Message board topic:

Was it ever COLD here then snow! Last week we were in the midst of a serious artic blast. Day highers were no warmer than 20 below and then last weekend Saturday our day high was (sounding to nearest 10) -40 and that is NOT windchill. The sustained -30 below for days before destroyed my SUV. Killed the battery, froze the air conditioner compressor (I had no idea there was a green fluid in it) that caused it to expand and crack it, cracked the starter too. I did have some work on a leak i was having done that was like $800 and the apt was Monday this week, but the added damage made my repair take 5 days and close to $3k. I am not a happy driver right now. After a week trapped in the house, I finally got it back last night and I need to do a munch of shopping after work today. Then we got snow 2 times and about 8 inches 2 nights ago. I think I prefer snow over -40. Since my suv was nonfunctional since last Wednesday on the weekend, I was unable to go to mass, so I wated it online. Father Marc on Sunday said starting his homily that he returned from a retreat Saturday and it was -39f at the Cathedral. He then went on to note that the holy water basin (big enough for babies) at the front has started to freeze over. At the end of the mass he invided everyone to go touch the holy ice in the fonts. Funny. I'll put up a link at the end of this message to where he starts the homily and notes the temp and ice. You can hear it within 30 seconds of the video start. Between last weekend and being so sick in December I made only 1 mass over the last month. Happy winter everyone! And Peggy, I hear you got snow and it was cold there also. How are you holding up?

Tim, how are you? How is there weather in your area? I hope you are well and warm!

John, how is Cheri? Does the email on your account work? Was gunna send you an email but I'll wait till I know it works, or you can send me one so I know it if that is alright.

 

Here is the video link:Father Marc

Wow, I've never heard of the cold doing that to a car, but then I've never lived at -40.  I think maybe -20 is the coldest I've ever seen it.  I know it's hard on batteries but I've never heard of it cracking a starter or exploding an air conditioner.  I do have a friend, (a chess teacher) over in Idaho who runs a snow plow and he's been crazy busy, but that also means he stays in and cranks out the chess videos.

Down here it's been way colder than usual, bouncing around and below zero for a long time.  It's been snowing a lot, though not accumulating to more than a few inches.  School was out a lot of days because of slick roads.  I'm not a sports follower but last week the Kansas City Chiefs played the coldest game in their history at -4.

I still have to get out once in a while and I'm playing tomorrow night, but that flu or whatever it was really had a bad effect on me.  My skin looks all dehydrated.  I went weeks eating almost nothing and some days nothing at all, and I was sleeping 12 hours a day.  My appetite and energy are very slowly coming back.  My cough and my throat are better but my sinuses are still giving me fits.  If I've ever felt worse, I don't remember.

Cheri is a little up and down but hasn't been so bad since she got out of the hospital the day after New Year's.  She's sleeping a lot.  She's been sick too but it doesn't seem to have effected her the way it did me.

I doubt if my Email is the same and as I mentioned, I almost never check it.  Would a text be better?  I rarely check texts either but I do a lot more often than Email.  John

Do you ever use skype John? 

I never have but I'm sure I could.  John

I played down on the Lake again Saturday night.  Last week was so cold with the wind blowing in off the Lake I could hardly play.  This week it was actually pretty comfortable until the last hour or so when it actually got kind of hot!  It was an early gig so I had to leave the house by 1:00 PM and got back about 10:30.  That meant though that I got practically nothing done that day.  I missed my push-ups, Piggy's breakfast, doing the dishes, the litter box, or anything else, though I did feed Van Gogh and got Piggy's supper.  The unload and load up were a little challenging.  It's kind of a long haul across a wooden deck and there are steps, which make carrying some of the heavier stuff a serious chore.  A lot of people were extremely nice though and had some very nice things to say, which makes you feel like it might be worth all the work after all.

I've been keeping up my chess, though I didn't play Saturday night.  I almost always miss it when I have to play.  I had a 7 game winning streak going but I blew that last night.

My latest problem has been that I have trouble getting to sleep.  Last night I lay there for 3 hours before I finally just got back up.  When I just stay up I get really tired in the afternoon, but then I've got too much to do to get any rest.  Then I get a second wind and at 3:00 AM I'm still wide awake.  I think I'm just worrying about too many things.

This week will be a little extra crazy.  The grandson's car is broke down so he has to be taken to an orthodontist about 60 miles away.  I have to take Cheri to the hospital about 80 miles away, where we have no idea what they're going to do to her.  At the same time the younger grandson and granddaughter have second and fourth grade graduations and I just don't know if we'll make it back in time for that.  Then I play over by Kansas City over the weekend.

I feel so sorry for Cheri.  She has so much to worry about and she still does so much to keep everything together, like dealing with insurance for the grandkids, (a nightmare in itself) doing almost all the shopping, running her kids around, paying the online bills, then she has surgery in about 10 days.  I wish I could do more to give her some relief but she takes a lot of it on herself.  I help with a few medical chores and try to keep the house up and the animals going and keeping some cash coming in.  It just seems like so little for what she's up against.  She does get a lot of sleep but I don't know how.  John