Y'ever get a phone call from yourself?

No really. Have you ever heard the phone ring and you look at the little screen to see who it's from and your name and number appear? Of course I pretended I wasn't home because I didn't want to talk to myself. I do enough of that already. I waited to hear my message but nothing was said. So I guess I hung on myself not really wanting to say anything to me.

Aside from all the above nonsense this has happened twice. I have never answered it. Who knows what might be the cause or the reason. While writing this a little light went on in my head. I thought, "Why not Google this and see what turns up?"

So I did and it was just as I suspected. A scam. Especially these days, a person has to be very aware of ever increasingly clever scams. Though truth be told this one seems ridiculous. Why or more importantly, how on earth would this be possible? Why would you not know that something was wrong when your own number appears on the phone that is the phone that is supposedly placing the call? 

Well that was my morning excitement. I am off today and have a few in house things to do of which I have done none yet. Yesterday was a long day made longer with just getting around. I took my friend Dave to the supermarket again. I really don't mind helping him and I had a few things I had to buy myself. I never really go food shopping in the traditional sense because I have worked in a supermarket for (on April 1st of all days) 44 years, so leaving a supermarket to go to a supermarket to shop is a little different for me. Dave's pick-up had to be coordinated so that he be waiting for me outside as soon as I got to his house. It's a two way street which normally can accommodate two cars traveling in opposite directions with cars parked on both sides. Not now. It's still two way but you better pray nobody is coming in the other direction. Here' the 45 second ride down Winter Street to a waiting Dave.

  This was taken Monday morning after the most recent clean up.

As you can see in the video the snow was much cleaner a couple of days ago. That window on the left is my living room window. This is the part of year where you just grin and bear it. I heard a TV report that we have more snow than anchorage Alaska. So I guess in a strange way we should take it as a feather in our caps so we can muddle through or, if you'll excuse my phraseology, "plow" through this.

I'm outta here.

Sunday Feb. 15, 2015 Morning update, 7' of snow.

What can you say, so far we have had about 7 feet of snow in 3 weeks. We only got about a foot of snow in this latest round. It's very light. I haven't been outside yet and don't plan on it until tomorrow. It is windy, at last viewing of the TV it's gusting around 40 mph around here. There are people out shoveling and snow blowing as I write this and it's maybe 14 degrees.

 

This was taken about 10 am this morning. That's my car behind the pointy snow pile in the lower right hand corner of the picture and Arlene's behind mine. The wind is much worse along the coast and it's not that far away from here. Maybe 5 miles. Things wind wise are much worse on the Cape. Everybody is fine though, all the family and friend phone calls have been made and everybody is doing ok. We are all stocked up and hunkered down. Though this is an unprecedented snowfall in such a short time it's part of the deal around here. Here are some clips from television this morning, taken with my little 5 mega pixel camera, both local and from the Weather Channel.

 

 Ah what can you say? Well nature commands that you sit back and all normalcy stops then you sit back. You hunker down. You get to stay home and maybe think about all that is good about your life. This will all be gone eventually and with spring, a rebirth. Arlene and I will once again begin taking our little trips and take an actual vacation, and be thankful that we can weather the storm and enjoy some of the good things in life. I remember Arlene asking a relative of hers who lives in California and was saying how they couldn't live around here and deal with the winter, "What challenges you people?" And that's what this is, a challenge. Truthfully nobody likes what's going on here at the moment but we'll get through it. It's not the first time this has happened and it won't be the last. So now it's time for me to grab some lunch. Chicken cutlets sounds good.

I'm outta here.

Just waiting...

 

Yes we're all sitting around waiting for the next installment snowmageddon. We are approaching 7 feet of snow in a month. That would seem to be more appropriate for Alaska. Sure we get snow in the winter. That's part of the deal around here. I suppose the ski areas love this, except for the fact that few people will be able to get to the ski areas, at least for the next few days. The snow begins tonight at about 7 pm. More worrying than the snow are the hurricane force winds. As long as we don't lose power we'll deal with the snow. Where to put it is the real problem. Shoveling a foot of snow is really not a big deal normally. It's just part of the deal. There are 8 foot piles of snow on either side of the driveway making backing out an adventure. Locally the city has widened the main roads but the side streets are a different story. I have a friend who has a heart condition. His car is buried in his driveway. He had to get the supermarket and the pharmacy. Though he has a supermarket about an 5 minute walk from his house under normal conditions these aren't normal conditions. This was last Tuesday. I am very familiar with his neighborhood as I grew up around the corner. Dave lives on a two way side street. As I made the turn onto his street I prayed that nobody was coming down in the opposite direction. I had prearranged by phone for him to be outside so that the pick up could be as quick as possible as there was just enough room for one car. My street is a bit wider than his so that if you encounter a car traveling in the opposite direction there is space to squeeze by each other. Not so on the aptly named Winter St. It was akin to driving down a canyon of snow with 7 or 8 foot piles of snow on each side. Fortunately nobody was coming the other way. And despite the congested traffic we accomplished our tasks.

 

Then there's the cold. As I opened my gas bill there was all this information on how I had used more gas than normal and that I should turn my thermostat down to save money. As far as I'm concerned this is stupid when the temperature is somewhere between 20 degrees and 0. No matter what you set the thermostat once the indoor temperature drops below the setting on goes the heat. And my guess is that whether you set it at 70, 68 or 60 degrees as soon as the indoor temperature drops below the set temp the furnace will turn on. So why should I walk around my house in a winter coat when the outside temperature is in the single digits and my heat will run continuously no matter what I set it at. So I tell the gas company to shut up and be grateful that I can pay my bill.

Last night I made the mistake of falling asleep early while watching TV. This meant that I would be up late. Fortunately I didn't have to work but I was awake until 2 in the morning. I decided to go back to going through my pictures and organize them in a better fashion. I started back in 2008. Most of these pictures have been posted before both here and on Spaces but what the heck. So here are 4 slide shows that I have put together. There are local shots and shots from the various trips Arlene and I have taken both here and in New Hampshire and Maine. I made the first one last night, actually early this morning. I was getting bleary eyed but I wanted to finish the first one before I went to bed. I made a few goofs like using a comma instead of a period. Screwing up the titles by numbering them wrong. Still they are placed here in the proper order.

 

Apart from all that I am cozy and warm with enough food to carry me for several days. Tonight Arlene invited me to dinner. I will supply the wine or beer depending on what we're having. Ok I have been in front of this computer screen long enough. Maybe I'll watch some television. For me it's the easiest way to take a nap.

I'm outta here.