2/9-10/2008 National Toboggan Championships

Did you know there was such a thing? It takes place in Camden, Maine, which is near the coat. But somehow they get enough snow to have a resort called "The Snow Bowl" which has a variety of snow-related sports available. One of them is a toboggan chute and for the past 18 years, they have held The National Toboggan Championships. (If you go to their website, you can see a video of a toboggan going down the chute--think luge only silly and slower). Apparently, it's quite a blast, all in good fun. Folks come from as far away as California and Georgia.

UMF actually had two teams entered comprised of faculty and staff. Costumes are encouraged (as long as they don't interfere with safety) and since UMF's mascot is the beaver, that was the theme for both teams. They had beaver teeth and long-sleeved UMF beaver t-shirts (over many other layers, I assume). It was going to be quite the event. Unfortunately, there was an accident where one toboggan had turned on its side at the bottom of the chute and as they were setting it upright and clearing the ice, the next toboggan came down the chute and crashed into the first one. People were injured, though the news report says none were life-threatening injuries.

I really wanted to attend. I told the instigator, err, I mean, the organizer, that I would love to be a fly on the toboggan and she replied, "Weanie!" Then it turned out it was going to happen during the time I was scheduled to be returning from Boston, so I put it on my to-do list for next year.

No UMF folks were involved in the accident, but they were disappointed that they did not get to compete. Here's to 2009's event!

I dowloaded these photos from the Ashley's Flickr collection:

2/10/2008 But Wait! There's More!

That's my favorite line from Ronco infomercials: "But wait! There's more!" Don't you love it when life keeps bringing you more good stuff than you were expecting?

So the students finished around 5 and I had already decided I needed to get home before it was too dark. I often walk home in the dark, but not in these conditions in the dark. As we walked outside, the first thing I noticed was that all of our footprints that we had made in the snow coming into the building at 4:00 were all filled in with
snow. That's a lot of snow coming down in just an hour. There was even more snow coming down. The television analogy to "snow" was even more true now. And yet it was still gorgeous.

The wind picked up for the first time. It had been perfectly still all day. The wind was coming from the north which didn't bother me because I was heading south and the wind was at my back. I have a fabulous "long coat". My parents gave it to me for Christmas 3 years ago. I needed a new long coat for my trips to New York that I was doing as a consultant and my old coat was literally falling apart. My mom and I went and picked it out together. You can only get decorative long coats in Dallas, nothing that's truly warm because you don't really need it in Dallas. But my mom and I were in Albuquerque and we found a really nice one. It's all synthetic fibers but it's made to look like a shearling coat in dark brown colors. I always called my long coats "Nanook of the North" coats. Today, Patty called it my "Brown Bear" coat. Either way, it's very warm and has served me quite well, first in New York and now here.

So back to the story, I'm heading south with the north wind at my back and I'm toasty warm in my toasty warm long coat. I had noticed earlier how every branch of every tree had snow on it, lending to that Christmas Card effect. When the wind picked up, the boughs of pine trees started swaying in the wind and most of them lost their snow. Of course, that meant that big blobs of snow were suddenly falling. I was actually under one and thought I was being pelted by snowballs. It was really great to be able to see that happening. The wind also picked up a lot of loose snow and blew it around so ahead of me it looked rather blizzardous (that's probably not a word but it should be). The wind was coming in spurts so it wasn't a constant blizzard-looking condition. There was one gust that blew some of the loose snow in my face, but there was only that one gust so it wasn't
bad. The snow on the sidewalk was quite deep. Well, it was really snow on top of slush. I had walked in the slush on the way to the University. The slush had been brown from the sand that was on the road and then plowed over to the sidewalks. Now everything was white. The bottom of my coat was sometimes scraping the top of the snow. I was glad I was wearing my brown boots that are mid-calf high instead of my LL Bean thinsulated shoes that barely reach my ankles. When I got home, there was quite a bit of white on my coat. It stuck better to the furry part of the coat than to the suede-ish part of my coat, so my face had a white circle around it where the snow stuck to the trim on my hood. The bottom of the coat was white as were the shoulders and the top portion of both the front and the back. That was serious snow I was walking through!

Now I'm in the safety and comfort of my room at the house. I can occasionally hear the wind. It's not quite a howl . . . would it be a howlette? During the day you hear the big thuds when the snow slides off the roof, but not usually at night. There should be a lot of good thudding in the morning.

I wonder if they'll cancel classes or have a delayed start or just act as if nothing happened and have classes as usual. We'll see!

2/10/2008 More Snow on Sunday

Today the snow is coming down like crazy. They're predicting 8 inches. Even the Mainiacs and the Mainers are complaining that it's too much snow. I personally still like it, even though it kept me from going to Boston Friday night. It's just so gorgeous and I love walking through a Christmas card anytime I go anywhere. Today it's the little snowflakes that come down really fast. No floating, they're dropping. Remember the old days of black and white TV without a remote control? When a station didn't come in well, you said it was "snow" on the screen? That's what this looks like.

I'm up at the University right now. Two of my students wanted to practice on the interactive white board before their presentation to the class tomorrow where they will demonstrate what it is, how it works, and how to use it in the classroom. Good plan except that the building is locked on Sundays and the equipment is locked in a storage closet always. So I told them I would meet them here and let them in. As they were setting up the equipment, Brandi told us that she'd been out in the snow all day. Apparently two of her friends put together a list for a digital camera scavenger hunt, then gathered 12 friends to join the fun. There were 4 teams of 3 and the list included: pictures of a snowman, a snow angel, your team playing sports in the snow but without the use of any sports equipment, your team crossing the street Abbey Road fashion, your team with a local celebrity, an employee at the fitness center in uniform, the front of every dorm on campus, and my favorite: there's an area in the Student Center in front of the dining hall nicknamed "The Beach"--you had to get a picture of your team on the beach . . . with all teammates dressed in true beach attire. What a great way to make sure you don't get cabin fever!

On the walk up here, I couldn't believe how much traffic there was and how many pedestrians there were. Then I figured out that they must've been at a caucus or campaign rally because lots of the pedestrians had posters in their hand. I'm guessing caucus. Today is Maine's caucus day. I'm not registered yet 'cuz I still haven't gotten my new driver's license (and I haven't registered my car because they have an excise tax and it's going to be over $400 for me to register my car here). But I will remedy that voter registration problem before the next election. I was sad, though, not to get to
see a real caucus. Everyone that was at church this morning was going. Of course, there weren't many at church. ;-)

2/10/2008 Snowy Sunday

At 7:00 this morning, MRM and I got the call that Sunday School was
cancelled. There was so much snow overnight, the roads were pretty
bad. MRM's an aide in the 3rd grade class and I'm a substitute on
call. Today was going to be my first time to fill in. So when we got
the call that there was no Sunday School, we decided we weren't going
to get out for mass either. I was in sweats and cleaning up my room
when I heard a knock on the door. We couldn't figure out who it would
be at 9:30 in the morning, and there was Patty. She sings in the
choir (plays guitar and cantors) and knows MRM from way back. She'd
given us a ride home from church on another snowy morning when we had
walked to church. I opened the door and said, "Hi" but I think the
look on my face said, "What are you doing here?" She said, "Are you
going to church this morning? I thought I'd see if you wanted a
ride." Wow. Who knew that God had a chauffeur service? It's hard to
skip out on church when someone comes knocking on your door. She said
she was driving by and noticed there were no footprints in the
driveway and the cars were covered in snow.

I told her that my hair was a mess (which it was) and she said, "It
looks fine. Come on!" So I ran upstairs and couldn't figure out what
to wear. There was my suitcase packed for Boston which I hadn't
unpacked. I knew there was a complete outfit already selected in
there so I just dumped out the suitcase and threw that outfit on and
off to church we went. MRM stayed home but asked us to pray for
her. ;-) 4 out of 5 of the choir folks were there. The fifth one is
Rose whose husband Randy did make it. He said Rose was sick,
otherwise we would've had perfect attendance. Once I was there, I was
glad I went, but it sure was a surprise to be there. :-)

ice festival

My mom forwarded this email to me. It's about an amazing winter festival in Harbin China. Her email simply said, "An idea for Farmington?" So it's really not about Maine but it's too fascinating not to share and since it was Maine's weather that inspired sending the email, I figure that's a good enough excuse to put it in this blog.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
And we thought it was cold here......

Temperature in Harbin reaches forty below zero, both Fahrenheit and centigrade, and stays below freezing nearly half the year. The city is actually further north than notoriously cold Vladivostok , Russia , just 300 miles away. So what does one do here every winter? Hold an outdoor festival, of course! Rather than suffer the cold, the residents of Harbin celebrate it, with an annual festival of snow and ice sculptures and competitions.

The ice festival, a few miles away from the snow festival, is anything but dull and colorless. Crowds flocking to the entrance are greeted by dance music booming in the distance, as if at an outdoor pop concert. And bright neon colors shine everywhere, buried within huge blocks of ice forming structures as high as thirty meters, such as this huge structure beyond the entryway. You can just make out people standing atop its blue and red stairway.

The Great Wall doubles as a long ice slide; just sit and go. You can pick up some serious speed and wipe out spectacularly at the bottom if you're wearing a slick coat, but you won't go anywhere if you're wearing corduroy pants.

A view from atop that structure, looking back on a Russian-styled building and a mock Great Wall, both constructed out of ice. Making it to the top of this structure is an accomplishment in itself - imagine walking up a stairway of solid ice for two floors with no handrails. The yellow block wall on the right and the balconywork on the lower left are all ice, with no internal support structure - just lights.

An overview of the ice festival from atop the Great Wall of ice. It's like a Disney theme park, with multiple attractions and food hawkers and kids running around and people lined up for bathrooms. The only differences are that the temperature is about a hundred degrees colder than the typical Disney park, and all the structures are made out of ice rather than plastic - and slipping and falling here doesn't result in tremendous lawsuits.

An entire ship constructed of ice, with passengers onboard. Though it might not be seaworthy, the ship would certainly float - after all, it's made of ice. Hundreds of years ago during the Manchu days of ice lantern art, the sculptures were lit only by candles.

More photos:

2/9/2008 The orange badge of courage

Who would've ever dreamed that I would have a ski ticket on my
jacket?! The guy at the cash register thought it was hysterical when
he handed me the piece of wire and the sticker and I looked at him
and said, "What do I do with these?" He went ahead and assembled the
whole thing for me. I could do it on my own next time, but for the
first time, it's pretty daunting, especially if you've never really
seen a fully assembled one before.

2/9/2008 Cross Country Skiing!

My first time to cross country ski. MRM invited me and very patiently
taught me and coached me. We did "The Airport" first (an old landing
strip, so you know it's nice and flat and straight . . . great for a
first timer like me). Then a little "terrain". I definitely prefer
having the tracks to keep me on "the straight and narrow". But
"downhill" was pretty fun! I learned to herringbone and when we got
to a bigger hill and herringbone wasn't working for me, I resorted to
that really old fashioned way where you turn your skis perpendicular
to the direction you're moving and go "sideways" up the hill. In the
middle of doing that I had this amazing flashback to when I was about
5 and my parents took my sister and I skiing on the slopes at Santa
Fe, New Mexico. We lived in Santa Fe way back then. I was barely old
enough to remember it. I think the only skiing we did that day was
from the ski rental shop to the lodge where the hot chocolate was.
But it was uphill from the ski rental shop, so we did that
perpendicular climb the whole way. LOL! I hadn't thought of that in a
bazillion years. Today's climb was much easier than that one and the
whole experience was really fun. And I didn't fall down!

[Photo note: Warm hat and great mittens courtesy of Greg back in Texas who loaned me all kinds of warm winter attire from his days at Xavier University in Cincinnati and other cold places he lived before moving to Texas.]

2/8/2008 The shoveling out of the car

I'm going to go to Boston today as soon as I finish teaching my last
class. Of course, I have to be able to get into my car first and then
be able to get my car out of its cozy little snow bed. It took about
an hour and 20 minutes for this amateur snow shoveler to free the
car. Fortunately, I had just done it last Saturday, so this is only a
week's worth of snow. This is only about a foot of snow. If I hadn't
have done it Saturday, there would've been 18" or more and I think I
would've just left my car to be buried and waited for the end of mud
season to find my car again.

2/6/2008 Narnia?

This lamppost in the snow reminds me of Lucy's first entrance to Narnia in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I took this photo right at sunset in front of the church (it's on the other side of the sidewalk from the sign covered in snow).

2/6/2008 Where's Waldo?

The blue on this photo is because I took it at sunset. But even without the blue, does it look familiar? Compare the photo above to this photo from January 27:

The church sign is now completely covered in snow! So the Where's Waldo reference is that you're supposed to try to find the sign in the blue photo. But it's really not fair because in "Where's Waldo," he's obscure but always visible. In the blue photo, that sign is completely hidden and covered. But even though you can't see the sign telling who we are or what time we have mass, we still had mass today for Ash Wednesday.

2/6/2008 UMF in the snow

This is one of three official UMF signs. I think it looks cool in the snow. I have a photo of my Albuquerque Family (Fran, Stephanie, and Terry) in front of this sign, but it is still in my camera that fell out of my pocket when I was hiking, so I really don't have that photo. I hope "Family" will send me a copy of the photo they took on their camera. This sign is about as tall as I am and if I could juxtapose those two photos, you'd see how much snow this really is!

2/6/2008 Big Snow

Here's a picture of the new Education Center at UMF (it's now 1 year old, but it's still considered new and it still feels new inside). I was approaching from the south when I took this photo. If you look closely, there's a window with blue and green paper in it (right above the red brick). That's my office window. :-) And once again, check out how big and fluffy those snow flakes are!

2/6/2008 Snow Piled High

Notice how little snow we have on our metal roof. That means the metal roof is doing its job and snow "slides right off." And indeed it does. And it makes a big noise when it does fall off. You definitely don't want to be under the eaves when that stuff comes crashing down.

Now check out the snow in the front yard. It's piled at different heights because when shoveling/plowing/scooping, you pile the snow higher. But right at the corner of the porch, the lowest point in the height of the snow, there is no additional snow. That is the actual height of
accumulated snow this winter. There are 4 steps leading up to the porch. That's a lot of snow no matter how you measure it.

2/6/2008 Morning Snow

I woke up this morning to beautiful snow flakes. LOTS of big puffy snow flakes coming down. Here's the house across the street. It's "the other" yellow house on the street. Look at the windows and the door. See all those white spots? Those are snow flakes. Think how big and puffy they have to be to be able to see them from across the street. Also note the Christmas wreath on the front window, but look at the mailboxes in the back. See the four black mailboxes next to the back staircase? Underneath them is a red heart-shaped wreath for
Valentine's Day. I love a house that celebrates dual holidays!

Many school districts were closed yesterday. Today all were open. Big mistake. They almost all closed at noon. One district picked up the students in the buses and the kids never got off. The buses turned right back around and took everyone home. On the bottom of the television screen you can watch the school and business closing announcements. That district came up and instead of saying "2 hour delay" or "closing at 10am", their announcement said, "All schools closing NOW." Capital letters and all. ;-)

2/2/2008 Farmington's 5th Annual Dog Sled Race

See the big blue barn in the back? They had refreshments (someone grilling hamburgers on a countertop grill, homemade cookies and brownies for sale, and more) for sale in there including hot chocolate and coffee. This woman with the sled and all the ropes is getting ready for a race. She's in the parking lot area to the north which was pretty much all sled dog trucks (special trucks designed to carry a bunch of dogs, dog food, ropes, sleds, skis, and other related equipment.

Are these not the cutest distance markers you've ever seen? This one is at the start gate so I'm not really sure what it's marking, but I assume they have similar ones all along the course and hopefully, they're more accurate than this one.

These are the dogs waiting for the first race to happen.

And they're off! This is an event called skijor. According to some very friendly people that I stood next to for part of the morning, this is an event from one of the Nordic countries. It's basically having a sled dog pull you while you're on cross country skis. The human has on the cross country skis and a special harness with a big metal ring in the middle. You attach the ropes that are connected to the dog sled to that metal ring and off you go! There were competitors with one dog and some with two. We saw the 2 dogs located one in front of the other and we saw them where the dogs were side by side.

Somewhere out there are the racers. We could see them. Apparently a couple owns this land and lets the group use it. There is a 4 mile track, a 6 mile track, and a 10 mile track. The skijor racers were on the 4 mile track. What a beatiful day!

Here's one of the racers crossing the finish line.

As soon as this dog crossed the finish line he started rolling in the snow and eating snow with his tail wagging the whole time.

There was just one round of skijor (all the different classes were pretty much in the same race) and then it was time for sleds. The first event was 4 dog pro followed by 4 dog sportsmen. I couldn't tell the difference. Here you can see two teams (one on each side of the bales of hay) just out of the chutes.

I'm not sure who was a bigger winner today--the sled racing humans, the dogs, or me. What a glorious day! And I ran into Alan that works in the Ed. Center (we're both there late at night) and I had the chance to meet his wife. I loved finally meeting her after hearing so many wonderful stories.