BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: GUEST,ib48
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 11:42 AM

oh dear,reached puberty have we

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Scrump
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 09:02 AM

Blimey, is this thread still going? The snow's all long gone round here!

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: MMario
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 08:34 AM

the wierd thing is that the region that is getting so much snow the last week in upstate NY is still at only 65% or so of their normal snowfall - they just are getting it all at once this year.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: JennyO
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 08:01 AM

And we walked twenty miles to the schoolhouse
Barefoot, uphill both ways,
Through blizzards in summer and winter
Back in the good old days.
Back when Fortran was not even Three-tran
And the PC was only a toy
And we did our computing by gaslight
When I was a boy.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 03:39 AM

Luxury, bloody luxury. When I were a kid we were so poor we had to mak us orn snor. And then crawl on us'ands an nees to school in it.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Peace
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 12:42 AM

Well, when I was a youngster, we walked twenty-three miles to school each day regardless what the weather was like. And twenty-three miles back. Uphill. BOTH WAYS!

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Wordsmith
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 12:30 AM

I guess we should all be thankful we don't live in Redfield, NY which, thanks to the lake effect snow from Lake Ontario, received, unofficially, 11 feet of snow this past week alone. Google or Yahoo will confirm this. This is heavy even for them. They're in the snowbelt between Parish, which is just above Syracuse, and Ellisburg, NY.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Bonecruncher
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 09:18 PM

I rather resent the comment by Ebbie that my earlier comments about a ten-mile walk to work are hyperbole! In effect I am being called a liar!
From Ashurst (Hampshire) on the edge of the New Forest, along the A35 to the centre of Southampton is ten miles. Measure it!
Others who also walked in were from Lyndhurst, Wellow and Brockenhurst, all villages many miles outside Southampton, while those living in the town "couldn't make it". Names could be provided if required.
While Noreen might live 18 miles from her place of work, the probability is that she took a job so far away from her home "because" she has the availability of a car. If she did not rely on a car she would have had to consider either a job nearer home or moving home closer to her job!
Remember, it is only in the last few years that most of us have had a car upon which to rely, prior to which the question of facility of travel to work was paramount.
BTW, I regularly walked home from Southampton late at night due to missing the last bus, because I had ensured that I had seen my "date" home safely. No gentleman would have considered just putting the lady on a bus while he caught another!

Colyn.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Anne Lister
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 01:47 PM

I like Bonecruncher's idea of loyalty to one's employers. Trouble is, these days as a folk musician and a storyteller I don't have just one employer and my work takes me all over the country. Yes, there are people who do, and who could walk there, just as there are many children who could (and probably should) walk to school. But not everyone can. There are also people with health problems for whom a long walk in snowy conditions would not be a healthy option (I'm an asthmatic, and even walking back from town is a dodgy proposition as it involves a very long steep hill).
For some of us having a green consciousness is not enough. Improve public transport and that would be a move in the right direction!

Anne

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 11:44 AM

Ah, well. This problem will soon be solved when transporters become universally available. We can pretty much do away with our cars then, except for a bit of recreational driving. We'll just step into the home cubicle, enter our destination, and beam over.

I've been talking to Bill Shatner about it. He says it's not far off. Maybe by 2018...

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Noreen
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 08:17 AM

I agree Ebbie.

I work 18 miles from where I live- I know it's neither ideal nor sustainable, but it serves its purpose at the moment. It would take me a good 6 hours to walk that distance through snow, without breaks, and I would be in no fit state to do a day's work after that, never mind walk home again afterwards, have 4 hours sleep before doing the same again...

These days we do rely on the car to allow us to live the way we do. Without my car I wouldn't have been able to take my present job.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 03:26 AM

After the she-devil, Thatcher, employer loyalty to the workforce is regarded as "inefficient".

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 02:48 AM

Sense of loyalty to one's workplace? I think the corporation's loyalty dissipated *first*.

I remember an uncle of mine worked for 35 years at a Michigan foundry. A generation after my uncle began, my brother started working there- he received the same amount per hour as my uncle did.

As for this kind of behavior: "The day after Boxing Day, still snowing, many people walked 10 miles to work and then another 10 miles home that evening..." I think it's insane.

Have you tried slogging through snow? I have. I used to do a lot of hiking in the mountains in the wintertime. I enjoyed it; I even enjoyed the exhaustion at the end of the day.

Slogging through snow takes a LOT more time than walking on bare ground. Even if you're a pretty good walker, averaging 6 miles an hour, walking in snow is going to take you more than twice as long.

So, in walking 10 miles to work and 10 miles back, the trek alone is going to use up at least six hours of your day; plus once you are there and giving them 6 or 8 hours at work...?

I suspect that statement is hyperbolic.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Amergin
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 11:19 PM

I guess god and his angels were having a wild coke party....until Gabriel that git sneezed all over the heavenly mirror spereading the powder all over the earth.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Peace
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 10:27 PM

There is no 'sense of loyalty' to one's work anymore. (I realize that's a broad, blanket statement.) Hasn't been for decades. If you DO feel a sense of loyalty to your employer and your employer to you, hang onto that job because you ain't gonna find a better one.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 09:30 PM

No. They've lost their loyalty to walking! This is specially true in North America, the land of the automobile. In the USA, walking longer distances is now becoming so unusual that it arouses suspicion on the part of police officers and residents. They suspect you must be some kind of criminal or vagrant if you aren't driving!

And I kid you not. ;-) Many people have been stopped and questioned by police here and there, simply because they were walking, not driving.

I like to go for walks. One night I was walking in my own area, not far from home, and I got stopped and questioned for some time by a police officer who came driving by. He eventually decided I was okay, but he advised me that walking around at night was odd behaviour. (He clearly thought that I should be sitting at home in front of the TV like a good citizen.)

I thought his behaviour was a bit odd too... ;-)

We now have drive-in restaurants, drive-in banks, and all kinds of other such facilities...specially designed for people who cannot bear to get out of their seat even to go and eat a meal or make a bank deposit! They want to "save time". Ha! I laugh at them.

I keep wondering when drive-in urinals will be provided in North America for the "man on the go". The guy whose time is WAY too valuable to leave his car and find a public washroom or (*shudder*) walk somewhere. You pay 25 cents and the machine extends a rubber vacuum hose. You pull the hose in through the car window, unzip, plug in, and do your thing, all in the privacy of a small drive-in stall which encloses you and the car from public view. I think this could be quite a popular service if they could just figure out how to sanitize the receptacle after each user is done.

Maybe people could carry their own receptacle, available from WalMart for a mere $35, and plug it onto the hose nozzle! Wow.

I gotta talk to the marketing guys about this one...

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Bonecruncher
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 09:09 PM

So, if people live further away from their place of work then they make themselves extra time to walk. Quite simple, really, if one thinks about it!
In 1961/2 the whole country had over one foot of snow on Boxing Day, which lasted for several weeks. The day after Boxing Day, still snowing, many people walked 10 miles to work and then another 10 miles home that evening. The workers who were late for work or "couldn't get there" all lived close to their employment!
By the following day many major roads were "passable" if one could negotiate the frozen ruts 12 inches high.
The snow was eventually cleared with bulldozers and diggers, the ice often being dumped on river banks to eventually melt, but that was several weeks later.
Strangely, the schools and shops, offices etc. still operated.
Have people today lost their sense of loyalty to their work?
Colyn.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 09:08 PM

The question is, will it kill you before the doctors do...

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Joe_F
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 08:56 PM

The doctors say it'll kill you, but they don't say when.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:25 PM

It's hell on chimps too. Don't forget that. Us primates are jungle creatures, made for warm weather. We got short legs too, and we ain't made for sloggin' through snow and slush on our way to work. I keep thinkin' I should do like Philip Marlowe done and take up private eyein' down in southern California instead.

- Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Noreen
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 05:57 AM

It's not just the children getting to school, as as has been said above they can usually walk as they are close to school.

Teachers however often live much further away from their place of work and if there are no staff, or not enough staff, able to get in to supervise the little darlings, it is better to leave the children in the care of their parents.

It took me 3 hours to get home last evening. Rain had been forecast but it turned to snow- and we're not used to coping with snow in Worcestershire! The journey which normally takes 45 minutes was pretty unpleasant and I was so glad to get home and safe.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: nutty
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 03:34 AM

i could understand all the panic if this is what we had got

New York Snow Pics

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Peace
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 12:38 AM

"Just put one foot in front of the other and lose your balance in a forward direction."

FORWARD? Now you say that. Sheesh . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Bonecruncher
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 08:46 PM

So what is wrong with walking to work or to school?
Walking is usually an action learned in the first two years of life.
Just put one foot in front of the other and lose your balance in a forward direction. The other foot will automatically propel itself forward, so each step is a stumble caught in time.

Colyn.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: gnu
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 04:20 PM

We have a bit on the ground. maybe two feet. Essentially, it has been -20's at night and up to -12 in the day.... too cold to snow. Nice clear skies.

I like it!

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 04:16 PM

It's got to the top of the doormat already.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 04:15 PM

I don't think I can carry on much longer. For God's sake take care of our people.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: folk1e
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 04:09 PM

Well work just called me up to see if I could go in tomorrow because of the weather!
Damn fine show!
And there is no snow here in sunny Manchester!

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 03:40 PM

I'd rather that my kids stayed home that day than end up stuck at school if conditions got a lot worse. Think about it--having to spend the night or more time in a place where there are no amenities for such.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Anne Lister
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 11:33 AM

Having worked in schools where the children don't all show up if it's raining, I think we need to toughen up generally! In the case of schools immediately round here, I can see why they're closed, as we're on steep hills and there's ice under the snow. Schools on the flat ground near main roads, however - that's another question entirely. It's sometimes a question of whether staff can get in, and when I braved a trip to the shops yesterday (dealing with the hills, just about) I noticed how many smaller shops were actually closed, and none of the local bus services were running either. So it may be more than just a question of whether parents can get their kids in.
My big question at the moment is how my husband is going to get home. Last phone call from the M50 in Gloucestershire, where they were travelling at 6 mph. And he hasn't even seen the state of our hill yet - may have to leave the car at the bottom.

Anne
in the deep snows of Pontypool

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: MMario
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 11:26 AM

not that rare an event in the Lake Effect belt; newscasters are making it sound horrendous, but that area gets snows like that every couple of years - I believe the schools up that way onl closed 1 day.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Scrump
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 11:25 AM

Are we teaching our children to give up and go home at the first sign of bad weather? What a wonderful life lesson for them. Or perhaps it's the litigation culture that we now seem to live in that rules!

I thought that yesterday when the kids were playing out in the snow outside my house (not my kids, the neighbours'). These weren't the little kids, but teenagers, who spent most of the day throwing snowballs at each other (and incidentally distracting me from my work, as the occasional one hit my window). If they were able to do that, I would have thought they'd be able to go to school.

But as others have said, I suspect the litigation culture you mention is to blame. If a kid should slip over on a snowy school playground, imagine what the parents would do to the school.

Now in my day, we used to be sent out to play football (soccer, to US readers) in blizzard conditions. And we weren't allowed to wear any extra layers of clothing, just our usual shorts and shirts. When we cam back in it would take us half an hour to thaw out before we could get changed back into our normal clothes. And I'm not exaggerating a la Python's Yorkshiremen sketch, either - it's all true.

It was character forming I tell you!

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: bobad
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 11:22 AM

Around the Great Lakes snowfall is measured in FEET not inches!

More than 7' of snow in parts of Oswego County
Updated: 2/8/2007 10:45 PM
By: News 10 Now Staff

                
Severe lake effect has left Oswego County under a state of emergency. There is more than 7 feet of snow in some places. Some areas have picked up as much as two feet of fresh snow. After a brief pause in the storm that lake effect band will shift back and hit the county all over again. It is expected to dump another one to two feet of snow overnight.

Pics in the photo gallery

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: SussexCarole
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 11:09 AM

Just got ome from work - it took 4 hours for a normal half hour journey! Trouble was that they decided to shut the schools at midday!   The whole of Swansea was gridlocked with parents trying to pick up their children. It was bedlam.

Are we teaching our children to give up and go home at the first sign of bad weather? What a wonderful life lesson for them. Or perhaps it's the litigation culture that we now seem to live in that rules!

Once onto the wilds of Gower the journey was far easier. Tractors had cleared a path through the roads and there were farmers giving a helping hand on steep hills. I'm now listening to people sledging on Rhosilli Down. As we're on a penninsular snow is quite rare here - the views are stunning....grrrrrr.....and the batteries have run out in my camera!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Scrump
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 09:26 AM

The same to you, Wilfried! :D

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 08:58 AM

avine excrements?

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Bonecruncher
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 10:57 PM

Of course they shut the schools.
It's Helf and Safetee, you know.
After all, we can't have one of the little bra..., sorry, children, falling over and getting cold.
They might sue us!

Colyn.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 07:49 PM

I don't understand why in my borough, the council shut the secondary schools where mostly the big, 12-17yr olds get in under their own steam (bus usually, which was running as normal) but kept open the primary schools (4-11yr olds) who are mostly driven in by a parent or are so little a good puddle comes over their heads?!

It's mostly gone now... just some sad little piles left that once were snowmen.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 05:30 PM

You don't want chains unless you have to - top whack 20 mph and risk of damaging wheelarches/underneath generally.

NBG on front wheel drive too.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: gnomad
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 05:09 PM

About this time last year I met by chance in a pub an acquaintance who had just arrived in town from W Yorks (around 70 miles). He was looking shaken, having been driven here through snow by his Canadian wife.

Her reaction to driving in about 3 inches of new-fallen snow over the Yorkshire moors was "Whee, lets have some fun!!!...What's up with all these people,... don't they know how to drive in snow?" And of course she had nailed it exactly, no they didn't.

Most people here don't know; I don't myself, to be honest, because we seldom get the practice. In most parts it would be impractical to fit snow tyres for the few days they might be justified, and even chains are seen as "Specialised equipment, Mate, we don't get the call for it."

A few years ago I was heading back to Murren (Switzerland) from a day skiing, but found the railway closed, engulfed by an avalanche. A porter told me how to get home via a bus & cable-car, no problem. Here a railway blocked this way would be at least local, maybe national, news, and would be re-opened within 6 months. There it was routine, and re-opened before breakfast next day.

We just don't equip ourselves, not physically, not organisationally (is that a real word) and above all not mentally. Come global warming, when the Gulf Stream switches off and the UK suddenly gets a climate to match its latitude we are going to have such a re-education.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 04:22 PM

It said on the TV news that more than 2000 schools had closed because the parents could not get to school with their children . BUT----Most parents now have got 4-wheel drive,Jeeps Cherokee, or whatever,OSTENSIBLY to overcome that very problem !! So what went wrong?? And yes,it did snow a lot here in Surrey !!

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Schantieman
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 03:22 PM

Lovely photo of the house Daylia.

Phot - how do you manage to get e-mail to the outside world from work? Whenever I try and get anything in to them or out from them they say it can't be done!

Just a dusting here N of L'pool by 0700. Kids went mad of course. Sleet all day; now ceased. Hoping for some in the Solent next week. Better than last week's fog, anyway.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 02:38 PM

If there was any more flippin' snow here I would not be able to open the flippin' front DOOR! Jeezus H, gimme a flippin' brake, eh? I'm gettin' scared that the beer trucks won't be able to make there deliveries to the Brewers Retail no more if it gets worse than this. We will all die cold and thirsty, trapped in our homes!

- Shane

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 02:33 PM

Easy to go just as fast on snow. Stopping and steering are harder though!

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 02:25 PM

We had about a millimetre here today. Just enough to get the kids high as kites and then really fed up when it had all melted by playtime!

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 11:08 AM

I absolutely love snow and absolutely hate slush; we just haven't had enough snow in Yorkshire.

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Scrump
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 10:47 AM

Well, it's stopped here. Dunno if it will still be there tomorrow (I was hoping it was, because I would like to work at home tomorrow too).

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 10:18 AM

The U.S. has comparable north/south snow experiences. I live in North Texas now, and the most snow I've seen here over the last 20 years is about six inches, and that is extremely rare. Usually every couple of years we get an ice storm or enough snow that the kids get a snow day. When snow is that uncommon municipalities aren't heavily invested in snow removal or treatment equipment, so they accommodate it as best they can with gravel trucks sprinkling sand and crossing their fingers that folks stay home or drive slow. But even having grown up in Northwestern Washington state I remember plenty of years when the first big snow of the season caught drivers by surprise and those who forgot to slow down sufficiently were the ones being pulled out of the ditches. It usually settled down to a slow drive pattern for the rest of the winter season. There are so many from out-of-state living there now that I don't know if it is still the same. Here in Texas, when confronted with those conditions I know how to drive on ice and snow but prefer not to, because I'm afraid I'll be hit by a clueless local driver.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: Anne Lister
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 10:09 AM

What I enjoy, now that I've been to Canada and Russia, is Brits who say "no, it's too cold to snow".   This is when it's maybe ...ooh... three degrees below freezing?

Anne

Subject: RE: BS: Agh! What's all this white stuff?
From: *daylia*
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 09:40 AM

oh no ..... dropped my shovel ......