Cup of Coffee

January 30, 2019: Batten Down The Hatches

43 Comments

Two questions for today:

!) What precautions have you taken/had to take to secure your domicile (and/or perhaps yourself) from the cold?

@) Hopefully now that the first part has been taken care of, what are your plans for the rest of the day?

43 thoughts on “January 30, 2019: Batten Down The Hatches”

  1. Call off, Citizens -- are we surviving? -15° here in Omaha this morning.

    I noticed that there was a bit of air coming in on the sides of my office windows a couple days ago, and on a whim I used some mailing tape and taped along the seams. Son of a gun, it made a noticeable difference. Did a couple other rooms as well.

    Today I'm stuck in all-day Agile quarterly planning meetings, thanks for bringing it up. Blah.

    1. Fortunately, I don't have the TDI anymore, so while the starter struggled some, my car fired up on the first try. I got a pretty good workout for the first half of my drive while the clutch fluid warmed up, though.

    2. Bank said -23 as I drove the three blocks to work today. I guess driving the three blocks was my precaution. I'll go start up the car in a few hours and drive around for a little bit to make sure it keeps running, as letting it sit out there all day probably won't be a good idea.

      Lots of hot coffee and working on puzzles has been my other go-to when things have been cold this winter.

  2. -19 here. Precautions? I wore my big parka, mittens, and a stocking cap. That's about it.

    We called off a lot of church activities, but I intend to be working as usual. My dad used to go out and feed cattle on a morning like this. No heated cab on the tractor--no cab at all, in fact. There were no such things as schools or businesses closing because it was too cold. I'm trying to decide if we've gotten smarter or weaker.

    1. Little bit of both I think.

      These temperatures aren't quite as common as in the past so we've lost some collective knowledge of how to survive them. But, how many people were injured or even died because they had to go outside back in the old days? I bet things were more likely to be unofficially closed and it just didn't get recorded.

      1. The predictive ability makes a big difference, and takes away any room for authorities to put people at risk. I think we could also argue the potential "places to go" and/or expectation to show up for dance practice every night is a bit more prevalent now, too.

    2. I think it is smarter, less flippant of the risks, and also the world has changed. More parents working means more kids with no option but to walk. (I have no stats on actual number of walkers on average - guessing there are fewer today.)

      Our superintendent did a good job of explaining his thought process in the local newspaper.

    3. And to clarify, I do not mean to be critical of any school officials who called off school today. I would probably be much more cautious about it than a lot of them are. But times have definitely changed.

  3. -30 in Alex with a -58 windchill. All is fine at the house, but came in early for a meeting at the beer and burger joint to find both dining area rooftop units not working. Kitchen heat is, so still maintaining 63 degrees until repair guys get here. Walk in Freezer just got fixed as it was down when I got here. Fun stuff! Oh... and I had to cancel cribbage leagues for Tuesday and Wednesday. Bummer.

    1. Well, had to close the joint early today at 4. When half your staff cant start their cars to get to work, its just getting too scary to make the other half come in and risk the same.

      On another note: I love living in a time where my golf rain pants not only do the job on a rainy summer day (keeping me warm or cool enough), but also when worn over my dress pants, keeps me warm on a -30 degree day.

    1. When the Sixers played the Spurs, Sixers Coach Brett Brown said Pops was the best NBA coach ever. Pops responded "He's so full of s***. That's why I got rid of him. He's a kiss-a**."

  8. It's currently -20 after an overnight low of -26 and the wife and daughter are home with work cancelled. Despite having a brand new battery, the van hasn't started yet after two tries. I've got the charger on the battery and will try again in a couple of hours. I had the furnace serviced early last week when it didn't want to light, they put in a new electronic control unit and cleaned up the flame sensor and it's been working fine since. Yesterday I put up 3M window kits in the basement on all of the north and west facing walls and blocked the draft from the fireplace with duct tape.

  9. The little one is sick with all sorts of fluid in her lungs (neither flu nor pneumonia according to the pediatrician yesterday, thankfully), so I'm spending my cold day at home dealing with an infant who refuses to eat or drink anything because she's sick and who throws up on me whenever there or actually something in her. Fun times. On the bright side, it means I get to claim today as a sick day.

  10. Huge company, so naturally we’re open despite the fact that we’re bleeding money just through labor and operating costs.

    I have a special loathing for the two customers who dragged their kids out of the house so they could lazily wander the store.

    1. I don't think you have the kinds of kids who are painful to be cooped up with all day...

  11. Everyone is pretty much in agreement who the Twins' top 3 prospects are. Graterol has a wide range of how high he is ranked, which makes me think he has high potential but still hard to predict odds of him fulfilling it.

    1. Graterol - the revolutionary grape-fruit based laxative that we need so desperately.

        2. **Removes safety goggles**

          Chemistry Nerdery SelectShow

          **Puts safety goggles back on**

  12. Wow - we just got hit with a Snow Squall in H'istan. I had to go look up what was happening. It's like blizzard meets snowzilla. Luckily I just finished shoveling the walks from this mornings snowfall and got down salt on the driveway.

    1. It still amazes me that it was less than 6 years between The Beatles appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show and this rooftop concert.

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