Global Warming - It's a Killer

I met a gentleman that works as a dispatcher for Pacific Power. I made the same dumb observation I'm sure he hears from nearly everyone he meets: "Oh, I'll bet you've been really busy over the last month or so." Sherlock Holmes could not have made a more acute deduction, right?

He said, "This is just the beginning. We haven't even entered storm season yet."

If you've ever seen the movie "The Day After Tomorrow", you'll recall that global warming caused the entire Northern Hemisphere to freeze over almost instantaneously. In yet another example of life imitating art (if you can call Hollywood blockbusters 'art'), this very same phenomena appears to be occurring right now - in the Northwest, in the Northeast, Alaska, the Midwest, even Europe.

The good news is I think we can declare an official end to global warming and finally get back to capitalism. This article from the University of Illinois notes that, among other things, Arctic ice is back to levels not seen since 1979 - when global warming was just a twinkle in its mother's (that would be "Mother Nature") eye.

Really though, we must give credit to the environmental activists. Even though we were told it would take a half-century or more just to stabilize the earth's climate, their dedicated efforts have managed to completely reverse the damage in just a few short years. Bravo!

Now, who can I talk to about possibly warming things up just a bit? It feels like it might snow again tonight.

On a related note - here is a GREAT letter from two days ago to the editor of the Baltimore Sun from a professor at the US Naval Academy, in response to some journalist's story about global warming. We hardly ever hear the other side of the argument. 

I Wanna Wash My Hands, My Face and Hair With Snow

As I fought my way out onto the deck in my flip-flops this afternoon, with tape measure in hand to see how much snow had fallen (20 inches so far), I considered that if I had known it was going to snow this much, I'd have done a few things differently. For example, I would have: 

• Set up a measuring pole in the yard, or on the deck, to easily mark the snow's progress
• Taken a few pictures each day, of the same thing, from the same location, to compile one of those time-lapse photo series
• Stocked up on seed for all of those starving birds that decided to pass the Winter at our place and now can't find their worms
• Mailed our last couple of Christmas cards (just the ones to my boss and my boss's boss) before being cut off by the Post Office
• Bought some kind of sled/disc for the girls to slide on
• Put Christmas lights on some of our landscape trees; they look killer with their thick coat of ice on all of the branches, and white lights would have been spectacular
• Upgraded our cable package from Basic to something with more to watch than the 24 hour/day weather report that is now on every single station

I actually did do a couple of things in preparation that I am semi-proud of:

• Put chains on the Jeep when there was just an inch or two of snow on the ground
• Put a tarp over the Jeep to allow for quick snow/ice clearance in case we need to venture out
• Had the propane tank filled
• Got Christmas shopping completed
• Stocked up on goodies to help make our long days together more enjoyable

Saw that some dude was doing this to cars all over Seattle this week and thought I'd try it out myself. My face was so cold it burned, but pretty cool results, I think.