This is certainly the time to put on the snow tires and get the chainsaw running again to get the wood for heating.
I came to California from Chicago in 1969 to avoid the above-mentioned struggles. But, here I go again getting ready for the freeze. We've already frozen all the tomato plants and it's not Thanksgiving yet.
A few freezing mornings ago, as I was scraping the windshield, my high-schooler son pulled too hard on the plastic Toyota door handle and broke it. The doors freeze to the car body and won't open. It would sure be nice to keep a car in a garage. The garage is full of tools, car parts, a desk-full of ham radio equipment, etc. Maybe it's time for a yard sale.
It took the better part of a day to get a door handle removed from the parts car, figure out how to remove the interior plastic panels without breaking the plastic fasteners that plug into the door frame, etc. There is a place for plastic and there is a place for metal. I vote for metal door handles.
Any of you guys who park on the street in the real cold have a technique to get the frozen door open without breaking the brittle plastic handle?
Like maybe Toyota has similar size metal door handles on more expensive versions. I've got a 1994 Corolla 4 door - actually a Geo Prizm. Heat gun or build a campfire close to the car? The paint might not like it.
Jay, I do envy your environment. Are those new laws being enforced? That may be the hassle to offset the sunny weather.
"Jay, I do envy your environment. Are those new laws being enforced? That may be the hassle to offset the sunny weather."
Not the law you are referencing, that has been and will be tied up in the courts. Our newest law is our Medical Marijuana Law--it just barely passed.
The last time I was in Toronto, my wife's home town, it was winter and I caught strep throat and nearly died!! Lovely place in the summer. If Canada would annex Cuba, what a wonderful country it would be!
Some people here still only use swamp coolers, and they work fine until the monsoons raise the humidity, but most all of us here now have AC.
People make jokes about our dry heat, but 85F with 90% humidity is worse than 100F with 20% humidity to this old dude. No matter how hot it gets during the day (summer), when the sun goes down it is very comfortable and no mosquitoes.
It is nearly a necessity for happiness to love where you live, but there is one big reason why this area is one of the fastest growing parts of the country--the weather. Lots of Canadians here for the next few months! And, for the cyclos, bike lanes.
52F now, with a high of 79 this aft. No AC or heat needed for the last week. We more than make up for the cost of AC with the months where we need neither heating or cooling.
The jasmine on our back patio are beginning to bloom. Ahhhhhhhhhhyummmmmmmm...
I had to tell my high schooler about having to walk the 2 miles uphill (both directions) when I went to high school. "So, quit your complaining. You ride in a heated school bus." I tell stories of how cold the wind was in Chicago. We had to play in the band in the stands during the football games. That clarinet got very cold and my fingers would freeze.
Anyway, it was 28F this morning and the kid wished he could listen to his MP3 while waiting for the school library to open. It has heat. School starts about 30 minutes after the bus gets there. He has to stand in front of the library and stamp his feet. They have forbidden cellphones and MP3s because some kids use them while in class. It's not enforced all the time. But, having the laws written down gives the teachers the power to just confiscate them - they eventually return them. I heard that the teacher that confiscates the most cellphones gets a vacation to Hawaii. I'm not sure if that's just gossip. It would motivate the hunt a bit more. The students don't get very much respect in this environment.
The bus gets there at 7:40 the classes start at 8:15. So, they do have some time to hang around the lockers or get some state subsidized breakfast. But, the lockers and the food is outside. The library is the only place to warm up. It opens at 8:00.
Whether the liberals ruined the country or not, the bus takes almost an hour to get them to school. We live about 10 miles from school. There is one public high school in the County. The next closest school would be 90 minutes away.
The school is very underfunded - 35 in a class - I'm sure it's all the fault of the liberals. We parents have to buy all the art supplies. They have bake sales and band concerts to get another Tuba or hire a bus to take the band to some contest. We had to drive the students to many places last year.
52F or 11C at 8:14 in the Old West Shootum Town of Tucson. Cyclo, you should really be spending your winters here, no one shoots bikers, the cops ride mt bikes. People get hit every year, but that is because we have so many bikers and so many tourists. It felt so good playing tennis at 7:30, it was 38 and warmed to 48 as we played. Feels great, the sweat becomes a cooling layer when you run (or ride).
Thanks for the invite jaysaul... the perfect scenario would be for me to ride the bike there from Dec to March then back up here from April to November. Today it was snowing here from midnight to around noon and I was not able to ride on the road as the side streets were still unplowed. I did ride the stationary bike to warm up before shoveling the snow on the driveway.
Comments
I came to California from Chicago in 1969 to avoid the above-mentioned struggles. But, here I go again getting ready for the freeze.
We've already frozen all the tomato plants and it's not Thanksgiving yet.
A few freezing mornings ago, as I was scraping the windshield, my high-schooler son pulled too hard on the plastic Toyota door handle and broke it.
The doors freeze to the car body and won't open. It would sure be nice to keep a car in a garage. The garage is full of tools, car parts, a desk-full
of ham radio equipment, etc. Maybe it's time for a yard sale.
It took the better part of a day to get a door handle removed from the parts car, figure out how to remove the interior plastic panels without breaking the
plastic fasteners that plug into the door frame, etc. There is a place for plastic and there is a place for metal. I vote for metal door handles.
Any of you guys who park on the street in the real cold have a technique to get the frozen door open without breaking the brittle plastic handle?
Like maybe Toyota has similar size metal door handles on more expensive versions. I've got a 1994 Corolla 4 door - actually a Geo Prizm.
Heat gun or build a campfire close to the car? The paint might not like it.
Jay, I do envy your environment. Are those new laws being enforced? That may be the hassle to offset the sunny weather.
Not the law you are referencing, that has been and will be tied up in the courts. Our newest law is our Medical Marijuana Law--it just barely passed.
The last time I was in Toronto, my wife's home town, it was winter and I caught strep throat and nearly died!! Lovely place in the summer. If Canada would annex Cuba, what a wonderful country it would be!
People make jokes about our dry heat, but 85F with 90% humidity is worse than 100F with 20% humidity to this old dude. No matter how hot it gets during the day (summer),
when the sun goes down it is very comfortable and no mosquitoes.
It is nearly a necessity for happiness to love where you live, but there is one big reason why this area is one of the fastest growing parts of the country--the weather.
Lots of Canadians here for the next few months! And, for the cyclos, bike lanes.
52F now, with a high of 79 this aft. No AC or heat needed for the last week. We more than make up for the cost of AC with the months where we need neither heating or cooling.
The jasmine on our back patio are beginning to bloom. Ahhhhhhhhhhyummmmmmmm...
I tell stories of how cold the wind was in Chicago. We had to play in the band in the stands during the football games. That clarinet got very cold and my fingers would freeze.
Anyway, it was 28F this morning and the kid wished he could listen to his MP3 while waiting for the school library to open. It has heat. School starts about 30 minutes after the bus gets there.
He has to stand in front of the library and stamp his feet. They have forbidden cellphones and MP3s because some kids use them while in class. It's not enforced all the time.
But, having the laws written down gives the teachers the power to just confiscate them - they eventually return them. I heard that the teacher that confiscates the most cellphones gets a vacation
to Hawaii. I'm not sure if that's just gossip. It would motivate the hunt a bit more. The students don't get very much respect in this environment.
But, the lockers and the food is outside. The library is the only place to warm up. It opens at 8:00.
Whether the liberals ruined the country or not, the bus takes almost an hour to get them to school.
We live about 10 miles from school. There is one public high school in the County. The next closest school would be 90 minutes away.
The school is very underfunded - 35 in a class - I'm sure it's all the fault of the liberals. We parents have to buy all the art supplies.
They have bake sales and band concerts to get another Tuba or hire a bus to take the band to some contest.
We had to drive the students to many places last year.