powderfreak

Yeah Sale and Eovaldi were paid way too much. They were basically paid for past performances that seemed like a thank you contract. Luckily Eovaldi is working out this season and hopefully Sale can come back strong, but no way those guys would get those deals a year later from their signing. Cole is having a great start again. Sox are only leading because Eovaldi is pitching well and the Yankee offense is dead... Cole's also lucky KiKi didn't hit that ball just now about 1-2 feet further and it's a home run. But he's an ace pitcher, no question. The Stanton contract is definitely the worst IMO. Paid like $27-$30 mil a year through 2027 for a DH that doesn't play the field. Leaves very little roster flexibility if you can't put him in the field. This game is a solo home run away from a tie anyway. Great pitching tonight.

Humans have a lot of issues. Most of the time we don't see it but the human race is a mental basket case on the whole. People also don't notice it until it affects them too. But take a random sample of humanity and the majority of them have some aspects that would give a psychiatrist a hard-on. The number of germaphobes is striking and COVID likely was cataclysmic for them. Several years ago (pre-COVID) while driving down to Albany we had a car issue on I-89 and were assisted by a NY State Trooper. He wore black gloves the whole time which I thought was interesting for the situation, like he wouldn't be concerned with finger prints or whatever. He took the gloves off right before he left but as we thanked him for the assist in securing a tow, I went to shake his hand and he said "Oh sorry, I'm a huge germophobe, I don't shake hands, I won't even pick up a restaurant menu. I just took off my gloves." I thought it was an interesting line of work for someone like that, but thank you for your service. Maybe he was messing with me and as a rule doesn't shake hands, but he actually said he doesn't touch restaurant menus. This jacked dude with a bulletproof vest talking about germs. The human mind is interesting. I can't imagine that type of person dealing with COVID though.

Didn't get any real rain today. Maybe a couple hundredths? Had one brief shower while hiking right after this photo... looking due south, a shower moving in from the west (right to left). Was barely enough to wet the ground up at 3,600ft, might not have even reached the ground at 1,500ft or lower aside from a random sprinkle.

Yeah I just had a couple minutes to look at some PWS…supports your 80% theory. Radar off by about an inch, but that’s 5” instead of 6” lol. Eastford site with 5.11” today . Several Ashford sites 3.50-4.75”. That is an insane amount of water to come on top of all the soakings already.

Any ground truth to these numbers in NE CT? Good lord.

What a time to be alive in that Pike region to NCT, NRI and adjacent Mass.

My diurnal trend fetish going hard there. 30F to 80F in the afternoon. Meanwhile here we’ll do 59F to 74F today lol. Whats wild is at peak heating the wet bulbs there are 52F even at 80F ambient .

Jealousy is oozing out of me right now.

Regression to the mean. We usually say "Mother Nature loves her averages" on the weather side... here's the baseball version. It's like getting a completely shit winter, that's followed up with storm after storm of over-performers the next winter. Or vice versa depending on your team of preference.

Big Honda fan here. I drive a Honda Pilot with 180,000 miles on it. Thing is in great shape. The last one I had was an earlier model Honda Pilot and made it to 225,000 miles. Strong SUV’s and those Honda engines go forever. Stuff’s easy to fix too. None of the overly expensive repairs or going to a specialty shop like when I had a Volvo or WV. Some brands you just bring to any mechanic and they have the parts and can fix it confidently, faster, and cheaper.

Misquamicutt was always my favorite as a kid. We’d go maybe 5 days a summer but that was always awesome compared to the inland lake/pond swimming. Yearning for waves.

Grew up as a kid all summer long at the Woodstock 9-Hole Course at Roseland Park and Harrisville. I always remember Harrisville 20 years ago didn't have much irrigation so in the Stein summers you could hit the ball forever as the fairways were burnt brown. The ball would run and run and run. Now we play at Quinnatisset in Thompson and have also done the Raceway Course in Thompson as well in recent years.

It’s basically visit family, golf and float around on the lake drinking those IPAs until you need a nap from all the relaxing . If I’m doing a week long stretch of that though I’m getting on a plane and doing it at some resort somewhere. Though to be fair, NE CT weather is about the same as a tropical island. High dews, daily downpours, hot, and large insects.

Hard to line up work between my wife and I. She traveled quite a bit last month and summer is busier for her. Summer is actually Stowe’s busiest time as a town believe it or not. August is highest occupancy of any month. I’m heading back down without the wife next weekend for when my sisters and nieces will be there. Probably will stay 4 days Fri-Mon. Then we’ll be back a couple times in August for family gatherings. But you’re right, we rarely stay for just a week… we do multiple short trips. East drive though all interstate, about 3.5 hours.

Didn’t realize it was that hot down there today! We briefly touched 80F up here but most of the day the ASOS’s were 74-77F. Currently 73/59. Edit: I see ORH had a 74F dew this afternoon… that’s impressive for an ASOS at 1,000ft.

Another 2-5" for west-central Mass and northern CT over the next 3 days sounds about right on the GFS. What a time to be alive there.

All that water and now heat... ha bug paradise. I just think of all the standing water in NE CT.... the massive puddles rotting there all warm, roadside ditches full, ponds overflowing into other areas, wetlands filled with water... what a bug paradise. Breeding things the size of acorns and pine cones .

Damn that is some Dubai stuff, BTV area has similar temps but not those dews. 69/66 on the local PWS. We are right in the middle of the upper 70s to near 80F still found in BTV-land PWS and then the mid-60s in the NEK. Looking around, some of those NE VT highlands and elevated glens cool off ridiculously fast. I think we cool fast here but they are like 64-65F already on the plateaus.

Hit 86F at MVL and at 4pm it was 85/65 at the ASOS. I found being outside at the mountain got sweaty without much activity, ha. Mid-July though, it felt like seasons in seasons. A/C on at home this afternoon though it just went off as the outside temp has dropped to the indoor temp.

Alas I had to come back north to VT but will be heading back down for a few more days end of next work week. Hopefully it’ll be a bit sunnier that time around, though today looked like a great day as we left lol. Definitely trying to get down there to see family a bit more this year. I think I’ll try to go twice in August to. Of course once back in Stowe we almost hit a bear with the car. Was so happy to avoid that as in the rear view mirror we watched three cubs run across the road after mama. Not sure what I would’ve done if we hit the bear that ran out in front of us only to find cubs waiting in the high grass.

I definitely did when it happened. Not on this phone though, haha. It was a special look for sure, scared the children. I’ll have to look later.

Yes! I got hit in the forehead between my eyes and the swelling pretty much shut my eyes. Lasted for a solid 24 hours even with a lot of ice. And as far as I know I only got hit once but it was a dead center hit between the eyes. I've been stung many times and never had any issue (got hit almost a dozen times once at the mountain with no issues). Take one in the forehead and my eyelids swelled so much my eyes could barely open for like a full 24 hours. It's just a very sensitive area. My wife couldn't stop laughing after realizing there was no danger. Looked like I had small balloons inflated around my eyes. Had zero other issues except just wait for the swelling to go down. I figured when I woke up the next day it would be gone but apparently sleeping head down increased it a bit. It wasn't until the following afternoon that it dissipated.

I’m confused, why won’t a window unit go in there? The lower part holds it from slipping out and then you shut the window on top of the unit. Gravity wants it to fall out of the window but that lower bracket/raised part forms the bottom and the top window shuts to seal the thing in place? The ass end hangs outside.

The days of snow per season holds some pretty serious weight in terms of "wintry appeal" of a given winter. To me, having flakes flying is important mostly because it usually leads to a fresh looking surface. There are deeper snowpacks, more inches, but I absolutely love having a sparkling looking top sheet of snow. When you get even 0.2-0.4" of sparkling dust or even synoptic snow, the surface looks fresh. "Looks" is the key word. You can look out the window and see the existing snow sparking or having this undisturbed look. It appears like it all could've fallen overnight. There's no crusty, glazed, or brown snowpack. Even a couple tenths is enough to hide the dirty old snow. Get a thaw that melts it down to crust but passing snow showers on the back-end leave even 0.6" of new snow on top... it just looks a lot better than a dry air freeze. You can't see the crust so the pack looks the same as if it just fell when looking out over the yard. The winters with "days of snowflakes" can feel the most mystical... like it's just always snowing. Fluffy flakes floating down out of passing clouds in a cold air mass. It's a very wintry vibe. The metric of "days with snow" definitely influence the overall "vibe" of a winter.

I think he's being sarcastic judging by other posts?