My last post, quite a while ago was “We Finally Got Some Snow” and since then we’ve been hit by storm after storm.  It’s a lot of work clearing out the snow and such, but it’s pretty cool to have a good Winter finally after several years of lame ones.

We’re still in the midst of the latest Winter storm which is hitting a lot of the country right now, but managed to get a couple of pictures of the weather. I’m just going to post them below. There’s also a couple pictures of the Ariens snow blower doing it’s job. I love how far this thing throws the snow. It’d probably be able to throw it all the way across the highway but I haven’t tried that yet!

Click the pictures to enlarge them.

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Winter in the North East has been pretty mild lately. I’m a bit disappointed of course. My poor snow BLOWER (thrower? pshht!) is not getting the attention or work it desires and is becoming flabby.  As I told my folks it’s bellowing out in the barn waiting to be unleashed and I might have to buy it some chains to keep it calm until something comes along.

Here’s my beloved snowblower on it’s actual birthday (year 0) doing a bit of work on the driveway.  It looks so happy. (Click to imbiggenate)

So I’m sitting here, listening to the poor beast wailing in it’s own beastly way in the barn (It’s probably a mental thing but I don’t think work insurance covers psychologists… at least I don’t hear psychologists in my mind!) The barn doors are taking a bit of a beating as it bucks against them. But no.. It’s November 23rd and can you believe it was almost 60 degrees today!?

Then I start getting a gmail photo flood from the family out in Washington.. “oooh look snow! check out all the snow! OMG it’s a lot of snow!”.  It’s about 6 inches, and if you’re from the west coast you’ll know that’s a LOT of snow for people without plows and who are prohibited to save human lives by using salt because they may hurt a bunch of nasty tasting fish(unless it’s wood smoked, then yum).  BUT.. I digress.  Check out the photos below and see what they’re torturing me with!

This is one of the photo’s my Mom sent me as the snow started coming down and covering the lawn.  Washington State does get snow but normally they don’t get a lot in the sea level areas. The last big storm I remember was maybe about a foot and it shut down traffic, closed the highway and people were parking on the side of the road as they ran out of gas. Crazy stuff!  What a mess, I imagine this was pretty bad as well!

This is another picture from my mom.  Don’t they know copper conducts cold!!!  I’d stay far away from that vehicle!

This is a picture of my sisters front yard after more of the snow fell. Yeah there’s the sun. Typical Washington State. Freezing blizzard of doom one moment and sunny the next, then hail, then rain which melts all the snow, floods out the farmers, then freezes then melts, then 90 degree temps before misting for 6 months.

Here’s another pic of the snow storm in Washington State. It’s all dark and dreary too, like snow weather is supposed to be!

Thanks for sharing the pics family, it’s good to see you get some of the winter cheer as well!

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We’ve gotten some of the Christmas lights up around here, I was a bit slow in initiating it and the holidays are sneaking up on us quickly.  These are the lights we’ve put up this year so far, all of the Christmas Lights installed this year were LED, they have a nice cold glow that goes well with the ice and snow.

It’s kind of weird around here, few of the immediate neighbors have put up lights. I’ve always been a big Christmas light fan.  They’re fairly easy to put up and take down and add a festive look to things.  Still to go are the 600 or so blue/white light string, plus the big RGB LED bulbs which color shift and do different things.  Those will go on a tree  in the left side yard this year.

LEDs are of course a wonderful option if you wish to be environmentally conscious with your holiday and Christmas lighting.  LEDs are much more energy efficient than a normal lamp light bulb.  Incandescent lamps provide a warmer glow, one of the reasons for this is that they use a small piece of tungsten wire for a filament.  As electricity runs through the filament it heats up to the point that it glows and puts off light, but in order to create that light they also create a lot of heat.  As much as 80% of their power consumption can be waste heat.  It doesn’t take a scientist to figure out that we don’t need to be heating the great outdoors in the middle of the Winter.

It used to be that LED Christmas Lights were much more expensive than the standard glass bulb type, but over the last few years the prices have rapidly decreased and become much more competitive. While you may still pay a bit more for LED lights, you also get the benefits of long life, high brightness and reliability.  Most LEDs manufactured have a lifespan of 11 years, if they’re run at full brightness non-stop.  Assuming they do not get damaged in storage or while being put up, they should last a long.  Occasionally an LED lamp does fail before the 11 years, but replacements are usually included with the strings when you buy them. Just make sure to put them in a safe location should you need them later.

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I woke up this morning planning to get some flying in.  Got out of bed, peered out the window and nothing.  So I went to grab a shower, and was saying to myself moments before looking out the hallway window ‘It’s quite unlikely it’ll snow today’ (yes I talk to myself like that in my head).  Right then I looked out the window and sure enough, white stuff landing on the roof of the house.

I took a video a short while later, which you can see here via the link, or with the embeded player.

Snow!

It’s also quite unlikely that this will keep me from getting at least a few flights in on some kind of airplane, I’ll probably go out with the reactor biplane since it’s easy to setup and put away.

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Winter 2008 was actually pretty decent in the new house, shoveling was a nightmare so we bought an Ariens snowblower / snowthrower (I’m not sure when everyone switched to saying ‘snowthrower’…) The exact model I picked up is the Ariens 924 DLE, it has a 9HP Tecumseh snow king engine in it and cuts a 24″ path.   It worked great.  Here are some winter photo’s for your enjoyment.

Ariens 924 DLE in use in little to moderate snow buildup

Christmas Lights 2008

Our christmas tree is outside and decorated with blue and white light strings. It looked more majestic before the snow weighed the branches down.

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