The Dino-Aspie Ex-Café (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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that was John William's arrangement that was done at the Inauguration!

Merle

When I looked it up on Youtube I noticed it had been played at the Inauguration. I have the cd, Yoyo Ma - Classics, and it is one of the songs on there. I think it's cool that such a beautiful song that I've been listening to for years was featured that day. It was written in 1848 by Elder Joseph Brackett. It is a Shaker hymn and work song about the joy a simple life can bring.

yeah, it was required singing when I was in grammer school. I remember we would spoof the words as " Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be dumb, tis a gift to simply sit and suck your thumb. . ."

Merle

ah, here is that purple duck !

I checked out my windows - no purple ducks of any sort. Are you sure he's a duck? Any evidence of tape? Maybe he's one of those short-legged purple northern flamingos I've heard about? Dangerous stalkers, those are. Pretend to be drunk and injured by the side of the road, then when they lure unsuspecting concerned onlookers close enough... ... WHAM!! ! You're lucky you weren't killed outright! Let alone the jaywalking. Well, at least you have 7 more lives! I hear they hoot "Yoyo Ma! Yoyo Ma!" Notice any of that? FerKRYESsakes don't turn your back on him!

Could be a frozen groundhog. See any shadow?

I wonder how Lau is? Puxatawney Phil saw his shadow today, so that's six more weeks of winter for the Eastern USA. But London got 10 inches of snow overnight, too!! !

OK. So last night... it seemed to be a bit chilly, so I looked out, and it appeared pleasant enough. I forced myself to go to bed at 11pm... no, 12pm.... no, 1pm... well sometime, as I had my alarm set for 8am, to get to a meeting, 12 miles away, at 10:30 am.

It was cold.

Once I had finally got my feet warmed up, I woke up at about 7:30am, and started watching my alarm, as it crept towards its "going off point", at 8am.

I gave up and cancelled the alarm, and got in the bath.

One thing and another... then I was at the front door, with 45 minutes spare, to do the 12 miles to get to my appointment, and park, etc.

I opened the door, to be rather surprised to see well over an inch of settled snow. I don't recall when I last saw anything more than a "dusting" of snow.

Now, I have this "new" car - an automatic. I only got it just before Christmas (another story), and it's the first time I've ever owned an automatic. I've certainly never driven one in snow. I hate the gear shift/stick/whatever, because it's so much less positive/quick to select gears. Getting out of my rather cramped parking space will be interesting?

I spend a few minutes, scraping the snow off with my scraper. Correction, with a sponge, because the rubber squeegee bit seems to have dropped off somewhere, and I can't find it. The snow is pure powder on the windows, so the sponge works a treat.

I'm parked, as usual, beside my neighbour, with enough space to walk between the cars. Getting out involves me reversing a little, then backing round a bend up the slight incline, and quite a bit further in reverse, before I can go forward and away. All quite tight.

Now.... as soon as I started to reverse, I realised it might be less than easy. As I started to reverse around the corner, the wheels decided to spin. Did I mention that I've not driven a car with ABS before, either? There should be a switch that says "Cancel ABS, please!" The ABS decides what it thinks is me skidding, and does something silly (that's my story, anyway).

So... I don't get round the corner cleanly. I go forward for another try, but the jerky automatic (did I mention, that my automatic seems very jerky, as it starts in?) causes the front of the car to slither sideways a bit.

No worry. I have another shot at reversing, but I still can't get it to go round the corner, and I slide a bit more sideways.

I go forward again, and slide sideways, and nearly into my neighbour's car. I stop and think. Pretty soon, I'm going to have to give this up, as all I've done so far is to slide sideways down that slight incline, and soon I'll run out of sideways to slide sideways into.

On what may well be my last chance at it, I finally manage to get in motion, just smoothly and slowly enough, to get round the corner and up along the road to where I can start to exit our little patch. I'm very careful as I go down the slope to the main road, as this is the same powder snow, nearly untouched, that I've slithered on a lot, over the last five minutes, and sliding down a triply steep bit, straight out into traffic, doesn't appeal to me.

After that, the roads were pretty clear, so no more problems.

I get to my appointment, with time to spare.

At least five minutes early, I am. At 10:25am. And the appointment is at... 11:30am.

===========

It has continued to snow, on and off, all day, and is snowing now (and a mere -1°C). It's not deep, just persistent. I wonder what the morning will bring?

...yep,yep. Global warming.

You didn't hit anything, so it counts as all good.
The main rule to remember -
even if you drive on ice and snow with skill,
count on the fact that nobody else can!

I never drove an automatic. When I had my pick-up truck I would rely on engine braking. And
there is this really nasty phenomenon called black ice there is just no way to see that
unless the sun hits the road at just the right angle.

I never did learn how to drive in snow, and anytime a few centimetres of the white stuff fell on Vancouver, I went into a total panic just like everybody else.

That and listen to the sound of the rubber hitting the pavement When you go over black ice there is a sound change. If the wheel noise all of a sudden goes quiet, stay calm and don't try to steer, just point it and any steering wheel motions you make do it slow and gentle. Coast if you think it's going to go on for a while. In a traffic pile up, sometimes it better to aim it at the car in front of you, that means back bumper, rather then try to make drastic avoidance measures, but that depends on rate of speed. Tricky stuff if you're not use to it. First major snow fall or ice, go to a parking lot, empty, and get your "feel" back. I like doing donuts, both eating and driving, sometimes at the same time, which is good for me, because I don't multitask.

Driving donuts are when you make the car ass end want to go in front of you, only on purpose, for those that don't know about snow and ice driving.

Yup driving lessons from a guy that got clocked doing 135 in a 55 zone. They let me off at 95 and told me to go home and sleep it off. Hey, it was night, no other cars on the road and long long straight stretch. I wasn't in a hurry, just a slow suicide wish. I totalled the car, later, but not that night. Pushed the engine into the drivers compartment. I walked away with a scratch on my finger. I have no idea why I'm still alive.

Had just stayed over at a workmates place, playing Dungeons&Dragons (I was the dungeon master), driving into work, the next day, with four us us (all programmers, of course) in my car.

Cold morning. Country lanes. Came over he brow of a hill, out of some woods, to see a very pretty scene in front looking down the hill through the fields, to...

.. a few cars at the bottom of the hill? Looking... odd?

Did a double take, noticed that the road seemed... dark?

Did a triple take, and saw the leaking water main that was just in front of me.

Cold morning.... the rest of the hill was a sheet of ice (not just thin black ice... solid Olympic skating rink ice.)

With what little control I had, I managed to adjust my slide down the hill, just enough to bump gently up the nearside grass and into the shallow ditch at the side of the road - stopping just a few feet short of the three or four cars than were piled up at the bottom of the hill.

A few minutes later, the next car over the hill ran into the back of me.

Ouch. If that continues over that'a'way, deflate your tires some, more rubber on the road is good. Add weight to the back. Sand works well, in bags that is. Also if you get stuck you can use it to put under your tires to get traction and get to the bar and not miss the party.

Old D&D rules or the new? A pleasure to hear some still know the pencil and paper fun. Although I started to program the computer to do some of the work. That was fun too.
Played in one game, I wasn't the dungeon master, and we ran into this beast. Turned out he modeled it on a vacuum cleaner. Clever.

And some of you are still over in that other thread? The one mentioned a few pages back. GADS!! But then again, I've been reading it. Why do I do that to myself?

And Chuck emerges as a silver wolf. Dude, I held myself back hard, chewed my fingers off, ate half of a Twinkie(TM) {not to be confused with a binkie, which I don't think is trade marked} and Duck Tape (TM) over my eyes so I didn't butt in and say..."My, what big teeth you have, Grandma."

Say, I think I type better with my nose, don't you? But my head is starting ta hurt. (That "ta" is Bush speak for the word "to". What a pleasure it is to hear it spoken correctly again.) But at least it's dark in here again. Isn't Duck Tape (TM) wonderful?

Ok, ok, I'm going. I know when I'm not wanted or needed *sniff*. Pizza I think. And good night Austin Texas, whom ever you are.

Almost gone, logged out and noticed today's top ten searches on Yahoo. Congratulations, Chuck, ya did it, they're looking for you. You're a lucky 7, umm maybe that isn't lucky.

SNARK!! *poof*

But before I poof, did I tell you I found A Guide to Snark Hunting - An Edwardian Gentlemen's Companion?

“An invaluable guide, I would not hunt Snark without this book...”
~ Noel Coward

Ok now I can poof *poof*

oh, black ice. i do remember that, and how i hit a patch one night on an overpass on the interstate outside of amarillo and spun all the way around to be at the bottom of the overpass, facing the wrong way, with the drivers who were following having neither an idea that i was at the bottom of the hill facing them in traffic lanes or that there was black ice at the top of the overpass.

my, my. yes. that was, what, 27 years ago and i remember it very well.

be careful, them what's gotta be driving in that kinda weather!