• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

Arctic Blast in the USA

Outdated said:
Most countries in the world switched in the 60s and 70s, 1970 for us. There's only 3 countries in the world the don't use the metric system - Myanmar, Equatorial Guinnea, and the US.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the US was supposed to convert to metric decades ago. Everyone ignored the government. Most, if not all, food products sold here have both imperial and metric weights and measures listed on the packaging.

Years ago, my brother worked for Toyota as an engineer. One of his first mistakes was to order some piece of plastic or plexiglass he needed for a project, expecting it to be about 3 feet in size. Instead, it was about 3 inches because he messed up his metric calculations. He said he just acted cool, like it was exactly what he wanted, when it was delivered to him. :cool:
 
Mary Terry said:
Yeah, the US was supposed to convert to metric decades ago. Everyone ignored the government. Most, if not all, food products sold here have both imperial and metric weights and measures listed on the packaging.

Years ago, my brother worked for Toyota as an engineer. One of his first mistakes was to order some piece of plastic or plexiglass he needed for a project, expecting it to be about 3 feet in size. Instead, it was about 3 inches because he messed up his metric calculations. He said he just acted cool, like it was exactly what he wanted, when it was delivered to him. :cool:
Click to expand...

It is amusing at times to see our military using the metric system in part, but not quite in whole.

I'm taking advantage of Linux, always having the local temperature displayed both in Fahrenheit and Celsius. Though I challenge anyone who can maintain an internet source citing local temperatures quite accurately...lol. Oh well. Right now it's about four degrees off.

- 46F, 8C.
 
My dad worked as a welder for a wind shield glass form manufacturer production manager made similar mistake got fired. Japanese cars.
 
Judge said:
It is amusing at times to see our military using the metric system in part, but not quite in whole.

I'm taking advantage of Linux, always having the local temperature displayed both in Fahrenheit and Celsius. Though I challenge anyone who can maintain an internet source citing local temperatures quire accurately...lol. Oh well. Right now it's about four degrees off.

- 46F, 8C.
Click to expand...

I have an outdoor thermometer outside the kitchen window. It's probably more accurate than the generalized info on the local weather channels. It's accurate for the south side of our house!
 
Mary Terry said:
I have an outdoor thermometer outside the kitchen window. It's probably more accurate than the generalized info on the local weather channels. It's accurate for the south side of our house!
Click to expand...
I use one with an outdoor sensor that uses wireless technology to record the results on an LCD. Sits on the north side of my apartment, as it's the only side with a balcony where I can attach the sensor to a wall.

Yet in the past I had the sensor on the opposite end of my balcony which I believe gave less than accurate readings as it was too much exposed to the sun. Though the balcony is covered, so I do get a bit less of a reading anyways.

But here the diversity of micro-climates is amazing....so generic weather forecasts are inherently a bit off wherever you go here.
 
Ronald Zeeman said:
My dad worked as a welder for a wind shield glass form manufacturer production manager made similar mistake got fired. Japanese cars.
Click to expand...

My brother worked for Toyota for many years and eventually retired from the company. He said his worst nightmare was when he was sent to Japan for training right after he was hired. He couldn't stand most of the food, the social customs were so different from Americans, and the high-density crowds of people made him want to flee to his hotel room every night. He did bring me a lovely tea service from Japan as a souvenir that I love to this day.
 
Kitsuna said:
Lows are going dip to -3 C where I Iive in a couple days. Makes me think of getting some firewood and lighting my fireplace for the first time in a while.
Click to expand...
Are you using metric firewood?
 
I own up to putting my foot in my mouth. It was dumb of me to jump in like I did. Today’s been a ‘live and learn’ kind of day for me. Sorry guys.
 
In the Northeast, the temperatures are about where they've been the rest of the winter, so no surprises here.

My parents live in Oklahoma, though and I saw that yesterday afternoon their temperatures dropped into the single digits! Very cold for down there.
 
It's pretty crazy here in Kentucky when we got light snow and colder temperatures just after we had another flood last weekend. And it's gonna warm back up in a few days just in time for March.

That's bipolar weather in Kentucky for ya, lol.
 
This winter gave me the most snow since the winter of 2013-2014. And the most since I’ve lived in this house. Gaylord, which is maybe 25 miles away, broke their snowfall record. I had 2-3 feet on the ground, and snowbanks were like 5 feet high. I had 2 feet on the garage roof, and had to take action because it was straining the roof supports.

Northern Lower Michigan snow 2024-2025

It’s just a spring tease right now. It’s not over. I’ve had 2 feet on the first day of spring. I’ve had several Mother’s Day snowstorms. It gets a little warm and then Lake Michigan dumps it back as lake effect.

Even with all the rain we have had lately, I still have a solid foot of snow in the yard, and much taller snowbanks.

One thing that’s nice we haven’t had temps too much below zero F in the last few years. Makes my pellet supply last longer. In the past it wasn’t unusual to get -20F in January/February, even at this house. I had -30F or lower several years at the old house. But to be fair it was another 15 miles inland too.
 
This January was the first month in 23 when I didn't ride my bike outside. The two days that were warm enough were too windy for the gear range on my bike. I used to have five months off, and was amazed to get it down to three in '21. March came in with a severe thaw that put a thick crust on the snow that survived. Mud season is still some time away, but it looks like the flooding won't be bad.
 
Sure enough, nice snowstorm for the first day of spring. Watched a tree fall behind my house this morning after I heard it crack. Saw a truck sideways in the ditch on the way to work. A lot of people were late today.

The sky cleared and the sun came out for a little while this afternoon. This is looking out the window of my office. Had to take a picture before the clouds came back.

3 out of the next 10 days show snow in the forecast and every day has a high of 30s. Lake Michigan is still frozen as far out as I can see. Winter isn’t leaving anytime soon.

IMG_2827 2.webp
 
Last edited:
tlc said:
Sure enough, nice snowstorm for the first day of spring. Watched a tree fall behind my house this morning after I heard it crack. Saw a truck sideways in the ditch on the way to work. A lot of people were late today.

The sky cleared and the sun came out for a little while this afternoon. This is looking out the window of my office. Had to take a picture before the clouds came back.

3 out of the next 10 days show snow in the forecast and every day has a high of 30s. Lake Michigan is still frozen as far out as I can see. Winter isn’t leaving anytime soon.

View attachment 141184
Click to expand...
Wow! I'm a bit south east of the bridge at Thunder Bay. We got sudden bitter cold and wind, but the snow was just a diamond scatter on dirt.
 
How is everyone doing who is affected by this ice storm? I haven’t been off my property since Friday, but I’m being told it’s something like apocalyptic conditions out there. My work has no power, but they won’t officially close because then they would have to pay people. I would rather not wait around by my phone all day to know what I’m supposed to be doing.

I haven’t had power since Saturday. Been told it might take 2 weeks to get it back, with the amount of destruction that’s happened. I’ve got enough in my propane tank for a week to run my generator, but I may have to get creative after that. I would just run it on manual and periodically, but the sump pump to keep the basement dry is running every 5 minutes.

A coworker who lives 1/4 mile from a gas station is having to drive 30 miles one way to get gas for his generator. Till that station runs out.
 
No work today. Still no power here, there, or most places around me. Still whole towns out, so mine won’t be back anytime soon. At least work finally stepped up and said don’t come in until further notice.

So today I cranked the freezer to full cold, pellet stove to full hot, charged up all my power blocks, and raised whatever was left in the basement. Turns out I already had water coming in from the other side. Filled every water container I could find. Then shut down the generator to save fuel.

Good thing I did that. The generator had blown the dipstick loose and the whole thing was covered in oil. What was left didn’t even show on the dipstick. Added oil, found an o-ring to stuff in it and hopefully it seals better. Had I just kept blindly running it I’d have eventually seized the engine. Last thing I need right now. Well actually a tree falling on the house would be worse, which could happen too. We got more storm coming tomorrow. Meanwhile I cut up and moved the tree that was blocking the driveway.

And after maybe a few more hours I’ll turn it back on. It’s still low 60s in here which is fine. The sun came out today so I took full advantage of any solar gains I could get.

I definitely know what my next investment will be. Battery backup unit(s) for the pellet stove, sump pump, and freezer. That way I can keep those things running while only running the generator long enough to charge the unit(s). Right now most of the capacity (therefore fuel) to run this 8kw unit is going to waste just keeping it running.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New Threads

Top Bottom