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.

1/27/2008 No matter how much snow, we still have church

Somewhere under there is the church sign that says the name of the
church and the times we have mass. Even though no one can see what
time the mass is (or the sign for that matter), we still show up. ;-)

2/1/2008 Slipperier When Wetter

Is "slipperier" a real word? It definitely describes the walking conditions Friday night. Wednesday was slippery when it was raining on top of ice. Friday it wasn't really "wetter" but snow was covering the icy patches and more precipitation was coming down, so it was definitely more treacherous.

Most every Friday night, an email goes out to all faculty announcing when and where The Faculty Seminar will be held that evening. (Translation: Faculty Seminar = Happy Hour) Here is yesterday's announcement: "Seminar today depends on the weather, if it’s not freezing rain there will be a seminar. If it is freezing rain, probably not. The maybe seminar will be held at the Homestead at 5:00."

I was planning on going anyway, so I decided to risk the "maybe" Seminar. Sure enough, a nice crowd was gathered and it was a great time. Fortunately, I was wearing my Yak Trax which give extra traction. I wasn't wearing them the day that I fell because I knew there were dry patches of sidewalk and I didnt' think you were supposed to wear Yak Trax on sidewalk or dry ground. But that misconception has been corrected by a number of folks. So I wore them yesterday morning to work and was now wearing them on my walk to Seminar.

In the late afternoon, big puffy snow flakes started falling. The prediction was for freezing rain but we got snow instead. By the time I left for Seminar, there was at least an inch of snow on the sidewalks and streets (which hadn't been plowed) and little ice pellets were the precipitation of the moment. Not sleet or hail, just ice pellets. Tiny. They didn't hurt. But they gave the ground a definite crunch.

Several times my foot slipped on the ice underneath the snow, but my Yak Trax gave me extra traction and I remained upright. By the time I got to seminar and was going to take my Yak Trax off, I realized I had lost one! I only had on one Yak Trax. (one Yak Track?) I felt certain I would find it on the walk home. It would have to be on a sidewalk somewhere and there weren't many others out walking, so I didn't imagine anyone would be finding it.

Seminar was great fun. I even had dinner there. Several hours later, The Homestead was closing early due to the weather but the Seminar gang was still going strong. So the new plan was to go to The Dugout to kill some time and then head to the 9:30 movie--Junea. It had been too long of a week for me, I knew I wouldn't make it, so I headed home . . . and retraced my steps to look for my Yak Trax.

I didn't have to go far. I got to the intersection of Broadway and High Street (a blinking yellow light intersection) and there was a lone Yak Trax in the intersection. It didn't even look like it had been run over by a car. It was easy to spot sticking up out of the snow under the street light. (There are many parts of the walk that aren't as well lit as that intersection, so that helped.)

The rest of the walk home was really great. There were now about 3" of precipitation on the sidewalk. There was still the icy base, then lots of snow, and crunchy ice pellets mixed with snow on top of that. Everything was covered in a thick white blanket that glistened on top like a Christmas card that you paid extra for the white glitter. Coming down was some kind of tiny precipitation -- not sure if it was snow or ice-somethings -- and that caused a gauzy Doris Day movie effect on the light from the streetlights. It was incredibly picturesque. I'm sure it was cold (it was 18 degrees when I left my office to go to Seminar) but there was no wind and I had on my snuggly long coat so I didn't feel the cold. (No, it wasn't because of any beverages consumed at Seminar.) But it was a little more strenuous than usual because of the accumulated snow. It was more like my one snowshoeing experience than it was like walking.

The most treacherous part was our own driveway, but I made it safely. I don't think I'll be removing the Yak Trax any time soon.

I did get a very nice anonymous comment on my blog entry about my spill. At first I thought it was a spam comment because there are web crawlers that will try to post advertisements and spam in blog comments. But it was too specific to my entry, I think it must've been submitted by a real person. It said, "Go to http://sports-imports.stores.yahoo.net/stabansol.html and buy Stabilicers Anti-Skid Soles for your boots and you'll never fall again. These are built in Maine for Maine winters. Hope this helps future falls and injuries. An interested fan! Love your blogs read them everyday." It was such a nice entry, I hope it is by a real person. :-)

So look at the "studded snow tires for your shoes" link that my "interested fan" is talking about and then look at http://yaktrax.com/productspro.aspx to see what Yak Trax look like. You just don't find products like this in Dallas. ;-)

2/2/2008 New Look to the Blog

I still really like the last template I was using for this blog, but something changed that was out of my control and the blog description took up more room than it used to. It covered a graphic and some of the links in the top right corner. So, I changed the template. But instead of being sad, I see it as a celebration of 1 year of writing this blog. I have 260 entries! (This one is #261.) I never would've guessed I would write so much (or post so many photos) and keep it up. What fun!

So Happy Ground Hog's Day! (The ground hog would definitely see his shadow today in Maine so I guess we're in for 6 more weeks of winter. Last year it was closer to 16 more weeks of winter.) And Happy New Look to the Blog.

1/30/2008 Slippery When Wet

Last night the weather forecasters were saying it was going to rain overnight but be below freezing so roads would be icy. They forgot to warn about sidewalks! Actually, by the time I was walking to campus, the rain was drizzling and the roads were clear. The sidewalks had ice on them from before (melted snow that froze in place). Now there's water on top of the ice. Eeeegads! Picking up an ice cube that falls out of the freezer is hard enough, but picking a wet ice cube out of your glass of water is nearly impossible. That's what the sidewalk was like.

I took one spill not too far from the house. I don't think I broke anything (in my book bag or in my purse or in my body) but I did have a nice cold spot on my pants. I bet I "almost fell" three more times before I finally decided to just walk in the road. Getting hit by a car seemed much less likely than falling again.

1/30/2008 A joke

I normally don't pass on blonde jokes because they make fun of a stereotype, but this joke is funny not because of the blonde part but otherwise.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As a trucker stops for a red light, a blonde catches up. She jumps out of her car, runs up to his truck, and knocks on the door.

The trucker lowers the window, and she says "Hi, my name is Heather and you are losing some of your load."

The trucker ignores her and proceeds down the street.

When the truck stops for another red light, the girl catches up again.
She jumps out of her car, runs up and knocks on the door.

Again, the trucker lowers the window. As if they've never spoken, the blonde says brightly, "Hi my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!"

Shaking his head, the trucker ignores her again and continues down the street.

At the third red light, the same thing happens again.

All out of breath, the blonde gets out of her car, runs up, knocks on the truck door. The trucker rolls down the window. Again she says "Hi, my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!"

When the light turns green the trucker revs up and races to the next light.

When he stops this time, he hurriedly gets out of the truck, and runs back to the blonde.

He knocks on her window, and after she lowers it, he says...

"Hi, my name is Kevin, it's winter in Maine and I'm driving the SAND TRUCK!"