Sissy stuff to keep warm with during the "VORTEX"?

[Betty]

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.

[Angela M...]

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.

[Betty]

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

[Angela M...]

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.

[Betty]

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.

[Angela M...]

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.

[Betty]

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.

[Betty]

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.

[Betty]

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.

[andyg0404]

Hi,

I think this just about sums it up.

Andy G.