yesterday I saw a large flock of geese flying North.
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We had some sun yesterday for a change. I would have loved to go downstairs outside, walk around the property, yard, or sit on the porch for a while. But my breathing wasn't good enough for me to want to bother trying to make it down & back up all those stairs.
Still, is was nice to see the sun shining from my windows while working on my new, my used computer. Too many dark gloomy days in a row can be depressing.
Cloudy & 47F here on Christmas. Breathing has not improved yet, but sometimes it's better by later in the afternoons.
Mon. night they say it will go down to 27F & snow. Tue. it will be back up to 40F & rain.
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Have been away from the computer for awhile, had to go out of town for Christmas but it was nice to drive and not battle too much traffic and bad weather at the same time. The grass along the highways is a wonderful green again and as with all the plants, they think Spring is here. They are saying it will be very bad for the Niagara fruit industry this year when the freezing temps hit it will kill all the buds and limit fruit production. :(
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Hope you can manage to get through this crazy weather system and breath easier. Merry Christmas, luv Angela M...
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We had a relatively fair fall & beginning of winter until now. But winter was only a couple weeks old. It's 12F outside with a wind chill of 7F. About an inch of snow on the ground. A 35 degree temperature drop in less than a week. Had to slip on my thicker winter socks because my floors were too cold. Interestingly, the toilet seat wasn't cold at all this morning, the wind & draft must be blowing in the right direction.
The bathroom has no heat source or heat vents. So the only heat it gets is what drifts through the door from the rest of the apartment, unless I turn on a portable electric heater in there. But it isn't far from the kitchen, which gets very warm with just a little cooking.
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Hey Betty, it is pretty cold here too, well we are not that far from each other really. My old mom had a small heater in her two piece bathroom in her bedroom as there was no heat in there and she would get up at night to use it. The room was my old bedroom when I lived at home but there was a closet where her bathroom is now. In the back of it was a secret panel that I could remove and crawl into the attic and hide all my girly stuff. I had all my panties,tights a leotard and plastic panties as well as a blouse and pleated schoolgirls skirt and my winter tights. There were also some kinky drawings I did and some Rubber wear catalogs from Britain and magazines. When I moved to Toronto for a job I lived with my aunt & uncle sharing a room with my cousin so I could not bring those things with me. I would go home every few weeks and was surprised one time when the room was taken over by my parents and they had turned the closet into a two piece bathroom. The panel was still there but not easy to access so when they were out I managed to get back there and discovered that my things were gone. As dad did all the work I figured he must have found it but there was no lecture or mention of the box and the things inside. Since my late teens I wondered if he did find it and I looked many times in the past few years after he passed away and mom got older and very forgetful. After she passed away I tore out the wall when I was cleaning the house and crawled through half the attic just to make sure the box did not get pushed aside but it was gone. For forty years I have wondered if they were going to confront me about it someday but that never happened. I really would have loved to find that box and the things in it, if they were in any condition to find that is.
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It's very odd that so many homes & apartments this far north are designed with no heat source in bathrooms. Even on days the bathroom wouldn't be unbearably cold, the water pipes for the bathroom, between the walls & under the bathroom were much colder, so could freeze or burst. Then they located most of these unheated bathrooms on the far end or corner of the dwelling, so even if they did have heat, they'd still be the coldest room in the house. Then the pipes would be run inside an outside facing wall so on a day like this, they would almost always freeze.
You wouldn't logically think the bathroom should be a room without heat or poorly heated anyway. We probably spend more time naked, half naked, or barefoot in the bathroom than any other room in the house. Pant's down on the cold toilet, or naked washing, & barefoot if you want to clean your feet too. And if you're wet, you'd feel 10 times colder. I guess the design logic was that it was much warmer & nicer than an outhouse so didn't need heat. But outhouses didn't have running water, & people didn't wash, shower, or shave in them.
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49F (9.4 C) outside. Sunday afternoon they say it will be 52F (11C) with rain, then Sunday evening 20F (-7C) with snow. By the end of that week they say our snow will be measured in feet instead or inches.
Breathing was terrible all day yesterday, through the night, & this morning. But once the humidity dropped down a bit this afternoon, I'm breathing much better now.
Our current hottest visitor is from Miami where it's a partly cloudy 83F (28C). Our current coldest visitor is from Winnipeg where it's -9F (-23C) & partly cloudy.
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Here in Adelaide South Australia its going to be about 100 F (38c) TODAY but a few weeks ago we had a max of 45c now that was hot and one could only dream of wearing a gossamer dress and be cool. :-[
Love Jeangurl 8)
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Some weather peeps tend to exaggerate for the hype, drama, & ratings or they don't measure right. Placing a thermometer directly in sunlight doesn't measure the air temperature. It absorbs the radiant heat of the sun when placed in the sun, so is only measuring the temperature of the thermometer, not the air.
My international feeds are showing you're at 90F, with a high of 91-93F expected. But it's a nice dry heat, not that sticky swampy stuff like we get in damp areas, or downwind from lots of hot water in the summer.
It looks like you should be getting a significant cooling down by Thur., & of course you always have cool comfy dry nights.
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Winter arrived today. 28F & falling. It was 50F just a little over 12 hours ago. Most of the snow will hit south of the city & the southern part of the city, miles from me in the Allentown Arts district of the city. With advanced COPD, I can't go anywhere anyway. On a good day, I have to take breaks to catch my breath just going up & down the stairs. On a bad day, it's just as bad breathing heavy trying to walk to the bathroom. High winds expected so I just hope the power stays on.
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In Ontario, we had rain most of the day and although I didn't go out I did stick my head outside when I heard the high winds and a garbage can rolling down the driveway. The temp had dropped quite a bit from this morning and it was starting to snow but by about 3:00 PM it was freezing on the cars and windows and starting to collect on the deck. By supper time we had some snow staying on the ground and I just looked outside and it is snowing again but larger flakes this time and about an inch on the ground. Yes Betty winter is here so the tights come back out again I think.
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Didn't get as windy as they said it would. Only a light sprinkle of snow snow far, most of the ground is still bare. 21F. But they're still saying more later.
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Hi Betty,in slough berkshire ukit is 8.07 am and is wet ,but luckly we have had no snow,i have to open my place up at 6am every day and so far we have had ice and ttemp going down too 2c ,but still no snow,so you could call me luckly ,however i like snow allot so that i can put on my boots and rain wear and enjoy myself
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Very cold and Ice on everything Monday morning but the sun came out later in the day and melted some of it. Later that night it started snowing again here and very cold again. Despite living in Canada most of my life I do not like the cold snowy weather anymore. No longer a skier or skating any longer either so it holds no interest for me now. During the winter days I do my housekeeping chores and in the evening when not on the computer I am curled up in bed watching a video and reading my books. I have gotten into the routine of a retired person at least until Spring when I can go out walking again.
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Well of course woke up to snow and ice all over the car and about 2 inches on the ground. Had to go out so out came the car brush and shovel. At least it was light snow and easy to push aside until you get to the end of the drive by the road where the plow has pushed it all in a bank. While the car was defrosting and the window ice melting I shoveled away the dreaded white stuff. Not an easy feat when it is blowing around you and by the time I had returned home it looked like I had done nothing. Oh well we live in Canada so I guess we should not complain. It is still snowing and blowing around the house and has been most of the night. I made a big pot of potatoe soup for supper and a fresh baked baguette and settled in front of the fire. It is the only good thing about this cold weather, oh and wearing my thick wooly tights.
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As of this afternoon we still had less than an inch of snow. There were plenty of spots of bare ground around. Later this afternoon & evening we just got a couple more inches. Currently 17F (-8C). There goes my heating bill. To save on energy, I've already got used to wearing heavier clothing inside so I can stay comfy with the heat turned down lower.
Just like previous years, I keep the heat extra low, & have an electric radiant (reflective) heater nearby pointed at me so it's a little warmer in the area around where I'm hanging out, rather than waste a lot of heat blowing all over the place. I keep one in the bathroom too. Kitties don't seem to mind the cooler temperatures at all. They like it cooler & can't take much heat. Because of my COPD, it's rare the place gets very hot in the summer (heat & humidity is bad for COPD), so they were raised in a place that has AC running on the hottest days, that I let get down to the 50s or 40s overnight in the winter when I'm cozy under blankets.
Haven't got used to turning it down that low yet. I'm getting used to it gradually. Got it down to 60F awake, & 55F sleeping, but it's a lot warmer near a nice electric heater. I don't leave that on overnight though, because I'm warm under blankets.
It's not cheaper to heat electrically, but it is a lot cheaper to heat a small area you're sitting around in to be comfy, that make the whole place warm.
On the national news, again they show white-out conditions, deep snow, traffic bans, & school closings for Buffalo. Nope. Didn't happen. They're showing areas like Dunkirk & Fredonia about 40-45 miles SW of Buffalo, too far away too even be considered a suburb of Buffalo. You have to drive through farm country, & undeveloped wilderness to get there.
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Well with the snow we got there were 13 accidents just in my area on Tuesday, with people going too fast. That's 13 single car accidents where people slid off the road or into something or someone. You can't cure stupid. I saw an idiot in front of me sliding all over the road because the tires on the truck had very little, if any tread left on them. I stayed well back so I was not involved if he did go into the ditch but he was just lucky nothing happened because he was driving like an idiot all over the road. It is times like that when I wish I had that spear gun the Police used in Fast & Furious to kill the cars electrical system. I would use it often just driving around here on any given day.
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Hey Betty, I use my gas fireplace like you use the radiant heater. I keep the rest of the house in the low 60's and just have the gas fireplace on low to heat my family room when we are in it. We also keep the ceiling fan on low to circulate the heat away from the high ceiling in there and help to send it into other parts of the house. I have 12 feet of sliding doors in this room and when it is sunny (south facing room) the radiant heat from the glass helps to warm that room and the back part of the house quite a bit but in the evening the heavy curtains are pulled across with an insulating blanket hung over the doors also. I was going to put European style insulated Rollag shutters on the doors but the cost was huge so I found another way. Friends have these shutters on their windows and doors at their cottages so they just roll down like garage doors when they leave and they are well insulated and tamper resistant. I have never heard of anyone having the cottage vandalized or broken into with these on but they are a big expense. Maybe there is a cheaper insurance rate if you install them, I should check into that.
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That's 13 single car accidents
It seems like every winter people gotta learn how to drive in snow & ice all over again. Miraculously, they've seemed to have forgotten how in just a year. I don't care if they have 4WD. We all have 4 wheel brakes, so they can't stop or control their 4WD any better than we can control our 2WD. They can just go & crash faster with 4WD.
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We got a couple inches of snow before dawn yesterday. With the wind blowing it around, there were mostly bare spots in our yard, but places about 6 inches deep in the yard next door. It's already 30F before dawn here, & they say it will get up to 44F (7C) today, so all of that stuff will melt.
By Sunday night they say it will go down to 16F (-9C) with more snow, & down to 12F (-11C) Monday night.
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The snow had all melted by Saturday morning. Today is getting much colder again, with lots of snow expected later this afternoon.
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Brrr. Floors suddenly got cold as it dips down to a windy 16F outside with a wind chill of 1F! Had to wear my thicker winter socks again. Won't be sitting on the floor playing with the kitties for a while. What little snow we had last week was all melted away by Sat. morning. It looks we got about a half a foot more today.
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Once again the weather peeps become drama queens on the news for the hype & ratings, rather than do their job & report the facts.
It started earlier today when they reported on camera outside that we had white-out conditions downtown. On camera, I can see 2 blocks down the street. It was a common snow flurry, not a white-out. With white-out conditions, you'd hardly be able to see across the street. During the live newscast, I look out my window. I see the top of a building 2 blocks away. No white-out here, just a couple miles from downtown either. Just a snow flurry.
Tonight on the news, the drama queens are reporting how lucky this "storm" & "emergency" conditions happened on Sunday instead of Monday. What storm? What emergency? They were reporting live outside. In the background you can clearly see no snowbanks except a couple real tiny ones, & only a few inches of snow on the ground... meanwhile, on camera, it was not snowing at all. I got about 4-6" of snow in the yards around here.
Then they report city crews worked hard & tirelessly around the clock to have all the snow cleared off the streets by Monday. WTF are they talking about? It was a snow flurry & we got only 4-6" of snow. If the city crews did NOTHING, it would have made absolutely no difference to us at all Monday with only 4-6" on the ground.
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Breezy 13F (-11C) with a wind chill of -2F (-19C)! Overnight & morning lows in the teens expected for at least a week. I guess the polar vortex is here to stay for a while, but I'll be extremely pissed off if it's still in the 20s F in April again.
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10F (-12C), wind chill -4F (-20C) this morning. There goes all the money I saved on heating energy last month. Meanwhile in Anchorage, Alaska, it's a toasty 25F.
Our hottest visitor was in Bangkok where it is partly cloudy & a humid 90F, making it feel like 100F. Our coldest visitor, once again is in Winnipeg at -9F.
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Mmmmmm.....Sunday morning we woke up to -12degrees and windy. Its been below zero here for well over a week now.
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Are you talking C or F or win chill, or just the pre-dawn hours? I'm seeing 22F there & my weather trackers didn't pick up any below zero F temperatures in the lower 48 states this week, but with the high winds earlier this week, there were many below zero wind chills. 0C isn't that bad because that's only 32F. I don't even bother putting on a coat at 5C unless I'm gonna be outside for more than a half an hour.
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uk has been at -3c for the last few days and i feel it allot espically as i am getting up at 6am every morning too open my friends shop
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Pre-dawn & dawn are usually the coldest part of the day not the middle of the night. We get more visitors from the London area & it's suburbs than any other city in the world (NYC is a very close second place). I see it's currently -5C (23F) there. Yep, that's cold for London. Even though they're further north than my town, the warming effects of the gulf stream help keep their winters a little warmer than ours.
But they'll have highs in the teens C (50s F) by Friday again. They're expecting up to 6C (42F) for Thur.
Our current hottest visitor is in Sydney at 93F (34C). After today, things will cool down to the 80s & 70s (20s C) for the next 2 weeks... unusually cool for this time of the year down there. Our coldest visitor is in Fairbanks at 2F (-17C). They're expecting -19F (-28C) by dawn there. Friday night they're expecting a wind chill of -30F (-34C).
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The east coast of the USA continues to get slammed by a big snow storm. Areas normally too warm south of us to get much snow most of the winter have or will get a foot or more of it.
The snow totally missed us in the Allentown Arts district of Buffalo. No additional snow, so it's only a few inches of old snow around here. But it's still very cold, fortunately there is less wind today to make it worse. 18F (-8C) with a wind chill of 8F (-13C).
By Sunday it may get up to 30F (-1C), & maybe 40F (4C) by Tuesday.
Our current hottest visitor is from Bangkok at only 82F (28C). Our coldest visitor is from Moscow at 1F (-17C).
46F (8C) in London. 27F (-3) in NYC. We get more visitors from those 2 cities (or their suburbs) than any other area in the world.
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Hey Betty, so glad you didn't get all that snow. Like you it is pretty cold out up here too so I have stayed indoors most of the day. I did venture out for milk and bread and to check my Loto numbers though. I am still poor but hoping as usual to win something tonight. I just hate the cold weather now even though I loved it when I was younger. I have not been skiing or skating for some years now and not sure if I should try the skating again as my doctor says my hips are weak and could break easily if I fall. I miss gliding along the ice and showing off my moves but old age puts limitations on a persons body. The friends I had that were into Ballet in Toronto have all retired to teaching these days and I am out of touch now. One of my favourite pastimes was watching the dancers at the National Ballet during their practice or better yet the students at the National Ballet School. I have great admiration for them as it was brutal just seeing their pain and injuries to their feet. Ballet is not really for sissies if you are a dedicated dancer. Stay warm with your kitties Betty and lets hope spring is not too far away.
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A little chilly this morning inside, but I'm not turning up the heat anymore. I've probably already used more heating energy than I can afford. They say it will get up to 30 outside today, so it should get a little warmer inside too. Cooking up some soup & coffee soon should heat up the place a bit too.
DO NOT Shovel or blow snow if you're over 60!!!
Get a friend, neighbor, or family member to do it. If they can't get there right away, just wait. What's your hurry? It's not worth your life!
Every storm, including this one, I read about people needlessly dieing clearing snow. If you have a snow blower, will you have to lift the machine off or out of it's storage area when it weighs more than you do? Will it be easily manageable in deep snow, up a hill, or breaking up a snow bank? The effort to pull the pull-starter a dozen times to get it going in the wind, cold, & heavy clothes can kill you.
May I suggest those lightweight small electric blowers. They really do a good job for a small machine, & will probably outlast the gasoline one. They're a lot cheaper too, & you won't have to run out for more gas. No noise either. Don't worry about running over the cord, you get used to the wire very quickly. We're not reading about anybody dieing by running over a blower cord or trying to get an electric started. Most are equipped with an unbreakable nylon impeller blade, so even if you do run over the cord, it usually won't damage it.
If you can't find anyone to do the snow, call your local church, community center, or community aid service for help or advice.
On the news today:
Three of those who died while shoveling were New Yorkers — men aged 67, 78 and 80 — in Queens and Staten Island, the authorities said. Two more were on Long Island, a 61-year-old man in West Hempstead and a 94-year-old man in Smithtown whose body was found next to a snow blower, the authorities said. A sixth shoveling death occurred in Maryland, where a 60-year-old man died of a heart attack on Saturday.
And please drive carefully. One mistake by you or another driver can turn you into a pile of smashed up mush.
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Hey Betty, I have an electric start but the machine is so big and cumbersome that even with power assist drive and steering you get tired after a short while. I have been trying to find a willing teen in my area that I could teach to use it but so far no luck. We do have a city program for seniors that will pair you up with a teen but I never had any luck last year and did not call them this year. I have a new neighbour who looks to be in his forties so I may make a deal with him to use my snow-blower to clean both our drives and walks. I have not really met him yet as he seems to work out of town and is gone by 6 AM and home by 6 or 7 PM so he doesn't have much time for snow clearing. I did read about all the deaths due to the snow and so I do take it easy when I do it myself.
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Toro Powercurve 1800 all electric blower.
I bought mine in 1997 & it still runs great after dealing with many severe winters. No snow is too deep after you learn a few tricks with it. But a tall solid snowbank across your driveway made by the city plows, may have to be chopped & broken up with a shovel a little for the blower to blow it. It will not chop or blow large blocks of ice, but as long as you don't force it too hard to do so, hitting a big chunk of ice, or even a bottle or can buried in the snow won't break it. It will also blow most garbage, leaves, & small twigs hidden in the snow.
Don't be fooled by its small size. It does great work.
I used mine in commercially to clear the place I worked at for 16 years. Almost a city block of clearing snow, including a parking lot & patio, plus used it every place I lived until I moved in this new place.
I had to replace the impeller blade around 2007. It was easy to replace myself, & only cost a little under $10. The metal plates on the sides of the chutes, & the screws holding them on started showing rust after about 10 years. So I cleaned them up, repainted them with Rustolium paint, & bought new screws from the hardware store for about $2.
Every spring I would clean it off, & every fall I coat the metal plates with WD-40 to rust protect it.
I paid $199 for mine in 1997. Best snowblower I ever used. I can lift it with 1 hand. With a 120 foot cord, I just plug it in anywhere, & I'm ready to go.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Toro-Power-Curve-18-in-Electric-Snow-Blower-38381/202218973
http://www.amazon.com/Toro-38381-18-Inch-Electric-Blower/dp/B003FIQKYO
http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4480136
http://www.truevalue.com/product/Electric-Snow-Blower-18-In-1800-Power-Curve/25059.uts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiUz7TVBmGg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiUz7TVBmGg
Similar:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YYPR9F6
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00W8YAVXM
http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B008FHF91A
I had a friend who bought a newer model a few years ago that had a problem with the handle switch. It was easily fixed, but it comes with a full warranty & can be exchanged at the store for one without the defect. I've read the bug in the handle has been corrected on new models.
I had a problem with the cord falling out of the receptacle on the handle. So I tied the cord to the handle so I don't accidentally knock it out. I also wrapped duct tape around it to keep it in solidly. When I roll up the cord, I keep it attached. I place it on top of the blower, & keep it stored with the blower. 120 foot cords are pretty cheap these days.
With no outdoor outlet, I used to run the cord right out the window, & lightly close the window on it. The small window gap for a short time didn't loose too much heat inside. I used to tie the cord to a chair or table leg inside to it don't get yanked out of the outlet.
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I'm actually surprised the east coast is so crippled by only 17-29 inches of snow, with places or schools closing, driving bans, lots of people having accidents & some dieing. Around here we would consider 24-30" of snow a quite ordinary day, & nothing would close down for it. I guess it depends what you're used to.
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Amish horses tow big truck out of snow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlyDkpYHR70
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Sometimes the old ways are the best. We have a lot of Amish on farms just north of where I live. When taking drives in the country we often see them tilling the land with horse and plow and riding in their buggy's to Church. Quite often we will see the children dressed just like Little House, out playing in their gardens or at their roadside stands selling fruit,vegetables and cut flowers. One of our favourite places to eat is a Menonite restaurant north of Kitchener, that serves family style meals and wonderful soups and baked goods to make a person drool, (well me at least). I can never go there just for just a meal, I always come home with fresh bread and a pie or two. Their prices are very reasonable and the portions are very large. You can choose two kinds of meat from a long list and then you get fresh baked rolls and a big bowl of veggies and mashed potatoes and a large jug of gravy just like a family style Sunday dinner. (Sorry if I made people hungry)
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Many privately or family owned rural restaurants (not truck stops) have the best home style or old fashioned food. Their recipes date back before everyone was afraid of salt, butter, MSG, or gluten, & nobody heard of cholesterol. My dad loved that stuff. He died of his first heart attack at 55 after shoveling just 2" of snow off his front step a day before Thanksgiving many years ago. That was back in the days when we didn't know that eating a shitload of bacon was bad for you.
The snow on the video doesn't look that deep. But I see the horses slipping, so there's gotta be a sheet of ice on the road. No salt trucks in most rural areas, so that guy probably towed people out before. He may even be the town's official tow company.
In full screen at 0:21 at the bottom of the screen, you see a totally surprised & confused mouse narrowly escaping being crushed as the horse probably just smashed it's underground nest beside the road. We evolved from something like that, hiding underground during that asteroid impact. He stops after crossing the road to look back. Normally a mouse would have kept running, unless they had a spouse or family member left behind. It's clearly checking back to see if it's mate, kids, or family made it out.
38F, rainy, with no wind here. Was 43F at 11pm. Was sunny all day. Highs at almost or above 30F with lows in the 20s expected the rest of the week. Sure a lot nicer than the teens, or lower & windy. Maybe it won't snow in April again.
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Hey Betty, I remember looking at the Toro electric snow blowers a few years ago but did not think it would handle all the snow we usually got around here. Needless to say the snowfalls have not been that bad in the last year or two so it would have been good and light to handle also. I would be used to the cord as I used an electric lawn mower at my mothers for years and never hit the cord once. She had a very large yard and I had a system for keeping the cord on one side of me at all times. The weather here is pretty mild today and I was going to wash the car but then it started raining about 9 AM so I put it off. The wind picked up later in the day and it started to get colder but was still 35F at supper time and I was hoping the streets and walks would not freeze over due to the rain. I don't mind driving in snow but hate Black Ice as you don't see it until you are on top of it and sliding sideways.
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A sheet of ice just under thin snow is the worst, even when walking. Once you get over 50 or 60 your bones get brittle, so a simple slip on ice could mean broken bones.
Got up to 45F (7C) Tuesday morning. It's 33F (0.5C) now. They're expecting light snow the rest of the week.
Our hottest visitor is 99F (37C) at Alice Springs, our coldest visitor is 20F (-7C) in Minneapolis. London is 55F (13C), NYC is 45F (7C) as they're getting the weather front we just got.
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Yeh I hear you about the broken bones, my doctor told me I am an easy candidate for broken hips if I take up skating again. I just had a bone density test before Christmas and am now taking extra calcium and Vitamin D supplements along with other meds to slow the degeneration down a bit. My Arthritis is getting the better of me in my old age. Sure wish we could relive our youth for a little while but I guess we have the memories. Growing up in the 60's was quite a time for us and I remember hanging out in Yorkville in Toronto with the Flower children. You would have been in Canada back then were you not? With all the people I hung out with and all the drugs around then, I am surprised I did not touch any of it. I never started to smoke either but I did drink a bit too much sometimes. My cousin and I would go to all the parties and scan the chicks and most of the time we could score with the nicest ones as most of the guys were wasted. Oh well that was then and this is now. I must get my old photo's unpacked and go through all the ones I took back then. My cousin sent me a short video of the Toronto of the 60's and it is in fast motion up until the present day. Lots of changes to the skyline now and many of the places we hung out at are long gone.
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We definitely need to be careful as we age. I saw the temperature on my thermometer was 20 degrees this morning and the weatherman spoke of black ice so I wore my cleats when I went out for my walk. And I fell, just like in the movies, my feet went right out from under me. And I was being careful. It would have been so easy to break an elbow. Very scary. Another reason why I hate Winter.
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All the snow & ice melted in my neighborhood by yesterday afternoon. We're expecting a little snow today & tomorrow, but it will melt again when it hits 39F Saturday, 45F Sunday & rains.
Not complaining. We're having a much milder & warmer winter most of the time than we've had in a few years... so far. If it isn't snowing & below 20F for March & April again, I'll be real happy. But that would be too much wishful thinking. There's always at least a little snow on the ground for St. Pat's day since the mid-1970s. Before the mid-70s, it was rare to have snow on the ground for the holiday.
With the high winds we got accompanied by the severe cold though, I probably didn't save anything on my heating bill. Lots of wind outside robs your heat inside just as bad as the cold. On a 40F or warmer day if there's not much wind, I don't even need any heat on, & it stays between 60-70F with a window cracked open because it gets to warm inside. The heat given off by the computers, cooking, making coffee, & heat coming out the back of my ancient refrigerator, keeps the place warm enough on a mild 40F day.
But most of these warmer days are followed by very cold nights. Usually I should be under nice warm blankets by then, but I'm getting in a habit of taking a nap after lunch or dinner, so I'm wide awake in the middle of the night. There's some logic in that too. My internet speeds are much faster at night. Our servers & sites are less busy in the middle of the night, & are faster. So it's easier & faster to work with them, get stuff done, & less of a chance of something crashing. Spammers, & hackers are more likely to attack at night or on holidays when they think whoever is in charge is probably away or sleeping.
Also the middle of the night is the time when nobody would probably come knocking at my door. So it's the only time I get to try on some cool sissy stuff. So I'm becoming a night person.
The cats also like to sleep after lunch & dinner so they won't disturb me during my nap. We usually curl up together after we eat & doze off.
I used to work days & nights. So I'm used to saying up at night. Until COPD, I used to average only about 4 hours sleep a day for decades. On a rare lazy day I would get 6. But with COPD I tire easy now. These days I get about 2 hours sleep after lunch, & 3-4 hours sleep after dinner.
I've been up since 9:30pm after sleeping for 3 hours, & probably take a nap after some soup at lunchtime.
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We've had some remarkable winter weather recently with many days is the 40s & 50s F. This would be considered close to a normal winter for us - - which we hadn't had in a few years. Recently, its been a mix of sunny, & rainy days with many days that were sunny & nice, & dark or rainy all on the same day. Even a few 40s F nights. There used to always be a brief mid-winter thaw this time of the year.
But the warmer, & damper days, brought on higher humidity, wreaking havoc with my COPD. So I haven't been able to get around much without gasping for air, but I keep trying.
Usually every winter, within a couple weeks of the American Football's "Superbowl" game, we have something called an "Indian Summer, were we get a few days or weeks in a row of warmer weather in the 40s-60s F, but I don't know what the Indians have to do with it. It's just a warm blast of air from the south that we used to always get for a brief time, around this time of the year.
We hadn't had an Indian Summer in a few winters. Recent winters around now, it would just be unbearable arctic temperatures & wind chills, where Alaska or the north pole was actually a little warmer than Buffalo. When that nasty vortex blows that cold north air down to us, it's also blowing what should be our warmer air up to the poles, melting them, & causing polar bears to sweat their balls off. I'm sure vortexes around the south pole do a similar thing, But I don't know if Penguins have balls.
We had a little less snow than normal, but so did we last year, but last year just at the southern border of the city, the snow was almost as deep as some houses in the area. My city is located just between 2 great lakes. So when the winds sweep across them bringing snow, it's not unusual for most of it to barely miss the city, but bury everyone just south or north of us. We call them the "snow belt" regions, because they're directly downwind from the lakes so get the hardest of the lake-generated snow.
However if this is back to a normal winter, it probably means temperatures in the low 20s F or below soon, for the rest of Feb. with some snow on the ground in March. If it stays a little warmer though, I won't complain, as long as it don't get too damp & humid so I can breathe better. An unusually warm late winter usually means record-breaking heat in the summer... a scary thought at my age with COPD. If I have a power failure or my AC fails during a heat wave, it can kill me.
Ironically, if we were to have a power failure when it's 0F outside, I can actually survive good enough for about a month with no electricity or any outside goods/resources... as long as my heating gas, & water still runs. My gas heating system is convection type with no blower. It requires no electricity to run it manually without the thermostat. But without electricity, it only knows on & off, but not the temperature. It's a wall unit, probably was designed for a rural cabin or farm house to have the option to run without electricity rather than a city apartment.
I have dry & canned goods that will keep for years without refigeration. Mostly beans, rice, ramen, & dry cat food, but you can survive on it.
I stock up on those items in bulk when they're on sale because they keep a long time without refrigeration. But not just for emergencies. I frequently run out of money. So when I'm broke, it's nice to still have something to eat in stock so I don't have to buy anything. I get a 12-pack of Ramen soup (in dry form) for under $2. If you buy big bags of rice, dry beans, peas, or noodles, it's quite cheap per pound. A dry pound of it, cooked up, makes 5-10 pounds of food. So as long as I can still boil water somehow, I can still eat something.
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The weather is crazy anymore. I went to the dentist today and the sun was shining. The temp. was 60 F and I was loving it but when I was finished I walked out of there without my coat and got to the car before it even dawned on me that I had worn my leather jacket. Rushed back in as they were all leaving for lunch and my coat would have been locked up for an hour before I could get it back. It was so nice to feel the sun on my face I went to the coffee shop near our town square to watch the skaters and of course the ice was melting. There were some die hard skaters on the ice splashing up water though until they were ushered off. It will surely freeze again tonight with the temps. dropping again. I hate the dentist visits, one hour for cleaning and check up $99.00 and my mouth aches the rest of the day. They think I am coming back in 4 months but I have other ideas.
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With no coverage, & limited budget, dentists was one of the first things eliminated from the budget. For many years now, I've had to resort to old school dentistry at home like they used to do it 100-200 years ago. Of course there's no fillings or root canals, so I had to pull a few myself. 3 out of 4 wisdom teeth are now gone. After paying $450 to have 1 removed, I never went back to a dentist again, & removed the other 2 myself when they caused severe tooth aches.
Golly, I'm surprised you have any ice anywhere anymore. You don't live very far from me. All our ice & snow has been gone for over a week now. It all melted away.
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Yes me too Betty, and it is a natural rink too I believe. There was a bit of ice on the river the other day but it is pretty much all gone at this point.
I do have some Dental coverage but it is limited visits and certain things are not covered. They also only allow my visits every 9 months and not 6 as it was when I was working. When you are a senior and need extra coverage that is when they take stuff away. I paid for this visit and if I get a cheque for some of it back I will be ahead but that does not always happen. Just before I retired I had a broken tooth rebuilt and the bill was almost $3000. Luckily I got most of that back but they told me when I retire that type of thing will not be covered anymore. If that happens again I may try your method of dentistry.
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That is at least 1 good thing in uk that the dentist charges are not exspensive for nhs dentist and private dentist are also reasonable.Glasses are good and at least when you are over 60 myou get free prescription medication
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Here in the USA some medications cost $750 per pill while the same stuff costs $10-$20 for a bottle of them in Canada & the UK. The far right conservatives calls it "free enterprise" & capitalism, & that we shouldn't F'k with it. It seems here, the far right is always easily brainwashed by big-money medical companies, & insurance companies. You'd think the insurance companies would be all for cheaper health care. But their goal is to make all medical care unaffordable without their insurance. Unfortunately the insurance premiums are un-affordable for most, or they want the government to pay the $750 per pill for something that is made for a couple bucks per jar.
Don't even try to get your meds cheaper across the borders. If you get caught, they arrest & imprison you.
God forbid if you have to go to the hospital in the USA. They'll charge $50 per pill just for aspirin, ibuprofen, or Tylenol.
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that seems crazy that you have too become rich in usa or have medical insurance for your medication and hospital stay.
Private patients here is getting that way with payments to bupa or Norwich Union costing £100 pm
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And that's WITH Obamacare. Before it was even worse -- which, of course, the far rilght wants to go back to....
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Oh Yes. Almost every far right candidate running for office openly claims they will tear down any & all affordable or free health care plans created by the current administration. Do they want to be elected? Yep, but look at who's funding the campaign - - big money, big corporations, big oil, big insurance, big medical, & big pharmaceutical.
Who are the ones being conned to vote for them? They're conning most of us older people by using our traditional or conservative values to win us over... and we're exactly the people who need affordable care the most.
Unless you're just running for a small town sheriff, or dog catcher, it takes millions of dollars to get nominated, campaign, & get elected to an office here. A few bucks from every interested citizen won't help much compared to the mega bucks a corporation can put up to have the politician do it their way.
There should be limits to how much a candidate can raise & spend on a campaign. That way elections would be decided by the people & the politician's merits, rather by who's funding them. And contributions to any politician, campaign, lobby, or lobbyist from any company or corporation should be outlawed. Contributions only from private citizens should be allowed.
Then they paint a phoney horror picture of affordable care in Canada & the UK, describing it like people are dropping like flies in the street because of inferior health care. They tell stories of people waiting in lines outside hospitals & medical centers for days in the cold waiting to get in. They say people in the UK & Canada are dieing at home because of waiting months for an appointment to see a physician.
Of course if you pick up the news from outside the USA, you don't see or hear that horror. Could it be the rest of the world is lieing, & only the far right conservatives in the USA are telling the truth?
Multimillion & billion dollar corporation heads are in control. They don't care what happens to us, because they have the money, resources, technology, & gold to survive it all. No matter how bad things get, they all stand to profit from it.
What if someday clean safe drinking water cost $10 a gallon? Do you think a well or lake owner will get that money? Nope it will be some corporation who has an almost unlimited supply stockpiled away. They'll tax the private well or lake owner $20 a gallon to make it impossible for him to sell it cheaper, or they'll require so many licenses & permits to sell or distribute it, that only big corporations with a team of corporate attorneys will be able to do it. They'd corner & take over the fresh water market making it almost impossible to afford or get the water from somewhere else.
Even water pollution is to the advantage of cooperations. Then they can charge a lot for what you could have normally get free or cheap. They don't care how many people, plants, or animals live or die as long as they still have plenty safe to eat & drink, & can turn a profit. To most of them we are nothing more than something they can make money on, or something that's a drain on their resources & stock prices that needs to be eliminated quietly, quickly, & efficiently. Even a significant portion of the earth itself is disposable to them if they can't profit on it.
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The conservative voter has been bullshitted by the politicians & companies about affordable care. They've been told it will eliminate their health care plan & insurance. Nope. You can still choose any insurance, doctor, or hospital you want as long as they will have you. You can pay whatever they want if you can too.
Affordable health care means stopping unbearable pain, misery, & saving lives should be affordable to all. Briefly relieving pain & misery a little while or extending their lives until the money runs out shouldn't cost a person, & their loved ones everything they got & worked hard for all their lives.
C'mon voters. This is worse than the inquisition torture of the dark ages, because more are being tortured, & it's all quietly swept under the rug.
Medical corp policy: "Give me 1/4 million dollars from you or your insurance & we'll relieve a little bit of your pain & suffering for a little while, then we'll try to do some basic stuff to save your ass a few weeks until the money runs out or your insurance doesn't expect you to pay premiums for the next 20 years. After that, we will let you die painfully."
But your love ones will see it as a peaceful painless treatment & death. Pumped full of paralysis drugs the victim can't move much. It or conflicts with a cocktail of other drugs usually causes kidney, liver, or other organ failure, needlessly ending in death.
They shove a tube down your throat, even when you don't need it, so you can't scream in pain, complain, or talk, & strap your arms down so you can't struggle. This is why, except for the emergency room, hospitals in the USA are suspiciously & spookily as quiet as a funeral home. The tube procedure, even when heavily medicated, is very painful, is carelessly done by nurses or trainees, causes damage & infection to the most crucial, sensitive & delicate parts of the body.
Medical staff & doctors don't want to see, hear, or witness pain, & suffering. It's too depressing & human for their workplace. they feel it should be quiet & run like a computer or automotive repair shop with the humanity removed. Better to just tie down & silence the sufferer for the peace of the facility, even if it kills them. Even if they survive, they won't remember half of it because it was so traumatic... but it doesn't mean it wasn't traumatically painful.
Remember how you stubbed your toe on that table leg years ago, that hurt so bad you almost cried in pain? Yep. You remember it hurt bad, but don't actually remember the real pain itself. So it seems a mild mistake than the severe ouch. That pain & other pain or mistakes are still there to haunt your mind, but your conscious brain blocks it so you don't remember the pain itself all the time & drive you nuts.
What affordable medical care does try to solve: A single pill of aspirin, tylenol, or ibuprofen shouldn't cost $50 each in a hospital. No life-saving pill should cost $750 each in the USA if you can buy it in a 60 pill bottle of it in the UK, or Canada, for $10-$20 from the same company. It shouldn't cost $10,000-$100,000 a day for a basic bare-bones hospital room. It shouldn't take $450-$7,000 to fix a toothache or pull a tooth.
Stopping serious unbearable pain, & saving lives shouldn't cost 1/4 million dollars or more. Of course it never comes to that, unless they know for sure you can pony up lots of money for a long time. In modern times they just shove the tube down your throat to silence you, & let you die painfully of "unforeseen complications", infection, or organ failure.
Believe me. Although science has advanced, I've seen people survive more comfortably, & longer 30-40 years ago with the same stuff that people suffer terribly & die sooner since about 20 years ago. Since science has advanced, & I don't see this reversal in the UK & Canada, it must be a failure, corruption, & greed of the USA medical system.
I had a brother who had a spot that they thought was cancer on his lungs. He was totally healthy & fit. They decided they had to pull the spot out to inspect it to know for sure if it was cancer. He had the best medical insurance. With his own country home & machinist business, his assets totaled almost a million dollars.
After the operation, when he woke up, with the dreaded & unnecessary painful, infection prone tube down his throat he struggled. They knocked him out & added paralysis drugs. Strapped down, blindfolded, paralyzed for a month. he died of "complications", from a cancer checkup which proved to test NEGATIVE.
That means if he never went to the hospital to have the dot removed & checked, he'd still be alive & fine. That month in the hospital used up all the insurance & used up a lot of my family's & my money.
Mom with COPD went out a similar way at 70 y/o. The insurance wouldn't cover the best treatments, cheaply available in the UK & Canada. The family & I also used up what we had trying to cover what the insurance wouldn't. If she lived in the UK or Canada, she could have made it to 80, & it would have been a more comfy & pleasant life with COPD.
Now it was my turn. I'm not a greedy person. I lived a simple, frugal, but comfortable life. But I worked very hard for very little, including benifits, & causes for little or nothing. Often I worked 50-70 hour work weeks. What kept me going cheap is that I loved my work (remodeling, restoring antiques, tech, lights, DJ/VJ etc.) because I worked for the underdogs who lived & worked the same way (except for the last years of work).
After the fire, in my 50s I lost almost everything. I again, working 50-60 hour work weeks, tried to save up for a modest frugal but comfy retirement by 65.
Then I got the worst flu of my life. I drowned in my own lung fluids causing a heart attack. It caused permanent scar tissue on my lungs, & COPD in one day. Conflicting reports say I died for a little under a minute in the hospital, but also in the ambulance.
In 1 day they cleaned out almost all of my retirement fund. If I didn't offer it up to save my ass, I'm certain I would have been dead by 2012. In the few weeks that followed for medical, they cleaned out the rest, plus had to borrow a shitload of money. When it got too far, I had to stop all treatment & live with my condition like they did 100 years ago, except I had no money left, no way to work well anymore, & in debt up to my eyeballs.
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We had a mild snow flurry yesterday, & got just a couple inches of snow. About half of it melted already, & it's currently 33F. It looks like it will hit into the 40s F Sunday so the rest will all melt away. By Tuesday night they're expecting it to stay between the teens & 20s the rest of the week, with some light snow flurries.
Remember snow flurries? The weather peeps who obsessively make up new names for stuff that we already had names for, now call a snow flurry, a snow shower. Excuse me, I know what a shower is. Almost all of us have one in our bathroom. It's a wet thing. There's no such thing as a snow shower. It's a flurry, not a shower dammit!
Ironically they don't call a wet snowfall (half melted snow or snow mixed with rain) a snow shower. They simply call that "wet snow". So goofy!
Now if only we can get the weather people to say the word "temperature". It's been over 20 years since I heard someone say "temperature" on the weather. They all say "temp" or "temps" now. Are we all supposed to be really impressed & think the weather geeks must be real cool just because they know how to abbreviate? A "temp" is a temporary office worker, usually with secretarial or accounting skills used to help on a temporary project, or just temporarily fill in for someone.
Abbreviations are supposed to be typing & writing shortcuts, you're not actually supposed to speak in abbreviations.
NFL's Superbowl Football is tomorrow. Trying to look cool by speaking in abbreviations has even infiltrated the American football geeks. I'm sure I'll be gritting my teeth by the time I hear someone say "Tee Dee" for the 100th time tomorrow because some sports geeks refuse to say "touch down" anymore. "Tee Dee" is something little girls sing while playing with dollies or dancing like a ballerina.
So now that I brought that up, it will stick in your head. Every time you hear "Tee Dee" tomorrow you'll want to giggle, thinking of Betty's, ballerinas, & girls playing with dolls.
I see another storm cycling into the eastern USA again. Stay warm, drive carefully, & try to enjoy your snow flurries.
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So I have 2 brothers gone now, & 2 brothers still alive, the oldest & the second oldest. The second oldest, about 8 years older than me is also suffering from COPD, & had a couple battles with cancer, where they removed half a lung. He's fortunate in that at least his insurance hasn't run out, & they haven't cut him off yet. 8 years ago it wouldn't be the same story, the insurance would have pulled out long ago at the first sign of something serious, or refuse to cover anything except the most basic care.
He's been in & out of the hospital again recently. Last week he started coughing up blood, & is back in the hospital. They want to remove the rest of his half a lung. In his condition & age, they estimate the best chance of survival is only 25%.
For those who believe in such things & know how to, please say a prayer for him.
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Several years ago I read a book, "How to Stay Healthy in Spite of Your Doctor," I believe tha author's last name was Mendelson. His point was that doctors like to doctor. Why do something simple when you can intervene in a complex, expensive and beautiful way? After all, the insurance companies are paying for it. Employer-provided health insurance is, in my opinion, one reason for the skyrocketing cost of medical care (not health care, medical care -- they often don't care about the patient's health, just their opportunity to "practice" medicine).
One of the problems of getting older is being taken to the hospital for something minor but life-threatening and never coming back. You can die in the hospital among unfamiliar beeps and "wake-up, it's time for your sleeping pill" routines, or you can die more comfortably at home, even if you die a week or so sooner....
Two things insurance companies hate about Obamacare are having to take people with "pre-existing conditions" and not being able to "cap" their losses -- to sell policies with, for example a $100,000 cap so they can simply dump you once your care exceeds the cap.
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The kitties were extra cuddly & affectionate the past few days. It seems they know when I'm sad & try to cheer me up.
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Brother goes into surgery 7:30am E. USA time Tue. morning. They say his chances of surviving is only 25%.
All prayers are welcome.
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I will say several prayers for both of you. Hope his doctor is one of the best and his recovery time is speedy and comfortable.
My mother went into the hospital dazed and confused from banging her head after a fall. They said there were multiple things wrong with her but we just wanted to see if she had damaged her head at all. She never came back out again but there was no serious head injury.
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Hey Betty,
my kitty always knew when I was ill and would cuddle next to me until I was well again. She started doing that again just before she passed away but I was not sick. Then I understood that she was.
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I just read a very interesting email from a friend who told me that meds in both the U.S and Canada are marked up a thousand percent or more by manufacturers and the pharmacies. They said you can go into any Costco and by the same drugs at deep discounts and you don't need to be a member either. When you figure the cost of basic ingredients some Cancer drugs are inflated by 100,000 % or more.
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is it any wonder that usa and canada puts prices up like that if they can get away with it,if they did it in uk their would be a uproar by the regulator ,however their are many medicines that would cure us ,but nice who says what you can or cannot get on the nhs ,stops allot of medicine as the producer of certain drugs are also charging too much for the nhs and can only be prescribed privately which is very exspensive.
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They're holding our lives hostage for money to get overwhelmingly filthy rich, with the threat of tremendous pain, suffering, torture, & misery if you can't pay! It's as bad as the dark ages.
C'mon now. How many dentists do you know who don't own a yacht, mansion, or a ritzy summer home, best cars, plus take expensive vacations worthy for a movie star? And most drug company or hospital heads can buy those guys out at least 100 times.
Just a 100 years ago your barber did your teeth, & fillings for about the price of a haircut, & everybody's teeth were fine. They got you liquored up for anesthetic, & everybody went home smiling. Children didn't need dental, because all their baby teeth fall out at least by puberty, & their adult teeth grow in. Poor little kids forced to wear braces most of their childhood while still having their baby teeth. WTF is that all about?
Absolutely perfect teeth look so fake & unnatural, they look like plastic teeth or false teeth. What's the purpose of spending that much money on your teeth if everybody thinks they're false?
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The doctors & surgeons in the hospitals in my area have mostly middle-eastern or Islamic names. Most of them probably don't even like Americans, think we're all sinners, & don't care about our well being. They're just there for the work & money. We're probably all just a flat tire or broken engine that needs work to them, & they get paid even if they fail.
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Oh god. It's almost time. He's going to surgery in a few minutes. 4-7 hour operation, with only 25% he'll make it through the operation. That doesn't even include his chances of complications or infection after the operation.
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The operation went better than expected. He's in the ICU. They just removed his breathing tube, is breathing on his own, & talking!
So at least he beat the 25% odds of even surviving the operation.
Still got a long way to go for recovery. There can be infection or complications along the way.
Thanks for your prayers.
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After some mostly unusually warm weather for the past couple weeks, they're saying the dreaded vortex will be returning with temperatures in the teens (F) by Wed. night. By Friday night we're expecting a snowy, windy, arctic, -1F(-18C) with wind chills down to -10(-23C) to -20F(-29C), possibly colder than the north pole!
Amazingly they're expecting it to get back up to 32F by Monday, & an unusual 36F by Wednesday. But you know how those vortexes work... Sometimes they just want to linger a long time rather than move on. Those long range forecasts are almost never very accurate.
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I do believe in the power of prayer, and I am glad to hear your brother is doing well and we will pray for a speedy recovery.
My dentist drives a nice Mercedes SUV and has a pretty big house in a very nice area of town and oh yes the sailboat too.
It has been snowing lightly here since about 5 PM and the roads are slick. I went out at 8 PM to look after a friends kitty and had to clean off the car and driving was a bit slippery but the salt trucks were out on the main roads. I am staying mostly indoors with the start of a cold but my friends are enjoying the sun, sand and tropical breezes in the Dominican.
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My dentist drives a nice Mercedes SUV and has a pretty big house in a very nice area of town and oh yes the sailboat too.
LOL. At $1,000 or more per visit or per hour he should. If he puts in 40 hour weeks that's $40,000 a week, $160,000 a month, & a little over 2 million dollars a year. Granted, the staff, facility, & technology costs get some of that, but you know the department heads are getting the bulk of it.
We had a light sprinkling of snow overnight. Less than an inch. But look out! The temperature just dropped 5 degrees F in just a little over an hour. By tonight it will be a windy 12F (-11C), then will continue to get colder until it's -3F (-19C) by Sat. night. With high winds & a severe wind chill factor, you'd better be dressed like a professional polar or Siberian explorer just to keep alive more than a few minutes outside.
And those night time lows don't just effect us when most of us are at home or under warm blankets sleeping. The coldest part of most winters is the pre-dawn hours when most are up & going to work or school. Most winter days the temperature doesn't climb until hours after sunrise. So that -3F low is also pretty much the temperature going to school, work, or out anywhere in the morning.
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Windy 9F (-13C) & falling though it will get up to 15F (-9C) at some point (probably long after lunchtime). Wind chill -8F (-22C). Light sprinkle of snow expected. 4-6" of snow expected Friday, with wind chills of -15F (-26C) expected by Friday night.
Can't complain too much. For this time of the year, we've had a mild winter so far. This vortex isn't supposed to linger, so it may hit the 30s F by Monday (above normal for here now), just in time to celebrate George Washington's birthday. Haven't decided what to do to celebrate it. You can do your part to honor him by donating to Betty's. His picture is on every USA dollar.
Bangkok~90F(32C) Winnipeg~1F(-17C) Sydney~75F(24C) London~41F(5C) Anchorage~30F(-1C) NYC~24F(-4C) LA~63F(17C) Québec~9F(-13C) Paris~72F(22C) Berlin~41F(5C) Oslo~34(1C) Stockholm~36F(2C) Amsterdam~43F(6C) New Delhi~79F(26C) Honolulu-69F(21C)
F vs C: Often our USA visitors are so frustrated when I type stuff in English, metric, & European standards, totally forgetting that Betty's, like most websites are international. Although throughout a day we get more visitors from the USA than any other country, during my mornings until my lunchtime, sometimes we have more visitors from Europe that the USA here. We get more visitors from the London area than any other city, but the NYC area is a close second.
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Now they're saying it will get down to a windy -10F(-23c), with wind chills down to -25 to -30F (-32C to -34C) Sat. night!
Yep, that's colder than the north pole & Siberia. Hardly anybody lives there because it's too phucking cold in the winter.
Our current coldest visitor is in Ottawa at -4F(-20C). Our hottest is in Alice Springs at 99F. That's right next door to Pine Gap, Australia's own area 51. Don't get too close or they'll shoot you. Hope those pesky aliens like it hot.
Vortex: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/GSSLOOPS/ecwv.html
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Just hit 100F there
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We had a mild winter compared to the previous 2 winters. Spring was average so far... better than the past 2 springs.
After several days in a row in the 50s F (above 10C), tonight it's very a windy 29F (-2C) and snowing! 2-4 inches of snow & a low of 23F (-5C) expected. More snow Sunday & Monday too. Lows in the teens to 20s F (-6C) with snow expected all week.
Spring has been cancelled as the polar vortex returns.
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Hi Betty,
Bizarre weather here too. April 1st it was 80 degrees, yesterday, on the second, it was 64 degrees although it was chilly and wet in the morning. Today, I just went out for my morning walk and to buy the newspapers and it's 36 degrees with 30 mph winds that make it feel like 23 degrees. The wind was so strong that at points during my walk it was impeding my forward movement. My two bags of newspapers were blowing behind me and I thought I might be airborne at any minute. I think we will be able to avoid the snow you're experiencing as the forecast called for it to be North of us. Wild weather for sure.
Andy G.
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We never got more than the 2" last night in the Allentown Arts district of the city (right next door to the Theater district). Currently a breezy 23F with a wind chill of 11F, but not as windy as last night. It's cold but sunny right now. More snow expected soon, with 1-3" of the stuff expected tonight. They changed their forecast a little. They say after Monday, no more snow until Wed.
The weather peeps really need to proofread & check their facts better. They're saying the the low will be 27 today, & the high will be 32. But if it's already 23F, shouldn't the predicted low be at least 23F? One may say that the prediction was written before it dipped down to 23F. But a quick check of their temperature logs show that 24F is the warmest it got so far today.
Some may have thought it was time to change our wintery backgrounds at Betty's. But many areas in N. USA, & S. Canada have been getting snow for the past few weeks. When it looks like the white stuff is not coming back for a few months, I'll consider repainting Betty's for spring.
We run into a news & weather vacuum on weekends locally. The local media either don't broadcast news on weekends, or broadcast very little, & never broadcast it at their scheduled times on weekends. The few that broadcast a little weekend news, postpone/delay or cancel it in favor of a ball game, infomercial, or some preacher endlessly rambling. When it does finally come on, it turns out to be a re-broadcast from 6-16 hours ago, & not up to date. The local newspaper is done printing at 5am, so is quite pointless for today's news. Apparently the local broadcasters all decided that the world stops & time freezes on weekends, so there is no news. What little they broadcast on weekends are human interest stories, walk-a-thons, a far-away small town parade, or about the ball games. There are no criminals, terrorists, politicians, earthquakes, volcanoes, or storms on weekends according our local news.
Of course half of what is on local media on weekends is garbage anyway. Except for prime jock sports, it's all infomercials, preachers, or some way out of focus jittery B&W film with terrible sound that nobody ever heard or, & never wanted to hear of. If they've already decided nobody is watching on weekends, why not save the energy, money, & just shut down the station for the weekend? Who came up with this rule that when not running sports, that they must run the worst stuff ever produced, along with the most annoying preachers & infomercials on weekends? And why when they're not running that garbage, must they run sports, even if it's a minor league or school game that nobody ever heard of locally?
Maybe it's a conspiracy to get us all out on our day off to mow our lawns, & paint our houses, or go spend some money on the local economy. But what if it's raining or snowing outside, or we get outside plenty through the week anyway? Sometimes after a long hard week we'd like to take it easy on a day off rather than run our ass off some more. A quick check of the video streams shows there's plenty on TV but local USA media is just not carrying it.
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Yes Betty, 23 F when I went out today to check my Lottery numbers. Wasted trip and it has been snowing off and on all day here. Should have stayed home and saved gas. I have been playing the same numbers for almost 30 years and the only thing that keeps me doing this is that a guy won $60 million not long ago and said he was playing the same numbers since the Lottery started almost 40 years and new he would win someday. We have about five inches of snow on the ground now and it is still coming down steadily. A neighbour just went by with his garden tractor/plow and cleaned off the sidewalk for two blocks both sides. Great guy and he has done this in the past but I don't know for sure where he lives, just up the street from me.
I enjoyed all the gardens around my neighbourhood with flower bulbs coming up, crocus, tulips and daffodils but now they have been covered again.
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And freezing many of those plants when they're ready to bloom may kill them, or portions of the plant dies, rots, & the rot spreads to the surviving parts. I'm reading of farmers & gardeners not even bothering to plant until May or early June anymore because the seasons are too unstable. But even plants that are supposed to survive dormant through the winters, are getting killed off because they're being frozen during their blooming times.
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We got about 6" of snow overnight in the city. It's a breezy 26F with a 12F wind chill. It got down to 22F yesterday. They say it will go down to 19F tonight.
Sigh, the local bird & squirrel population was just on the rebound after being almost wiped out by extended arctic-like weather during the previous 2 years.
Judging from the fur in the cat's hair brush, the kitties have already shed their winter fur. Although I keep my place cool because I can't afford a lot of heat, the kitties prefer it cool, so they are in no danger of being uncomfortable. They're sociable kitties too, so even if it does get a little chilly they will cuddle up with me or around each other.
If they stay on schedule, there will be another shedding around early June.
But there goes my heating bill. It was just a little cheaper than last year, but this, with the high winds will probably jack it back up. For some reason my electric bill is higher than last month, & higher than last year too.
I got some LED light bulbs for free to review. They are supposed to draw less than my CFL bulbs did. I replaced the CFL bulbs I use the most with them. I suspect their power consumption claims are exaggerated. The LED bulbs get pretty hot after they've been on a while, giving off more heat possible for what their power rating is. Another thing I got in for review was a single cup coffee maker. It makes a single cup of coffee in about 2 minutes, & claims to consume 450 watts. I was making my coffee in my microwave in about 2 minutes, & it draws 700 watts. Maybe they lied about their power too. Most coffee makers of any size draw around 900-1200 watts to make coffee.
I use caffeinated coffee to help treat my COPD, so I drink several cups throughout the day, & even weak cups at night or before bedtime to help me breathe better.
My electric bill went up almost 25%. So the LED bulbs & probably the coffee maker have lied about what they consume.
I suspect they took the current rating for the 220 volt European model of the coffee maker, times the 110 voltage of the USA version to get the 450 watt rating, but it's really a 900 watt coffee maker. Almost all LED makers grossly exaggerate their claims too. I see LEDs claiming 1500 lumens on only 1 or 2 watts of electricity. They haven't invented an LED that efficient yet, & if it gets so hot that it's giving off 25-50 watts of heat, there is no way it's only using 1 or 2 watts.
The LED bulbs I got to review claim 1200 lumens at 13 watts. They get way too hot to be only 13 watts... to hot to touch after 10 minutes. But they're only as bright as my 800 lumen CFLs at 4 watts. But my CFLs weren't those cheap $1.99 horrid orange-yellow 2700k CFLs that poorly try to imitate the color of an incandescent bulb. These were long-life 5000k natural white bulbs (no green hue). The higher quality bulb gives off a more natural daylight, & last a lot longer. All of my CFLs are 8-9 years old & still burning bright. If most LEDs or other cheap CFLs are still working after a few years, they've grown too dim to be useful anymore. It's actually cheaper to spend $5 on a good CFL that will burn bright for 8-9 years, than a $1.99 one that will last a year or 2 or quickly dim. And those cheaper CFLs & LEDs will cause radio, TV, blue-tooth, phone, & wifi interference because of the poorly designed power supplies!
There was a lot on the news this winter about LED Christmas lights causing Wifi & phone interference. NOT true!!! There is nothing inside an LED that can cause interference on your devices. However, on a few of the cheap, poorly designed power supplies to run some of those lights (that small box inline with the cord, or built into the plug) or other devices, may cause interference. Also your phone, tablet, & laptop charger can be causing more interference than those cheap lights.
I find I can double my Wifi, blue-tooth, & cordless phone range by charging my devices through my computer's USB port, rather than using those cheap chargers that came with them because those chargers generate too much RF interference. Your device's battery will last longer too, because the power coming out most computer USBs is well regulated, & better controlled than the wildly varying power coming from those cheap chargers.
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Well I attempted to shovel all our snow by hand this morning, not a great idea with a bad back but it had to be done. When I looked at all the snow in the side yard where my snow blower is kept it would take me more time to dig to it than doing the walk and drive so I went that route instead. Today the neighbours would just have to dig out themselves instead of me doing it before they even get out for the day but I just don't have the stamina to do it. The guy with the garden tractor must be at work because he is nowhere in sight and his trip down the street last night was a wasted effort as you could not even tell he had gone by. Betty, I had switched to the CFL bulbs awhile ago too and noticed longer life and a little less power consumption but then I got some LED bulbs on special. and one out of the four quit working about a week or two into usage. tried to send it back but lots of red tape involved so I left it for now. The others are working and the light output is 1200 Lumens at 13 watts but as you say they burn hot and I don't notice any real savings in hydro usage with seven of them in the fixtures that are on the most. I also have the single serve coffee maker for about four years now and bought it primarily to save coffee although the price of coffee pods is expensive but with the old coffee maker I was throwing out half a pot and it would sit on the warmer for and hour so this was costing me also. I just don't drink more than one or two cups a day anymore so making a pot was just wasteful. I do drink a lot of tea each day though and buy the tea in bulk to save money. Three of my monthly bills have arrived and they have all gone up quite a bit so I will need to rethink my spending habits again. My phone, wireless and Internet bill is more than $250 a month now and on a fixed pension it is just too hard to justify having a Cell phone I don't use much and a home phone package that includes discounted long distance calls that I don't seem to make more than once a month anymore. With most of my family in England gone now I only talk with the remaining cousins by email or Facebook. After talking for an hour with my cable TV provider and getting nowhere
about their erratic service and billing, they offered me $20 off my monthly bill if I promised to stay with them for a two year contract. No dice there must be a better way. Some of my friends have given up their home phones in favour of just a cell phone and switched to other providers with discount packages so I may check this out also. Anyway I am not nearly as strapped for cash as you Betty, so I should not complain. I do have a good pension but I need to scale back my expenses like you have and perhaps rethink staying in my house much longer as the expenses rise almost monthly now. Maybe I need another kitty to cuddle with and turn my heat way down at night. I do miss mine but she has been gone about five years or so now and I just put on my tights and and extra blanket in cold weather.
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When I looked at all the snow in the side yard where my snow blower is kept it would take me more time to dig to it than doing the walk and drive
You just stomp & climb right through it to get the blower. I'm sure the deer, rabbits, & squirrels don't shovel when they need to get somewhere after it snows. Shoveling is not a good idea at our age, there's safer & healthier ways to get your exercise. Will they lock you up in a Siberian prison for being elderly, & not shoveling today?
My phone, wireless and Internet bill is more than $250
That's waaay too much with so many alternatives available these days.
If you get your internet through the cable TV, they do offer internet cheaper without the TV. I got a new amplified indoor antenna for free to review back in fall. It costs about $20 in the stores. I now get over 40 channels on a good day for free right off the air, including 4 channels from Toronto. On the worst days, I still get over 30 channels. But if I skip the overwhelming amount of religious channels, & infomercial/shopping channels, it's still over 20 on a bad day, & over 30 on a good day.
With the internet, most cable channels stream their shows right from their websites a day or so after they air, plus there's tons of free streaming sites that stream just about anything that's on TV & lots of movies. On a slow connection you can usually set a buffer for the stream to store a few minutes of the stream before it plays, so it's storing the programming while it's streaming it. You're watching what's in the buffer while it streams more to keep it full.
You can cut your internet costs by selecting a slower speed tier. You should be able to surf anywhere fine, & stream HD video with only 5-7mbs download speeds. Most streamers offer lower resolutions of DVD quality or 360p which looks good but only need 1-3mbs download speeds. Beware your machine, the apps or programs in it, & useless crap sites are dumping in your machine consumes your internet speed/bandwidth. Blocking the apps from using your connection, & sites or modern windows from consuming your bandwidth for their own purposes is a fairly easy task. It's built into OS's & respectable browsers as an option or setting, but not always easy to find.
I've got a pretty slow Verizon DSL connection, but I can watch anything I want any time I want most of the time in 720p HD. But if it's just a regular TV or less than visually spectacular movie, I usually have the option to watch it in DVD or 360p resolution, to save on bandwidth, & speed things up so I can still surf, & use the internet while watching a stream.
Unfortunately they don't offer DSL in "Dry Loop" anymore even though it's always been technically possible. Dry Loop is a DSL internet connection through phone lines, without actually having to pay for a phone service (land line service) on the line, & internet life was wonderfully cheap.
Now they force everyone to pay for an active land line phone service on the DSL line even if you never use it. So for over 4 years now, I'm paying $50 extra a month for telephone service on my DSL line, even though a telephone has never been connected to it. I can get cable internet a little cheaper for the same speed but verizon DSL knows it's got some it's customers by the balls. The local cable company (time warner) doesn't allow torrenting, & will threaten to cut you off if they find out you have torrent software on your computer... even though torrenting & the software is not illegal anywhere in the world. Many Linux OS's, free or new software, & unsigned bands or entertainers rely on the torrents to distribute their stuff LEGALLY.
Indeed, some of my income is related to reviewing & testing Linux stuff, new or unknown software, & unsigned bands, movies, or videos. I was one of the first people in my area to test the various versions of Windows 10 before it was released. They referred me to torrents of the beta versions to test & review them legally back then. Time Warner & other ISPs also block access, & even searches for unusual or underground stuff. So about 1/3 of what's on the internet would be missing with TW, & the rest would be watched or censored if I visited them. There's ways around those restrictions if you get stuck with them, but it will cost you extra work, time, & some money on a VPN, off-shore cloud, or seed box.
I've had the same cell phone number since 1998. After the fire, it was the only number people could contact me from. So the land line number is useless to me. Everyone worldwide still texts or calls that cell number. I rarely get a call though. Everyone texts, & land line phones don't get texts... even though it's easily possible, they just won't do it, because they all want to sell you a mobile connection too.
Fortunately in most cities wifi is everywhere. I was able to cut off my T-mobile service to my mobile phone, keep my 1998 cell number, & use it as a wifi phone. I got an excellent wifi router last year for free to review, so I even have nice wifi at home... before that, every computer had to be wired directly to the ethernet connection. Over a month ago I got a decent android quad core tablet to review. Via wifi I have a free phone number to make calls or text internationally through google voice on it. But it's a tablet, not a phone, so there's no earpiece on it. So I can only use it as a speaker phone. I've seen similar tablets like it selling on sale for as low as under $50.
There are also unlocked smart phones going for under $50 that will work as wifi phones through free google voice & other services. There's also no-contract, or pay as you go wireless phone services for seniors over 55 that charge $5-$10 a month for 80-300 minutes a month, but they charge every text as 1/3 a minute & if you want data, it's extra. But through your own wifi or free wifi of course, all data is free.
Unfortunately my 6 y/o phone is no longer compatible with much anymore. So if I want to save more money & be safe, I'll have to get a newer phone. If the power goes out during an emergency, wifi won't work. If the lines aren't down, the land line phones may still work because the phone companies use backup battery or generator power. The cell towers also use back up power to keep them going at least for a short time after power failures.
$250/mo is way too much just for phones & internet, plus the cost of cable TV. Keep the internet. Get free a wifi number & calling, then get a cheap mobile phone with basic senior service for power failures, or just the most basic emergency land line. Tip: Your cordless phone will not work on the land line during a power failure, because the base/charging unit needs power. You need a regular phone powered by the phone line connected for an emergency if you keep a land line.
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Mother nature continues to go nuts. It got up to the 50s overnight & was 51F (11C) at 6am this morning. So all the snow melted & there's gooey mud everywhere. Tonight it goes back down to 28F (-2C), & tomorrow it snows again. More snow on the weekend too, then back up to 50F on Monday.
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Yes Betty, getting colder here also and the wind is picking up making it even more chilly. Even started to get freezing rain very early this morning but it didn't last long thank goodness. Had to run to the bank this afternoon, message from them said a card was scanned at a popular local shop. Thought they were talking about one of mine but it was another client. They replaced every ones cards just to be safe. Love the security here as they call if you make an out of the ordinary purchase just to be sure it is you.
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hi,
It appears that mother nature sure has a funny side to it. Having rain and 50f and a wind chill factor all at once is driving me mad, as i am up at 6am to open my friends shop and it is freezing, now back home to receive my new kitchen equipment and keeping the heating to 68f daily is driving me crazy. Still that is life.
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120 tornadoes reported in Kansas last week, with many reported in Oklahoma & neighboring states too.
Here's a mix I made of some of them complete with a musical soundtrack. Scary but awesome stuff!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDnz-1SXAuk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDnz-1SXAuk
Hang on & stay safe my friends.
I may complain about arctic cold here, or sticky swampy hot summers, & up to 16 feet of snow in the distant suburbs, but we don't get tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, or volcanoes.
The last tornado around here was a small one in the suburbs over 10 years ago. We get water spouts over the lakes. Those are smaller tornadoes over the open water. We also get hurricane strength gusts during storms, & minor floods.
Air quality was terrible around here since Friday. I had a terrible time breathing up until yesterday, even with running air filters & AC. My brother had to go to the hospital again with pneumonia. With only 1 lung left after a battle with cancer, I believe the recent poor air quality was a contributing factor.
I've been a bit better since yesterday, & my brother's condition has improved.
Maybe he should set up a room or 2 at his place that has some serious air filters & AC to increase is chances of staying well, & improve his quality of life. Sure, he's on O2 most of the time these days, but unless he's in an airtight space suit, he's also breathing the air around him.
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Meanwhile, Paris, many other parts of France, & Germany are flooded, with 2 more inches of rain expected.
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I put up some more video of last week's tornadoes in Kansas. As scary & destructive as they are, they can also be fascinating & beautiful things. After about halfway through there's some dramatic close-up footage.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGOYwHQ-928
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGOYwHQ-928
I edited, enhanced, & mixed the video/audio myself. It can take hours or most of the day to complete, & post an hour of this stuff with custom audio. Takes a weeks to battle all the copyfraud, & copyright trolls/mobsters who claim they own the copyright to almost everything posted anywhere on the internet.
As usual, when watching lower resolution video in full screen on 32" or larger screens, don't watch with your nose right up to the screen. They actually look better if you sit 6 feet or more from big screens.
BTW, for those who still don't know by now, the Unclegadget/PSK Research website & youtube channel are also Betty's sites & channels. They're for a lot of our non-sissy stuff. We are not just sissies 24/7.
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In the first Tornadoes video there was a copyright dispute on youtube about the first 6 minutes of the video. At one point, I just got tired of arguing with them. A NOAA government produced video, made with taxpayer money, equipment, vehicles, & employees, cannot have a copyright according to USA law. Even if the person holding the camera claims rights it, it isn't legal as he was filming in the service of his job for the USA government & its taxpayers.
But sometimes it's just easier to cut the few minutes out of the video than spend a month or so in a copyright dispute. The copyright claimant may not be affiliated with the creator in any way, but may be a scammer just out to collect money on material that's not rightfully theirs.
Anywho, here's the highly compressed version of what was cut out served from our own servers instead of youtube.
http://unclegadget.com/media/Kansas_CutPart.mp4
Here at Betty's, I will not dispute that somebody may own some of the material on the sites. But if they want it removed, they have to prove they actually own it, or if they bought rights to it, they must submit who they bought them from so I can confirm they bought it from someone who actually owned it to sell in the first place. And take down notices are not valid if the material was posted and/or distrubuted before they owned rights to the material.
If the material was in the free & clear when posted, before they bought the rights to it, their claim against those older versions is not valid.
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Had a lot of rain for the last two hours. Just stopped now, although the temp. is still 20 degrees C. However it has just started again with thunder and lighting. Got soaked coming home as I thought I had missed this weather and did not wear a coat.
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20C (68F) is just about a perfect temperature for me.
So far our rainy spring season has been mild with no big storms. But south of my town they've had some heavy storms & flooding.
We're still experiencing very odd weather though. Just about a week ago it got up to 89F (32C), way hotter than normal for the end of May. Tonight it's expected to go down to 49F (9C), way colder than normal for early June.
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the problem with the weather is that you cannot tell from day to the next what will happen.The rain has stopped today and is very humid now.
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This weather is crazy, yesterday evening I went to the store and the temp had dropped down to 62 F. I was wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt and sandals. The cold wind just about froze me to death. Today I go out and the temp is 52 F but at least I put on long pants and a jacket. If that was our summer it is the shortest on record.
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you cannot tell from day to the next what will happen.
The weather peeps in my area have been pretty fair at predicting it most of the time. But it's crazy chaotic weather patterns I've never seen before about 3 years ago in this area.
Just until a few years ago, most of the time our weather fronts came almost directly from the west to us. You could predict that we'd be getting almost the same weather they just had in Chicago, Detroit, & Cleveland, with a little more moisture & precipitation picked up as the front passed over the rest of the Great Lakes.
These days we're regularly getting weather fronts from the north, NW, south, SE, & SW. It's rare we get our weather directly from the west anymore.
Yep. It got down to 48F (9C) here last night. Rare for early June.
The good news is the humidity, pollution, ozone, & pollen count has gone down. So for the first time in about 2 weeks, I'm breathing better since last night. I wasn't gasping for air just trying to get to the bathroom to go pee anymore.
I'm actually getting some chores done that I fell way behind on, because I couldn't move around much without serious breathing problems for 2 weeks. When it's very difficult just to make it to the bathroom, or make a simple meal, nothing was getting done around the house.
Kitties are extra cuddly & playful since last night. They like it cool or cold. They don't like heat at all. When it's warm they don't play much, or cuddle & become anti-social. They won't even interact or cuddle with each other much when it's warm.
Sure I got AC & air filters. They keep the air cleaner, & the humidity lower so I can breathe better. But I can't run them on high or all the time without worrying about how I'm gonna pay the higher electric bill. So I tend to run them just enough to keep things bearable, & livable, rather than as good as I can make it for me.
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Heatwave in the SW USA has broken record high temperatures. Phoenix reported 116F (47C), & some areas are reporting 120F (49C). Airlines were redirected to Texas because it was to hot to fly in or land in Phoenix. It is said that the electronics would overheat, & the tires would melt or burn trying to land on the hot & now very soft/runny runways.
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Betty, the Toronto weather channel said you are getting thunderstorms in Buffalo tonight. We have been having 60 km winds for a couple of hours now but it is a warm wind due to excessive heat today. Can't open the windows tonight or it would be too warm to sleep.
I was reading in a Toronto paper yesterday about the waterfront in Buffalo and the revitalization in the city attracting tourists again. The photo's looked good and it is nice to see the city getting ahead again after the loss of industry like around our cities.
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Nope we only had a light sprinkle here & almost no wind (Allentown Arts section of the city). Up north from us, out of town, they had some thunder & lightning, but I could only hear a few faint distant thunders.
On AM & SW radio I was able to pick up a lot of distant continuous lightning induced static, so there was a lot of sparks flying, but not anywhere near me.
But my DSL internet connection kept cutting out. The path my DSL usually connects through takes the signal to Lockport to the north, or Niagara Falls, or sometimes Toronto. So just about any time there's lightning to the north of me, it knocks out my DSL.
It didn't get too hot here they say, but it sure felt uncomfortable to me. It felt stuffier & muggier than yesterday even though they say it was hotter yesterday. Also I was breathing better yesterday, & today it was terrible. Maybe we had poor air quality today.
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hi,every time at this time of year,my hayfever is getting worse every year and doing my head in.This year was the worse i had and it is causing me to get back ache and my legs are given me problems
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HAY FEVER Yep I can get it real bad too - BUT I find relief to go north somewhere where the temperature
dives near freezing and driving the pollen out of the air. A couple days of that and I can settle in till the
Fever has run it course getting doused with rain and filtered out of the atmosphere !
In Minnesota about 100 miles or so north of the cities thinking of Duluth and winds off the lake is usually
enough to do the trick. Other readers may not be so fortunate to have the almost perfect respite.
I hate taking any kind of OTC medications or even prescriptions too many side effects worse than the
hay fever itself. Other alternatives is to camp out in a house with central air and use a high quality air
filter ! Washing clothing often reducing the attraction of bring it in from the outside. Pray for some
thunder bumpers knocking it down early on in the season. The pine woods are a great place to play
but stay out of the fields !
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The weather in uk has gone potty for the last few days with temperature going up to 30-35c and nite temperatures last night 25c.Sleep is unbearable so got up at 0330 and went back 0630 and must get up at 0930
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Golly that's like 86-95F. 25C is 77F & should be comfy for us, but I'll bet with the UK being surrounded by water like we are downwind & surrounded by from the Great Lakes, the humidity was way up there making it more uncomfortable. Usually heat with high humidity is also associated with poor air quality & high ozone levels, making things extra uncomfortable, & harder to breathe that air.
I know that people laugh at us in warmer climates, as this is not big deal to them. But it depends on what you're used to & what your genetics are used to. We laugh at those people when we see them shivering when it gets 40F (4C), or closing their city down with less of 6 inches of snow.
It used to be anything about 20F (-7c) was too cold for us. But with recent years of these "vortexes" now 10F (-12F) is too cold instead. We don't worry about snow unless it gets 3-6 feet deep (1-2 meters) up here. 20F would probably kill somebody up here from down south. Most of us won't bother putting on a coat if it's around 40F (4C) unless we expect to be outside for almost an hour or more. But 90F (32C) is a killer for many of us.
About 10 years ago, at the entertainment complex I worked at, I was amazed one afternoon with Buffalo temperatures in the 90s F, with our sunny patio almost 100F to see almost a dozen people eating & having a wonderful time outside without getting gooey sweaty. I remarked that it was amazing, & that they must be from Arizona or something, because it felt like an oven out there. Later, the waiter, sweating like a pig, half dieing with the heat out there confirmed, that the entire group was indeed from Arizona & loving it.
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Monday, not an exceptionally hot day, but a humid day with poor air quality, my niece, 30 something non-smoker was rushed to the hospital with breathing problems. She has had no breathing problems in almost 20 years. All my relatives live pretty far away these days, but thanks to the internet & phones, I can still hear about them.
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i hope she is ok
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She used to have asthma problems in her high-school days, but had no breathing problems as an adult until last week.
90% humidity. So I won't be opening windows to refresh the air even though it's only 75F out there tonight. Been 24 hours since I let any outside air in. Using the AC & air filters. Usually over time the inside air gets to stale & full of normal indoor pollutants so eventually gets as hard to breathe as the outside air. But today I tried to keep cooking, use of detergents, & other things that generate indoor pollutants/fumes to a minimum, so am still breathing fair. Stuck my head outside the door briefly, & definitely could not breathe that air. Hopefully the humidity will drop a little before mid-morning when it's cool so I can refresh the air a little. They say it might get up to 90F today.
There goes my electric bill again!
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hi betty,you pay allot for electric per month.
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Actually most people are surprised how incredibly low my electric & heat bills are. I keep things pretty efficient, & it's a small place with only a few small windows, & one door. Still though, the bills are way too high for me on a very tight budget.
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my monthly direct debit is £40.00 for electric
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Started off cool enough this morning. Was able to breathe good enough with the windows open. Even managed to make it downstairs & sit on the shady back door step sipping my coffee watching the morning birds.
But now it's 92F (33C). Sealed up inside with the AC & air filters on high. Even so, except for the main living area, the rest of the place is to hot to be comfortable, or breathe well in.
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Hi Betty, glad you could get outside for a short time anyway. I like being in my house most of the time although sometimes I need to get outside once in awhile even to just weed the garden or water the flowers. This heat and very little rain has not been kind to my garden this summer, the roses and Hydrangeas both seem to like the heat and sunshine but I need to water them often.
Had to go to the hospital today for minor surgery on my back but at least it was air conditioned there. Driving down it was 89 F. in the early morning so I parked as close as possible to the building so I did not have to walk far in the heat. I was there about 4 hours but it seemed to be much hotter when I went outside again. The temp had crept up to 92 F. by 12:30 PM. A/C was on at home so I turned it down to 73 F and lay on the bed for a nap as my back is always very sore when they are done working on it. I drive myself there and back, about 30 miles each way so they don't give me any freezing or anisthetic.
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30 miles? You had to go to Toronto? You couldn't get anybody to drive you there in case you couldn't drive home? A 30 mile bumpy ride has to be rough on your back right after surgery.
They could have done some window shopping, sightseeing, taste some interesting food, go to a museum, or the Science center during the operation.
Although Canada has some nice countryside, & wilderness, Toronto, Quebec City, & Montreal are cities I highly recommend everybody should visit if given a chance. They're even more fun than most USA cities to a tourist or visitor. After you've seen all the sights, did some unique shopping at reasonable prices, there's always lots of cool stuff to do.
Unless you fall for those tourist traps designed to attract tourists or rich people with lots of money to spend, they're economical destinations too. Prices are comparable to here, with most regular clothing shops actually cheaper. If you don't mind a nice but smallish hotel room with no TV, even rooms at a decent hotel are cheap. You wouldn't go to places like that to hang out in your room & watch TV anyway.
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Hey Betty, it isn't an invasive surgery of sorts it is like micro surgery done under x-ray with probes and the first time I had it done I had somebody drive me but it was so good I could have driven home myself. I had been in massive pain for years until my doctor suggested I see a pain specialist. He checked all my x-rays and said he could kill the nerves around my damaged back joints and so far it is amazing. This will be the 6 th. time in 7 years and it works every time but does not last as long after each session. There may be a time when it will not work again but so far I am happy. I just need to remember not to over work myself and lift or carry too much as the damaged joints can get worse. Too much heavy work and overtime in 42 years did me no favours. I do some yoga and Ballet moves as my exercise routine each day to keep flexible. It takes about an hour in O.R. and then recovery is about 1/2 hour and I do it without freezing so I can tell him if he is on the nerve or not but it is worth all that pain for no pain afterwards.
Yes the country side up here is amazing in some places and we have been going North to Georgian Bay and down along Lake Huron on weekends the past few months and we are planning to do it in the Fall as the leaves and waterfalls are amazing then. In the Hamilton/Niagara region there are many many waterfalls to visit and most are easy to get to from our trail system. I don't go to Toronto very often but did visit the Ripleys Aquarium awhile ago. Not too big and packed with stupid people dragging empty strollers with them blocking access to the tanks and the kids running around from place to place when they would see just as much from a buggy. What irked me the most was stupid people dragging luggage with them. If they were on a stopover waiting for a connecting train they could leave it in a locker or maybe they are too cheap to pay a Dollar or two. Sure beats hauling all your stuff around when you are trying to see the sights. Toronto is too big for us to walk around now and the crime rate is climbing each week. With all the sports and other attractions it can cost you $30 dollars to park for the day and then $30 each to get into the Aquarium or Sports Hall of Fame etc. I would rather drive in the country and stop at a cute Coffee shop or Diner or even an old style Five & Dime shop in the small towns although most of them are being replaced by Dollar stores now. I do remember going into one old shop in a small town and finding a small stock of plastic baby panties in Extra Large size from the 60's but they would not fit me then so I left them for some young kid to discover like I did all those years ago. I have been trying to plan a trip to see Frank Lloyd Wrights house ( Falling Water) near Buffalo for a few years now as I hear it is a favourite of Brad Pitt and I am a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright's Architecture since I was a student. I always thought that would be my calling but something else came up.
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My internet connection has been up & down over the past few weeks. Sometimes for 20-40 minutes several times a day, sometimes for half the day. I called the company (Verizon DSL). They didn't fix the problem, but the internet no longer went down for half the day.
Betty's was hit by a tornado Saturday. The weather services, & the city claim there was no tornado in the city. Storm rotation was detected though, & tornado warnings were made for just outside the city. But eyewitnesses across the street say they did see a whirlwind of leaves, branches, twigs, & debris over my house. They say it dissipated near the street dropping branches on a car & in a yard across the street. They said it did look like a tornado to them.
It tore a 200 year old tree out of the ground next door. The very huge tree just barely missed my windows by a few feet. It brought down power, cable & phone lines too, but my power, although flickering remained on.
The wind blew my well secured fans right out of the windows, knocked the curtains & blinds right off the window frames. It blew light objects across the room. It was like a bomb went off. It all lasted less than 10 seconds. It was just a rather mild thunder storm, then all at once the sky suddenly got as dark as night like someone turned off a light switch. Then there was a whoosh, lots of crashing sounds, with all sorts of garbage, mud, leaves & twigs hitting my windows. It ended with the loud crash of the tree cracking & falling, then everything was silent & calm again except for some distant thunder.
Amazingly, the windows & screens held up, but my blinds were totally destroyed. The fans got a little wet but are OK. Curtains are soggy so need to be washed but are OK. Coffee cup & dry milk container on my kitchen counter near the window were blown all the way to beside my bed.
Boy-Cat ran to the bathroom while Suzie ran to her favorite pillow. It was over so fast, & got so quiet they calmed down soon. By the time I was walking around trying to figure out what the hell just happened, they were following me, sniffing around as confused as I was. Once stuff started hitting the windows, I was thinking "tornado", but by the time I ran as far from the windows as I could get, it was over.
I was trying to get online at the time, as my DSL had just gone down again. So my view of the window is just above the monitor. It was daylight at the time (just after 6pm). When I saw the daylight shut off & the window go black, I thought "what the hell..." before I could finish the thought, there was a whoosh, the fans blew out, & stuff hit the windows.
I think, "tornado" & run like hell to the door. By the time my hand was on the doorknob, it stopped, & was quiet. It all was very fast. There were no severe storm or wind warnings for my area at the time. All warnings were for the NY/PA state line. I was taken by surprise. Lesson learned -- if the sky suddenly gets dark, even if it's calm, & the weather issued no warnings for your area, anything can happen, & it could happen in seconds.
Here's some pix of that evening with the huge tree on it's side, across our driveway, & just feet from my windows. To give you an idea of the size of that thing, that fence next door is 11 feet tall. It took out part of the fence too. Somewhere under that is their porch next door. The bottom of those windows next door are 6 feet above the ground.
It was dark. My windows were covered in dirt, mud, & leaves so the pictures are a bit blurry. I tried to brighten & filter them a little.
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Almost 4 hours after the tree knocked live power lines onto the ground & was laying on top of them, the city & power company finally arrived to cut away the part of the tree that was on the power lines, & some of the tree from the driveway. But they let the live power line remain on the ground until around 10am Sunday morning before putting up a new cable.
Since working on area lines Sunday morning, my DSL connection seems a little steadier, but still cut out for up to 20 minutes, this morning. That fence is 11 feet tall. That was a big tree.
Here's a view from my window Sunday after they cut away part of the tree.
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I think the power lines actually stopped the tree from hitting my house or at least slowed it down. With my well secured window fans blown out the windows, & thrown to the other side of the room, the wind was definitely blowing my way.
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Wow that could shake you up. We had lots of driving rain but not much wind and it started and stopped several times until the evening when the sun came out for a bit. My mother had a huge tree like that at the bottom of our garden. It stood there for 50 years through many storms but came down in a spring storm the year she passed away. I had my tree house up there when I was 11 and used it to hide my Bondage activities for a few years until a scary incident with a bad storm. I had dressed in plastic pants and black tights and a black Leotard and created a harness of rope around my waist and through my legs like a parachute harness. I suspended myself from a higher branch and slipped my arms and legs through ropes tied to other branches spread-eagled pretty tightly. A mistake I did not plan for. I struggled for awhile slowly getting myself excited in my plastic pants until all of a sudden the wind started blowing hard and moving the tree branches apart stretching me in the process. I could not get free or reach the pocket knife suspended above me so for what seemed like hours the wind blew and the rain started and I was being tortured to death at my own hand. It was not well thought out and I vowed never to do it again if I got free but I was sure they would find my body still suspended there days later. At that point I was not excited anymore just afraid my arms and legs were going to be pulled out. After what felt like hours, the rain and wind slowed enough to loosen the ropes enough to get one arm free and cut myself free. I slowly made my way into the basement door and got changed but I was so sore for days after. It was a mistake I did not make again I can tell you. My bondage games were well thought out after that.
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The weather's certainly up & down a lot this winter. The past few days we had record-breaking warm weather for Feb. & this month has been the warmest Feb. ever in our area.
Already down to 43F (6C), from 71F (22C) yesterday. Very high winds & snow expected with lows tonight of 25F (-4C). Sunny & 43F (6C) by Mon. 55F (13C) by Wed. Snow by Thur. again with a nighttime low of 25F expected.
This is just as scary as the unusually unbearably cold winters & springs we had the past few years. Not typical of the weather used to be like around here. The past few years we were getting frequent near 0F (-18C) or below temperatures or wind chills... often 15-30F colder than Alaska was getting at the same time. 2 years ago yesterday we had 20 water main breaks in the city due to the cold -- in a city built & designed for cold weather. They had to import outside contractors to cope with all the water main damage.
Mid 20s F used to be the normal average temperatures for Feb. around here for centuries. This month almost every day was in the mid 30s to mid 50s F, with a few 60-70F days.
Makes me wonder how hot it will get this summer. We already get 90F (32C) days up north here in the summers. But because it's hot, humid, steamy, swampy air, blown in from the Great Lakes, 90F can be deadly for older people or with medical conditions here... plus raised in a colder climate, our bodies can't handle the heat as well as the cold. With the Great Lakes already way warmer than they should be for this time of the year. They may be very steamy this summer.
A person from Arizona may shiver terribly in a heavy coat in 45F weather. At 45F (7C), we wouldn't even bother with a coat unless we'll be outside for hours. Indeed at 45F, some convertibles have their tops down, & a few people are even walking in shorts. It's sort of showing off that we were born here & shock the non-natives. But we melt at 90F because we're not used to it.
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Up & down weather today.
6am-60F(16C), 9am-50F(10C), 11am-59F, noon-55F, 1pm-59F, 3pm-55F, now-58F.
Was breathing pretty fair the past couple days until a couple hours ago. Barometer dropped down to a very low 29.30". That's air way to thin for me to breath well. Humidity was up to 74%, but has just gone down to 64%. Hopefully that will help a little. I breath better with lower humidity.
Low of 25F(-4C) tonight. Lows in the teens for Fri. & Sat. night (around -8C). High Sun. of 43F(6C). 54F(12C) expected Mon.
Our hottest visitor in the past 2 hours was 91F(33C) in Buenos Aires. Our coldest was in 2F (-17C) in Fairbanks.
Right now it's a rainy night in London at 45F(7C). 48F in Paris. 39F in Moscow. A sunny morning in Sydney & Auckland at 72F. 43F in Japan. 63F in Hong Kong. 34 in Québec. 64 in NYC. 73 in Los Angeles. A rainy 69F in Washington DC.
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Close to 100 million people are at risk for severe weather today through tomorrow afternoon. Earlier in today, storms damaged homes, businesses and trees in Tennessee, Kentucky, southeastern Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia.
The National Weather Service said it received more than 20 reports of tornadoes or possible twisters ripping through parts of Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Tennessee on Tuesday, and reports of one tornado each in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia on Wednesday.
Currently in my town, we're experiencing 35mph winds with gusts up to 45mph. Gusts up to 58-60mph expected later. 70-75mph is considered hurricane strength.
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Brrr. 15F (-9C) with a wind chill of 7F. Expecting 8F (-13C) overnight with a wind chill near 0F(-18C). Hard to believe it was in the 50s & 60s a week ago... A big jump from unseasonably very warm to unseasonably very cold.
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Hi Betty,you seem to have very changeable weather lately
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Yep. changing a lot all the time over the past year. Summers too, from 50F in the morning to almost 90F in the afternoon... but more recently, very extreme weather swings regularly.
Today at 7am it was 8F, but we're expecting 38F by 2pm. A 30 degree jump in just 7 hours.
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what is the prices of electricity over in Buffulo
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They say it's around 15 cents per KWH in my end of the state... it varies wildly by the area, state, & energy taxes/tarrifs or other hidden charges, & by the month.
When I do the math including all those taxes, & other charges per what I actually use, it's about 18-20 cents per KWH... varying a little month to month. Although they claim they haven't changed their rates in a long time, all those countless little charges & taxes change all the time.
It's like our $50-$70 phone bills shows half the charges are just taxes/tarrifs, state connection fees, emergency services fees... etc. But if you check with the FCC, local government, state, & federal offices you find they're not charging nowhere near that much as it shows they're charging on our bills. It's all a corporate ploy under the disguise of taxes, & government charges to steal more money out of us.
Most people around here heat with clean burning plentiful cheap natural gas. Most states are sitting on top of tons of it. If you pump enough O2 deep underground most states would explode the state off the map because there's so much natural gas underground. Gas is also a natural by-product of refining oil into other products like gasoline/petrol. But you wouldn't know it was plentiful & cheap around here by how much they actually charge for it.
Here in America they don't charge by how much it costs or how plentiful it is, they charge by how much we need it. They don't charge a lot for water though because it's everywhere. If they charged too much, people would collect it in barrels when it rains, or get some by just digging a whole in the ground. But it's a lot most work & money for your average person & resources to create & get their own (preferrably clean) energy.
It's like an injection to treat people with severe allergic reactions, & prevent them from dieing, costs the drug companies a couple bucks to make per injection. But if you or your child need it, you have to pay $250-$450 for it.
I don't use my gas fired furnace too much. In my small apartment, it's a through-the-wall mounted unit on one side of the apartment in a room I use to mostly just store my stuff. I live in the middle of the place, the kitchen is also near the middle, & the bathroom is on the other end from the furnace.
So on a cold night like last night, I would have to have the heat on high enough in the storage room for it to get real hot in there, & leave the door open with a fan at the door, to get it just warm enough where I actually live, eat, & sleep -- while the bathroom would still be freezing. So I leave the heat on the main furnace off on just on low to help out on the coldest nights while I use an electric heater in the main area to keep things bearable.
It's not normally cheaper to heat with electricity. But it's cheaper for me rather than heat one room that I don't use to uncomfortably hot temperatures, to get the middle of the place just bearable, & still not get enough heat to the bathroom.
I keep a heater in the very cold bathroom too, but as long as it's warm enough for the pipes not to freeze I don't use it just to go to the bathroom. I used to do a lot of camping & hiking year-round, so am used to going poo or pee with no heat. I just use the bathroom heater to warm it up enough to wash up, take a bath, or shower. It would be way too cold in there naked or wet.
I was fortunate the last 2 months though. It was unusually warm for winter most days. We just had the warmest Feb. on record for my town (had the coldest just a couple years ago). My heat costs are down a bit. My hot water is free with the apartment, so I save a little on that too. It's a small place, so it's cheaper to heat than any place I lived before.
On milder days when there's not too much wind & it's above 40F(4C) outside, I may need no heat on at all. Just doing a normal amount of cooking for meals, making coffee, running a computer or 2 seems to generate enough heat on those milder days to be comfy. My old 1970s refrigerator also gives of a lot of heat off the back when running.
When sleeping, I'm not cooking or running computers, & the fridge don't kick on much. But under warm blankets, I'm cozy even when I let it get down to 45F(7C) inside. The kitties can cuddle each other or me if they get cold. But most of the time, they like the cold. They don't like much heat. We're so used to a cooler climate, many of us born here may not bother putting on a coat at 40-50F(4-10C)
This small place has a bad effect in the summer though. An 80F(27C) day outside would make it over 90F(32C) inside with the few small windows I have open, & fans running in them. If it got to the upper 80s, it could get over 100F(38C) in here & be uninhabitable for most used to the colder climate around here.
I can't take the high humidity Buffalo summer heat -- I literally show signs of heat stroke if it gets too hot & humid. With COPD I can't breathe in high humidity. I also can't breathe unfiltered dirty air well anymore.
So running AC with a couple air filters also running, my energy bills are higher in the summer than in a "normal" winter. But we never have a normal winter anymore. We had a couple rough extra cold winters, with winter-sized heating bills right through cold winter-like springs.
St. Patricks day just a couple years ago was 20 degrees colder than Alaska at the same time. It was snowing in April. There was a snow mound so big at the local train station that didn't fully melt until the middle of July. That is not normal for us.
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so what is an average electric bill costing yearly or monthly.My electric and gas bill yearly cost an average of £1000 per year.My water bill costs me £400 per year
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Because I use more electric heat in winter, but I have to use fans or AC in summer my electric per month is usually close to the same every month, within plus or minus $10. So around $50/mo. on average, or around $600 (£488) per year. Some milder months it might be $40/mo., but other times around $60.
The heating & cooking gas is a little trickier. They charge me $18/mo. just for being connected to the gas lines even if I don't use any gas. So I'm paying $216 a year just to be connected to the gas, above & beyond the cost of what I actually use.
I use electric heat a lot, & keep the gas heat low or off except for the coldest days. My hot water is free, included with the apartment. I live alone, so rarely use the big gas stove. I use a smaller electric one, & microwave. Even coffee making is electric. So my highest gas bill, in winter is about $45. The gas stove heats up the place too much, so from around May to after Sept. I don't use the gas stove at all. Cooking during warm months is electric. About from mid-spring to mid-fall, I'm not using any gas, but still paying $18/mo. just to be connected to the gas lines.
It costs around $416 a year in gas bills. That's about $1,016 a year in energy costs, or £826.
Water & hot water is included for with my apartment, but my rent is $6,000 (£4,882) a year. That's actually quite cheap around here for anything but bug & rat invested places surrounded by addicts & trigger-happy hoodlums with loaded guns who love to rob or kill anybody they see.
So that's $7,016 (£5,709) a year just for rent & utilities, before any phone bill, internet bill, meds, or food.
I just got my phone service cut down to 30 minutes or 30 text a month (each text counts as a minute). So I guess I won't be texting anymore unless it's an emergency. But I'm working on trying to do more with a google voice account phone number & text through my internet connection, as soon as I find a cheap android phone that will handle it OK.
Just cut my internet service down to the slowest DSL speed availble too. The only thing slower or cheaper than this is a dialup connection.
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Currently 57F(14C). Just heard some very distant thunder. Winds already gusting to 31mph. High wind & flooding warning for tomorrow with winds up to 55mph. Snow expected Fri., low of 12F(11C) Fri. night.
Barometer is down, humidity is up. Breathing rough since last night. Won't be doing any physical projects for a while. I'm getting out of breath just walking across the room. Not comfortably breathing just sitting around either, but it's not life threatening. I'll be OK.
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Wind gusts up to 62mph (hurricane strength is 70mph). Dozens of roofs blown off, & trees down from Niagara Falls to Rochester to Pennsylvania. Many roads & main highways closed due to downed trees, power lines, & flipped over high-profile trucks. Driving ban for high profile trucks on many roads & in many towns. Driving ban in Niagara Falls NY. Over 100,000 currently without power.
Going through all my batteries charging them in case of power failures. Many of them are partially run down inside equipment & lights, so even though they're not dead yet, it's a good idea to top them off with a fresh charge in case I need extra battery power for an extended time. Plus the ones sitting in a box get weaker over time just sitting around, so should be charged up to full capacity again. That way they'll last longer during an outage.
More that half my batteries were rescued from the 2007 fire, & half of those were purchased around the turn of the century. Those old ones don't hold a charge as well or as long as new ones. Still, I won't throw out old rechargeable batteries just because they'll only run a light for 5 hours instead of 10 hours, or need to be topped off every couple months.
Any extra battery power is handy during extended blackouts. Plus it's nice to walk around or read with plenty of light, listen to music, catch the news, & watch a movie while everybody else in the neighborhood is feeling around lost in the dark because they just killed their phone battery using it for light.
Candles, oil lamps, & gas lanterns are dangerous, especially around children, pets, wind, or when you're occupied with other stuff during an emergency.
Nobody thinks about what to do during a power failure until after it happens. The electric thermostat & blower on your heating won't even run without electricity. Do you have a back-up heating plan? When you run down your phone by using it as a light, how will you charge it? The car has heat, light, & a charger. But if it's a region-wide outage, the gasoline pumps at the gas station don't have electricity to pump the gas. Outside the region, the gas stations may be out of gas because everybody flocked there to get more gas.
Besides, do you really want to abandon you home or business during an outage so it gets invaded by looters or arsonists? 5 killed in gang related shootings over the weekend in my town. The hoolums like to come out in the warmer weather. They'd have a looting party during a blackout. If they get through my door, they will be shot.
A region-wide outage can cause the water station pumps to stop. Did you fill enough jugs & bottles with drinkable water to survive?
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Hey Betty, how are you doing. We had 80 MPH winds today up here and many of my neighbours lost roofs and garden sheds and quite a few large trees. I remember your photo's of the large tree your neighbour lost and worry about the one next to me. I ask every year if I can trim it back but I am only aloud to trim to the property line so if it comes down it will take out my hotub and family room and kitchen. It is an older tree and lost quite a few dead branches today of course in my yard as the wind was blowing in my direction. I also lost a section of lattice topper on my fence but it was loosened over the winter so I knew I had to fix it in the spring. Like you, I keep extra water and batteries on hand and a full gas can for the snowblower or and emergency. I also have a gas fireplace as alternate source of heat as well. It is almost 10 PM now but the wind is still blowing but not as strong. Stay safe Betty.
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hi Betty and Angela M,i am sometimes glad i live in uk where there is not as many gales that you suffer in the states and Canada,however our weather can also get bad ,but living just outside of the city,we don't get that much problems with power outage like you appear to get.
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Hey samantha 1, I am from Manchester myself and don't really remember much more than rain all the time but cousins have told me about their flooding and snowstorms in the past few years. I don't think I can complain much about the weather this years as we have not had very much snow but lots of cold nights. Our present mild spell is set to end this week with cold on the way and perhaps some snow flurries. I have lived in Canada since the late fifties and cannot get used to the cold but it does give me a very good excuse to wear my wooly tights all the time and last year I discovered some fleece lined tights from China that I just love and they keep me very cozy.
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Hi Angela M,so you were born in Manchester,how long were you there for,I was born in Hampstead and now i live in Berkshire,if you cannot get used to the cold in Canada ,what made you stay for many years.
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Hey samantha 1, my parents emigrated in 1957 when I was 8. My father and uncle were looking for work and friends tipped them off to the many jobs in Canada. We came over in October and although we liked all the Fall colours, we were shocked by our first winter. We did not have a car at that time and my sister and I walked to school about 2 miles from our apartment. Picture a little boy in an English school uniform with short pants and knee socks and T bar sandals walking through the snow. I was frozen and my teachers suggested some long pants or jeans like the other kids wore and a winter style coat but we did not have a great deal of money at the time. My mother tried to help by putting me into a pair of my sisters white tights under my shorts and knee socks. I loved how they fit and made my legs so smooth and kept me warmer but I was teased mercilessly by the other kids. The next pair I wore were the beige colour but the kids still teased and after a few weeks my father had saved enough for a pair of long pants that were plaid flannel lined. I was warmer but missed the tights so I would wear them at night in bed and put them back in my sisters drawer later. I have been hooked on tights since that time although I was wearing my sisters clothes in England since the age of 4 but she never had tights back then. When I was about 5 or 6 living in England, I still had longish curly blond hair as my mother loved it and brushed it all the time but my sister was born with blond straight hair. I was into my sister dress and white ankle socks with lace trim and a ribbon in my hair, playing house with my sister when dad came home. He had a fit and got me back into my own clothes and rushed me out to a barber for a very short haircut. My mother and I were both very upset and I cried all night about that but mom said it will grow back. I am glad it did before we moved to Canada and with the cold climate dad never insisted it was that short again but then I never let him see me in my sisters clothes again either. I have only been back to England a few times but I pretty much liked our life in Canada so I never thought of moving back later in life.
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Yikes! 80mph winds, that's officially hurricane strength. Glad you're OK. My power stayed on. But I usually shut down my computers during severe storms, or nearby lightning anyway. Even without lightning, & my equipment is pretty robust, don't want brief power on-off surges, & static coming down the lines screwing them up.
During lightnig nearby or to the north of my, my internet DSL connection cuts out a lot anyway.
Could run a laptop, phone, or small tablet on battery, but once a storm is severe, I like to preserve the battery life in them for a power outage. Even after an outage, I usually leave everything off that I don't need to survive, except for emergencies.
During the last outage, I put out a message that I would be shutting off my phone to save its battery. At 11pm I sent out another message that I was still OK, & again in the morning, otherwise, I kept the phone off.
My phone is & its battery is almost 7 years old so it don't hold a charge as long as it was new anymore. So if I think I won't be able to charge it in a while, I have to be very frugal about using up the battery.
I just switched mobile phone companies to someone who offered a senior discount. For $50, I got a brand new modern smart phone (to own, not lease or on payments) with a large 4.5 inch screen, & the first month of phone service free. After that, it's only $10/mo. for phone service. 200 minutes or 600 texts per month. They tally each text as 1/3 a minute. Good for me. Almost everybody texts me, & hardly anybody calls anymore.
No data plan. I can get on the web with it through wifi. It will even play HD movies, & makes a nice mp3 player. It'll keep a charge on standby for 3 days, 8 hours of talk time, play movies for 4.5 hours, & music for 11. I added a 32gb SD card from my tablet to hold all my favorite stuff.
If my internet went down for an extended period, a $30 basic data plan for it could keep me online for a month as long as I'm not using too much bandwidth streaming media. I can even tether it to my computers or use it as a wifi hotspot through a data plan.
But a 4.5 inch screen is plenty big enough for Facebook, online news, mail, manage my bills, banking & Betty's. It's always nice to have back-up plans.
I used to be quite famous at work for no matter what went wrong, I had a backup plan, or some old spare backup unit, & parts to use in a pinch.
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Hi Betty,i use lycamobile and for £10.00 per month ,i get unlimited texts and 500 minutes plus 2 gigs for internet every month .my phone is pay as you go.at this present moment i am suffering from bronchitis and talking antibiotics and just sleeping allot
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Hi Angela M ,Having never been to Canada for a long time is the cost of living like the states or england.When was the last time you came to uk.
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Hey samantha 1, the last time I was in England was for the Queens Silver Jubilee in the 70's and at the time I had quite a few relatives to stay with including my grandmother. We stayed for awhile in Manchester in the front bedroom of her rented house where I was born in 1949 and walked to the park at the end of the road where I would play as a child. I took hundreds of photo's (35 mm slides) but many of them are fading away after storage for so long. After traveling to London for the Jubilee celebrations it was off to visit family in Windsor and then on to Scotland. I find the cost of living in the UK seems high these days based on our dollar and earnings but here in Canada everything is getting expensive and mobile phone and Internet charges are very high as well as hydro. If I am to survive into my 80's or 90's I would need to sell my house to supply enough income for future years and upkeep is getting expensive and hard for me to do on my own now also.
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Hi Angela M,do you still have family in Windsor as i live in Slough and so cost of living is still going up in Canada and you are not married.I also would have problems ,but my inheritance will keep me going plus 3 private pensions ,so if i lived too 100[NO CHANCE] i would have no problems plus state pension
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Hey samantha 1, even with two work pensions and the Government money I find it hard these days. They remain constant but everything else goes up monthly. I still have not touched my investment money yet but by the time I am 70 I may need to dip into those funds before I think of selling the house. I worked for the same company for 42 years and they do have great health and drug plans that pay for my meds, Dentist and Opticians visits and most of the tests I need to maintain my health. You have NHS but does it cover everything? With extensive Arthritis, Prostate and back problems, I am lucky to have great treatments for these and great doctors and a pharmacist who have become friends also.
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lycamobile and for £10.00 per month ,i get unlimited texts and 500 minutes plus 2 gigs for internet every month .my phone is pay as you go.at this present moment i am suffering from bronchitis and talking antibiotics and just sleeping allot
Good deal. They really price gouge us for phone & data here in America. I don't think you can get 2gb of phone data around here for under $30/mo., & that's not even including any calling or text service.
Ouch. Take care of yourself. It seems a lot or people eventually get lung or breathing problems living in modern civilization.
But it's a trade-off. We probably wouldn't live any longer by abandoning it all & to live in the wilderness. Technology has fought off many diseases, & life threatening conditions but something eventually knocks you down, at least for a while.
In the wild, if you don't freeze or starve to death during a rough winter, some bear as hungry as you gets you.
I'm finding I need more sleep these days too. I used to get by on a about 4 hours sleep a day, & 6 hours on a lazy day a couple times a week. It seems I always need 8 hours a day now. Not all at once though. 4 hours for bedtime, & an hour or 2 here & there in naps the rest of the day or night.
Maybe not being well enough wears one out more, or it's just something that comes with age. The kitties are a bad influence too. I see them curled up together comfortable sleeping (cats sleep a lot), or they're begging for some cuddling in my lap. So I take a break to stretch out & cuddle with them a while, & the next thing I know we're all dozing off cozy together.
And they know if I lay back, it's break time, so they come running for petting, brushing, belly rubs, & cuddling. Or they pile on top of me & doze off. I feel guilty about waking them up when they just got cozy & fell asleep. So I just lay there a while feeling cozy, & then doze off. Sometimes I gotta go pee, but I hold it a while because they're sound asleep cozy on me, & don't want to wake them up.
I think cats are a natural sedative. If they want to cuddle or sleep on you, it makes you feel cozy & real tired.
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I took hundreds of photo's (35 mm slides) but many of them are fading away after storage for so long. ...I find the cost of living in the UK seems high these days based on our dollar and earnings but here in Canada everything is getting expensive and mobile phone and Internet charges are very high as well as hydro. If I am to survive into my 80's or 90's I would need to sell my house to supply enough income for future years and upkeep is getting expensive and hard for me to do on my own now also
If they're slides, those photos faded from the bright hot projector light too. You should have those photos converted to digital before they're lost or fade too far. Once in digital form like a jpg, someone or even I can restore them to pretty close to what they originally looked like & maybe even fix a few that weren't photographed well in the first place.
It's a damn shame, unless you're very rich, if you work very hard all your life to build something, once you get old enough where you can't run your butt off like crazy anymore, you stand a good chance of losing everything just to barely survive a few more years. Even a minor health issue can bankrupt somebody thanks to drug companies & hospitals over-charging by 1,000 to 50,000%.
They get away with it because the elderly, sick, & disabled won't be picketing, demonstrating, & rioting in the streets about it. Many of them can't even get out to vote, or are able to vote. So medical industry & rich politicians have no motivation to help. They're in it for mountains of money & votes at all costs.
And that health insurance isn't very helpful if the deductible is $10,000 that you gotta pay up front before they pay the rest.
I worked hard, scrimpted & saved all my life. After the fire set me back, I struggled like crazy working 50-70 hour work weeks to build my future back up again. When I got a heart attack from drowning in my own lung fluids caused by a terrible flu (which also permanently scarred my lungs), those high deductibles, high hospital bills, & high doctor bills totally cleaned me out in less than a month, even though I had health insurance at the time. Then I could no longer afford the insurance premiums after that anymore.
I have to self-treat myself with severe COPD. No money or insurance for doctors, hospitals, or even a dentist.
Meanwhile, only 8 people own half the money & wealth of the world. You don't get that rich unless you don't give a crap about anybody else but yourself.
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Betty,as i seem to remember Lycamobile can be used and bought around the world,so if true maybe you should see whether they can be bought in the states.I have always from a young age suffered from bronchitis and ever so often it flares up,what with this and suffering from Ibs ,everything else seems so little.
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Angela M,All medication is free once you get too 60 however the glasses and dentist i do pay for ,but not private which is expensive ,however the nhs bill for same is only 1 /3 of the price and all of my ops are free from nhs.If you are on any forms of disability where you cannot work then the uk nhs pays for glasses and dentist free as long as your cash money is below £15000
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Betty,you are up early today
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I breathe better when the air is cooler & dry. So I stay up nights to get stuff done whle I can breathe good enough. In winters it gets dark early so bedtime might be right after dinner most days. Then I also get at least a brief nap after breakfast or lunch. If I didn't get much sleep after dinner, there will be a nap after both breakfast & lunch.
I live in a mansion converted into 19 apartments, with full laundry facilities in the basement. With 19 apartments cooking & doing their laundry in the building air pollution & humidity can get pretty high (even in winter). These are all separate independent apartments, but I can still smell what others are cooking, & the detergent/chemical smells from way down in the basement in my house. With 19 apartments, the laundry facilities in the basement are running all day every day.
In the summers, I may get most of my sleep during the hottest part of the day instead because I can't breathe well enough then. In summers I may sleep from after lunchtime until after dinner time & stay up all night.
Although I have AC, I can't afford to run it on high, hard all summer. I usually just run it enough to keep it bearable. On the hottest humid days, it's not powerful enough to keep things very cool & lower the humidity too much. But it helps a lot.
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I never heard of Lycamobile before.
I see the owner was just charged with mob ties & money laundering criminal funds in France a few months ago... maybe all the funds he's stealing & hacking from unsuspecting visitors to their unsafe & dangerous website. I'm not handing over my credit card, paypal, or banking info for payment to a place like that. Most phone companies are shady & sneaky enough without dealing with that kind of scary stuff.
When I went to the website, my browsers & protections refused to let me into the site because they said it wasn't safe & secure. I had to shut off my anti-virus web shield, & use a standard browser set for low/regular security to get into the site.
For me in the USA, the lowest offer they offered to me was 200 minutes, unlimited text, & 500mb of data for $19.95.
You can use up that much data just by visiting a Facebook page, Yahoo news page, or ABC news just 2 or 3 times... but it will get you 2-4 movies, or 68 hours of music, or 15,000 pictures here at Betty's. It a shame most website management don't care anything about efficiency anymore, & most of their users don't have clue about it anyway.
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if you go to www.lycamobile.co.uk you will see uk ones
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if you go to www.lycamobile.co.uk you will see uk ones
Yep, definitely a better deal. They'll charge more here because they know us fools will pay it. Phone service & data costs way more here no matter what company we use.
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Was 13F this morning, with 2 inches of snow on the ground. More snow & cold coming soon.
More than half the days in Feb. this year were like April. But his month it looks like it's gonna be mostly cold Feb. wintry weather.
It looks like once again, the poor kids in their short Irish solo dresses are gonna freeze their legs & butt off for the St. Pat's day parade next Sunday.
We'll probably still have snow on the ground for the first day of spring. It used to be 50-60F by the first day of spring -- it's been a few years since that happened, but we just had the warmest Feb. ever!
They're predicting a storm where we'll get 7-10 inches of snow starting Mon. LOL, that's nothing for us & not a storm at all. Maybe if they got something like that in Washington DC, it would paralyze the city. But around here, we'd just make sure the kids are dressed warm, send them of to school, & go to work just like it's a regular day.
I guess if you're used to up to 2-20 FEET of snow, 7-10 inches is almost a disappointment.
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Enjoying a sunny, cloudless day. 44F sure feels toasty compared to teens & twenties with single digit wind chills. All but the deepest parts of the snow, & taller snowbanks have melted around my house.
One of my 2 air filters inside to help my COPD just died last night. It had been making odd sounds occasionally for months, that clearly indicated the motor bearings were wearing out. Close inspection of the motor a couple months ago shows the motor bearings were worn down... the rotor had too much play & vibrating around a lot. Repacking the bearings in a heaver grease reduced the problem a bit. But last night it started making loud whirring & vibrating a lot. It hardly spins fast enough to blow anything anymore. So I shut it down. I'll have to shop for a new cheap one someday.
When I got these 2 filters, they had identical specs, but different brands. The one by Holmes, for around $35 is still running like new. The one by Honeywell was $40. It always was noisier, & vibrated more, even new. That's the one that just died 5 years later. They both blow as much air, & inside the design is almost the same. The motors even look very similar. But because the Holmes one was always quieter, it probably had a better motor or bearings... even though it was 5 dollars cheaper.
The replacement filter for either of them, comes in a 2-pack for about the price the whole unit, with filters included costs. So I make my own filters for them at pennies per filter.
These are small units designed for a small bedroom. So for my purposes with COPD, I needed to run both of them on full all day almost every day for the past 5 years. They also help in circulating the air, so it doesn't get stale in one area or corner where I am. With COPD you want fresh clean air & well circulated around.
Outside air, most days make me breathe worse. It has to be filtered, & cleaned. But eventually the inside air gets stale & worse, so I have to let new fresh air in, then let the filters work hard for hours cleaning it before the air is easier to breathe again. Even in winters I have to crack open the windows to refresh the air a little so it don't get too stale or O2 depleted. My gas heating is right inside my small apartment. So even running it, or cooking with gas in a small place depletes the O2 too much with COPD.
Every apartment in the building has it's own gas heating inside. So the whole building is O2 hungry. So even though breathing outside air is rough on me, eventually the indoor air gets worse & has to be refreshed.
With only 1 filter working, breathing inside has been noticeably harder. So much so, that sitting outside didn't make it much worse. So I sat with my morning coffee on my side-step outside enjoying the sun. Then after lunch sat with a coffee out there again. But breathing eventually got worse than inside... even with only 1 filter left, so had to escape into the indoors.
I may make a large homemade filter for my AC unit to use as a replacement until I can scrape up enough to get another filter unit cheap. It will re-circulate air even with the AC function off. There's no room for a proper filter for COPD in it. I'll have to make something with cardboard & duct tape to attach to the intake to make it work. It'll look like hell, but should function for now.
I see tonight it will get back down to a chilling 18F. Tomorrow night 15F. But they say by Friday it will be a very rainy 49F. That promotes a lot of mold & mildew growth outside & in the ground. Very bad for COPD, as is dampness & high humidity too. So any substitute air filter system must be in place by then.
After tonight, no more snow in the long-range forecast. Tuesday it may even hit 50F. But the weather changes so quickly the last few years, this may not be the end of snow. We've seen snow in April the last few recent years.
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Sorry to hear one of your filters died, hope you can find another for a good price. The temp. here today got to 53 F and was warm and sunny. Drove with the car windows and sunroof open. It is nice to have some fresh air for a change and warmer weather. They say it will get cold tonight and rain in the forecast for most of the weekend. Nice to see some of the girls wearing dresses again but not many and then they are the young ones. Can't wait for summer, perhaps the dress and skirt fashion will return.
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April 7th -- It's snowing!
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Hi Betty,
All I can say is, good grief! But I see tomorrow will be better for you.This is the forecast on Google. "A nice, sunny day is in store for Saturday, still pretty cool with temperatures in the forties,' Ansuini said. "By the time we get to Sunday, we will see temperatures get into the low to mid-sixties." Hope that's accurate.
Andy G.
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Breathing a little better today as the dampness, high humidity, & low air pressure is gone. All that damp & humid weather combined with low air pressure almost every day for weeks made breathing rough, & really slowed me down a lot.
They say 30F tonight. Not that cold at all for winter, but frigid for April. 61F expected Sunday. That's a 31 degree jump in just 1 1/2 days. 69F for Monday -- 39 degree jump in 2 1/2 days.
I find I can breathe a little better if I have a little time to adjust & adapt to the weather changes. But it seems just about the time I'm starting to get used to it, it changes. If it changes too fast -- even for the better, breathing is rough until I get used to the change.
The wildlife & plants can't take these dramatic weather swings well. There were buds popping out of the trees in Feb. But they're gone now. Birds outside my windows are rarer than they were in Feb. Less birds than usual in my area all year for years now. Less squirrels too.
The first couple years after I moved to this smaller place, the trees would have a lot of leaves & be bushy by now. That past few years they're as bare as Jan. in April.
Recent years have shown milder winters & warmer springs in most of Alaska than in Buffalo. Currently it's 8 degrees warmer in Anchorage than here. The polar bears are sweating their butts off. But this last winter was very strange. In Jan & Feb we experienced lots 30-40 degree temperature swings in just 24-48 hours with quite a few unusually warm days in a row for the middle of winter. 50F one day, & 4-10F that night or the next day.
Our warmest visitor so far today was in Phoenix at 90F & our coldest visitor was in Stockholm at 34F... just 2 degrees colder than Buffalo. If you live in the most northern parts of Canada & Russia, they're experiencing near or below zero F temperatures, but we haven't got any visitors from around there today yet. The hottest areas today are just south of Mexico at around 95F. Mexico is at 92F.
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we had 2 days of high sunny weather and now it has got cold again
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Mon. it got up to a nice & toasty 72F (22C). Tue. got up to 60F (16C). Wed. night through Thur. morning it'll get down to 34F (1C). But finally it's looking like no more snow for the next 5-6 months. Rain expected for the holiday weekend. If the humidity is high at the same time, I probably won't breathe well through that.
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Our hottest visitors are from Phoenix Arizona. We have several visitors from around there. It's currently 119F(48C) there & expected to remain in the 100s in the daytime for the next 2 weeks. That makes it the second hottest city in the world today & yesterday. It's so hot there planes are grounded during the hottest part of the day. Because hot air is thinner, the planes can't get enough lift to fly. Good golly, I hope you kids down there got AC, or can keep cool by keeping wet, or at least have a really good fan.
The hottest city in the world is Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico at 121F(49C). But I'm not aware of any regular visitors from around there.
Las Vegas-106F(41C), Sacramento-103F(39C), Albuquerque & Salt Lake City-101F(38C).
Up north here, I'll melt at about 80F(27C), but don't bother putting on a coat at 40F(4C) & can deal with -10F(-23C) better than 90F. The hottest whole day I ever experienced was 98F(37C) outside of Warsaw NY in about 1963. However there was a shadeless commercial patio where I was building a project for a few hours where it got up to 105F (41C) on the patio about 10 years ago. I remember leaving a garden hose connected to constantly soak myself down to get the job done.
Before AC, I used to fill a spray bottle with water, & regularly mist myself down to keep cool. It works very well. Not too pretty being all wet & soggy, but it felt good.
Our coldest visitor is from Cape town S. Africa at 41F(5C). It's the beginning of winter there just like Australia, because it's in the southern hemisphere. You'll be surprised how many dumb shyts don't know that.
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hi betty,in uk the temperature today peaked at 34.4c and even now coming toward 11pm it is still 28c
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Yikes, that's 94F! That may not sound too hot for many southerners, but you're surrounded by the ocean, so imagine just like me downwind from most of the Great Lakes, & right in between 2 of them, it's a very damp, swampy, sticky, sweaty, humid heat. In Phoenix, & Las Vegas, it's dry dessert. It's easier to keep a little cooler because perspiration evaporates faster in the dry air. In humid air it just lays on you getting sticky, smelly, & attracting bugs. Dry air is like air coming from a hair drier. Humid are is like air coming off a boiling pot or steam room. Your perspiration doesn't evaporate to keep you cool.
Air conditioning works on the same principle. The refrigerant evaporates inside of the cool side, taking the heat with it, then under pressure, it re-condenses on the hot outside part of it to release the heat. Then it's pumped back to the cool side to evaporate again.
That's why most weather peeps include things like heat index, wind chill, or "feels like" temperatures in their reports. Humidity slows evaporation off the body so it feels hotter. Wind & dry air remove heat off the body more. An 85F(29C) day at humidity of 75% or higher can feel as hot a 100F(38C) or more, & be just as dangerous to some people... especially those who aren't used to higher temperatures.
According to my weather feeds it got up 91F(33C) near you, but I guess it can get a little hotter a few miles further inland away from cooler water. I'm seeing 68F(20C) around you now, but most of the rest of the UK is 57-62F (14-17C) this morning (pre-dawn UK time). Cooling down there for the next 2 weeks. Today it will only get up to 78F(26C) there, & a high of 75F(24C) for Friday. Then highs down to around 70F(21C) until Mon when they say it will go up to 76F(24.4C). But those long range forecasts tend to be way off. Looks like rain for you Sun, Tue, & maybe Wed.
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Most people who don't live around here don't realize how massive the Great Lakes are. They're so big they create their own weather fronts, storm systems, & lots of humidity. Been lucky here the past couple days though. It cooled down significantly again. We didn't get as many of those northern arctic vortexes moving in this winter like we have in previous recent winters. But most recently it's been considerable cooler than normal because we were getting a lot of those vortexes in May & June instead.
Give you an idea of how massive the Great Lakes are here's the UK superimposed onto the USA in the same scale of size. USA-3,000 miles across. NY state is 330 miles long, but wouldn't even cover half the Great Lakes. Except for NYC, Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse, & Rochester, the rest of the state is just small towns, farmland, & wilderness... lots of woodlands & forests. Buffalo is second largest city in the state, both in size & population. The largest is NYC.
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39F (3.8C). Hard to believe it was 90F (32C) about a week ago... 51F (28C) degree difference!
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that is cold
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By Tue. it will be back up to 76F, & 79F by Wed. 40F difference in 3 days. Someone mentioned it's normal autumn weather. Nope. We used to normally not expect weather in the 30s until after Halloween. 50s & 60s used to be normal for around now here.
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it is fluctuation allot
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In Alice Springs Australia, our warmest visitor is experiencing 97F (36C), with just a little over 3 hours before their new year & Monday. It will get up to 102F (39C) on their Monday afternoon there in about 13 hours. Our eastern Australian visitors will begin the new year in under 2 hours. For our many visitors in New Zealand it just turned to 2018 in just a few minutes ago.
Our coldest visitor is from Winnipeg, Canada currently at -21F (-30C). In just a couple hours it will get down to -28F (-33C), with a wind chill of -48F (-44C)!
The coldest spot in Antarctica is currently -13F (-25C) & the warmest at 37F (3C... it's a big continent). It's a toasty 21F (-6C) in Anchorage Alaska.
Here in Buffalo it's currently a breezy 2F (-17C) with wind chills around -11F (-24C). At the turn of the new year at midnight, it will be a windy -2F (-19C) here with a wind chill of -15F (-26C)! Forecasts show no end of the Artic temperatures in sight. The last time we had so many days in a row this cold, it wiped out a significant amount of the area's wildlife.
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Brrr! It's a very windy 3F (-16C) with a wind chill of -18F
(-28C). It'll get down to zero in about a couple hours with a wind chill around -25F (-32C). Tomorrow night down to -6F (-21C), with wind chills down to -25 (-32C) to -35F (-37C).
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hi Betty,how long will this cold weather spell last for you ,and how does cold weather affect you.
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The cold comes & goes with the dip of the arctic "vortex"... thus the title of this thread. Even in the summer this dip can cause unusually cooler summer temperatures, or occasionally arctic wintery weather in mid-spring.
Up until almost 10 years ago these arctic vortexes dipping down low enough to reach my area were extremely rare. Now they're every year, with about every 2-3 years dipping down to us & just staying there for weeks many times a year. When that happens, it actually wipes out some of the wildlife in the area. I haven't seen a squirrel or bird outside since before Christmas.
Our autumn temperatures would change from 70F(21C) to 30F(-1C) in just a day or 2 because of an arctic vortex.
We've been having unusually cold weather since before Christmas. It's actually so cold that they closed all the schools in the area because they felt the extreme cold was too dangerous for the kids. Once again, Alaska is warmer than we are.
I usually breathe a little better when it's colder or the humidity is low... especially if the air pressure/barometer is up. But I'm home-bound so I haven't tried to get outside in the arctic weather. My outside hall isn't heated, & probably in the 20s F (-7C to -2C) because some heat from the apartments does leak into the halls. But I breathe better inside anyway because it's well filtered cleaner air. Eventually the air gets stale though, so a window has to be cracked open occasionally to refresh the air -- not something I want to do much when it's 0F(-18C) outside.
The air pressure has been low the past few days so my breathing is rough. I just borrowed a shitload of money to buy an O2 making machine. It's not a high powered heavy one that will deliver lots of O2 at a large flow rate though. Even borrowing the money, those types were still way too un-affordable for me. But the one I got does help a little on these bad days.
If I stop to take breaths from the machine or take breaths from it before I get started, I find I can walk around or do stuff about twice as much before gasping for air. Then, running back to the machine, I can recover in 2-3 minutes. Without the machine, once out of breath, I would have to immediately stop & sit wherever I was to recover & catch my breath for 5-15 minutes. So life is just a little better with the new machine, but only is a minor improvement.
Although my condition had stabilized for almost 3 years, since mid-summer it had gotten much worse again, so I really needed the machine now to survive or do anything in the house... or even make it to the bathroom on a bad day. But it only got me to be like as good as I was about last year, which was a lot better than this year.
The bad is, running an O2 machine, plus 2 air filters will jack up my electric bill by around 30-40%. With these cold vortexes causing more heating usage, my energy costs will go through the roof again. It's not that I'm jacking the heat up toasty either. When sleeping under lots of warm blankets, I let the whole place get down to the mid-40s F(7C). When I'm awake, I just layer on clothing & keep the place in the mid-50s F(13C). I keep an electric heater bedside & in the bathroom when I need a little extra heat for bath time, or changing clothes. I don't think the place ever has gotten warmer than 60F(16C) since before Christmas.
Interestingly if it just gets 40F(4C) outside, & it's not too windy, I can keep my place in the mid 60s F(18C) without turning on any heat at all. I guess heat from the computers, heat coming off the back of the fridge, cooking or making coffee warms up the place enough on those milder days.
Kitties don't like heat, & like it cool. But when I let the place get down to the 40s around bedtime, They'll snuggle up real close. It's all cozy, comfy, & cuddling though. They can get plenty warm enough when we're all cuddled together. There's lot of petting, brushing, & back scratching at bedtime for about an hour until we all doze off together. So they actually like it getting cold at bedtime & cuddling together.
On a day like today, the tiny in-wall gas furnace can't keep up though. I'm running an 800 watt heater pointed right at us to keep it in the mid-50s F. Plus a little 300 watt one to keep the bathroom bearable... there goes the electric bill.
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3 days in a row breathing like crap. Although the air pressure is back up outside since last night, I see no improvement in my breathing. But it's always worse early in the day or for the first few hours after I get up. Maybe it will get better later in the afternoon.
I suspect with all this cold, & there being 16 apartments in this building all with their own independent cheap, small, old, inefficient gas heating, that the entire place is shrouded in high levels of carbon monoxide, & low O2 levels. It may not be enough to trigger the CO alarms, but is enough to make it rough for somebody with COPD.
The new O2 machine I got helps, but not a lot. It's not a big heavy machine for producing a lot of O2. I find if I do some deep breathing on it for a few minutes before going to the bathroom, I can make it there without gasping for air. But when I'm done, I gasping trying to get back from the bathroom.
But instead of sitting there gasping for air feeling like I'm suffocating & gonna die for 5-15 minutes, if I go straight back to the machine for more O2, I can recover in about 2-3 minutes.
If I get out of breath just bending over to pick something up, or walking across the room, if I have the O2 for a couple minutes first, I can walk twice as much or bend twice as much before getting out of breath. Still can't figure out why bending over puts me more out of breath than walking across the room though.
On a day like today I would have been stuck sitting or laying around all day except to struggle going to the bathroom or making a meal while gasping for air. With the O2 machine on a bad day, I at least can move around a little without too much misery or risk of suffocating.
Since this summer, I have much more bad days. I had stabilized my condition for almost 3 years, but since this summer it has gotten much worse again, so really needed this little machine. With the O2 machine around, it makes things as manageable & survivable as it was a year ago.
When you feel like you're suffocating, or drowning, or might die, just by moving around, every little improvement helps.
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Holy crap! 60F (16C) today. 60 degree difference in just 4 days. Saturday night it will get back down to 6F (-14C), & Sunday night down to 4F (-16C). Friday is expected to jump from 50F (10C) to 14F (-10C) in just a few hours.
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I am on O2 24/7 and use oxygen bottles and a concentrator. You said your saturation levels drop walking back to your oxygen? Why are you walking back without a hose? As for losing your breath when you bend over? When I went through rehab I was told that there is a concentration of carbon dioxide that hasn't been expelled which then triggers an alarm to take a breath. Next time you're about to bend, exhale forcefully first, then do the bend. I do this for socks or picking things us.
Hugs
Mary Beth
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The machine I got only came with a 7' hose. Being a smaller lower powered machine, I didn't want to invest in anything else until I saw how well it would work for me first. Although cheaper & lighter than a full sized unit that could deliver up to 5LPM or more at 95% concentration, it was still very expensive & un-affordable for me (much more than my apartment's monthly rent). I actually had to borrow the money to get it. So there was literally nothing left for more hoses, connectors, & other stuff.
This smaller 16lb unit only draws 100 watts. It will deliver 90% concentration at 1 LPM, 50% at 2 LPM, 40% at 3 LPM, 33% at 4 LPM, & 30% concentration at 5 LPM. Normal air is almost 21% oxygen.
I'm home bound too, so can't really go anywhere. Outside, uncontrolled, unfiltered air usually makes my breathing worse. So I can't really go out & buy hoses & stuff. The few close friends & family members that are still alive, live way too far away to get here much. So they can't actually run out to get stuff to bring to me much.
I have to order stuff & have it delivered. But a few years ago just about all delivery services (USPS, UPS, FedEX, DHL, etc.) have adopted a policy of just abandoning my packages just about anywhere outside around the property, & not even bothering to ring a doorbell they they arrive. So all of my deliveries would get stolen.
Tracking updates sometimes would indicate it's not even in the state, then suddenly later in the afternoon or evening show that it was delivered (abandoned somewhere on the property) many hours ago. Or if tracking did say to expect a delivery that day, it could arrive anywhere from 7am to 9pm. Am I supposed to sit outside in all sorts of weather for 14 hours to watch for them?
I live in the back of the building on the second floor. So I can't see the street, or entrances. I can't even hear the street traffic from my place unless it's a real loud vehicle. The view from my few small windows is just the neighbor's back yards & trees.
So just about anything I need I have to have delivered to a friend or family member out of town. Then wait weeks to a month for the next time they're in the city to drop it off to me.
Fortunately my sister makes it into town about once a month. But she can't carry much & is on a tight budget too. She was also forced into early retirement due to leg problems, back problems, arthritis, & diabetes. So the trip here to drop stuff off is difficult for her, & an expense on her tight budget. If it's more than a bag of stuff, she has to drag a friend with her to help carry it, & get it up the stairs to me.
Longer hoses are on the way, but probably won't be here until after the middle of the month. The O2 concentrator doesn't have enough air pressure to fill O2 tanks.
I'm getting a 42 liter medical grade O2 bag that it can fill. That's basically an inflatable pillow, which you can actually lay on as a pillow. At 17"x30" it's a bit large to carry around, but can be a nice emergency or somewhat portable O2 supply to keep in a closet, cabinet, or carry into a vehicle... anywhere where my cat's nails can't get at it put a hole in it. And it weighs almost nothing!
Although our lungs hold about 6 liters of air. At rest we only breathe about a half a liter per breath, or around 7 liters per minute. My O2 machine at 90% concentration on 1 LPM, or even down to 30% at 5 LPM is helpful for me with proper breathing techniques to get the most use out of every bit of it.
So a 42 liter bag with 90% O2 could last a long time. In an emergency or portable situation, I would probably take brief short breaths of the 90% O2 in between normal breaths of normal air. But my machine will only deliver 90% concentration at 1 LPM, so it will take 42 minutes to fill the bag.
I'm also getting a 3 pack of smaller inflatable camping pillows. Each one holds about 7-8 liters. I can easily fit 2 of them in a backpack. For my condition, I estimate that 1 of them filled with 90% O2, in an emergency situation where I need extra O2, I can ration my breaths from one of them to last me at as long as 14 minutes.
At rest, just sitting or laying around, I breathe pretty much normal... almost like I have no COPD at all. Only on the worst days is my breathing a bit rough just sitting around... where just brushing my hair or a cat would get me out of breath.
Concentrated O2 is very corrosive though. I would imagine the O2 would eventually break down & ruin the plastic in small non-medical pillows & have to be replaced. Also there may be plastic odors or particles leaching into the O2 if stored in them a long time. So the pillows should be emptied & refilled if sitting unused a long time to keep the O2 fresh & clean. Ideally, they should be emptied & refilled the day I plan to use them. The medical grade 42 liter one is designed to store O2 for a long time though... it's supposed to be made of a nylon fiber.
I don't know about walking through the house tethered to a long hose much. The cats may see it as me dragging a toy around for them & attack it. Or they may chew through a small hose laying around.
When I first got the cats they chewed through almost every USB, charger, & AC adapter cord in the place. It's a good thing I adopted them. A less patient person, who wasn't handy fixing stuff would had got rid of them after that, or made their life miserable about it. You can train cats, but you can't train or punish a cat the same way you would a dog or child. The results would be disastrous. You'd wind up with a nuts, freaked out, unstable, & possibly dangerous animal.
They don't chew through wires much anymore, but every few months I find another charger or adapter cord cut in half. They don't actually chew them either, it's a clean cut, a bite, like done with wire cutters.
The last one they cut, I repaired the wire properly as usual. But I guess the adapter got damaged when it shorted & cut off the power. It reset itself by unplugging it, so after the repair, when I plugged it back in, it exploded with a loud bang, flash, & blew a 20 amp breaker. Amazingly, hand wasn't damaged, but it left a big scorch mark on the outlet.
So now I put thin (only 1/4" diameter) split tubing on all my charger & adapter cords. I had just read about a cat getting killed chewing through a Christmas light line. They don't even try to bite the tubing shield so far. A few years back, I noticed some teeth marks on some AC power cords too. I wrapped them in duct tape. They seem to not want to bite of the tape. It looks like hell but it solved the problem. I should get some black duct tape some day. That will look better.
Yep. I tried all sorts of breathing methods. Bending over still puts me out of breath more than walking around. I thought it might have to do with throwing off the balance of blood pressure in the body when bending over... like if a normal healthy person bends over & stands up several times in a row very quickly, they may get a little dizzy.
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Just no way around the ugly parts. I've got a twenty foot hose that gets me to most places and a M6 bottle with a 7 foot hose that gives pulsed air for the short trip. VA covers the concentrator and bottles plus hoses. Medicare has the same plan. Are you Medicare? Or some sort of medical? Our place has a drop box with a key that goes in the mail box. Works pretty well. Damn. Wish you well.
Hugs
Mary Beth
Can you get PDF files someway? I have a ton of stuff from the rehab I could send you.
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25 foot hose, attachments/couplers, along with the the O2 storage bags/pillows arrived at my sister's house. She's hoping she can make it into town to drop them off by next weekend.
I probably read most material on COPD, lungs, & related topics over the years. Been researching this stuff since my mom had COPD over 25 years ago, & it eventually killed her. I watched her get worse every month & year looking for answers. I didn't realize that catching the worst flu of my life would kill me twice, & do serious permanent damage to my lungs, causing my the same problems.
So by the time I got it, I already had a head start on learning about it.
I had some health insurance for a while, when it ran out, I cleaned out my bank, sold a lot of my stuff, & went into debt up to my eyeballs (still paying on that) just to get treatments, care, & stay alive for a few more years.
Back in those days, the medical community didn't expect me to survive more than about 2-3 more years... which meant according to them, I'd be dead around 2016 or 2017.
But the money ran out, nothing left to sell, out of work, & couldn't borrow any more. So I had to self-treat myself on a barebones budget using whatever I could scrounge up or put together. A lot of personal research went into what people in other countries, & poor people in poor countries are doing to deal with COPD.
It's remarkable the enormous amount of stuff that is addressed by doctors & instructed to COPD patients in other countries, that doesn't even get mentioned to American patients, or discussed in American hospitals.
I literally read thousands of pages of medical/scientific journals, research papers, medical trials, & theories. I even read up an a lot of the related chemistry, & medical chemistry. I started maintaining daily logs & graphs of my condition. I was carefully examining data about days I would breathe a little better & days it was worse to find what caused the difference.
It got even more complicated as I had to study atmospheric conditions as a contributing factor such as atmospheric air pressure that day or hour, ozone levels, indoor/outdoor pollution, humidity, & temperature.
There is no cure for COPD. It's a progressive disease too. Once you get it, it continues to get worse. This is because as we age, our lungs do wear, tear, & get worse, so slowly loose more of their capacity to absorb O2 from the air. Environmental factors also cause the lungs to permanently lose more of the capacity to function, like pollution, smoking, etc.
In a normal healthy person, as we age & our lungs wear, we can still loose some lung capacity & live a normal life with no COPD symptoms. But if you have COPD so your lung capacity is already impaired, this normal slow loss of lung capacity over time or as we age can increase our misery, or become life threatening. Not only that, many of the treatments & meds used to make our breathing temporarily better or our life a little better for the short term, may actually decrease lung capacity faster over the long term, over the course of several years. They may even cause cancer after heavy, long-term extended use.
One of my brother's got COPD around the same time I did... due to smoking! He was doing much better with treatments than I was without when my insurance, money, & loans ran out. But just a couple years later I was doing better than he was with no professional medical help or meds (thanks to my research, & budget "treatments"). A couple years later he was in & out of the hospital for cancer treatments & every 4-6 months having bits of his lungs removed because of cancer.
Meanwhile doing it my way, on a budget that most people would starve to death under, I was able to stabilize my COPD for 3 years, & even slightly improve my condition. Most people spend more on food in a month than I pay in rent. Most people spend more on their lunch in a day that I pay for a week's worth of food.
Before the insurance, & money ran out, with medical care, it was assumed I'd probably die sometime by 2016 or 2017. Without professional medical care, I'm still here in 2018! So the financial disaster caused by me losing jobs, insurance, & money due to my COPD may have actually saved my life & stabilized or improved my COPD.
But all good things come to an end. My condition had gotten significantly worse over the summer, & continues to do so. But with an O2 machine that I personally hand-selected for my needs, a new air filter machine (had one wear out in spring), new home treatments, & going back to my routines & diets that worked in the past, hopefully I'll be stabilizing & improving my condition again.
Already during the past week, I've been feeling a significant improvement. And not by being on O2 all the time either. When the new O2 machine arrived I needed it a lot through the whole day & night for almost a week.
This week, when I wake up, I use the O2 machine for about 5 minutes. When I first wake up & in the mornings is usually when my breathing is the worst. Then when I get up to walk around, I'll use the machine for a couple minutes first. When I get back, I may use the O2 for a few minutes more if I'm gasping for air, but not if I'm just breathing heavy. Yesterday I used the O2 the most in the morning, but hardly used it at all the rest of the day... but I didn't try to do a lot of heavy projects or chores yesterday either.
Unless I catch another killer flu or something, it looks like you're all stuck with me for another year.
A couple days ago I took on the project of changing, re-arranging, & re-wiring my antennas. I don't get cable TV. So anything I don't get from my slow bare-bones DSL connection, I get through antennas. Not just for TV though. I rescued & rebuilt my old VHF, UHF, & Shortwave communications receivers after the fire. But it's not just communications type stuff. I can probably pick up AM radio stations 3 times further away clearer than most people. On a really good night, I even can pick some AM radio stations from Western Europe. All FM stations from Toronto & most of southern Ontario come it crystal clear too.
On a good day I even get FM stations from Ohio & Pennsylvania. All sorts of talk shows, science, paranormal, drama, stories, old time radio, & any kind or rare music (most not available locally). On shortwave, I get stations from all over the world, & ham radio chat. I can even pick up some weather & other data from satellites & aircraft. On my TV, I can pick up 4 Toronto TV stations from an indoor antenna near a window. I get over 40 TV stations from the antenna on a good day, & over 30 on a bad day -- no cable TV. Some of them are religious or shopping channels, but there's still a lot to choose from, for free!
Anywho, during the antenna projects a few days ago I had to constantly stop, & get O2 to catch my breath. But the fact is, it took me 1 evening to get the entire job done. Just a few weeks ago it may have taken me a week of more to get the same thing done. And at no point was I desperately gasping for air feeling like I was suffocating or gonna die either. If my breathing was that bad, I wouldn't even consider the project. Indeed, the project was way long overdue, because I couldn't see myself doing it without it taking forever. They put a new metal roof & metal siding on my building last year. All my antennas are indoors, & it seriously phucked up my reception. I was still picking stuff up but nowhere near what I used to. All my antennas are crammed near my few small windows now, but reception is good again.
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Air pressure outside has been extremely low for many days. That's like the low air pressure up on a mountain... like altitude sickness. Not good for COPD. Been breathing terribly again.
Odd weather. 0F (-17C) to 60F (16C) throughout most of January, 40F to 60F (16C) through most of February. But 20F (-6C) to 34F (1C) with snow most of March.
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A couple 60F (16C) days in January, & many 50F days in January-February, but 24F (-4.4C) today on April 5. WTF!
Scary 60mph (97kph) winds yesterday. Lights flickered a lot, but the power remained on. Internet kept cutting out. Bits of garbage, twigs, & roof shingles hit my windows, but none of them broke. New roof & siding here last year due to wind/storm damage. No bits of our building blew off yesterday.
Got a battery backup for my O2 machine that will run it for about 2 hours during an outage. I also now have 3, 42 liter O2 storage bags. That gives me about 230 liters of O2 available during a power outage. That'll last me about 15-30 hours depending on how bad a day I'm having. I've had rough time one day where I used up 100 liters in just 2 hours, & just a couple days ago had a rough afternoon where I used up 80 liters of O2 in an hour.
But since 9pm last night until 8am today I only used 5 liters. Was breathing rather well last night after the air pressure outside went up, & the humidity went down. There's also less air pollution outside, & in my 16-unit building at night. That's another reason I usually stay up all night these days. I breathe better then.
Someday I'd like to get 1 or 2 more battery backups for the O2 machine, but they're expensive, so they'll have to wait a while. I'd get a second O2 machine first as a backup, but they're 2 1/2 times more expensive than the battery backup (the machine draws 100 watts). Nobody services these smaller Chinese O2 machines here, & there's no telling how long they'll last. I'm probably the only one willing & able to fix it... if I can find the parts. I'd more likely have to retro-fit other parts for another machine that's close enough. And it may take weeks to get the parts shipped/delivered. So a spare machine would be a higher priority than more battery backup.
Budget O2 Machine (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01ILXUQPG/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B01ILXUQPG&linkCode=as2&tag=bettyspub-20&linkId=c717e46a764fd1e182b5167bedaff688)
222wh Power Backup (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZXYVG4G/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B06ZXYVG4G&linkCode=as2&tag=bettyspub-20&linkId=2d345f0c40a902e376ee8cb8641c699b)
444wh Power Backup (https://amzn.to/2GziN3k)
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hi Betty,those things are a bit pricey. Talking of problems,I was recently diagnosed with ibs and since then ,i am having too check each food to see what it is made with,and there is no cure for ibs
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I didn't know what IBS was, I had to look that up. Couldn't antacid tablets or cutting down on dairy or oily foods help that? Maybe less fiber? I see there's rice & soy in cat food made for cats with runny poo.
Those machines are not so expensive if you figure the one half the size I should have if I ever got a prescription for one is $1500-$2500 & weighs 40 pounds, or the one I should have costs $2500-$4500 & weighs 60 pounds. Those things draw 300-600 watts too. Mine only weighs around 16.5 pounds, & uses 100 watts.
The lithium battery backup isn't that much of an expense either when compared to regular deep cycle lead-acid UPS backup power. A 200-222w/h lead acid backup would weigh 40-50 pounds, & it's capacity would shorten dramatically every time you run it down. In a year or so, you'd have to buy a new battery for almost the cost of the unit. Mine only weighs 5.5 pounds. I rent in an apartment in a mansion converted to 16 apartments. So there's no way to set up a gas generator here, & no place to store it or the fuel safely.
Although it's very difficult to carry anything with any weight with COPD without gasping for air, at least these low weight units, it is possible to move or carry them around, taking frequent breaks to catch my breath & get oxygen. Or I can even leave the building with them if I had to.
I didn't pay those prices for them anyway. I got my O2 machine about $140 cheaper from ebay from a reliable distributor of the company that makes them, than on Amazon. The power supply was on sale $30 cheaper, & I had an Amazon $20 off coupon for it too.
My second big full time temporary job was just completed. I got it because they were so happy with the first one I started back before Christmas. So I just got my last big paycheck from them.
I can hope they'll sign me up for more projects in the future. They're already talking about another big job around early summer, but hopefully something else may come up before then.
Things go a lot slower with COPD, even working at home with the O2 right here, so I still only made about $3-$4 an hour for the time it took me. But it was steady continuous work. I got those jobs for a set price. They don't care if because of a disability, it may take me longer or how many hours it takes me, as long as the job is done on time.
YouTube stopped advertising & paying small channels, so we no longer make ad revenue at our channels, so I probably won't put up anything on youtube anymore. So the ads we have running here, & at PSK/unclgadget make about $14 a month combined.
When my final paycheck for the second big job of the year came in. I was able to get a second O2 machine for the same price as the first one. I also found another sale for a second power supply, & another $20 coupon to save even more.
Sure it's an expense but I need my O2 even during a power outage. On a good day just sitting around, I may need no extra oxygen at all. But even on a good day I need some if I'm gonna move around & do something. Since before Christmas, I may pass out, get a heart attack, or die just trying to go poo on a good day now without extra oxygen. On a bad day, I definitely would not survive without extra oxygen.
That's why I had to take on a big job around Christmas knowing I was only going to make $3-$4 an hour on it, & borrow a shytload of money. I had to get an O2 machine or I was gonna die. Just to still live independently, I need it on a good day too. Being forced into a NY state funded & operated nursing home would be a living hell. It seems people are put there to hurry up & die as quickly as possible, not to treat or help them. Older & disabled people in prison get treated better.
There's no telling for sure how long this smaller Chinese O2 machine will last, but I did get one of the best small Chinese models. If it fails, I die. So I need the second one, because I can wait weeks for another, or for the parts to fix it if it fails. Nobody fixes those Chinese one. I'm probably the only one in the area willing & able to fix them... if I can find the parts. More likely, I'll have to find similar parts, & modify everything to make them fit & function.
So I need a second machine as backup. But also these machines don't put out a lot of oxygen. With 2 of them, & a T-adapter, I can get twice as much O2 when I need it, but if 1 fails, I still have some O2 from the other one.
And of course in a power failure, it better to have 2, 2 hour battery backups rather than just 1. I can fill 2 of my 42 liter O2 storage bags 2 1/2 times on a single charge off one of them. So that's 210 liters of O2 at 90% concentration from 2 battery backups. I have 3, 42 liter bags filled, that's another 126 liters of O2.
That means I have a total of 336 liters of 90% oxygen available during a power outage with 2 power supplies, & 3 full storage bags. During tests, I discovered I use 260 liters in 24 hours on a bad day, but not the worst days. So a single battery backup wasn't enough to have enough oxygen to last a day. During an outage there may be a storm or other emergencies. Air pressure is lower during storms making breathing worse. Air filters, air conditioners, & heat won't run, making breathing even more difficult. Will I have to breathe even heavier because a window just blew out?
Even in the best situations during an outage, I'd have to call for help or an ambulance by the time I got down to 80-100 liters of O2, because it may take some time for help to arrive... especially during a storm or other city-wide emergency.
I got my first retirement check last week. But it don't add up to enough. Since my COPD took a turn for the worse last summer, & another bad turn just before Christmas, suddenly my expenses just to stay alive multiplied.
It's not just the machines either. Things that I use to treat my COPD, that I know works for me, like beet juice, spinach powder, CoQ10, & special eating, has jacked up costs because that stuff is so damn expensive. Running an a 100 watt O2 machine 16-20 hours a day jacked up my electric bill too. My gas heating is one of those inefficient in-wall gas heaters right in the apartment (not in the basement). It depletes the oxygen in the apartment too much when I run it. So I try not to run it much & use electric heaters instead. So the past couple month's of electric bills are the highest they've ever been for this place.
This is why this colder weather in March & April is pissing me off so much. It's costing me a lot more more than air conditioning in the summer does. I can let the place get pretty cold by just layering on more clothes, & using more blankets at bedtime. But I still got to crank it up to wash, & I can't let it get too cold or I'll breath too hard trying to stay warm. So I usually won't let it get colder than the mid 50s F (13C) up here when I'm awake, & the mid 40s F (7C) at bedtime warm under lots of blankets.
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Hey Betty & Samantha1, I have just re-connected after 4 days without phone or Internet. Sub-contractor in the area decided to fix underground problems without first calling Bell re; underground cables etc. Yep you guessed it, tore out a major cable that has taken them hundreds of hours to fix. Five trucks with ten men digging trenches and climbing poles to reconnect service to at least one city block or more and they worked almost round the clock in a blizzard and freezing cold temps.
I have a niece with IBS and she controls it with certain drugs but mostly watching diet for too much fiber and food irritants. The only problem she has is she likes to party and too much alcohol.
Hi winds around here took out some tree branches in my yard and tore the covers off my snowblower and Hotub. It also loosened a post on my fence and brought down a neighbours fence and I read the winds also brought down some large business signs as well.
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Yeah, you're not too far across the border from me, so we pretty much get almost the same weather, except the "lake effect" varies a lot every few miles. It was like at noon Wednesday on the news was a live shot of it snowing with a couple inches of snow onthe ground, yet at my house just a couple miles away the ground was bare & not a single snowflake was falling.
I depend on my internet for everything to the outside world. Even the last 2 big jobs rely heavily on receiving & sending my work over the internet, & involves multimedia over the internet.
I still have my old Samsung smart phone I got for $45 about 7-8 years ago connected to T-mobile service for $3 a month, & a Alcatel smart phone I got about 2 years ago for $49 connected to Pure Talk for $10 a month. But the reason I get the services cheap is because I don't use them much except for texting, & rely on the internet for most communications.
I imagine if my internet would be out for more of a day, I'd temporarily upgrade to a data plan on the phone with t-moble & tether the internet connection to a computer, paying for just enough data to check my mail, online messages, & lock down Betty's to "members only" until my regular internet would be back up. They have data plans by the day, week, or month... no commitments. You can use up 150-250mb just visiting Facebook, some news sites, & many other popular sites just once. But to check my mail, messages, my sites, & Betties, I wouldn't use much data at all. They have 4gb of data per month for $45. I can visit Betty's & listen to one of our music mixes on our front page 800 times on a 4gb data limit. But I would only be able to visit Facebook 16-26 times on 4 gb of bandwidth/data limits. So if I had to rely on a phone data plan for internet, I'd probably never use Facebook, most news sites, & many popular overloaded site.
But I'd assume if my internet went out, it would never be more that a week anyway.
Fortunately I don't have a sensitive stomach or digestion. I used to when I was younger but I guess grew out of it. I'm lactose intolerant but as long as I don't have more than a half glass of milk every 3 or 4 hours, all I get is some minor gas. Or if it's mixed with food, it's not bad. For instance, I can have oatmeal, cold cereal, or mashed potatoes with milk in it with no problems unless I have a whole lot of it. I even put some milk in my gravies, stews, & soups.
What I have to watch, is that some stuff I eat & drink actually helps my breathing & health. There's a few things that will make it worse, but a lot of stuff that doesn't seem to do anything at all. So by the time I consume anything that helps, there's no room left for anything else. And the stuff that helps the most cost the most too much, so there's no budget left for anything else anyway.
Alcohol in moderate amounts once or twice a week is OK for me, & sometimes it even helps a little. I do get some cheap vodka up here once in a while, but no so cheap that it's poorly distilled & refined so it tastes bad or gives you a headache after just drinking an ounce or 2.
But I try to save it for when I really need it in a medicine I make or for a special time. I make a glass of cinnamon, sugar (brown sugar if I got it or honey instead when I had a lot more money), lemon juice (that cheap kind right from a bottle), & water in a 12oz glass, with 2oz of a good but cheap vodka. It gives me a temporary 2 hour breathing boost to get stuff done around the house when my breathing is extra terrible.
If my breathing has been terrible several days in a row, chores aren't getting done or are falling behind a vodka lemonade can get me through a couple hours. With 1 or 2 of those lemonades, I'm scrubbing the bathroom when before, I'd be out of breath just walking to the bathroom, scrub out the litter box, do the dishes, or make all my meals for the next day. But more isn't better. Any more than 1 or 2 glasses & it will make breathing worse. It will breathing will be worse the next day too. Once it's worse from overdoing it, having more won't help either. So I find it only works as an emergency breathing boost if I only use it once or twice a week, but never within 2 or 3 days of the last time.
I discovered that remedy when using it as a cold & flu remedy. It helped the cold symptoms a little but found I breathed a lot better. Lemon, cinnamon, brown sugar, & honey has been used for centuries to relieve cold & flu symptoms. All the best adult cold & flu syrups have alcohol in them.
One day while my COPD was real bad, I also had a real bad cold. I made that vodka lemonade remedy & curled up under the warm blankets to watch a movie & cuddle kitties. After the movie I had to go to the bathroom. While I was in there I started to clean the bathroom a little bit in there. One thing led to another, & it wasn't until I was better than halfway through thoroughly scrubbing the entire bathroom, that I noticed I wasn't breathing as badly as before, even though I still had the bad cold symptoms. But it didn't last. After a couple hours breathing got bad again, & more vodka lemonade only made it worse.
So heed the warning -- having a little bit once in a while might make you feel a little better for a short time. Having more or drinking it regularly will make things very worse.
Most doctors will agree that a glass or 2 of wine once in a while is good for most (but not all) people. But if you drink lots of it or often, it's very bad for you.
I haven't had any vodka in the house for a couple months. I got busy & preoccupied with other stuff to think about it. But I'm thinking of asking my sister to bring some when she comes to town in a few weeks.
I can't get out anywhere or travel. Just getting up & down stairs on a good day is a big project. The few friends & relatives still alive live too far away or have their own age-related problems. So I have to rely on when they're coming to town to pick stuff up for me, or deliveries for everything I need.
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2F & Breezy (-17C). Wind Chill -17F (-27C) !!!
You're F'n crazy if go outside if you don't absolutely have to in that kind of cold.
It looks like we got 8-10 inches of snow here. Really no big deal for anybody who lived in the area a few years. It's not like down south in Washington DC, or Richmond where when they get an inch of snow, it paralyses the city.
When will the morons figure out that if you don't drive like a crazy bat out of hell when the roads get slippery, you'll be fine? The jerks with 4 wheel drive SUVs are the worst. We see them crashed at the side of the road the most. Just because you can get through snow & ice better with 4WD, doesn't mean you can stop any faster than the rest of us. We all have 4 wheel brakes.
Until it got extra cold, most people around here took their kids & dogs outside & played in snow. We hadn't got much snow this year up until now.
Just outside the city some got around a foot. About a dozen miles or so beyond the city some got 20-24 inches. But those areas can get up to 30-60 inches, so are probably relieved.
Instant karma in the snow:
http://unclegadget.com/media/treetrunksnowman.mp4
Meanwhile, our friends in Australia were suffering through a heat wave, with typical temperatures of 104-108F (40-42C) in most cities last week. Outside of Australia, the hottest part of our side of the world is Acapulco, Mexico at a windless very humid 89F (at night) making it feel like 109F (43C).
The coldest well populated cities in the world right now are in Canada -- Winnipeg: -9F (-23C), Ottawa: -8 (-22C), & nearby Toronto at -6F (21C). But the coldest town on earth is Verhojansk, Siberia at -55F (-48C).
Update 10pm: Breezy -1F (-18C) here! Wind chill: -20F (-29C) !!!
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Well Betty I was F'n crazy and went outside to shovel the 8 inches of snow we got but I waited till about 3 PM so the sun had melted some from my SUV. Yes it is 4 wheel drive but I know enough that it is not a tank and I drive to suit the weather conditions. The roads were still snow covered and a bit slippery but I did not go far just to get some milk and other things I had run out of. I tried to prepare for the storm but used the milk I had to make a large pot of Potatoe soup for supper and the freezer as they say the weather may get worse later on. I can handle the cold if I dress for it ( fleece tights and heavy sweater under a heavy coat) but the wind today was biting cold so I only cleaned off the SUV and the sidewalk laying down Ice Melter to prevent slips and falls. I still see teen girls walking around in short jackets with exposed skin at the waist and leggings 4 inches above their sandals. Can't cure stupid.
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Hi,
It was one degree on the thermometer here this morning as well. If I didn’t have the doctor’s appointment I wouldn’t have gone out. Since I had no choice, when I left the house I wore five layers of clothing and I certainly wasn’t hot. If you stuck a carrot in my nose I could have been a snowman. My hood blew off and I took off my gloves to find the ties without success; after a minute I had to stop and put the gloves back on because my hand was frozen. But we were incredibly lucky with the actual storm, just a very slight dusting on Saturday/Sunday, nothing to shovel. The sidewalks were very slick so on my walk I stayed mostly in the street where the surface was better. Did not want to fall.
Supposed be more of the same tomorrow although not as harsh. I expect to stay inside.
Andy G.
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Yes Andy, very cold here also but I needed to go to the bank and deliver some soup to my sister also. I worry about falling these days too as I just heard a friend broke his leg Skiing on the weekend. He is much younger than I though and I would not dare to Ski or skate these days. I noticed kitty foot prints in the snow around my vehicle so I banged on the hood as I have heard of cats climbing into the engine compartment to keep warm. Never had that happen to me yet but it did happen to a teacher friend who lived across the road. She was in shock when she heard the screech on staring her car and thought it might be one of her own but on checking the house found hers eating in the kitchen. She called my father to investigate and it was not pretty. As you say I will be staying inside for the next few days also.
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Falling is one of my big fears. In my years of walking in the winter I've fallen a number of times on the ice and as I've aged I've thought to myself that if I don't pay closer attention I'm going to break something which would be very unpleasant. I look down as I walk to try to prevent this and consequently I have walked into lampposts and other things on the sidewalk it's hard not to notice. Clumsy I guess is a good word for me. Stay warm Angela, you too Betty. I keep telling myself spring is coming and eventually I guess it will.
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Yeah, the bones get brittle when we age, & take longer to heal.
We don't have to wait for spring. They're saying it might go up to 42F Wednesday. But by the weekend it'll be back to super-chills, like we're on Pluto.
Spring? What spring? Most recent years it's still snowing in March, & many April temperatures are still like winter. You have to wait until the end of spring these days for it to be regularly above freezing. But we did have a lot of 40-50s temperatures in December & the first half of January.
My sister -- a brave soul, actually tried to go outside to take pictures of the eclipse last night. It was a windy -4F at the time with a wind child chill of -24F. That didn't last long, as clouds obscured the view most of the time, she got really cold fast waiting for breaks in the clouds.
Standing inside the screen/storm door to warm up in her hall she got these through the glass on the door, through the frost forming immediately on the door. I boosted the colors, zoomed & sharpened them for artistic effect with more detail.
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She gave up, & just started taking pictures of the ice on the glass instead. I zoomed, enhanced, sharpened, & boosted the color on these.
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Pretty cool pictures Betty, no Pun intended LOL. I have often watched the frost form on our windows when I was younger back when the house we rented only had single pane windows and was heated by a space heater in the kitchen. No privacy in that house as we had to leave all the bedroom doors open in winter to heat them and the bathroom was the last one being inside my parents bedroom. Like yours Betty, it was an old mansion divided into four apartments and the land behind it was becoming the city dump as we were leaving. It eventually became a wonderful city park in the late 80's with baseball fields and a soccer field and the old house was torn down in the early 70's for a high-rise apartment building. I did see some of the moon eclipse but only just as it was freezing out there and cloudy here also but it was about half way when I caught sight of it just over my house. A friend who lives a few blocks away near the canal, got two pretty good photo's before the clouds moved. The other side of the canal is open fields and part of the Indian reserve lands so she gets great views of the moon and stars most of the time. She is becoming quite a good photographer as her hobby and has taken some great photo's when walking her dog along the canal. We see lots of geese and Blue Herons along there as well as other birds when the weather is warmer although the Canada Geese just don't fly south that much anymore and seem to be everywhere these days. Stay warm Betty and Andy and we will hope that Spring is on it's way soon and our Winter does not get any worse.
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Hi Betty,looks like snow i have s every where as we have snow in berkshire UK still lucky i don't have too go shopping as i ordered my food via the internet.
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30F, already getting a little warmer.
From the town next door, Niagara Falls:
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I tried to zoom in further on the frost pictures & enhance them. Zoom too much & it would blur or distort a lot. I also tried a more natural color enhancement with no white balance. Most of the lighting was coming from the red moon, those horrid yellow-orange street lights, & a distant white yard light. So these colors are more accurate, but boosted a lot so they stand out more.
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Got up to 111F in Melbourne today, & 117F in Adelaide yesterday. Fortunately, for now, the heatwave in Australia seems to be ending. It's a big place, so the whole country wasn't affected, just parts of it.
Right now it's only 25F here, but windy & snowy making it feel colder. 6-12" of snow in the city expected through the weekend. Our next near or below 0F super-chill is expected by Wednesday night.
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hi Betty,just notice on the forecast that your area is really cold today.Down to minus 15 .
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Windy 0F (-18C) & falling. 20mph winds, 30mph gusts, WIND CHILL: -22F (-30)! About 8 inches of snow fell today with another 10-12 inches expected.
Expecting -3F (-19C) this evening. More of the same cold every day until Saturday, but a little less snow after today.
41F (5C) & rain expected Sunday, & 50F (10C) with rain expected Monday. All that rain & snow melting will probably cause some flooding.
Update: State of emergency declared. Travel ban -- no driving allowed except for emergency vehicles. Everything is closed.
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Meanwhile, there's those poor people freezing in Florida.
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Ha, my friends living near Tampa were complaining if it got much colder there would be ice on their Pool. As if that would happen at 53 degrees. I went out to do errands today and the wind was biting cold an d blowing the snow into huge drifts. We don't have a travel ban but they are saying if you don't need to go out stay home. The kids were off school yesterday up here because of the snow but the parks and golf courses were crowded with kids on their sleighs and ski's. They should have been off today because walking to school was a real chore for the little ones.
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I'm grateful that we haven't had any snow but it's 20 degrees and the temperature is dropping quickly. Accuweather tells me that by 6AM tomorrow morning it will be 2 degrees and feel like 22 below zero with the wind chill. Won't be anything like the Midwest with temperatures at 50 to 60 below zero but certainly cold enough. The wind has been blowing as well which is always scary. Something fell off my house a little while ago and I can't determine where it was attached. My go to guy isn't working now due to injury so I'm going to have to find a replacement soon as I don't want to let this sort of thing go. I have a feeling I'm going to opt out of my morning walk tomorrow.
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Hey Andy, it is hard to find reliable people to do work on your house these days. It took ,e months to find somebody to replace aluminum facia that blew off my house in a spring storm. The came and replaced it and cleaned my eves for me but it was $250.00 for an hours work. Still I could not do it myself and my brother is working in the U.K. for awhile now so he is not available. Stay warm Andy and easy on the walking if you must,
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Andy, this cold is heading your way... with a lot less snow. We're right downwind from the lake so winds pick up moisture & dump it on the land. Usually the "lake effect" band of snow just misses us & hits south of the city (traditionally called the snow belt), but this one hit us directly. In the summer the same "lake effect" blows hot steamy, swampy humidity our way.
Right now there's about 15 inches of snow on the ground. 0F (-18C), wind chill -24F (-31C) & falling. 25mph winds, 40mph gusts.
Current view of the Great Lakes from space. The red dot is me:
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Hi Betty,is this weather one of the worst that usa has had
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Hi,
Last night we got the forecasted 15 minutes of snow which put some white on the ground but no accumulation. I went out with the shovel but it only took a few minutes to push it aside. I knew it would freeze so I threw the calcium chloride as well. It was really bitter cold for the few minutes I was outside.
When I awoke at 6:45AM this morning I checked the thermometer and it was 3 degrees below zero. This is a new record for me if not the town. I walked down the block to get the newspapers but that was it. I came home and took another ride on the bicycle. It’s just too cold to be outside for any period of time. The treacherous footing was another reason I decided not to take my walk.
Hope everyone is able to stay inside and keep warm. The forecast for my area says it will start to warm up by Saturday and may hit 60 degrees next week. Can our weather get more erratic?
Andy G.
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Hi Betty, is this weather one of the worst that usa has had.
No, Just the worst of the winter season so far. We've had waist to shoulder deep snow plenty of times in my life. -50F wind chills too. Every few years, the suburbs just a few miles south of me can get snow up to their roof eaves... but those are those suburban single-story ranch style houses.
Since these polar vortexes have been more common though, the state of Michigan is consistently the coldest state in the USA in winter -- not Alaska far to the north. But the most populated cities in Alaska typically have milder winters than we do in Buffalo too. It's currently 24 degrees warmer in Anchorage Alaska than it is here.
These new arctic vortexes make sudden & bizzare changes in the weather. They used to be a rare thing, but now these vortexes are common, one right after another. Sunday & Monday is will be warm & raining. All that rain & snow melting is gonna cause some severe flooding. My block is on high ground, & my house is on a hill, so I should be safe from floods.
The 1976-77 storms was the worst snow & cold in my town during my lifetime. But just a dozen or 2 miles south of me they get it that bad or worse every 3-4 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-gRb_MuUgg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK0e4mwK34M
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It was really bitter cold for the few minutes I was outside.
Be careful. With the high winds it's more dangerously cold than the thermometer shows. You body temperature can drop rather quickly & incapacitate you. As your body temperature drops, you don't think clearly, & can make mistakes... foolish mistakes you'd normally not do, & you get weak as your heart races dangerously high. One slip, by the time you struggle to get back up, your temperature may have dropped enough to not be sensibly thinking anymore, or be weakened enough not have the strength to make it back inside in time.
I'm sure when it gets this bad, nobody will mind if your snow isn't shoveled until it gets back up too the teens or 20s, or wait for the wind to calm down. Screw them anyway. Your life & safety are more important than a few inches of snow on the sidewalk that may annoy someone.
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Well we are getting slammed again with snow and ice pellets today. Some of the highways to Niagara and Toronto and the north were closed and driving is pretty slick. Schools closed in most of southern Ontario for the third or fourth day in the past few weeks. I don't ever remember schools closing in my day and we walked quite a long way to school in snow two feet deep and we were expected to be on time also. Often on our way home we would go into the train station to use the bathroom as it was about half way home but I remember once in a blizzard the doors were locked and both my sister and I had wet pants by the time we arrived home. Mom was not mad knowing how far we had come and the terrible weather but she had us strip off in front of the stove and there is me in panties and white tights. Mom knew about the tights as she had given me some of my sisters when she saw my red legs after walking to school. She did not know I was wearing the panties though and there was our neighbour sitting having tea with mom. I am not sure who was blushing more, me or mom. I was still wearing my English school uniform then as we had no extra money for long pants and yes the kids did tease quite a bit when I first wore them to school but mom had explained to the teachers previously about my short pants uniform. This was 1957 and we had just come to Canada in October. We thought the Fall was beautiful but then came winter.
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Pretty mild in the city right now. TV weather peeps tend to exaggerate & hype up the weather for attention & ratings.
I hear south & north of the city got worse than we did. Sleet & rain freezing on power lines & branches weighing them down during high winds expected tonight, can cause power failures.
Power failures of more than a few hours can be fatal to me if my COPD is real bad at the time. The barometer usually drops dramatically during a storm. Low air pressue almost always causes my COPD to get real bad. Stress also makes it bad. During an outage, switching over hoses to a smaller unit, & battery backup power to save your life when your oxygen suddenly gets cut off can be pretty stressful.
I've had oxygen failures before during nice weather. I just barely made it, gasping for air, while trying to get alternative my sources of O2 running before I'd get a heart attack or pass out. Those machines take 12 minutes to deliver their full rated O2, & 2-3 minutes to deliver just a little bit that might help.
Laying or sitting around, or sleeping I need very little of no O2. But suddenly running around to switch over machines, hoses, & battery back up requires a lot of moving around & oxygen. So you gasp, start to go slower, get mixed up, & confused when you're suddenly starved of oxygen trying to get around without any. The whole situation gets exponentially desperate & deadly in just a couple minutes.
Think of it like trying to do complicated tasks while drowning at the same time. Once oxygen starved, you can't even think right any more & don't make sense. A well planned & rehearsed task becomes almost impossible to do & think through while gasping for air.
I need a lot of O2 just to walk across the room or go to the bathroom on a good day.
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Up to 75mph (121kmh) winds expected here from lunchtime Sunday to Monday morning. 70-75mph is considered hurricane force.
Our infrastructure, buildings, & power lines are not designed to handle much above 50-55mph wind here. Our trees don't even grow to handle as much wind as coastal & other areas who get hurricane force winds at least once every year or 2. They're not even the same kind of trees. A 70mph wind here can be as damaging as 150mph in areas used to high winds. It's not our normal climate, & what we're used to or prepared for.
It's like everything closes & people have severe accidents when Virginia or Florida get 1-3" of snow, but 6" of snow here is no big deal. It's what you & your infrastructure is used to.
I don't know if I can survive an extended power outage in my condition. Everybody I know that's still alive lives too far away & can't get here if something goes wrong... especially during a storm. Most of them are almost as old or frail as me, so really couldn't help me get down the stairs, haul my O2, & 31 pound O2 machine down the stairs even if they could make it here in time during a storm.
And what about the cats if I do manage to abandon the place in an emergency?
If power outages were widespread, where would I plug into even if I could get out & seek refuge somewhere. Cell phone towers & lines may be out, so maybe can't call anybody anyway.
If you don't hear from me by Tuesday, I probably didn't pull through the storm OK. This one appears it's gonna be serious. The ones severely disabled or on O2 are the first to be lost in stuff like this.
When the city is swamped with emergency calls & I can't live more than a few minutes without O2 will they get to me in time? I have some backup O2, & a small unreliable weak O2 machine that will run a while on battery packs, but that not enough for a long term serious storm & outage. The smaller weak machine only delivers enough O2 to survive a short time on the best of days at rest. During a storm & outage, I'll probably need much more O2, not less... especially if a window blows out of something.
To make it worse, during storms, the barometer usually drops dramatically, which is the worst thing for my COPD. Low air pressure is like breathing thin air on a small mountain. So even without an outage, I can expect my breathing to become very difficult. When the barometer drops quickly, I don't even have time to adapt & adjust to it.
Local media reports:
From WIVB: Potentially damaging strong wind gusts will sharply increase to 60, and at times up to 75 mph. This increase will begin late morning, with the strongest gusts found in the early-mid afternoon hours. This wind has the potential to break records in Buffalo. Wind damage and power outages are possible, and may take up to 48 hours to fix. This will also result in a significant rise in water levels along eastern Lake Erie, with lakeshore flooding likely. Temperatures plunge into the 20s toward evening. This will result in a flash freeze of any residual water.
From NOAA/gov: .FROM EARLY SUNDAY MORNING THROUGH LATE MONDAY MORNING -- THE STRONGEST WINDS WILL BE SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING. WINDS...SOUTHWEST 30 TO 40 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 75 MPH. * IMPACTS...STRONG WIND GUSTS WILL BRING DOWN NUMEROUS TREES AND POWER LINES AND RESULT IN WIDESPREAD POWER OUTAGES. POWER MAY BE OUT FOR SEVERAL DAYS IN SOME AREAS. TRAVEL IN HIGH PROFILE VEHICLES WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT AT TIMES. WIDESPREAD POWER OUTAGES ARE EXPECTED.
From WKBW: Temperatures will tumble through the 40s by lunchtime as wind gusts begin to hit their peak gusts of 60-75mph. The air will continue to cool into the 30s by later in the evening allowing for snow showers to develop dropping 2-3" over portions of Central Erie county, Wyoming and North areas of the Southern Tier. Power outages will begin to occur before noon and travel will be disrupted.
From WGRZ: West winds sustained of 35 to 45 mph with gusts up to 75 mph are possible with the strongest gusts most likely closest to Lake Erie.Winds of this magnitude could knock over trees and cause power outages, especially with saturated grounds from the combination of rainfall and snowmelt from warmer air moving in. Western New Yorkers should prepare for the possibility of power outages that could last several days. A Winter Weather Advisory for Erie, Genesee, Wyoming, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties from 3pm Sunday through Monday morning. 2 to 5 inches of lake effect snow and also blowing snow will greatly reduce visibility to near whiteout at times.
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I went on a quick trip to get some Gas and groceries this afternoon. The wind was blowing pretty good and as I came out of the shop it was ripping the siding off a house across the road. It has been trying to snow/ hail for a little while now and a friend reported they lost power for a short while at the shop she works in. Betty, hope you are keeping OK and you stay warm and healthy through all this crappy weather.
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Power went out for about a half hour, then came on. DSL internet kept cutting out earlier when there was some distant thunder & lightning, but it's steady again now.
The wind storm continues, & snow is coming soon to mix with the wind. It's not supposed to let up until tomorrow afternoon. Windows & doors rattling, house shaking, & huge old trees sway dangerously close to me. I'm surrounded by big old trees.
Power outages & downed trees all over the city & suburbs today.
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Just saw some videos posted by friends in Port Dover on Lake Erie. The water is rising fast and many people had to be rescued from their homes. Many businesses flooded as well as the water rises above the pier and covers the beach area. I just looked outside and it is like a blizzard now. Glad you did not loose power for too long and hope it ends soon.
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Lights flickered a couple more times during the storm but stayed on. Never got any snow in the city, but south of the city they got some with zero visibility at times.
Very low barometer made breathing terrible, with extremely high pulse rates if I tried to move around. It improved a little through yesterday when the barometer started to rise. Had 2, 5 oz. glasses of cheap wine late last night, & my breathing improved a lot. It's still a lot better this morning during the pre-dawn hours.
Currently a breezy 18F (-8C) with a wind chill of 4F. It's going to be a cold but calm week. We might get 3-5" of snow Wednesday, but that's almost nothing for us & no big deal.
Was 39,000 homes without power in the area yesterday with temperatures in the teens & 20s F. Those gas fired furnace's electronics, thermostat, & blower won't run without electricity. They'll freeze, or their pipes freeze & burst.
I'm lucky that my real crappy in-wall gas furnace right in the apartment uses very little electricity, so I can run the furnace's electronics on battery power all day. But it's a god awful stupid setup. The furnace is at one end of the apartment instead of the middle. So I have to heat that end up to 90F to get the middle of the place up to 60F, & the bathroom up to 50F.
So most of the time I just leave the furnace off. Overnight I just ran a 300 watt dish heater in the bathroom. I also have another one of those on the kitchen counter if I need it. Near me, my O2 machine gives off a lot of heat & I stayed warm under blankets. By this morning it got quite cold though, so I just turned on an 800 watt radiant/reflective heater near me. After it warms stuff up I'll turn it down to 400 watts.
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Someone did a YouTube video about electric space heaters. His pet peeve was that although some are marked for small rooms and some (more expensive) for "medium" rooms, they were all 1500 watts. And since heaters are pretty much 100% efficient (since they exist to generate heat, there is no "heat loss"), that means that, other things (features, etc.) being equal, the only difference between the "small room" and "medium room" heaters is the price.
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Yep. I saw that video too. 1500W of electric heat... no matter what design is still the same amount of BTU heat. Some may have a more powerful fan to blow it around more evenly, concrentate in a small breeze of warm air to where it's pointed at, or with radiant heaters (they glow red or orange), direct quite a lot of the radiant infrared heat toward what they're pointed at (like the ones in the pictures).
The advantage of the radiant heaters is that you can direct more heat to where you need it, therefore save a lot on energy & electric bills, rather than blow heat all over the room, to the ceiling, under & behind furniture, or everywhere else where you or other people aren't around at the time. It's also fast heat, you can warm up yourself or an area in the room rather quickly rather than try to toast up the entire room.
But no matter which design you use, wattage being equal, all of them will heat up an entire room just as much & just as fast. The radiant designs can save you money if you only need most of the heat for the area you're in.
If you're trying to get an entire room, apartment, or house toasty throughout, gas or kerosene will be much cheaper than trying to heat electrically.
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My mom had a small one of these heaters in her little bathroom. My dad converted a small closet into a powder room so they would not need to go downstairs to the main bathroom at night. Basically it was a toilet and sink and it was an unheated space with very little insulation. She would often put this heater on low and leave it on all night with the door open about 5 inches. This worried me all the time as she did not remember putting it on and almost never shut it off. I had the thermostat programed to reduce the furnace time at night and come on again at 9 AM when she got up but she often messed with it not understanding it was automatic. She drove me crazy the last few years of her life but I miss her dearly almost everyday.
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My 300w dish heaters like the one in the bathroom don't get hot enough to set fire to most stuff placed right in front of it, but they will get hot as an object placed in the hot sun on a hot sunny day. I keep it near the bathroom door far away from where the towels & other stuff is in case a cat knocks them onto the floor. They haven't done that in a long time though.
The other one just like it is on a kitchen counter, so nothing can fall in front to it. They all have tip safety switches, but the cats never bumped them. They don't like much heat so keep some distance from them.
The more powerful 400-800w heater is on a low little table so nothing can fall in front or on it. Even when only 3' from the bed, the side of the bed never gets dangerously hot.
For Sunday, we're still expecting a rainy, windy day, with a high of about 50F (10C). It looks like most of the rain will be early. But we may get light sprinkles throughout the day.
For St. Pat's Day parade the following Sunday, we're expecting a snow/rain mix with a high of 37F (3C) & a low of 32F (0C).
So far our first day of spring, March 20th, it looks like snow with a high of 32F (0C) & a low of 22F (-5C). It appears it will get even colder in the following days, with more snow. But those long range forecasts aren't very accurate.
Currently it's 17F (-8C) with a wind chill of 7F (-14C) here. Better than yesterday's below zero (-18C) wind chills right? High of 31F (-0.5C) expected tomorrow.
Also on the 20th. It's Betty's Pub's anniversary. Betty Pearl's Sissyboys went officially online on the first day of spring, 1994... 25 YEARS ONLINE!
I was already setting it up before then, but set the official ready & open date for the the first day of spring. That was the day we would abandon our usenet newsgroup, & move to the new fangled internet. The site was hosted in those days by "inthenews.com", an internet bulletin board host server.
Technically Betty's was around on the usenet since 1981 when I was still in my mid-20s. Our usenet newsgroup was for gays, CDs, & trans with a typical usenet address in those days, alt.binaries.gay.cd.trans. The was no Betty Pearl name yet, which is of course, was something I made up for the internet board.
In 1981 it wasn't world wide, it was served off usenet hosts in Buffalo, Hamilton Ca, Niagara Falls Ca, Toronto, Rochester NY, Syracuse NY, Albany NY, & NYC. In 1981 that was a lot of coverage for any newsgroup. Just a few years later though, most newsgroups & us were carried nationally, & then internationally.
So Betty's in one form or another, if you include the usenet/newsgroups has been online for 38 years.
The newsgroup may actually still exist, but we abandoned it in 1994.
I rather quickly came up with the name "Betty Pearl". A week or so before making our board public, I thought I should have a name other than than the defaults like mod, moderator, admin, or administrator. In just a few seconds I came up with the name "Betty Pearl". It was always my intention to change it to something else later after giving it more thought.
But because I was moving an entire group from the usenet to the place, the name stuck & became familiar rather quickly. The search engines & web directories of the time quickly had the place listed as Betty Pearl's Sissyboys. People could find us by searching for "Betty Pearl" rather than knowing the address. So I kept the name.
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I think I got my first home computer in '94 when my friend and I started our business and soon discovered Betty's. I guess I have been visiting about that many years. Thank's Betty for all the wonderful years of entertainment and information.
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Hi Betty,and how is your weather doing for you these days.It appears that your weather is getting better ,so hopefully this is helping you a little bit more.
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A few warm days, most days colder than normal. Expecting a little snow Friday. Only 33F (0.5C) high for St. Pat's Parade.
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Ugh. Day before April Fools day, & there's about 3 inches of snow on the ground this morning. More snow expected today & tonight. Low of 23F (-5C) expected tonight.
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Yes Betty, 31 F here and still trying to snow again. My niece said almost Spring but my reply was where are you living. Of course she laughed having been to lake Huron yesterday to see the ice covered lake and shoreline. They live closer to Port Elgin than we do so it is just a lunch run for them.
I had a computer meltdown Friday night while I was trying to download photo's to a disk. Skype kept popping up and try as I might I could not close it so I hit the X button several times in a row and the computer had a nervous breakdown. When I tried to restart, HP said it will repair the damage but I needed to back up my files . Of course it went back to the original default settings so I had to reload my favourites and check emails etc. I am not as good with the computer as I was in younger years and my patience is shorter. I have not put the back up disk in yet to see if all my photo's are there.
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Hi Betty and Angela,it looks like you are getting everything ,like rain ,snow ,low and minus temperature and freezing weather.Hopefully the weather will slow turn for you both.
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Hey samantha 1, it has been cold today but sunny and there is still some snow on the ground but it is going to warm up on the weekend. The weatherman is calling for rain/snow mix for Friday but we will see. The Robins and Morning Doves are back in the garden again and I saw five Hawks circling overhead riding the wind and looking for dinner. No spring bulbs coming up as yet in my garden though. Hope your weather is better than ours.
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Hey Betty, I just saw on the Canada Weather watch that a possible Tornado is heading your way along the shores of Lake Erie. We are having severe thunderstorms right now. Stay well Betty and keep the kitties under the covers with you.
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WOW, large clap of thunder then the power went out for a few minutes. Hope that is it for the night.
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It got briefly scary around here when I started hearing distant thunder & my internet kept cutting out. It got windy & rained hard but not too bad. I heard far south of the city got the worst of it with hail, & 3,000 customers without power.
It could be worse. A year ago today & in 2014 we had damaging winds & snow still on the ground.
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Yes Betty, I remember that and this morning before I went out I saw it snowing again but by the time I had my coat & shoes on it had stopped. Crazy weather the last few years.
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Being the other side of The Globe and nearer The Tropics our weather is always different to yours we are now in to the second Month of Autumn and the weather is still warm and only a little rain,which the farmers could do with much more of. Its
going to be 31 Celsius here today about mid eighties Fahrenheit.Send us a little rain and I will send you some warmth LOL.
Luv Jeangurl :-[
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As India just had record breaking heat, now a heatwave expected across Europe this week with HUMID temperatures up to 103F-108F.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48742241
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/24/hell-is-coming-week-long-heatwave-begins-across-europe
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96 in Frankfurt. Over 100F expected in Madrid Thur-Sun. 103-108F expected in Phoenix every day through to July 9th. 101-109F in New Delhi for the next 2 weeks. It's currently 113F in Kuwait with tomorrow's high of 117F. 100-109F expected in Las Vegas for the next 2 weeks.
It's currently a winter night in Melbourne at 42F, & 39F in Alice Springs... Australia's Area 51. In January it's sometimes the hottest place on earth.
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Weekend, holiday, & vacation weather planner for western NY state (may also apply to some areas of Southern Ontario & N.W. Pennsylvania). Long range forecasts are rarely accurate, so don't take them too seriously.
Friday - Increasing clouds. High 82F. Thunderstorms at night, low 67F.
Saturday - Rain before noon, thunderstorms after noon. High of 78F. Partly cloudy at night. Low 63F.
Sunday (Birthday, I turn 64!) - Mostly sunny with a high of 73F. Clear at night with a low of 59F.
July 3 - Rain & thunderstorms early, partly sunny later. High 82F, Partly cloudy at night. Low 66F.
July 4 - Mostly sunny. High 82F, low 69F.
July 5 (Fri.) - Thunderstorms. High 85F, low 64F.
July 6 - Partly cloudy. High 85F, low 62F.
July 7 (Sun.) - Sunny. High 83, low 69F.
Hottest day - July 5, 85F.
Warmest night - July 4 & 7, 69F.
Coldest day - Sunday, 73F.
Coldest night - Sunday, 59F.
Likely stargazing nights - Thursday, Sunday, & July 8-10.
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Heatwave continues to blaze through Europe. Paris 105F, Netherlands 104F, Lingen Germany 106F, Belgium 104F, London 99.8F, Frankfurt 104F, Luxembourg 102F, Rome 97F, Geneva 96F, Amsterdam 95F, Zürich 93F, Berlin 91F, & Vienna 91F.
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90F in London, Berlin, & Frankfurt. 118F in Baghdad, 100F in Athens, 41F in Fairbanks, 45F in Melbourne, 46F in Perth, & 50F in Alice Springs (Near Australia's Area 51).
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Got up to 65F (18C) yesterday, but was back down to breezy 25F (-4C) with a 16F (-9C) wind chill this morning -- a 40 degree drop! It's a sunny 33F now, but will go down to 19F (-7C) tonight.
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There's currently 10,356 infected with the virus in NY state out of only 45,437 tested. That means almost 1/4 of EVERYONE tested was infected (23%)!
If this is an accurate sample of all people in the state that means statistically, that potentially 4.5 million in the state may be infected, & 23,000-225,000 might die from it here -- if nobody else gets infected.
New York has seen its percentage of cases requiring hospitalization hover around 18 to 24 percent, while New Jersey said Wednesday that a stunning 55 percent of its cases to date have required hospitalization.
No less than 40 percent of the population will eventually be infected by COVID-19, the governor predicted (8 million). That means 40,000-400,000 people in the state may die from it.
The governor projects peak infection is still 40-plus days out. By that point, New York state could need 110,000 hospital beds, more than double its current capacity, and more than 37,000 ICU beds.
Stay at home whenever possible, wash your hands, be careful, & use some common sense.
NY state is expecting the virus to peak in about 40 days (the end of April). So we can expect quarantines or self-quarantines through May. Limited & but careful socialization may be acceptable in June.
I'll be wiping my butt with paper towels, paper scraps, & leaves by June. Many of us will have starved by then as food shelves go bare often, or the stuff costs so much that we can't afford it. A 25 cent pack of ramen soup will cost $20 by then if you can find it.
Everything I need has already gone up 2-10 times in price with no end in sight. Much stuff I need is simply not available anywhere anymore, so I had to select much more expensive alternatives, or go without.
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Update:
21,689 people infected in NY state. 28% of those tested were infected. Over 17,000 died of the disease globally. Many of those who survive the infection will have permanent lung damage that may develop into COPD shortly after, or later in life.
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President Trump is comparing the corona virus to the flu again, because we loose thousands to the flu in a year. The corona virus is killing thousands in a about month, not in a whole year! Unlike other countries where the infection in affected areas doubles every 6 days, it's currently doubling every THREE DAYS in the America, thanks to a president who downplayed the disease.
This is much more contagious than a flu. It has just been discovered to have survived on surfaces in an empty cruise ship for 17 DAYS! If you do survive the infection, there's a very good chance your lungs will be permanently damaged for the rest of your life, sooner or later causing COPD. COPD will ruin your life, cripple you, make your life miserable, & dramatically shorten your life expectancy.
No, Mr. President we will not sacrifice our parents, grandparents, small children, our lungs, & future health for the economy, the billionaires, the GOP, or your political career!
Emergency impeachment now! The entire country is now in danger because our the president's stupidity, greed, & carelessness. Purge all evil politicians now! We may be crippled for life with COPD or dead by election day. And to be sure, if this disease gets worse, they will definitely cancel elections, & declare martial law ! ! ! -- Permanent dictatorship!
Be afraid, be very afraid! Save your butt now!
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More than 85,000 infected, & more than 1,300 dead from the virus in the USA.
37,258 infected & 466 died from the disease in NY state.
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116,057 infected in the USA, 1,937 dead. 11,931 new cases in 24 hours.
52,318 infected in NY sate, 728 dead, 6,056 new cases in 24 hours.
10,023 dead in Italy. 5,812 dead in Spain.
Please don't go out unless you absolutely have to, be careful, & be safe!
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This 23 minute Youtube video does an excellent job of explaining contagion and the spreading of viruses -- with graphics that show just how infected people spread the virus. It is, however, a bit mathematical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs
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Thanks. That was interesting.
Please send that to all our governments & make them actually watch it, so we all don't get sick or die.
This is a little similar to what my math on the computer came up with.
Recovery from this virus can be a bitch too, with lung infections. It permanently damages & scars your lung tissue, so you have COPD the rest of your life -- your life is shortened with COPD, & it is not a happy life.
It happened to me from the worst flu of my life (and it almost killed me). Lung diseases & lung infections can be more damaging to your lungs than smoking.
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Hi Betty /how is this corona virus affecting you.Is it making you feel weaker.As i am working in a shop to help my friends we serve through a hatch and keep the front door closed and locked.
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Stay at home as much as you can. The virus is highly contagious, lingers around a long time, & is extremely deadly to most of us. It's not worth the gamble, misery, or death.
I don't have the virus, so it can't make me weaker. With severe final stages of COPD, even a bad cold might kill me, so I can't see anyone right now. But I sometimes go a whole month without seeing anyone anyway, so this isn't new to me.
Prices on supplies I need to survive are skyrocketing, or impossible to find now. I had to resort to unsuitable substitutes, or go without many items. I can't make it up & down the stairs anymore. But recently it's getting harder to get someone trustworthy to receive my stuff, & bring it up for me... at any price.
Surprisingly I still have fair credit, that is no longer maxed out. I hope that USA stimulus check comes in soon, because my credit will be maxed out in about a month.
My work usually involves fixing or building things at home, or talking through repairs & building that people can do themselves online, & reminding them to donate or recommend me if they were happy. I'm hardly getting any of that work or funds since the virus hit.
I was planning on moving near the end of spring, & even that had to be canceled. I may be stuck here another whole year in a tiny upper floor place, miles away from anyone I know, where I'm not able to get up or down the stairs by myself anymore.
1,990,717 virus cases in the world, 610,206 in the USA, 202,208 in NY state (10,834 new cases in 24 hours), 1,730 cases in Erie County, & 641 in Buffalo.
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Someone forgot to tell Mother Nature that it's the middle of April.
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IT'S SNOWING ! ! !
Low of 29F (-2C) expected tonight or the following dawn.
The next 50F (10C) day might be Wednesday.
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Hi Betty ,how is the coronavirus affecting you,me myself has to go out as i am now looking after a stroke person.
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Can't go anywhere with COPD, if I'm out of breath after just by walking across a room anyway. Deliveries take longer & it's harder to deal with them. Everything has to be wiped down after dragging everything in, & hands washed. Then every item unpacked has to be wiped down & hands washed again.
On a bad day when it may take 40-50 minutes just to go poo because I have to stop & rest for a while on the way there & back often, it can take all afternoon or evening just to unpack a couple bags of groceries. Prices on most items continues to spiral way out of control, items I need are frequently out of stock, or some stuff I have to wait 2 months to get it.
A few weeks ago my O2 machine died. I picked up that one used in a hurry with already 7,000 hours on it, so I predicted it would die around April. I had to use my small backup O2 machine for about a week, until another used replacement one arrived. The backup machine only put out about 20% of the O2 of my big regular machine. So it was an extremely desperate ordeal of gasping for a week barely surviving until the replacement arrived.
I got lucky on a used one this time with only 500 hours on it, so it will last me a lot longer. But it cost me a little over $1,000. I had to borrow a shytload of money. I was already going deep into debt as my work has slowed down a lot, & prices keep going up. So now it's even worse.
I was planning on moving in late spring. Due to the virus, all of that has been canceled, & I will probably be stuck here at least another year. All my saved moving money got spent on survival.
Got a scare last week when the power went out for a half an hour. I had to switch to my backup O2 machine. Because it uses only 100 watts, I'm able to run it on a couple expensive lithium battery packs for a few hours. The big one draws 350 watts, & takes a surge of over 1,000 watts just to start the thing up, so can't use batteries on that one. No place to set up a generator here, & they're too heavy & hard for me to manage in my condition.
We had 2 days in a row where it got up to the 90s F up here, peaking at 93F (34C), & did not cool down much overnight. It got over 100F (38C) up here with my undersized air conditioner on full. I hope we don't have many summer days like that. Heat & humidity is very hard to breathe with COPD & wears out the O2 machine fast -- which also gives off tons of heat.
A few days later we had a low of 42F (5.5C), but I don't think we'll get snow anymore.
With the cooler weather I've been breathing a little better. But the barometer has dipped low again, & humidity is high, so it's not too good yet.
We had a riot in the area Saturday. Fires, looting, smashed cars, & broken windows, with helicopters circling overhead from the afternoon, through the night. Looting was as close as 2 blocks from me. Today smaller street gangs were around the area smashing some windows, looting, or beating people with bats & golf clubs.
It's quiet in my neighborhood now, but am hearing lots police & fire sirens in the distance. We're expecting another round of protests & riots Monday.
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8 days in a row with temperatures of 90F (32C) or higher here. It just now hit 96F (36C) in my city. My small old window AC unit can't keep up, but it's better than nothing. Without AC, with fans in the windows it can be 10 or more degrees hotter than outside. Right now it's about 90F (32C) where I'm sitting not far from the AC with a fan blowing on me. The other rooms & the bathroom probably are over 100F (39C). Drinking lots of ice water, splashing water on me, & soaking my feet in a bucket of water to keep cool. Wearing light shorts & nothing else.
Kitties figured out the most comfortable spot is in front of the fan near me. They seem to enjoy me taking a washcloth of cool water & rubbing in into their fur.
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Just hit 97F about an hour ago.
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what is the temperature in buffalo like Betty.In uk at nearly midnight we are getting close too 25 c and daytime is like 33-36c
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Ouch! 33-35C is about 91-95F. And being the UK, it probably was humid at the time too, making it feel worse. We've been lucky on most of the hottest days, the humidity didn't get too high like it did during past summers. A dry 90F (32C) is much more bearable than a very humid & sticky 80F (27C)... especially for me, humid weather or a low barometer is much harder for me to breathe with COPD.
My O2 machine gives off tons of heat like a heater, plus the back of my ancient refrigerator gives off lots of heat. I'm on a second floor with an apartment above & below me, & on each side of me, with only a couple small windows. So even with fans in the windows, it can be up to 10 degrees hotter inside than outside. Without AC, the place would be uninhabitable at 85F (29C) outside.
But the AC is small, only drawing 430-450 watts, & it's 13 years old, so it can't keep up.
Typical midnight temperatures the past week has been anywhere from 77F (25C) to 81F (27C). Yesterday afternoon it got up to 87F (31C).
Update: It just now hit 88F outside here.
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Hi Betty,thanks goodness the temperature has now dropped down too 21-25c
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Nearing the end of April & we have 4 inches of snow on the ground, with another inch expected. It hit over 60F (16C) a week ago, & 70F (21C) 2 weeks ago. Expecting a windy 28F (-2C) tonight.
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We had some 60s F (around 16C) days & even a couple 70F (21C) days a few weeks ago. But now for over a week, we've cooled down to March-like weather with lots of rainy, overcast, & foggy days... 30s (-1C) to low 50s F (10C) temperatures. They're saying the next 60F day is over a week away. All that rainy weather brings a low barometer, making my COPD much worse. A low barometer makes the air as thin as being on top a tall skyscaper, or small mountian & hard to breathe.
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hi Betty/i see you are having heavy snow at present.Do you still have electric at your place and how are you coping with copd in this weather.I just saw how bad Buffalo pictures are and the weather looks lousy.
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Hi Betty,
To expand on Samantha's post, I just read a really scary article in the Times about the storm you are experiencing. It says 28,000 families are without power. Below are a few lines from the article stressing the severity of the storm. Hope you are safe and warm and able to enjoy your Xmas.
At least three people died in Erie County, two of them because emergency responders could not get there fast enough; whiteout conditions left roads so choked with snow that sometimes even snowplows could not clear them.
“This may turn out to be the worst storm in our community’s history, surpassing the famed Blizzard of ’77 for its ferocity,” Mark Poloncarz, the Erie County executive, said on Saturday."
Andy G.
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It was a terrifying experience. I had around 70mph winds (113km/hr) shaking the house, rattling my windows, & making my lights flicker non-stop for over 2 days. But I'm OK & the power stayed on.
A fallen tree crashed down, knocking out my internet, just barely missing my power lines. Tethered to my mobile phone's internet for now. But that is sometimes running almost as slow as a dialup connection since the storm. It's supposed to 10-30mbs, or 5mbs tethered to a computer.
I'll get back to you later when I get a better connection. All my online time here was consumed just doing regular maintenance & backups on a slow connection. Plus my entire connection to the outside world is through the internet. It's taking forever just to catch up with everything around Christmas... messages, emails, other sites, etc.
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Hi Betty,
It sounds horrific, glad you made it through OK. I know what it's like working on the slow Internet. As I mentioned in another post, my Internet connection was degraded after doing updates.
Be well.
Andy G.
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I am glad to hear that you still have power and you are ok.Hopefully your internet and computer will be running better soon.
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It's all slowly melting. Got up to 46F (8C) today. Quite a change from 7F (-14C) with -20F (-29C) wind chills. It may hit the 50s F this weekend, & possibly 60F (16C) next week.
They plowed a single narrow lane down the middle of my street last night. But you have to climb a 4-6 foot wall of snow to get to it. Verizon had promised they'd be here today to fix my internet, but nobody showed up.
The last time my internet was down, near the end of summer, in perfect weather, they didn't show up when promised either. Instead, the showed up unannounced about a month later.