2/29/08 update on the update

We're expecting another foot of snow this weekend.

Happy Leap Year Day!!

2/26 - 2/27/2008 Snow Update

I know you're tired of reading about it, but it's just fascinating. Tuesday night they were predicting a really bad storm. They even canceled after-school activities at most districts. And after about 6 hours of snow, there was barely a dusting on the ground. I went to bed around 9:30pm 'cuz I had driven from Manchester NH airport the night before and didn't get in until the wee hours of the morning. So of course, that means at 2:00 in the morning, I'm wide awake because I had a good night's sleep. I looked out the window in the darkness and there was at least a foot of snow on top of all the cars! Sure enough, after I went back to sleep and woke up for the second time that morning, I measured the snow on top of the car (stuck my hand down in it) and it was over 8". That's unofficial and not an accurate place to measure, but it's convenient. Everyone around town's been saying it was 12".

I'm telling you, it's getting D E E P around here! MRM finally had to pay someone with a snow plow to come and clear the driveway because it was too much snow and no place to put it. One of my students from last semester sent me an email in which he said, "So is the real winter to your liking? They say it classifies as # 15 for the worst winters of all time recorded here in Maine. I guess that means you got to see a real winter before you went home so I can stop praying for snow now :) "

2/28/08 Spring

This is an actual, official email that we got in campus email today from the head of facilities management:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Cheer up! Spring is only three weeks away.

Bob L.

Director of Facilities Management

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Don't you wish you worked at a place with such fun people?

waves in Antarctica

I know it's cold in Maine, but it's not THIS cold. I love how people keep sending me emails about places colder than Maine: China, Antarctica, . . . keep 'em coming!

Check out this one:

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The water froze the instant the wave broke through the ice. That's what it is like in Antarctica. Water freezes the instant it comes in contact with the air. The temperature of the water is already some degrees below freezing.

Just look at how the wave froze in midair.

2/16/2008 How cold is it?

Are you tired of hearing about the weather? It's all they talk about here, but with good cause.

Last night, the sky was crystal clear, the stars were brilliant, the moon was almost full and the moonlight was shining down. Today the sun rose at 6:40am. It's a gorgeous day . . . bright sunshine, beautiful blue sky, a few white whispy clouds in the sky. I walked downtown to check my mailbox and the bank sign flashed 10:20am--sun's been up nearly 4 hours now. Then the bank sign flashed 13. It's THIRTEEN DEGREES! No wonder it felt cold walking! Wowser.

I'm leaving Monday to go to New Hampshire to catch a plane for Texas. I thought I should start shoveling out my car today. It might take a while. The problem with shoveling now is not the shoveling out, it's the shoveling to. Where do you put the snow? Everything around you is high. You feel like you're walking through tunnels. It was hard to shovel last week because I had to lift the shovel filled with snow over my shoulders to get the snow out of the shovel and on the other side of the snow banks that line the driveway. It was some workout. We've had more than 8 inches of snow since then. Now the snow banks are as tall as I am. I actually had to first break the tops off the snow banks and push that snow down the other side so that I could shovel my car out. Now shoveling is not only a physical exercise but also a mental exercise. How do you get that shovel under your car to get the snow out from behind the front tire and yet keep the snow in the shovel while you twist and lift to get it up and over the wall of snow by your side, all while dodging the rear view mirror which has an affinity for bumping your hip? It's quite an interesting activity. I got it shoveled out far enough that I can move the car. I figure tomorrow, I'll back the car out all the way and clean up the mess on either side of where my car was and try to create a bigger snow garage to park in. Fingers crossed, there won't be any more snow and I'll be able to leave on Monday without having to shovel or scrape.

2/7-14/2008 New Window

This window was only up for a week because it had a Valentine's Day theme, but it was really a message for the whole semester . . . for the whole time I've been here and the foreseeable future.

2/11/2008 "through the white and drifted snow-o!"

"Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go. The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the ____" And what words do you sing in that blank? As a kid, I used to sing "wide and drifting snow". It didn't make sense, but back then, neither would "white and drifted snow" which are the real lyrics. But now I understand.

Those howling winds created some incredible snow drifts. I don't think I ever knew the difference between a snow bank and a snow drift before, but I'm learning. Who knew that snow had so much vocabulary??! In the street light I could see gorgeous patterns in the snow caused by the wind. It looked like the patterns in desert sands. These photos don't do the beauty any justice. Oh well. I tried. Just know that we've had lots of wind and now we have drifted snow.

2/13/2008 WOW! That's a lot of snow!

Are you tired of reading about snow yet? Folks around here are certainly tired of the snow! But today's storm looks like it's going to be the worst one of the season. When I woke up the flakes were coming down but also twirling down. It was cool looking but I don't know how it was working. There wasn't any significant wind, but the snow was falling in / from different directions. At first the flakes were the little ones. Then there were LOTS of little ones. Then they got fat and fluffy. But the whole time, they're just coming. Lots of snow. The University is closed as are all the schools in the area.

I'm sitting in my room with the blinds open just watching the snow pile up on the roof. Fortunately, MRM has a metal roof and it really has been working. Snow keeps sliding right off. But outside my window is the porch roof and it's not as slanted, so snow doesn't slide off of it as often, even with the metal roof. So I'm able to see snow accumulating outside my window.

In the last hour, it has turned to teeny tiny flakes with occasional ice pellets that I can hear and also see as they bounce off the roof. The prediction is that we'll get 8 inches of snow and then it will turn to ice/ rain/ freezing rain/ sleet. Oh joy.

There's a 4 foot tall chain link fence in the backyard. Only 8-12 inches of the top of the fence is visible. It's in an area where that height is not due to snow banks created by plowing or shoveling and it's not drifted snow up against the fence. That's over 3 feet of accumulated snow just in the past 2 months. This is a real winter. :-)

2/12/2008 digging the car out . . . again

I teach a graduate course in a town called Dixfield on Tuesday nights. Last Tuesday's class was canceled because of bad weather. The class is held at the local high school and all the participants are teachers in the high school, middle school, or 2 elementary schools nearby. Since their district was closed due to bad weather, we didn't meet either.

So this week, both UMF and their school district were open, so class was on. It only took me 20 minutes to get the snow off my car and shovel around it so I could get out. But remember, that's after the 90 minute process Friday morning (only 4 days ago) and the digging out on the Saturday morning before that (6 days before that).

It was sunny and beautiful (really cold but in my car with the heater on, I just noticed sunshine and blue skies) on the drive to Dixfield and there were no winds. Yea. Apparently the day of the bad winds there were many accidents where people were literally blown off the highway. It's bad enough that the roads are icy, but when the wind blows you off the road, it doesn't matter what kind of traction you're getting. So I was very appreciative of sunshine and no wind.

But guess what . . . there's another storm coming tonight!

2/11/2008 Howling Update

The Boston Globe had this little article about Maine weather:

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GRAY, Maine—Mainers should brace themselves for high winds and wicked cold wind chills today after a messy weekend of winter weather.
more stories like this

The National Weather Service has issued wind and blowing snow advisories across the state, calling for sustained winds of 15 to 30 miles per hour, with a few gusts up to 50 miles per hour.

The winds could bring down tree limbs that are already weighted down with snow, which could result in power outages.

Bangor Hydro crews worked through the night to restore power to customers in Hancock, Washington, and Penobscot counties. About 8,000 customers were without power around midnight, but the majority of those outages have been restored.
(retrieved 2/13/2008 from http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2008/02/11/wind_advisories_issued_across_maine/)

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Gray is about an hour and a half south of Farmington. It's the home of the National Weather Service's Weather Forecast Office. When those "sustained winds" hit, it was like you were riding inside a noisy truck without earplugs. It was a loud noise that just kept going. Paul, a friend at work, said it's basically hurricane winds. Alan (another friend at work) said his old house was just creaking like crazy. It was definitely a new weather experience. The brunt of those winds was during the night, so I slept through most of it, but apparently, the high, sustained winds lasted well over an hour. And then there were sustained winds that weren't as high plus lots of gusts all throughout the night/ early morning.

2/10/2008 Howlettes are full-fledged Howls now

Check out this weather advisory:

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GRAY ME
920 PM EST SUN FEB 10 2008
...VERY WINDY CONDITIONS TONIGHT AND MONDAY...
.COLD ARCTIC AIR WILL POUR INTO THE REGION ON STRONG AND GUSTY
WEST TO NORTHWEST WINDS TONIGHT AND MONDAY. SUSTAINED WINDS OF 15
TO 30 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 50 MPH CAN BE EXPECTED.
WINDS THIS STRONG COULD CAUSE TREE LIMBS...LADEN WITH THE WEIGHT
OF SNOW...TO BE DOWNED. THIS IN TURN MAY CAUSE SCATTERED POWER
OUTAGES.
THE GUSTY WINDS WILL CREATE BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF THE FRESHLY
FALLEN SNOW. ALSO ANY SLUSH OR WATER ON ROADS...PARKING LOTS AND
SIDEWALKS WILL FREEZE UP AS TEMPERATURES PLUNGE INTO THE SINGLE
DIGITS AND TEENS TONIGHT.

I can hear it. The wind is really howling now. Benny wanted to go outside and as I opened the storm door, a big bunch of "scattered powder" blew right in the door. And it was C O L D ! !

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.

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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.