Tom12309

When I was a kid we went up to the Gaspe Peninsula to see the one. Driving down the road six people in a station wagon looking at the sky for a hole in the clouds and our watch to get the time driver included nobody looking at the road until NOW we stopped and piled out. That wall of black coming down the St. Lawrence blew my mind. I looked right at the sun thinking if I go blind this might as well be the last thing I see.

Went for a ride, last 200 feet of altitude going over the ridge at 10:30 had to pop at least ten degrees warmer and wind was blowing *hard* from the south. Half an hour later rolling into the valley it had mixed down. 40 degrees gentle breeze at 9am 65 and windy at noon. Unmulched the roses. F'ing squirrels ate all the crocus bulbs.

Realizing it isn't New England over there but isn't it a little late in the season for big lake effect snows? I'm also laughing a little because I signed up for a gravel bike ride down in Chatham the Sunday after next. I'm not entirely sure what to expect but I know it'll be fun.

Last week on the bike forum I spend too much time on a guy that is a commercial pilot was commenting on the ridiculous jet stream velocities they were encountering everywhere north of about Kentucky where it dropped off suddenly. Made we think of the comments here on how everything just keeps on trucking. Except of course the cutters to Albany which just come, sit and rotate.

Somebody just went out and took the wheeled shelving unit that was wandering around the parking lot and put it back by the dumpsters on its side. They applauded some more.

Sitting in the office in Albany listening to the lineup of dumpsters outside the building. Their tops are slamming opened and closed. Nice complement to what's going on inside.

That's why this site is so awesome and I don't throw that word around. You see a phenomenon you don't understand and somebody's gonna know why it is so.

Interesting stuff in Schenectady. Very small sleet about like granulated sugar or sand and at the same time very small snow flakes like it was drizzling snow at about 15 degrees in my back yard. It's been doing this since about 4pm after maybe six inches of snow fell in the afternoon. I wonder what the air column must be like up there because I get how sleet works but the mix is something that puzzles me.

Freezing on the trees in Schenectady. Last few days I've been walking around waving my fist at the window and yelling "F you weather!" and then laughing hysterically.

Word from this observer just to your NW. Go with the number in the 90% chance greater than chart. Seems to work out.

What is it that isn't exactly water and isn't exactly air? Whatever it is, I hates it. Snow Eating Fog.

Eesh. In NYC until Monday all Sunday trains canceled already.

Worst part is I'm in NYC Friday to Sunday morning, train ride back should be interesting. Scenic, maybe.

Albany NWS expected map equaled the 10% greater than map with subtle differences, 19 inches for the locale, earlier on. Now there's a 18-24 spread. I'm thinking they haven't taken off the weenie goggles yet.

Mainframe sysprog is the field but pretty much any architecture is lights out these days. One call I'm in Schenectady, network tech in Nashville, Linux guy is in Argyle NY, app guy's in California, machines in Ohio and Illinois. And yes, ALB gets screwed every which way. Coastals miss wide right, clippers are north and cutters are direct hits. Marginal air mass or warm south flow and the Hudson Valley does its dirty work. A couple glorious years we had storm after storm tracking from the direction of Binghamton right through here and it snowed well but that stopped.

One good thing about where tech has gone is that working remote is totally productive. Some work you can't do off site but in my field and many others it isn't where you work it's how you work and if I find somebody that is good I don't care where they are. Hopefully you can cast a very wide net.

OK, I'll enter it as "Zip Code 12309". Just kidding. Completed.

I'm sitting here laughing ruefully because it is snowing everywhere within five miles of where I sit and I enjoyed wind driven rain when I wheeled the rubbish cans out. Ah, river valleys.

Starting GoFundMe page now.

2001 Serotta CSi, 2005 Serotta Legend Ti and this year jumped on the all road bandwagon, No. 22 Drifter. All Campagnolo. This year was the Last Bike Ever. (Until the next Last Bike Ever....) Anything ever happens to the Legend frame I know who's building the replacement. The crew over in Johnstown is *really* good. However, the Legend isn't going anywhere anytime soon... I got flicked by a nice lady going about 45 in a Mustang one time and it took another three years for the rear dropout to crack which was the main point of contact. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. You ride?

Saw the temp profile for tomorrow and thought great, I can get a nice outdoor ride in and be comfortable. Then they posted the wind advisory. Damn. Saturday we didn't have one and the CAA winds down the Mohawk made the twenty miles out to Amsterdam a grind. Great fun downwind but crossing the river bridge with a full crosswind it was a bit entertaining leaning into it so I didn't drift out into the traffic lane. Sustained twenty five with gusts, guess its Premier League replays down cellar again. If it's gonna be warm out, how about a calm warm out?

I was completely spoiled by being a kid in Vermont for the blizzard of 68 (69? I was a kid, it was a really long time ago). The snow drift in front of the kitchen window was too high to see out the window, and the hill sloped down away from the house there. We measured one drift in the field behind the house at 17 feet. We had one of those kid's swing sets on the lawn, you could just see the top bar of it. We didn't have school for three days, and back then they didn't call school off for anything. It took a loader operator all day to clear the mile of road from the top of the hill to the paved road in the valley. We made an igloo by cutting wind packed blocks and we made extensive tunnels in the drifts. I remember at the height of the winds seeing a squirrel in the bird feeder hanging on for dear life. That was funny. I thought that was how winters were going to be always.

So if we're going to warm up and rain at intervals until it gets colder, why does it have to be Friday when I have to work? Saturday forecasts of a 45 or 50 degree high temperature are at midnight... and it drops through the twenties with a 25-30 NW or NNW wind. It makes a bike ride up the Mohawk not nearly as much fun into the wind funneling down the valley, you can't really take advantage of the twenty miles home downwind because by the time you turn your arms are too cold to operate the shifters well any more. Makes me grumpy. All the pessimism in the model thread reminds me of a TV meteorologist in Albany years ago who was steadfast in his winter prediction that nothing would happen until late January but then look out... all winter he's saying yes, it's raining, yes it's cold as hell and dry but just you wait... and in February he's there on the TV barely able to hide his big cat-canary-eating grin going "Told ya". I wish I was intelligent enough to keep a weather diary so I could name the year but it was in the eighties somewhere I think. I have to say what I remember about some of those winters in the eighties was three days of bone chilling cold then a rainstorm then three days of cold then a rainstorm... all winter long... so it could have been the nineties sometime.

One year skiing at Gore in great conditions I laughed because the chalkboard at the base of lift counted down the days to trout season and there were seven days left.

There was thunder last night, guessing around 3am. Didn't look at the clock.