RDM

Is that a Buick GNX there on the lift? If so, that 3.8L turbo was one of the best sleepers ever. One of my best childhood friends went to school at GMI (when it was still a great engineering school). He had one of the first GNX's way back in the 80's. He worked on the Gen-1 ABS control algorithm in the Corvette. That car was a beast.

Zugzwang (great to hear from you again) and Mrs. J - thanks for more memories of the great one of 78. It was a truly epic event! Was 16 at the time and will never forget the roar outside when I woke up about 6am that morning as the winds gusted over 70mph. Doubt we ever see anything like that again. Things got dire when the shelves in the IGA in our little town went bare because they couldn't get food shipments in. The snowblowers from Wright Patterson AFB opened up the roads again after a week so we could get into and out of town. Mrs. J - Loved Cedar Point - The roller coaster capital of the world! Hats off wrt teaching your girls how to drive in the snow. When our daughter got her permit 7 years ago I took her to the business parks along the Dulles Toll Road for family driver's ed. Great place to practice on weekends because there's nobody there and lots of wide open empty parking lots. After she got the basics down we turned off the ABS and practiced skid recovery in the rain/wet and then again in the snow. I taught her some reverse J turns just in case she ever needs to get out of a jam (and some other maneuvers I won't mention here). We practiced stalled engine coasting and neutral restarts (get the feeling what it's like to lose power steering and brakes while moving) and braking using only the emergency brake - things they don't train in Drivers Ed anymore (darn it). Also taught her how to parallel park! She still doesn't know how to drive a stick because it's hard to find one these days and there's no 63 International Rambers around with 3 on the tree to learn in. haha

Indeed - flat as Kansas and nary a thing to stop the wind up there. I miss Ohio, left in 85. It's a good place to be from.

Radar returns indicating sn and possibly sn+ along Rt 601 along the western border of Loudoun Co. 41F here just NW of Vienna. Ahhhh just a few degrees cooler.

Well said. I lived in India for 3 years in the early/mid 90's. Imagine the USA with 3x our population in an area equal to the USA East of the Mississippi - that's India. Factoring in nearly 25% of India is sparsely populated desert and mountains, and the result is a population density 5X the USA. The population density in Bangladesh is 2.5X the density in India.

Where did you grow up? I grew up just North of Dayton. A little town of about 5000 people a couple miles from where Ohio really flattens out all the way to the border with MI. Can relate to your optic about that picture looking like NW Ohio. As outlined in the picture, it is really flat up that way.

Ended up with 1.60" for this round. Not bad. Will be interesting to see what comes through with the next round. Some building in SW VA... and western NC. NWS just issued a FFW for our area of FFCO. Lawyers road a couple hundred yards from our home is flooded - again. Happens several times a year in the 10+ years we've lived here. Had a white water rescue a few years ago that was nearly fatal. Tributary of Difficult Run floods any time we get rates at more than 1"/hr.

1.28" so far here just NW of Vienna.

No question there. The only confirmed cases are those based on testing, which is only being applied to a small fraction of the population in every country. However, even if we were to test the entire population of the planet at one moment in time, that would only be an objective indicator for that exact moment. People could still become infected in the following minutes, hours and days through proximity contamination or non-contact transmission w/o direct contact with other people. Widespread testing would provide more data for the experts to use in analyzing the projected spread and where to deploy resources. However, the data has dependencies and will continue to be subjective so long as the virus remains asymptomatic in people who are positive carriers and capable of infecting others w/o knowing it (and because they are asymptomatic are not tested). What helps make the data more useful and objective is where robust analysis is applied to determine where a positive carrier has been and potentially infected others (again, without potentially knowing it). It's resource intensive, but if applied aggressively data analytics can amplify the relevance of any testing. So I'm certainly not saying to not test. It's just important to keep testing in perspective while applying ample analysis to squeeze as much out of each positive test as possible. Have to guess, the resources are not available to apply analytics as much as desired in all cases. Learned a lot about COVID from our daughter who is working shifts at the INOVA COVID field test sites. We're proud of her for being a trooper and working on the front lines knowing she is coming in contact with carriers daily. However, all of the people they test are symptomatic in one form or another. They need a referral from their doctor to get an appointment to get tested. We have a mitigation plan here at home, but my wife and I are likely at risk too. So far we're fine but have self quarantined as a precaution. We've not left our property for over a month. Too bad those who are positive don't turn purple so that everyone will know they are purple, including the individual themselves. aka Willie Wonka - or potentially myself. If I'm a carrier I want to know.

What few herbs and veggies we grow must grown on our elevated deck. Otherwise, the deer, possum or groundhogs gobble it up in no time. The deer are a real nuisance around here, which is why FFCO routinely sponsors targeted culling. In our area of FFCO all residences are zoned R-1 with at least 1 acre because there's no public sewer and you need at least 1 acre to have a leach field in FFCO. That means in general it's low density housing with a lot of wooded areas in between developments, which promotes cover for the deer to flourish. For the unwary, driving in the area around Lawyers Road and Hunter Mill between Reston, Oakton and Vienna can be dangerous night and day due to the number of deer crossing the roads. The threat of a bad encounter is year-round.

Awesome garden. Whatever you plant is gone thrive in that setup. Any issues with the deer? The fence looks about 4 feet high. We live less than a mile from Vienna and are infested with deer. Can't grow hardly anything the vile vermin don't devour at their leisure. Have had as many as 13 bed down in our front yard.

I've found a couple of spots where the carpenter bees were nesting, but not IVO where the woodpeckers are doing their thing. The peckers must love cedar, although it is a relatively soft wood and easy to penetrate. The peckers that visit our place are typically on the small size. On occasion we have one of the big pileated woodpeckers stop by. When he shows up everyone in the neighborhood knows it. He was hammering away in the woods behind our house the last two evenings. One of his favorite logs is a hollow tree that resonates like a large kettle drum. You can hear him 300+ yards away. Quite majestic creatures, but when he hammers on our siding you'd think the house is falling down.

That's a pretty nifty bee trap. Them bees can indeed do a number on trim. Any ideas on how to keep the woodpeckers off the cedar trim on our house? We have a couple pesky woodpeckers who think our house is their daily buffet.

Really hope it works out for you and your family. The Dutch REALLY like Americans and they like to have a good time too. They've not forgotten what we did for them in WW-II. Had a number of experiences skiing in the Alps when Dutch would hear us Americans in the ski lines and would ask us if they could shake our hand and say thank you. This was in the late 80's and some of the experiences were very emotional. Bike touring around Holland is great. If you have a chance to ride some over there, go for it. During my first stint in Germany in the late 80's I spent a couple of weeks around Mastrict in the "mountains" of Holland taking day bike trips with a group of friends. I'm an inline racer too and during my second sting in Fkt I spent one week every spring in Sardinia inline training with some of the Dutch long track Olympic ice speed skaters. They train hard and are a lot of fun to be around. Always wanted to see one of the big bike races live. Managed to do a century (100 miles) on my high-wheel in 1990 when I lived in Germany the first time (took my 1886 Columbia over with me). Rode the century with a group of Wheelmen that came over for an antique bike rally in Lenk, Switzerland. We had races on a Swiss AF runway. I made it through quarter and semi final heats and gave it a shot in the finals. 3 laps on a 1.5km loop was a load of fun. We had a guy from CA we tried to lead out for the final sprint to beat some SOB from GB (he was our version of Mark Cavendish). When the guy from CA and the Brit passed me on the final straight peddling their high-wheels standing out of the seat at 35+ mph I knew I was in over my head. Managed to get 4th, which I was very happy with. The experience was priceless. What part I remember anyway. We drank ourselves under the table that night to celebrate.

Sincere condolences to you and your family... Regret this is likely going to touch us all in one way or another.

Sorry to hear about your trip. If you've never been to Keukenhof it is a must stop on anyone's itinerary. Never seen natural colors like that anywhere before or since. Will never forget it. Need to time it right to catch the blooms around their peek. Hope you make it next year.

Brings back fond memories of my maternal grandpa. He used to sit on his porch in a rocking chair and watch his front yard for the vermin. Had a dog that would help seek them out. When one was detected, grandpa would saunter out with his trusty pitch fork and do the needy. If it came out dry, denoting a miss, he'd thrust it in again (with help from his dog on where). When it came out wet, he'd smile with his cigar sticking out the side of his mouth and resume watch on the porch. BTW, he never smoked his cigars. He chewed them like chewing tobacco, but never spit! Half a cigar in the morning and the second half in the afternoon...

Good morning. You are very welcome. I've been using McMaster Carr professionally and at home for 35 years. Used them extensively when I lived and worked overseas because they would ship to an APO box. I easily ordered a few million $ worth of hardware from them over the years and they've been infinitely reliable and have excellent customer service reps who know their products very well (this is NOT a paid advertisement!!!). MC's lineup of stainless steel hardware covers about anything you'd ever want. Fine thread, course, grade 8, exotic aircraft hardware etc... I have a decent supply of SS hardware at home from 6-32 up through 5/16" dia. If/when I run out, a simple online order shows up in 2 days max. Given them a shot, don't think you'll be disappointed. If you make a sufficiently large order, ask them for a catalog or two. They are loath to offer one, but I'm old school and like to have a catalog. Their catalog is like a Grainger catalog on steroids and MC lists prices for everything. Can't say enough good about them...

Just a thought... A potential alternative to normal chicken wire would be something stainless. Here's an option you may find interesting. https://www.mcmaster.com/catalog/126/2045 Middle left of the page. For about $200 you'd have a 304 stainless steel mole proof foundation that would never rust. If you've dealt with McMaster Carr before, they are great. Excellent online catalog and fast service. I buy all my stainless hardware there for less than what you can get zinc plate at Home Depot.

Been wondering the same thing. Many of the recent events since early Dec that went N of us did so in a way we were 2-300 miles from the action. (which is a world away, I know). Realize from I-81 N and W there's another entire climate at play, especially from mid-PA N in latitude. But in some cases one could see if the setup of the ridges and troughs over the Pac and CONUS was shifted some we could be closer to at least in the game (assuming also the WAR stays out of play). Perhaps wishful thinking here, but the boundary has often been in eastern Ohio diagonally down through western KY and SRN MO. My relatives in SW Ohio have already had multiple 4"+ events, which is a bit rare for them this early.

Fantastic Bob - no doubt you are doing a lot of things the right way beyond being part of the foundation here. That's great. Can only imagine how proud your son is going to be too. Real life learning opportunities like this are too infrequent these days...

Bob, no doubt you were inoculated against having any chance of becoming jipolar a long time ago. Most of us received that immunity at a young age... Sitting at 6.5" here about a mile NW of Vienna. Picking up again....

6-1/4" just NW of Vienna on Lawyers Road. Looks to be some building down around Raleigh. Hope good stuff mentioned by the NWS for this afternoon makes far enough N&W to give us all some more. Wes should be in a prime location for that.

Great second pic of your son. The awe he must feel with what today has in store for him.... I'm nearly 60 years old and still feel the same. Only thing that changes is the way we have fun. Can't wait to get out in my Kubota and do the neighborhood. Typically plow our 450' driveway, 4 more adjacent to us that are longer, about 20 other driveways, a 1/4 mile of street and a mile or so of sidewalk along Lawyers road to Vienna. Hope your little man has a blast today!

If this were to really play out as illustrated on the NAM, suggest it would be a hands down BECS. Can barely read the posts as fast as they are coming in. If the NAM nails this, it will have dethroned king EURO.