Why do you need snow tires?

I live in a place where it actually snows somewhat regularly during the winter, and where world-class ski resorts are a half-day drive away. Yet, almost no one has snow tires on their cars or trucks. But, I was up in Portland last week, and everyone had snow tires. Why?

Cancel Fat Camp for the Weather?

This was The Mrs.'s brilliant idea tonight. There's a winter storm watch in effect. I'm wondering if I should take the mower deck off the tractor and put the blower back on. That'd take about a half hour, I think. I may do it preemptively tonight so I don't have to deal with it when I get back from Fat Camp.

What Terrible Weather

It's April, and it's snowing. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the snow. In fact, I was just reading an abstract of "Simulation of Spacial Variability in Snow and Frozen Soil," and I came across this passage:

"Simulations of the Minnesota River show that the new snow algorithm makes little difference to regional streamflow but does play an important role in the regional energy balance, especially during the spring snowmelt season."

I sat back and said to myself, "Self, this right now is the spring snowmelt season. SnowMELT, not snow. Why in the hell is it snowing." Then, for some reason, I thought about going fishing.

Then I thought about my house. In particular, I thought about how this morning, I looked out the window and thought to myself, "Self, it kinda looks like it's snowing, but it's really hard to tell for sure if it's snow or a light drizzle." But then I went upstairs and looked out the window from there, and I could see the top of the kids' plastic playhouse on the deck, and it had a small amount of accumulation on it.

Aha! Snow!

But, if I hadn't had a two story house, and if the kids hadn't had an outside big plastic playhouse (in addition to the inside one and the outside wooden "fort" house on the swingset), I would have had to go outside in the freezing cold weather to really be sure whether it was snowing or not. So, in this case, I think these two houses (my full-sized real house and The Children's plastic play house) were both assets in that they prevented me from having to freeze my assets off.

In the new deck remodel, I don't think we'll have room for the big plastic playhouse anymore, as I believe either the outdoor kitchen or the "serenity spot" is slated to go there. I'll probably have to sell that plastic house. We got it for free, so really anything I get for it would be a profit. Probably, we'll end up either giving it away or taking it to the dump, where it will cost me $15 to dispose of. Not a very good money-maker, this plastic house asset. You really have to factor in the costs of disposal before you start cha-chinging the value of all your plastic play houses.

Or, I could cut it up with my Sawzall and dispose of it a little at a time in the household garbage. That would have no incremental cost. It's a process I like to call "garbage cost averaging" whereby some weeks I can have more than 64 gallons of garbage, and I can save that excess to dispose of on weeks when I have less than 64 gallons, since I am required to pay for 64 gallons of garbage whether I fill the bin or not.

See, when it comes to proper disposal of assets, if you spend a little time thinking about it, you can usually find a way to do it that doesn't cost too much.

An important lesson.

Spring is in the air

I saw a baby bunny in the yard last night. It ran under the deck where the other bunnies live. They must have had babies. Too bad they'll all die when we replace the deck.

29.7

That was the temperature when I got up. It was almost 50 when I went to bed. Doesn't that just beat all?

Getting Colder

A cold front is supposed to move in to town tomorrow. It's a good thing I mowed the lawn already.

I wonder when I should turn on the sprinklers. Guess wrong, and I could freeze the pipes.

Grass-Growin' Weather

I mowed the front lawn today. I didn't mow the back because there was too much dog poop.