Allow me to talk about the cold.
I have always prided myself on my ability to deal with the cold. And I am glad to say that, although Vermont is testing my pride, I am holding up fairly well. That is not to say that my experiences with Vermont's idea of "cold" has not tested me. I have had a few mishaps with the climate here, which I will gladly share with you.
The baseboard heater in my room burst recently. Turns out when it gets really really cold (around -20) you need to take some precautions in my apartment, like making sure the heat is turned up fairly high. If not, because all the baseboards are on an outside wall, the pipes can freeze, and subsequently burst. My entire room was flooded, ruining my carpet (it really tied the room together), soaking my laundry (mesh hampers do nothing to keep water out), and even ruined a pillow that had been carelessly left next to my bed (no parenthetical comment on that one).
I work at a ski resort here in Vermont, and most of my day is spent outside. I was at work about a week before the pipe bursting incident and the wind was gusting at about 60 MPH, the temp (without windchill) was about 16 degrees, and it was snowing. I had all the proper gear to protect myself from the brutality of the outside world, except a face mask. See, while here in Vermont, I am allowing my facial hair to grow out, and I thought that it would be enough protection from the cold. Turns out, I was right! My face was plenty warm as far as I was concerned, however my coworkers were a little upset with me. See, I had a solid layer of ice clinging to my face-whiskers. They said that looking at me was making them feel colder, and demanded that I stop being stupid and put a face mask on. Grudgingly I went inside, chiseled my face free from its icy prison, and got a face mask.
That same day, coming home from work, I found out that the all-weather all-terrain tires was a great investment. If I happen to hit a slippery spot on the road, during a curve, with oncoming traffic, it is very nice to know that I can at least steer my cay toward the snowbank on MY side of the road. I didn't actually hit a snow bank, but there were a solid 1.5 seconds where I considered it a best plan B.
I suspect I will be writing about the cold more as I continue my life here in Vermont, but I will try not to bore you with mundane weather updates.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Recently I find myself never leaving a Google website whenever I go on the internet. I will give you an idea of what I mean.
I go to my computer and the first thing I do is check my email. So I head over to gmail.com. Reading my email I get invited to a party a week from now. I head over to google.com/calendar to see if I have anything planned for that day. Doesn't look like I have anything planned that day, so I check the weather at plain old google.com. The results for the weather are displayed right in my search, so I never need to even leave the results page.
Having completed all the humdrum tasks I set out to do, I go to youtube.com to kill some time watching videos. After exhausting the videos of pets doing silly things, it it time to catch up on all my Webcomics, blogs, and tech sites. I head over to Google.com/reader and everything I need is located (in a very organized manner) right there for me to read at my leisure.
After all that, I start to sort my pictures at Picasa.com, another google product. Then I check my voicemail at google voice. I head over to igoogle.com and read up on the headlines for today. Seeing something interesting on CNN (at the google homepage) I head over to google.com/news. Finally I accept the google wave invite and start toying around.
The kicker is... even this blog is written and posted at a google owned site. Google truly is my lord and master, and only now do I realize its awesome power over me. If IMDB.com and Wikipedia.org get taken over by google, about 90% of my internet interaction will take place through Google.
Sorry for not writing for so long, I am going to try to actually keep this blog active even though I am not struggling in some 3rd world country.
I go to my computer and the first thing I do is check my email. So I head over to gmail.com. Reading my email I get invited to a party a week from now. I head over to google.com/calendar to see if I have anything planned for that day. Doesn't look like I have anything planned that day, so I check the weather at plain old google.com. The results for the weather are displayed right in my search, so I never need to even leave the results page.
Having completed all the humdrum tasks I set out to do, I go to youtube.com to kill some time watching videos. After exhausting the videos of pets doing silly things, it it time to catch up on all my Webcomics, blogs, and tech sites. I head over to Google.com/reader and everything I need is located (in a very organized manner) right there for me to read at my leisure.
After all that, I start to sort my pictures at Picasa.com, another google product. Then I check my voicemail at google voice. I head over to igoogle.com and read up on the headlines for today. Seeing something interesting on CNN (at the google homepage) I head over to google.com/news. Finally I accept the google wave invite and start toying around.
The kicker is... even this blog is written and posted at a google owned site. Google truly is my lord and master, and only now do I realize its awesome power over me. If IMDB.com and Wikipedia.org get taken over by google, about 90% of my internet interaction will take place through Google.
Sorry for not writing for so long, I am going to try to actually keep this blog active even though I am not struggling in some 3rd world country.
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