A COUPLE OF MONTHS SINCE my little rant about Australia's weird stance on the 'boat people' or 'illegals'.
Now to bore you with an update or two now that 2014 is under way.
What is so good about the weather is that, when nothing else makes life a little grim, it can step in to fill the gap! Three words sum it all up...'Damn cold here'. Night temperatures rarely get up to 10 deg. F and twice have fallen to minus 16F. I have this neat wireless outside sensor so that, when I get up, I can see at a glance how cold it is outside. What a joy! It also gives the room temperature so that the outside/inside temperature difference and be as much as 80 deg. F! That explains why the furnace is lighting up so often.
We have a bit of snow and, until the rain of the last two days, I have had a foot or so hanging about due to repeated falls and the low temperatures preventing melting or sublimation. I know you love to have a photo or two every so often, so...
how do you like these apples? We have had another three or four inches since these were taken.
This meant some great skiing on local golf courses and the park up the hill a bit from me, that has a very useful hill on which to practice downhill skills.
That nice slippery metal room means that a lot of snow can come off in a hurry once the sun warms it a bit. What was fluffy powder turns to a wet concrete mix once it falls. Next year...snow stoppers to keep the snow up on the roof, you bet!
It has been a real test for my heating system and I am glad to report that it, according to the gas company's data, is running very much more efficiently compared with like houses round about. However, I definitely plan to put in sub-floor hot-water driven radiant heating for the upper floor. Easy to put in the piping and I have a very helpful manual on how to plan and install. What has convinced me is the excellent job the radiant heating does in the sun-room you can see lower right in the top photo. During the winter months this is my rear entrance and it never falls below 50 deg F and the floor is ever wonderfully slightly warm. I hang out my washing there and it drys overnight! Think of stepping out of bed onto a warm floor.
So much for the house.
Not much skiing to date, other than as described already but I do plan to go on a couple of trips further North, into the Adirondacks and perhaps into Quebec Province.
To while away the winter hours I have taken up learning to write in the italic style with my right hand and now have a passable style. Very like meditation. For my brain, I have been teaching my left hand to write. Very weird at the outset but now feeling more normal and a passable hand, if not yet easy or stylish.
For the rest of the time, I have followed a friend's advice (he has written several books) that, if you want to understand a subject, write a book on it. This will be followed in another blog ('beliefaccordingto') as I am writing about the 18 or so 'missing years' of the life of Jesus. This is primarily for myself. However, now well into it, I am finding that it does require a lot of reading and research and that the writing has quite taken over. Hence the daily stint at the computer putting this idea into words is at the point where I am no longer in control, the plot seems to be running itself; I quite look forward to finding out what will be written each day! The only problem with this is that I being driven crazy by the excessive typing mistakes I have been making. So, back to improving my touch typing. The Google 'Type Fu' happens to be just excellent for that ($4 well spent).
That's it...have a good weekend!
Friday, February 21, 2014
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