Man! It's cold!!

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ancona

Praying Mantis
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Right now, it is only 47 degrees!! Tonight, we're expected to dip below freezing. A layer of long johns helps, but it is still balls cold. Thankfully, it will be in the high fifties tomorrow, and back in the low seventies [tolerable at least] by weeks end.

I seriously don't know how you people can live in the frozen northern wasteland. Anything north of the Mason Dixon Line is a no go zone for me after October!

I know....I know...."Fuck you Ancona, you're just a pussy"!
 
The high humidity in your area makes a huge difference. If you were in the high (dry) desert of Nevada / Arizona @ 47F, you'd probably be outside without a jacket.
 
"Fuck you even more Bearing, pussy!" It may get in to the 30s tonight here in Miami.

EDIT: thanks guys for visiting my blog!
 
12F here this morning, rose to about 23 today, sinking again now. We usually get a couple of days like this in about the 2nd week of December, this is weird.
Combined with 40 mph wind gusts, also weird, I bet a lot of people will be coming by to get water from me - their pipes will all freeze again. We got a little snow, but not enough to go and play twirl the car games in (rats!). I'd been running the immersion heater in the toilet tank so nothing bad there.

We, you know, wear clothing and stuff when it gets like this, and yes, spend more time indoors where it's warm. There's nothing like standing in front of a huge radiant heat generator (IE wood stove) when it's like this, and rotating as if on a spit. Heats to the core far better than just tepid RT air can, just feels great.

I actually get closer climate control in winter. I control heat and humidity input easily with the woodstove and backup propane. If I ever overheat, cold is just an open window away. Summer not so much - AC is optional in this situation, and isn't perfect when the roof is hot enough to radiate down into the room. I mostly use it as a dehumidifier, and just wear less stuff when we get the other extreme.

My place has a great thermal mass to insulation ratio, so I can go many hours (and sometimes a couple of days) with no fire before it gets too chilly inside. The other side of that - if you let it get out of hand, it takes a long time to get it back, too.

Heck, I even remote-started my car a few minutes before I went out so it'd be warm in there when I got in. True hardship! I had to spend 5 entire seconds in the cold!

I think the thing is - it's unusual. Most only prepare for the normal, so stuff like this seems freaky. But after a few years or decades here, I learned to prepare for the "100 year" extremes, so it's not so bad.
 
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Not sure what parallel the MD line is on, but I am at about the 46th parallel which I believe is north of the MD line. Best guess is that the temp here is about 45-50 or so. Not cold at all for January. Should be freezing every night, but have not seen ice in weeks.

In fact it is so warm that I am wearing open sandals with bare feet.
 
OK.....so it only got to 33 here on the coast.......but fuck me man! That's cold for a Florida Boy! My chickens are piled up in just two of the nesting boxes like a big 'ol pile of puppies on their mama's teats. It was funny when we turned the little red bastards out today, because they kind of looked at us.....looked at each other.....and blew us off. That's a first on this here farmstead.

Anyhow, my experiment with the sprinkler failed last night. I was going to fuck with my good neighbor a little bit, so I took two sprinklers, zip-tied them to the top of his fence and at around midnight, I turned them on mist. I did it once about ten years ago, and by the morning, we had about a three foot thick slab of ice covering the space between his carport and the fence. The kids played on that mountain until March.....and Joe thought it was hilarious.

Well, the temps didn't drop quite as low as predicted, and I fear that all I achieved was the planting of a seed in Joe's head.........now, all I can do and wait to see if the gods of retribution fall upon my head......
 
See, that's the other problem for me (moving away to a better place): ANYWHERE else would be colder than here (ex. Hawaii, but no way I'd go there, pretty to look at, but they have real problems in "paradise").

mmerlin, 46th parallel... That would be north of Maryland (your MD?). 46 degrees north would be roughly our states of Maine, Iowa and Wyoming. In Europe that would be roughly Spain and Italy. Walking in sandals? I would say you are very lucky, so enjoy it!
 
heh

5c (41f) outside, no cloud and strong wind.

24c (72f) inside Bugout 1 and havent put any wood on the fire for 2 hours.
Will probably have to open the door for a while to get it cool enough to kip.

Thought climate control was what the engineers were good at (-;
 
We're at about 50 degrees f right now, and supposed to be in the low seventies tomorrow. chilly, but still habitable.
 

mason-dixon line? hell anything north of I-10 is too damn cold for me!
 
Guys, I like it warm more than most people - I'm pretty skinny and get cold while others are sweating. But how do you handle the heat? I blew through Miami a couple years ago on the way to a cruise and it was more than I could take - had to go outdoors to smoke. Isn't it just as nuts to spend even more on AC than I do on heat?
 

Actually, until it gets up in the mid nineties, we just use fans in the house. My annual average power bill is around ninety to a hundred bucks. In the winter, the insulation in the house will keep the heat in after running the heat strips for an hour or two.

In the hottest part of summer, I agree that it is absolutely crippling at times, but we just lay low until after five or five thirty to do anything strenuous outside. The more time you spend in the heat, the more you get accustomed to it.
 
@ ancona and DCFusor

Wow, it looks like I am the 3rd skinny scraggly guy in this forum! And it looks like we are all roughly the same age.

Wow, re it only costing a measly $100 to cool your place ancona. We are over an order of magnitude to cool our place (a large-ish condo).

I have read that typically it costs MORE to heat a place than to cool it.
 
Yeah, I'm 6' 1" and weigh 158#, so when it gets cold, I feel like a fucking pink popsicle. Life is so much better in jams and flip-flops!
 
ancona said:
Yeah, I'm 6' 1" and weigh 158#, so when it gets cold, I feel like a fucking pink popsicle. Life is so much better in jams and flip-flops!
Click to expand...

And you obviously look like a popsicle stick.

I wear flip-flops all year long, even in the snow.

And I checked my latitude. It is 45.6.
 
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World's Only Popsicle Stick Bearing would freeze his lil ol toe-sies at 45.6 degrees N Lat going through the snow...

That's almost criminally mischievous writing such words throwing off the horror, the horror of that imagery...
 
im beginning to see a certain 'profile' for bugs (-;

engineer / hands on / diy er
deep, outside the box thinker,
assume nothing
rely on no one but self, whilst still a team player when it works
loyal to friends and family
truthful

and eerrr tall n thin ??? heh in my dreams
 
We've just had 3 bouts of 80-100mph winds - missing roof pieces everywhere, trees ripped out of the ground in several nearby streets. Hard to sleep when your windows sound like they're about to be sucked out of the building.

+12'c when it should be -5.. -10.

Not normal weather, at all.

r2b - yes seems like there is a consistent profile more or less you nailed it.
 
I live alone, so I ned not to run the heating, but have it set to kick in if it falls below 50F. there are some days in my kitchen I can see my breath.
 
Yup on the profile.
6'0", 118 pounds.
Serial offender business starter and CEO.
Electronics started seriously at age 8 (first superhet designed and built - tubes in '61).
Home lab/shop since. First business started when 15 (guitar and amp repair).
Numerous engineer jobs from DEC to "beltway bandits" to startups to companies that were my own startups. Consult for a few of the "majors" from my companies.

Politically incorrect - satisfied with just plain correct. Willing to and have just completely pulled up stakes. (less willing now - this place is darn nice). I'm a truth seeking missile, agile, mobile, and hostile.

Big on networking, been doing barter at low and high levels forever. Contracts with consulting customers? You must be kidding - if I don't trust you (or vice versa) on a handshake, let's just not do business at all.

Never figured out unions. If a place has that kind of adversarial relationship going on, they don't need my talents, or I them. Can't see why adding an extra boss you have to pay helps you.

Follow the money-cynical. Seen too much to be otherwise. Seen too much human nature to have much respect for *most* humans.

Specialty - having fun. Willing to work and learn in order to have more.

DoChen, it depends on costs. In NOVA I spent a *lot* more on AC than heating out near Dulles, but I had natgas heat, and electric AC. Here, we spend almost zero on AC, some on heating. About 200-300/yr if you do it with bought firewood (for a couple buildings). This is the time of indoors. Most of the rest of the year it's hard to want to be inside. If I get visitors in May/June, they usually wind up wanting to move here.
Maybe twice that with propane (only) - I use propane to limit downward temp excursions when I'm asleep - small price for the convenience.
 
DC, How is the drought index? Any improvement? I have an old buddy out there who says his little town is in it's death throes because the farmers have culled their cattle back to just breeding stock, and are going bankrupt one at a time. He told me his 600 foot deep well has dried up, and he has to truck in water for now because he cannot afford to shoot a deeper well right now. He said there is a way to do it through the existing casing, something he calls "sleeving" but it will cost several grand, which he doesn't have.

Here in Florida, we have between four and six feet of rain a year, but we're on the dry side as well. In addition, it will hit eighty degrees tomorrow. We have had some extrtemely weird weather here this year. I actually have sweet mini's on the tree in fucking January? [sweet mini's are wild sweet oranges]
 
There's not even the least hint of drought where I am, and hasn't for many years. Floyd county is unique in a way - no water flows in - it all flows out from here.

A few years back, we had nearly a week of over 100F temps in afternoons...didn't help the corn much, but that was it. Hay is a fairly big crop here - and I can usually get it free, spoiled for my garden. That's not drought conditions at all - it spoils from getting wet.

Which makes me wonder how so many loose marbles collected here - I thought they ran to the bottom of the gravity well, like water .

Edit:
I should add that down in the plains that get their water from us - there are sometimes droughts. They aren't farming down there though, it's all the city water reservoirs. They did have some issues a couple years back, but all good now in places like Roanoke. We just get first dibs on the water, being at the source and all. But it's funny everywhere. On my land I have half a dozen artesian springs - most of them run all the time, never go dry. Half a mile away, someone might need a 400ft well to get what they want. But heck, even that neighbor has a spring, just not close to his house.
 
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6'2", 163 lbs. I fit the profile perfectly.

I can hardly wait to see what happens when we next go to the airport to see if I fill those "other profiles" too.

So. if you don't hear from me after we start our trip to Peru (late March), please call my lawyer, and tell him to get me out of Guantanamo (or FEMA camp), appreciate it guys!

Still a brisk 77 F here. When does it get back to 80?

*** Breaking News! ***

They just picked up a naturalized Yugoslavian-American as a terrorist in Tampa! He tried to buy an AK-47, grenades and a bomb belt.

What did I tell you guys? FLORIDUH! It all happens here!
 
back on topic and its zero ( 32f ) outside Bugout 1 tonight and struggling to keep the temp inside above 72 f . ( South of England )

Better chuck another log on the fire (-;
then go out and try and cover up todays concrete )-:
 
Rblong,
It's about 68 with 50% RH right now, and an expected 77 tomorrow.

This is without a doubt the most fucked up winter in amny years for me. If you look at last year, we were freezing our balls off this time of the year!
 
Freezing rain here in SW VA tonight, the worst (snow is easier to deal with by far).
78 deg where I sit, perfect humidity, woodstove loafing - might not need any more wood tonight, since the shop is hot and full of real heavy metal things. Nice night to be indoors reading that book SA advised I get on options.

Plenty of beer and munchies at arms reach - why should I care it's evil out there?
 
Freezing rain, that brings back some bad memories when I was living in the DC suburbs. If you have any kind of hill or slope, freezing rain is the WORST! And, you got those hills!

Drinking beer and eating munchies inside, you planned that very well DCF!
 
I guess I did, but now it's time for:

Actually, it's time for fun, I get to go play "twirl the car"!

Get up. Uh oh, the propane for the backup heater is in need of change.
Do that, start fire in woodstove - oops, rack empty, get wood from pile.
Generators both out of gas, fill both, start one. Plug in the car.
Do the SSS morning thing. Make tea. Ahh, country living!

Now, make some fine hot tea, and drink it while kicking back.
 
Man DCFusor, did THAT (video) bring back some freezing memories!

Actually down here, we just had another cold front blast through. I had to put on a long sleeve PJ last night, they said it was going to get into the 40s again...
 
They are projecting 38f today, 46 tomorrow, 53 tuesday. Snow won't last, so I'm glad I got a go at it while it was here. FWIW, the Volt handles this with aplomb. I didn't get footage of "twirl the car" because the traction control worked so well I couldn't get it to twirl! This isn't true of my otherwise almost-unstoppable truck. Nice that the Volt heat is *almost* instantaneous - you don't have to wait for an engine to warm up, just the heater ducts.

 
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80 degrees and 65% RH. It's absolutely beautiful today. No clouds to speak of and a slight breeze. Perfect fishing weather.
 
60F here today, full sun, I went out and did some work on the new car without a coat!
(Added an inverter to give it 120v AC output, after all, it's an electric car)
 
Hah.. I really need to move out of this Northern crap where we only get 5 months of nice weather a year.
 
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