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New Blue Shoes For The End Of The World
Wednesday, 12 November 2014 23:16Winter Is Coming
I told my students today that if they were at Northern Michigan University in Marquette MI, instead of Western Michigan in Kalamazoo, that this would be their second snow day in a row. And it's not even Michigan Gun Deer Season -- starts Saturday 15 November 2014. The area around Ishpeming and Marquette got clobbered, with 2-3 feet of snow.
This morning I saw a snowflake.
I was pumping gas at 7:39am and this white thing drifted by. It was one of those larger, compound snow flakes and it was 32°F, but that was it. Didn't see another one. I think it rained in the middle of the day in Kzoo, certainly something was rattling against my windows, but by the time I went home, the wind had dried everything and it was smooth sailing.
Doom! DOOM, I say!
Of course the local weather people have been in a tizzy for days. Lots of scary photos from elsewhere and then snow predicted for a couple of days. We're getting an advisory starting at 1am tonight and ending about 4pm Friday. That winter storm that stretched across Minnesota and northern Michigan will circle down this way with winds coming off the lake and kicking up lake effect snows in the usual places. US-131 and west to the lake is in the 3-7" total accumulation over two days range.
I joke about the end of the world, because of the hyperbole. Of course, it really is reasonable to remind people to fucking SLOW DOWN and PAY ATTENTION to the roads and INCREASE YOUR INTERVALS and GET YOUR CAR CHECKED OUT FIRST. It could be a long drive in the morning. Fortunately, this isn't a gas morning, today was.
Evil crimes: One town had their salt pile stolen. Cascade Township had their plow blades stolen. Who DOES that?
Spend, Spend, Spend
Monday we dropped the 1996 Blazer at the shop again. This time is was four new tires and the brakes. In a way, we really lucked out. Turns out they only needed to work on the rear brakes -- the fronts were done recently enough that the pads and rotors are just fine. And the tires. I don't skimp on tires. On six different vehicles over the past twenty years, I've been putting various versions of Goodyear Wranglers on my trucks. The current tires were the top-of-the-line Goodyear Wrangler Silent Armors, which replaced the Wrangler Aquatreads. Alas, the Silent Armors are going away. Still, the regular best-seller Wranglers have inherited the deep treads from the Aquatreads which works very well to reduce hydroplaning and with the extra deep tread, grip very well in the snow. Bottom line, it could've run up to $1500 for the Silent Armors and if both front and back brakes needed major parts like drums and rotors. Instead, we ended up with about half that bill, around $850.
Money well spent, and just in time for the snows.
Spend, Spend? Ah, The Great Illusion
So regular gas was $2.87.9/gallon this morning, as gas prices continue to drop.
But wait, I hear you say, wasn't gas at 2.85.9/gal on Election Day? Oh, you're quite right. And on Wednesday morning a week ago as well. But coming home from seeing Interstellar, we noticed gas had jumped up to $3.09.9/gal. Huh? 24¢/gal in just a few hours? When crude oil pricing is still dropping and...
Oh wait.
The oil companies and billionaires won the elections. Not necessary to placate libs anymore, so we can jack up the price to pay for the discounts and let them drop down for a week... and do it again.
I predict that with the SN*W coming, that prices will jump up by Friday -- and then they can freefall again. Gas pricing theatre. It's my new spectator sport.
Those Blue Shoes In This Entry's Title?
Yeah, that's the new tires. They put a blue coating over the brand spanking new white lettering. With a little rain on Tuesday, by Wednesday morning the left rear tire was already almost all white -- the left front was still blue. Didn't walk around and check the right side, but I'll assume it's similar.
Dr. Phil
NOTE: I do not know why Dreamwidth Preview is not putting in the line breaks -- doesn't it know what an ENTER key is? Oh, somehow the Disable Auto Formatting box got checked. I'm on ZEPPELIN, Wendy's old Toshiba Windows 7 machine, and though I've turned the sensitivity way down, the damned trackpad picks up the slightest touch and the left-hand Ctrl key gets touched by my hand, so that I sometimes find myself issuing Control-commands that I don't want.
All better now...
I told my students today that if they were at Northern Michigan University in Marquette MI, instead of Western Michigan in Kalamazoo, that this would be their second snow day in a row. And it's not even Michigan Gun Deer Season -- starts Saturday 15 November 2014. The area around Ishpeming and Marquette got clobbered, with 2-3 feet of snow.
This morning I saw a snowflake.
I was pumping gas at 7:39am and this white thing drifted by. It was one of those larger, compound snow flakes and it was 32°F, but that was it. Didn't see another one. I think it rained in the middle of the day in Kzoo, certainly something was rattling against my windows, but by the time I went home, the wind had dried everything and it was smooth sailing.
Doom! DOOM, I say!
Of course the local weather people have been in a tizzy for days. Lots of scary photos from elsewhere and then snow predicted for a couple of days. We're getting an advisory starting at 1am tonight and ending about 4pm Friday. That winter storm that stretched across Minnesota and northern Michigan will circle down this way with winds coming off the lake and kicking up lake effect snows in the usual places. US-131 and west to the lake is in the 3-7" total accumulation over two days range.
I joke about the end of the world, because of the hyperbole. Of course, it really is reasonable to remind people to fucking SLOW DOWN and PAY ATTENTION to the roads and INCREASE YOUR INTERVALS and GET YOUR CAR CHECKED OUT FIRST. It could be a long drive in the morning. Fortunately, this isn't a gas morning, today was.
Evil crimes: One town had their salt pile stolen. Cascade Township had their plow blades stolen. Who DOES that?
Spend, Spend, Spend
Monday we dropped the 1996 Blazer at the shop again. This time is was four new tires and the brakes. In a way, we really lucked out. Turns out they only needed to work on the rear brakes -- the fronts were done recently enough that the pads and rotors are just fine. And the tires. I don't skimp on tires. On six different vehicles over the past twenty years, I've been putting various versions of Goodyear Wranglers on my trucks. The current tires were the top-of-the-line Goodyear Wrangler Silent Armors, which replaced the Wrangler Aquatreads. Alas, the Silent Armors are going away. Still, the regular best-seller Wranglers have inherited the deep treads from the Aquatreads which works very well to reduce hydroplaning and with the extra deep tread, grip very well in the snow. Bottom line, it could've run up to $1500 for the Silent Armors and if both front and back brakes needed major parts like drums and rotors. Instead, we ended up with about half that bill, around $850.
Money well spent, and just in time for the snows.
Spend, Spend? Ah, The Great Illusion
So regular gas was $2.87.9/gallon this morning, as gas prices continue to drop.
But wait, I hear you say, wasn't gas at 2.85.9/gal on Election Day? Oh, you're quite right. And on Wednesday morning a week ago as well. But coming home from seeing Interstellar, we noticed gas had jumped up to $3.09.9/gal. Huh? 24¢/gal in just a few hours? When crude oil pricing is still dropping and...
Oh wait.
The oil companies and billionaires won the elections. Not necessary to placate libs anymore, so we can jack up the price to pay for the discounts and let them drop down for a week... and do it again.
I predict that with the SN*W coming, that prices will jump up by Friday -- and then they can freefall again. Gas pricing theatre. It's my new spectator sport.
Those Blue Shoes In This Entry's Title?
Yeah, that's the new tires. They put a blue coating over the brand spanking new white lettering. With a little rain on Tuesday, by Wednesday morning the left rear tire was already almost all white -- the left front was still blue. Didn't walk around and check the right side, but I'll assume it's similar.
Dr. Phil
NOTE: I do not know why Dreamwidth Preview is not putting in the line breaks -- doesn't it know what an ENTER key is? Oh, somehow the Disable Auto Formatting box got checked. I'm on ZEPPELIN, Wendy's old Toshiba Windows 7 machine, and though I've turned the sensitivity way down, the damned trackpad picks up the slightest touch and the left-hand Ctrl key gets touched by my hand, so that I sometimes find myself issuing Control-commands that I don't want.
All better now...
