OT: Cabin Fever
Frank Reid © 2008
the "Christmas Blizzard of 2009" is over. Snow plow got stuck on my
street and they had to call in a bulldozer. Have to get my daughter
to Lincoln (60 mile) by 8 pm so she can catch the bus to the Holiday
Bowl in San Diego, but all the highways and roads are closed (how the
bus is getting OUT of Lincoln, I don't know). Got a 6' drift in my
back yard:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/jlAreNEYUDBw_KmFv-rzkA?authkey=Gv1sRgCMuz2Ka70564fQ&feat=directlink
I need a warm place to go fishing.
Frank Reid
Fred
On 26-Dec-2009, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Frank_Reid_=A9_2008?= <flyt...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> I need a warm place to go fishing.
> Frank Reid
I do know what you mean!!!
a crazed
Fred
Dave Grant
"Frank Reid � 2008" <flyt...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:aeff3413-d177-4675...@m11g2000vbo.googlegroups.com...
Better start thinking Belize or someplace like that. It was down in the
upper 20's here in Chandler AZ this morning. However, in 20 years I lived
here, I have never shovelled or even seen snow.
Giles
> "Frank Reid © 2008" <flytye...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:aeff3413-d177-4675...@m11g2000vbo.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Okay, still snowing... over 14" and the wind is coming back up, though
> > the "Christmas Blizzard of 2009" is over. Snow plow got stuck on my
> > street and they had to call in a bulldozer. Have to get my daughter
> > to Lincoln (60 mile) by 8 pm so she can catch the bus to the Holiday
> > Bowl in San Diego, but all the highways and roads are closed (how the
> > bus is getting OUT of Lincoln, I don't know). Got a 6' drift in my
> > back yard:
>
> > I need a warm place to go fishing.
> > Frank Reid
>
> Better start thinking Belize or someplace like that. It was down in the
> upper 20's here in Chandler AZ this morning. However, in 20 years I lived
> here, I have never shovelled or even seen snow.
I saw (and drove a 30 foot motor home through) ten inches of snow on
the ground in Tucson a few days before Christmas sometime between
fifteen and twenty years ago. Arrived there at about 4:30 a.m. after
a start in the wee hours from Phoenix, en route to Guaymas, where the
daytime temperatures hovered in the low to mid 60s for the next week
or so. The mountains we drove through in northwestern Mexico on the
way were snow covered as well. Saw snowmen on top of cars. Everybody
(well, everybody who wasn't trying to control a 30 foot motor home,
anyway) thought it was a hoot and a half. I was not much pleased.
A couple of years later, I was treated to rain, sleet, hail, thunder,
lighting, rock slides, high winds, flash-flooding.....and snow.....all
in one night while backpacking in the Superstition Mountains.....on
December 23rd. Got out alive the next day. Got out FAST! Got out
cold and wet and miserable and scared and glad to be alive. Saw lots
of snow pretty much everywhere en route back to Chandler (where the
friends who drove me to and from the Superstitions live) on December
24th.
giles
who, though he has never lived anywhere near there, can nevertheless
think of no good reason to suppose it is impossible that someone who
does may have slept or been somewhere else through that entire day.
Frank Reid © 2008
>
> - Show quoted text -
I just drove about 140 mile round trip to Lincoln, NE to take my
daughter to the bus for the Holiday Bowl (she's in the Cornhusker
Marching Band). Of that trip, 40 miles was a detour south to get to
the one road to Lincoln that was open. Cars and 18-wheelers off the
highway, 10 miles of near white out conditions. Left the house with
mucho wiggle room (4 hours) to make what normally would be a 50 mile
trip. Get there and the trip to the Holiday bowl is cancelled. They
made the call 1 1/2 hours before show time. Kids were driving in from
Colorado, Iowa and Missouri.
Right now, I'm drinking heavily. One very stressful trip. Black ice,
wind, snow, blowing snow, drifts... major suckage.
Frank Reid
Mark Bowen
Frank, just think of the trip as quality time with your daughter and the
time aftewards a quality time with your alcohol.
Op
DaveS
>
> - Show quoted text -
years ago I had a longer project in Nebraska that took me back and
forth across the State a few times in diff seasons. The Eye opener for
me was those messages running across the bottom of the TV screens,
warning of winds which were bolwing 18 wheelers off the interstate.
That was a new one for me.
Dave
The Columbia Gorge can be a bit windy too.
Frank Reid © 2008
> "Frank Reid 2008" <flytye...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:6b1c2bab-3a56-4e84...@1g2000vbe.googlegroups.com...
Actually, pretty much did just that.
Frank Reid
Frank Reid © 2008
We've decided its not the wind blowing in Nebraska, its Kansas
sucking.
Frank Reid
DaveS
> We've decided its not the wind blowing in Nebraska, its Kansas
> sucking.
> Frank Reid- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
;+))
Dave
Bill McKee
Sure glad my parents moved from the Scottsbluff area before I came on the
scene.
MajorOz
> "Frank Reid 2008" <flytye...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:6b1c2bab-3a56-4e84...@1g2000vbe.googlegroups.com...
When I lived in Cheyenne, the saying was: "The snow never melts here;
it just blows around until it wears out".
cheers
oz, who would see 6-8 days a year with steady winds in excess of 100
mph.
Giles
Now, that is truly astonishing.....and scary! I lnow I've experienced
gusts in excess of sixty miles per hour, and perhaps as high as
seventy, during storms, on land, and I remember quite clearly having
lived, barely, through sustained winds of 75 knots in the north
Atlantic. The mere thought of 100 mph makes the hairs on the back of
my neck stand up. That stuff makes buildings disappear.
giles
who spends a lot of time in buildings. :(
Frank Reid © 2008
the Santa Ana winds I grew up with in Southern California. We had
days with sustained winds of 80 mph and gust up to 105. Trust me on
this, you don't want to fly a kite in this kind of wind. Its not fun.
Frank Reid
Bill McKee
Last year, was coming into Los Alamitos Harbor with my 21' boat. Sunday
morning, calm, recovering a lost lobster hoop net. There was a forecast for
Santa Ana's. About 300 yards from the entrance to the channel, talking to
the wife who is in the parking lot at the farmers market and a gust hits and
spins the boat about 270 degrees. In 5 minutes it went from maybe 3 mph
wind to 50 mph wind. Lots of calls for assistance. Wife says the canopies
in the farmers market were flying through the air. Unbelievable. Seemed
worse than the 95-105 mph with gusts they said, for Hurricane Betsy in 1965.
But I was in a concrete barracks in Biloxi, so felt safe, but dang, did not
know a wind could blow so hard, so consistantly and so long.
Frank Reid © 2008
Heard the Santa Ana's were coming in, I pulled all the birds inside in
a temp cage (60 plus birds). The outside cage, 10'X12' by 8' high got
picked up by a gust, thrown over a 6' fence and landed in my driveway
out front, crushed. Thing never touched the fence. Had a "fire sale"
on budgies.
Frank Reid
Giles
WHAT??!!
No crushed Frank?.....no lacerated Frank?.....no mangled Frank?.....no
broken Frank?.....no bleeding Frank?.....no tossed, dragged, upended,
splayed, skewered, pummeled, bruised, blistered, burned, impaled,
knouted, clubbed, abraded, whipped, drowned, dunked, denuded,
disarticulated, flayed, fried or fibrulated Frank? Nothing more than
a discommoded, disgruntled and mildly dismayed Frank?! :(
Well, shit, even *I* can beat that......sorta.
While in Key West, long about '72 or thereabouts to pick up movies
(back in the days of actual movie projectors, I was volunteered to be
the MPO {Movie Projector Operator} while at home on leave from duty on
the USCGC Androscoggin), I was walking down the street and lo and
behold, there were five......FIVE!.....waterspouts (that's aquatic
tornadoes, for you landlubbers) traveling in a line.....nicely spaced
at a few hundred yards apart.....about a mile offshore. My mandible
hit the pavement not just once, on seeing the waterspouts, but a
second time when it became evident that no one else on the busy
thoroughfare paid them the slightest heed. Must be a common sight
there......or maybe one of us, or a lot of us, had recently scored
some very good or very bad drugs.
In June of '84, the tornado that ate Barneveld missed me and my
bicycle by about 24 hours......I was obviously too fast for it.
In August of '92, the tornado that ate Wautoma missed me and my car by
about a minute and a half, and/or a hundred yards.....it can be
confoundedly difficult to sort these things out sometimes. I had seen
bad weather approaching while enjoying a late supper at Hardees and
decided to try to beat it out of town. Half a mile later I pulled off
onto the shoulder because of high winds, pelting rain, and zero
visibility. Of course, I didn't know at the time that there was a
tornado.....thus explaining how my breeches managed to remain
unsoiled. I didn't find out until an hour or so later when I called a
friend to tell him about my day of fishing on the west branch of the
White River, which flows through the outskirts (such as they
are.....or were, then) of Wautoma. He said, did you see the
tornado?
Huh?
I went back the next morning.
Ouch! :(
If memory serves, it took the better part of a year before the
detritus in and along the stream was entirely cleared up. Broken off
stumps of trees are still visible here and there to this day.
So, in retrospect, I guess maybe I have experienced winds in excess of
75 knots while on land.......just didn't know it at the time.
giles
who surveyed the damage left by the Kenosha county tornado about a
year ago.....but was nowhere within thirty miles when the damage was
done. go figure.
Frank Reid © 2008
pretty good, but not up to my professional standing).
There I was at Lowry AFB in Denver back in 19mmumblemumble... It was
tech school and we had to march across base for Commanders Call (the
commander gets everyone together and tells them that their rooms are
pig pens and donate to the United Way). Massive thunderstorm and no
buses available. We're marching, a loud noise starts up and half the
flight dives into the rain swollen ditch. Those of us from So Cal,
Maine and Western Oregon look at these idiots in the ditch like
they're crazy (well, they were).
The guys in the ditch scream "Tornado!" We kinda crouch down in the
road and they hollar at us to get in the ditch. We gingerly climb in
(how bad coud a tornado be vs a dirty uniform?). We finally gingerly
lay down (we're Air Force, not Marines) in the ditch and cover up.
Never saw the tornado.
We climb out after the noise goes away. The tornado hit the side gate
about a couple of hundred yards away. The porta potty sized gate
shack is gone. One guard was found dead, shredded by the glass from
the liquor store across the street. The second was found on the on
the roof of a local building two months later by a news helicopter.
Frank Reid
Giles
> Okay, you know there had to be a Frank story (though, your's were
> pretty good, but not up to my professional standing).
> There I was at Lowry AFB in Denver back in 19mmumblemumble...
That's not fair! You got missing body parts and dead people and
flying debris and broken bones and possessed lawn machinery
and.....and......and all I got is a lousy waterspout. :(
giles
it ain't fair.
Frank Reid © 2008
Well, it was sterilized by all that alcohol.
http://www.motivateusnot.com/demotivational-poster/2009/12/23/Grieving-When_you_lose_those_close_to_you
Frank Reid
(by the way, google: My god, she not wearing her seat belts)
MajorOz
> There I was at Lowry AFB in Denver back in 19mmumblemumble...
When, exactly? I taught electronics there from '58 to '64.
cheers
oz, but left, as I couldn't make E-6
Robert from Oz
"Giles" <g_go...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3bab0b89-2be2-48ec...@a21g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
Hi Giles,
He's got good stories (Hi Frank).
Here's mine.
One Christmas break I took the kids to a caravan park on the banks of a
favourite river I fish (Alexander on the Goulburn River in Victoria.) We had
a ball for the first 3 days, sunny, hot and cool nights... 5min fishing,
throwing rocks, exploring, swimming in the river, lilo (one man blow up
mattresses) races, etc. On the 4th day just after lunch we were getting
ready to go for another swim when it started to cloud over a bit with a few
drops of rain. Kids were putting the towels back and were going to wait for
it to pass. I convinced them to try swimming in the rain - it was still hot
and we were going to get wet anyway ( You could see them working thru the
logic.). We get to the river 60' away when the rain drops were getting
bigger and bigger causing the kids some concern, so I jumped in first. As I
surfaced, the tempest hit.
The kids were back in the cabin by the time I got to the bank. After
reassuring the kids we sat on the veranda watching the storm. 30 sec later
it hit full force. It lasted 5 min maybe, in this time we watched clumps of
branches fly by horizontally (never seen that before), trees with 8'' trunks
being uprooted in front of us, a stand of Weeping Willows across the river
being stripped of about 1/3 of their leaves and 14" diameter branches ripped
off, the cabin being peppered with branch clumps and then shaking and
visibility dropping to about 50'.
Then calm, apart from the stifling humidity, you'd think nothing had
happened.
Had a walk around the caravan park to see if anyone needed help, and mate!
6' diameter trees were uprooted! Cars crushed, caravans rolled and crushed
and the only injury was a small cut on a lady's arm. This Cyclone cut a path
about 700' wide and maybe 80 miles long, falling trees knocked out the water
pump, power lines, toilet block, the common room and the septic pump at the
caravan park so we went home seeing it's path cross the road 40 miles away.
The park was closed for one month, losing about 25 trees (100') and the
other half had to be trimmed to make them safe. The severity of the storm
sunk in when we saw a 8' wide tree blown over.
The kids still check the sky before they swim in the river.
Rob.
Ps. This rarely happens here, common up in the top end of Australia and we
call them Cyclones, but not as common as your Tornados.
Pss. Frank, I told the kids about your incident with the snow blower... my
son wants to know if we can get one too!
Mark Bowen
Impressive!
Op