Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

PS, Steve your crappy weather is front page news on MY hometown paper, the LA Times; right now the headline says "Icy winter storm paralyzes Seattle", and yesterday it said something about the unprepared northwest being hit by a nasty winter storm.

The comments posted on your paper's article yesterday are hilarious. It's true that weird weather gets over-dramatized here, but remember what news is, by definition, something that doesn't happen very often. Snow is rare here. We don't have garages all over the city filled with waiting snow plows. And we have little tolerance for stupidity, as the video in the article you referenced aptly demonstrates. Morons who try to drive on Denny Way (shown below) when it's covered with ice deserve every bit of scorn they receive

[oshunluvr]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

Hey, you guys aren't the only ones with bad weather...

...it's been getting down to the low 50's at night and can you believe it rained on Tuesday?

Global warming is going to kill us all!

Thank goodness I have a 4 wheel drive Navigator so I can dump hydrocarbons out by the pound as I drive to the freeway!

Hmmm, actually, that's not really very funny is it?

Ok, so I usually drive my new Fiat 500 - 35ish MPG...

[SteveRiley]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

...it's been getting down to the low 50's at night and can you believe it rained on Tuesday?

I send family-unfriendly thoughts in your general direction! >

[dibl]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

Is Ivar's restaurant still on the waterfront there? Man I had a marvelous dinner there one night, in the mid-1980s.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

Hey, you guys aren't the only ones with bad weather...

...it's been getting down to the low 50's at night

I know I've said it before, but it just kills me how--now that I'm back home in SoCal--people here ACTUALLY think it's cold when the temp goes below 70. My mom is hilarious--"oh, it's SO COLD!," and first I'll say, "I KNOW! look at the ice! it's at least three inches thick right now!", followed by "subtract FIFTY degrees and then we'll talk about cold, okay?" (And she's from New York/New Jersey! She was born and grew up there, until moving here at 16. I tell her all the time she's turned into a wimp!

and can you believe it rained on Tuesday?

Wait...it RAINED over in Long Beach?! We didn't get a single drop here in Arcadia. > I wish we had--I'm tired of watering. It's tough going outside in January...with the sun blaring down on you and everything...barefoot, in short pants, short sleeves, standing around watering planters and adjusting the sprinklers. *sigh*

(When I lived in Dallas--and it was WELL below freezing--I'd go outside with no additional clothing for warmth, and pour hot water into the birdbath fountain I had made, then dash back in and try to warm up; my husband and daughter thought I was nuts...no, wait...never mind). I've got some pics of it frozen over with icicles hanging down--but I tried to prevent that so the occasional bird would have a water source. We were lucky as we had cardinal families that nested in our bushes, and they got used to being fed sunflower seeds on the patio and partaking of the fountain's water, even when it was snowing/icing.)

[SteveRiley]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

Is Ivar's restaurant still on the waterfront there? Man I had a marvelous dinner there one night, in the mid-1980s.

Yup.

I know I've said it before, but it just kills me how--now that I'm back home in SoCal--people here ACTUALLY think it's cold when the temp goes below 70.

I suspect what people gripe about is relative differences. I used to spend a lot of time in southeast Asia. I'd get acclimated to 95 degree weather. Then when I'd return home, 70 really did feel cold.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

@DYK: Can you believe my Mom actually went to Florida to stay with my sister for all of Dec. and half of Jan. because it is too cold here! She lives in Seal Beach! lol

It's tough going outside in January...with the sun blaring down on you and everything...barefoot, in short pants, short sleeves, standing around watering planters and adjusting the sprinklers. *sigh*

That should get a few dozen pairs of "Evil Eyes" pointed in your direction!

@SteveR: I've been chatting daily with a business associate in your neighborhood this week and I told him about watching his co-Seattle-ites battle it out on the roads. Fun Stuff!

I was up there in the 80's also. I had a couple girlfriends up that way from time to time. I remember a beer joint out on the pier with dozens if not hundreds of beers on tap. Don't remember the name of it tho...

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

I know I've said it before, but it just kills me how--now that I'm back home in SoCal--people here ACTUALLY think it's cold when the temp goes below 70.

I suspect what people gripe about is relative differences. I used to spend a lot of time in southeast Asia. I'd get acclimated to 95 degree weather. Then when I'd return home, 70 really did feel cold.

Yeah, I get that, but for the most part I don't think that's it--these people (and they're *MY* people--I'm a born and raised Angeleno) seriously think it's COLD if it's in the 60s. I just shake my head, make snide remarks about being weather wimps, and laugh. What I can't recall is if *I* used to act like that, too. Before living in Albuquerque and Dallas, I'd never felt REAL cold temperatures (other than brief jaunts up in the mountains to see snow), but now that I have, it's just RIDICULOUS the way folks complain about how cold it is, when it ISN'T! I got the fun of dealing with single digit temps in Dallas, multiple times--now THAT'S cold.

I also get a real kick out of all the local newscasts doing their "WE'RE ON STORM WATCH!" routines when there's like three raindrops. Good grief...

[SteveRiley]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

I remember a beer joint out on the pier with dozens if not hundreds of beers on tap. Don't remember the name of it tho...

That could describe any number of places here. We have lots of piers. Lots of people falling off them, too.

I also get a real kick out of all the local newscasts doing their "WE'RE ON STORM WATCH!" routines

I hope local TV news never goes away. It's the best entertainment on television these days.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

LOCAL MAN WITHOUT TOILET PAPER... SWAT TEAM CALLED IN

They should have called the HAZMAT team, some of that gas escaping from the toilet can be deadly!

I learned to drive in South Denver on snow and ice. Doing 180's and 360's was fun, when my dad let me borrow his car. To traverse the mile to HS I'd grab onto the right side of the rear bumper of a car that slowed down for an intersection near my house. From that position I'd sqat and let him pull me all the way to school, while I kept an eye out for bare spots in the road, and it was far enough to the right to avoid wheel spray. Back then in the mid and late 50s, they didn't spread salt. Everyone used chains or studded tires, so the roads were usually snow packed or icy.


In the early 80s I was flying back in a Cessna 172 Skyhawk from a business trip down South. I was at 11,000 feet over South East Kansas when the "urge", one not relieved by a hose and bag, became overwhelming. I pulled on the carb heat and descended as fast as I could without causing a crack in the engine block, landed at the nearest airport and taxied as fast as I could without taking off a building at the end of the airport which appeared to be the terminal. The one at the other end appeared to be a maintenance shack. I jumped out, ran in and asked where the bathroom was. "At the other end of the airport" was the reply. I jumped back into the plane and taxied as fast as I could to the other end, ran into the bathroom and obtained blessed relief. Calm, relaxed and finished I looked around for toilet paper. NONE in sight! No magazines either. There was a sink and a water tap that worked, but no soap. You do what you have to do. After that I always flew with my own roll of TP and a bar of soap in my flight kit.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

@DYK: Can you believe my Mom actually went to Florida to stay with my sister for all of Dec. and half of Jan. because it is too cold here! She lives in Seal Beach! lol

That's too funny!

It's tough going outside in January...with the sun blaring down on you and everything...barefoot, in short pants, short sleeves, standing around watering planters and adjusting the sprinklers. *sigh*

That should get a few dozen pairs of "Evil Eyes" pointed in your direction!

I know, I know...but I PAID my dues! I lived in Dallas for years and suffered through some of the worst ice storms in its history, to say nothing of the normal, below freezing temps every winter. So I feel entitled.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

In the early 80s I was flying back in a Cessna 172 Skyhawk from a business trip down South. I was at 11,000 feet over South East Kansas when the "urge", one not relieved by a hose and bag... I jumped back into the plane and taxied as fast as I could to the other end, ran into the bathroom and obtained blessed relief.

Two questions and one short story.

* Wouldn't it have been faster to fly from one end of the airport to the other?

* Why didn't you just descend to, oh, 1000 feet, then hang your butt out the window and crap like a bird in flight?

* A trash can in a restroom somewhere along Orchard Road in Singapore once contained a soiled sock that had just moments earlier been on my left foot. Blessed relief, and cooler feet, too.

I know, I know...but I PAID my dues! I lived in Dallas for years and suffered through some of the worst ice storms in its history, to say nothing of the normal, below freezing temps every winter. So I feel entitled.

My wife wonders whether all you SoCalis really know what snow looks like. Perhaps this will help: imagine cocaine falling freely from the sky. That should be easy for you to visualize, right?

[bsniadajewski]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

Hey, you guys aren't the only ones with bad weather...

...it's been getting down to the low 50's at night

I know I've said it before, but it just kills me how--now that I'm back home in SoCal--people here ACTUALLY think it's cold when the temp goes below 70. My mom is hilarious--"oh, it's SO COLD!," and first I'll say, "I KNOW! look at the ice! it's at least three inches thick right now!", followed by "subtract FIFTY degrees and then we'll talk about cold, okay?" (And she's from New York/New Jersey! She was born and grew up there, until moving here at 16. I tell her all the time she's turned into a wimp!

and can you believe it rained on Tuesday?

Wait...it RAINED over in Long Beach?! We didn't get a single drop here in Arcadia. > I wish we had--I'm tired of watering. It's tough going outside in January...with the sun blaring down on you and everything...barefoot, in short pants, short sleeves, standing around watering planters and adjusting the sprinklers. *sigh*

(When I lived in Dallas--and it was WELL below freezing--I'd go outside with no additional clothing for warmth, and pour hot water into the birdbath fountain I had made, then dash back in and try to warm up; my husband and daughter thought I was nuts...no, wait...never mind). I've got some pics of it frozen over with icicles hanging down--but I tried to prevent that so the occasional bird would have a water source. We were lucky as we had cardinal families that nested in our bushes, and they got used to being fed sunflower seeds on the patio and partaking of the fountain's water, even when it was snowing/icing.)

If you think that's cold, today's high for Plover,WI, 2 above. Tonight's low, -6. Oh, the joys of living in America's Dairyland.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

....
Two questions and one short story.

* Wouldn't it have been faster to fly from one end of the airport to the other?

One would think so, but while I can "drive" fast down a taxiway at an uncontrolled airport, the wheels cannot leave the ground on a taxiway. I have to broadcast intent on the unicom channel before I take to the runway and be sure another aircraft is not on approach. That takes time. A Hawk stalls at 45 knots and the recommended take off speed is 67 knots. I wouldn't get much faster than that before I'd have to throttled down and turn off onto the taxiway at the other end.

* Why didn't you just descend to, oh, 1000 feet, then hang your butt out the window and crap like a bird in flight?

You've never sat in a cockpit of a Cessna 172, have you? It does not have autopilot, and the windows are too small to do anything more than stick you head out, which I had to do once in a Cessna 152 in order to land when I had smoke from an electrical fire in the cockpit blinding my eyes. You are harnessed in and the wheel is about a foot from your belly or chest in flight mode. Besides, even if you could squat out the windows, "it" wouldn't fall straight down. The wind stream would blow it back at your empennage , and you could damage the tail structure enough to bring your plane down. That's also why flying into freezing rain is so bad. Chunks of ice flying off the wings or body could damage the tail section.

* A trash can in a restroom somewhere along Orchard Road in Singapore once contained a soiled sock that had just moments earlier been on my left foot. Blessed relief, and cooler feet, too.

I thought about using my socks, and about tearing up my tee-shirt to make some wipes. I decided to convert the sink into a makeshift baday.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Seattle. Snow. The usual videos of morons and their cars.

I know, I know...but I PAID my dues! I lived in Dallas for years and suffered through some of the worst ice storms in its history, to say nothing of the normal, below freezing temps every winter. So I feel entitled.

My wife wonders whether all you SoCalis really know what snow looks like. Perhaps this will help: imagine cocaine falling freely from the sky. That should be easy for you to visualize, right?

Cocaine? What's that? *looks around room innocently* (I did my fair share of recreational drugs when I was a kid, then quit cold turkey and--just like giving up meat and cigarettes--never looked back.)

Yes, SOME of us native Southern Californians do actually know what snow looks like. I grew up near the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains--and am back in the same city now, with a very good view of the mountains from my yard--and used to go up there with friends to goof off in the snow. Real snow! Also, as I've said, I lived in Albuquerque, so it not only snowed on us but we also voluntarily went up to Sandia Peak to play in the several-feet-deep snow. And then there were those miserable Dallas winters... I can only find a few pics right now, but check these out. The first is my aforementioned birdbath fountain, followed by a March snowfall. In the latter three, note that my yard was COMPLETELY canopied by huge trees, so the fact that there's snow visible on the patio means it was blowing in.

[img width=266 height=400]http://www.smartassproducts.com/images/kubuntuforums/frozen_fountain_012303_6.jpg[/img]

[img width=400 height=266]http://www.smartassproducts.com/images/kubuntuforums/snow_032003_01.jpg[/img]

[img width=400 height=266]http://www.smartassproducts.com/images/kubuntuforums/snow_032003_02.jpg[/img]

[img width=400 height=266]http://www.smartassproducts.com/images/kubuntuforums/snow_032003_03.jpg[/img]