Blog Fodder

Do you think they know? Or have any suspicion of my sarcastic nature? Is there some sort of a test?

Far be it from me to have a tee-shirt made up with a little slogan on it that reads, "by the way, if you do something really retarded, it's probably going to end up on the Internet".

My guess is it would have to be in Dutch.

Here's where I'm going with this.

Just happened to be back home after my morning trek, (and I'll be figuring out some wind chill values in a moment or two) and had just started digging into my homework, when the doorbell rang.
Turns out it was the Landlady, who had graciously stopped by with the missing parts to one particular curtain that still needs to go up.
I thanked her profusely and immediately got the stepladder and was about to install the things but hit a minor snag.



See if you can see how I might have an issue here...





Let me give you a bit of an action photo to better demonstrate.




And yes, unlike in previous examples where I only look miserable, this particular rendition is much more accurate.

You can see there just above me, one of the metal threaded posts onto which I was about to screw these brackets.

Simple really.

Maybe not today.

Didn't ship a hacksaw.

I mean, I could certainly put them up there for....safe keeping I suppose. But I certainly won't be putting up any curtain.


Just occurred to me that I might go over to the neighbour's and see if I can borrow a hacksaw. They've said on more than one occasion, "if there's anything you need"....

Moving on....

If I can believe the thermometer just outside the house here, it was showing 1°C when I left this morning on the bike.
So if I were only doing 20 k.p.h. and I think that's pretty conservative, then the wind chill works out to be -4°C.

The good part is though, we've started our 27 minutes of sunshine.

Whoohoo!


....../......


Here's a post script.
Went over to see Bernard next door and borrowed his hacksaw. (not sure which was older, me or the hacksaw...)
Fortunately the material for these things is copper, so cuts fairly easily.

and now we're done.

Snow in Delden, part two.

I decided to try uploading a smaller version, and even though it took a good twenty minutes, it finally appeared.
Not for those with dial-up.

Click To Play

A little snow

When I set out for the store this morning, I did notice that my eyes did seem to be watering a little faster than normal.
Turns out it started snowing just after I got back, which was getting close to noon time.
So I guess the temperature must have been pretty close to zero.

Now, I've been farting around with a short video that I took earlier today, and blogger doesn't seem to be able to complete the upload. I finally got fed up even after re shooting and cutting in down to about a minute. I might try later, but I'm not making any promises.

Meanwhile I figured some stills would have to do.

Besides, anyone with dial-up would be hard pressed to watch even a couple seconds of video, so I would have had to upload some pics anyway.


The point of the "moving picture" theme was to demonstrate just how orderly the traffic can be. This particular corner just up the street from the house doesn't have any kind of signage, yet everyone knows exactly what to do. As a matter of fact, I don't think we have even one yield sign, let alone a stop sign in all of Delden. Pretty sure we saw one down in Hacksbergen a couple months back. Should have taken a picture.

They're pretty rare.

I wonder when the colonies will ever catch up?







I know I've touched on the whole lack of signage thing before, and I apologize. I just cannot stress enough how everyone actually knows the rules of right of way. If you don't, you'll get "the look".

Trust me.

I've only gotten "the look" a couple times, and that was a few months back*. I'm proud to announce that I've graduated to the point where I can give "the look".

*Actually, one old guy went so far as to point to his head when giving me "the look", but cripes! I had been in the country for three friggin' days! Cut me some slack!



So you have to understand that I'm not really complaining about this little bit of snow, since I don't seem to have the same sense of dread that I used to get back home at the hint of the first snow fall. That's mostly because I'm fairly sure it will once again melt, as was the case with the last snowy event of a couple weeks back.
Not the case in most parts of Canada, where the first snow fall is usually the beginning of a long, intimate and tempestuous relationship with a snow shovel.
(and quite possibly a chiropractor)


Further to that, I'm somewhat counting our blessings, since the news from the Ottawa area is that last night's temperature was down around -20°C! Whether that was with or without wind chill is not clear. It's warmed up to a balmy -12°C there today I see, with the temperature at our place in Burlington pretty much the same as here; 2°C and light snow.

For anyone reading who is still using that archaic system called Fahrenheit, here's a brief primer.
Never mind all the complicated conversion nonsense, since this all you need to know:
Water freezes at 0°C, (my isn't that clever?) and most humans are reasonably comfortable in the low twenties, (+20°C) while your pee will quickly freeze in a snowbank at -20°C.


As a matter of fact, you'd best be keeping that thing in your pants at that temperature.

Plus, if you've never experienced "ice fog".....you can also count your blessings.


Amen.