Here’s proof.

Being a bit of a weather nerd I try to keep tabs on the forecasts up here, and I try to forecast a bit myself. As part of getting ready for work I look at the weather observations and the charts, then try to determine what might happen over the next few hours during my shift at the station.

On the 29th I looked the weather situation over and agreed with the forecasts; it looked like we might get a couple of inches of snow out of the next storm, but nothing severe. We had about 18 inches of snow on the level at the time, with two-foot berms in the yard. The plowed areas had an inch of light fluff.

I decided to take Christy’s Subaru to work, instead if my pickup truck with the plow. Didn’t figure I’d need it.

I was SO wrong….

Not long after I arrived at work that afternoon, the snow began to fall. Then it began to fall harder. Six hours into the shift a blizzard was in full-throated rage at the station. I called Christy at the house to see what was happening.

“It’s wild out here. Let me send you some photos.”; Christy said.

There, behind that garage door and the better part of two feet of new snow and three-foot drifts, was my pickup-truck and snowplow. Warm and dry.

Since Christy hasn’t been checked out on the snowplow yet, the only option was to head toward the house, ten miles and a world away from the station. I figured I’d go have a look and, if I couldn’t get close to home I’d come back to town and stay in a motel.

The blizzard had let up a bit by the time I’d put the station to bed for the night and headed toward home. A winter storm warning had finally been issued, well after the storm had begun. The main road out-of-town was plowed, thankfully. Seven miles out-of-town and a turn onto the secondary road found the secondary road with two feet of light, dry snow and tracks where folks had been getting through. I let the Subaru have her head and soldiered on. Two miles later found me at the access road to the house. One mile to go.

Thankfully, one of my neighbors with a plow had plowed from his house to the secondary road.  Just one plow-width, and berms to four feet, but at least the road was plowed. I followed the plowed trail to my neighbor’s yard and decided not to push my luck any further. I parked the Subaru and walked the last quarter-mile.

Two hours later I had the yard and the road out to the neighbor’s plowed. The yard and access road had five and six-foot berms. That two feet of snow was the most I had ever moved with this plow, a Homesteader, and it handled the job with aplomb.

Today, the sun is shining and it’s 8 above as I write. Much of the snow has settled; we have two to three feet on the level and three to four-foot berms in the yard and road. After the chores are finished for the week we’ll break out the snowshoes and go for a walk!

Man I love this place!

Those of you reading this who went through the Lockheed Debacle with me six years ago know exactly how big a deal this is.

In 2005, when the Bush Administration awarded the contract for FAA Flight Service functions in the South 49 to Lockheed-Martin, there were several of us who were within a few days or weeks of full retirement eligibility. There were a few others, like me, who, due to prior military service, were eligible for a reduced annuity immediately, but not a full annuity. We could choose to accept that reduced annuity, or we could choose to work for Lockheed and hope that at some point we could be re-employed for at least five years by the FAA in Flight Service in Alaska in order to continue our FAA careers to full retirement eligibility. Those of us who elected to try to get hired, or re-hired, in Alaska had a great deal of assistance from a handful of former FAA facility air traffic managers in the South 49 and FAA facility air traffic managers in Alaska who understood our plight. For my part I’d still be reduced to working for the lying, cheating, thieving bastards at Lockmart were it not for the assistance of Suzanne Hynes, the manager of the Cedar City, UT AFSS when the Lockheed contract was awarded, Don McGurk, the manager at Cedar City AFSS when Lockheed took over, and Randy Rogers, the manager at Fairbanks, AK AFSS (who, to his infinite regret) hired me back into the FAA in Fairbanks in September of 2006 so that I was able to continue my FAA career.

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

For shit’s sake Governor. You’re in the wrong bidness if you get your panties in a bunch over this sort of thing. Grow a pair already.

And, by the way, principal Karl Krawitz is an asshole too. He’s a brain-dead twit who ought to be fired.

Put that in your search engine and smoke it, boys.

UPDATE 12/11/11

Seems someone talked some sense into Governor Brownback and principal Krawitz. After blaming his staff for overreacting, Governor Brownback decided it probably was a bad PR move to be seen to be attempting to deprive a high school student of her right to free speech. Principal Krawitz decided, wisely, to follow the governor’s lead and forget the whole thing.

I’m pretty sure the world would be a better place for women if more of them owned and carried guns. Not for nothing is a handgun also known as an equalizer.

The defendant was 30-year-old man. He’d been stopped at 1AM in May of this year for having studded tires on his vehicle past the allowable date. He admitted to having been drinking. The officer testified that the defendant had slurred speech and smelled of alcohol. The officer administered a field sobriety test, which the defendant failed, according to the officer. The defendant was taken to the Homer Police Department station house, breathalyzed, and blew a .096 Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) level.

We went through the jury selection process on a Wednesday and heard the case on a Thursday. We deliberated for thirty minutes before finding the defendant guilty.

The defendant admitted to having a glass of wine, two sixteen-ounce Black and Tan’s, and a shot of bourbon within a five-hour period. The defendant is an alcohol server at a local restaurant, and was required to complete state-mandated alcohol server training prior to employment. This training includes computing BAC levels based on alcohol consumption and time elapsed between drinks.

In the audio recording of the traffic stop, the defendant does not appear to slur his speech in my judgment. He’s compliant and not at all belligerent. The officer also appears to be professional and courteous. During testimony each appeared articulate and believable.

We considered the possibility that the breathalyzer was in error. The defense attorney introduced the possibility that radio frequency (RF) radiation from cellphones and dispatch radios had caused an error, to which the arresting officer agreed could possibly have caused erroneous readings in a given breathalyzer test, but the officer also admitted the on cross-examination by the prosecutor that the breathalyzer has a self-testing mode which causes the unit to shut down in the event RF radiation is detected. In fact, after serving on the jury, my research indicates that the only place these allegations of RF radiation caused erroneous breathalyzer readings shows up is on the websites of DUI attorneys who are trying to convince defendants to fight a DUI. I can’t find a single reputable source that questions the validity of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved breathalyzer results, which all police departments nation-wide are required to use, are questionable.

The defense attorney raised the possibility of RF radiation caused errors, but he brought no witnesses to testify to that effect, other than the arresting officer.

In the end we the jury decided that in this case of two very believable witnesses, we had to defer to the only objective evidence in available to us in this case, which was the breathalyzer results. The judge had charged us that we had to find guilt if the defendant had knowingly operated the vehicle, and the BAC level was .08 or above.

We agreed that in the absence of a breathalyzer test we’d have cut the defendant loose, because we felt the benefit of the doubt should go to the defendant. But in this case the breathalyzer, the only objective evidence available to us in the matter, convicted the defendant in our eyes.

As neighboring countries, both are undergoing the same drought conditions, yet the Ethiopians are faring much better than the Somalis. Ethiopia has a stable central government that has implemented programs to assist drought victims. Somalia is in the midst of a civil war, with no stable central government, and no assistance for drought victims.  As a result many more Somalis are dying of drought related famine than are Ethiopians.

This brings to mind the Teabaggers and their penchant for destroying government. The Teabaggers and their financial patrons the Koch brothers, along with tax dodger Grover Norquist and others of that sort, would have us believe that the best government is no government at all. All government is bad.  Government does nothing correctly or well. The “free market” has all the answers. Norquist himself says he’d “drown government in the bathtub” if he could simply make it small enough to do so. The logical end to this sort of thinking brings us to such as is happening in Somalia right now. The well-off few thrive, the many perish, and that’s just how things are supposed to be. Which ain’t too bad if you happen to be one of the few. If you happen to be one of the many, however, chances are you’re pretty much gonna get covered in feces when the shit hits the fan.

I’m reminded of a slogan I saw some moths ago; “If you don’t like government move to Somalia.” Which really begs the question; with the current lack of government in such places as Somalia, why aren’t Norquist and the Koch’s fleeing the US to take up residence in Somalia right now? The free market reins supreme there. They’d fit right in I’m sure.

The downside to windstorms here are the extended power outages. The upside is the storm and it’s associated fifteen-to-twenty foot waves brought large chunks of coal to the beaches of Kachemak Bay. Ranging in size from the dimensions of a loaf of bread to a small toaster-oven or larger, these chunks of coal weigh twenty to forty pounds or so. They keep a fire in a woodstove all night long, and they’re a staple heat source in the area for many folks. We spent an hour at the beach at low tide this morning and gathered over five hundred pounds of the stuff, none of it smaller than the size of a person’s head.

The days are getting shorter; today we’ll have about six-and-a-half hours of sun above the horizon. The real upside to this time of year is the tourists are long gone and town is pretty quiet. Makes for a nice change from the busy-ness of summer.

We got six to eight inches of new snow over the last three or four days, the first substantial snowfall of the season. I spent yesterday afternoon plowing the yard and the mile of gravel road to the pavement.

This is probably the best the yard will look like until breakup in April, most likely. We’re losing an average of six minutes of sunlight a day now, and the winter solstice is still six weeks away or so. Time for Smartwool and ice cleats. A few more inches of white stuff and we’ll be able to ski out the back yard!

Waits is a gifted songwriter. But he really, REALLY ought to let someone else sing the tunes he writes. It’s painful to listen to him attempt to sing.

He’s just awful.