Jay Gaulard Blog

Follow-up to the Snow From Last Night

Monday, December 31st, 2007

As I mentioned in my previous post, it snowed last night. At about 10PM, I started hearing the sleet hitting the windows. I hate sleet, because it is so difficult to clean up in the morning. It turns into a sheet of semi-ice that’s a pain in the butt to get off the cars.

Anyway, I woke up to a nice layer of fluffy snow. Since it was kind of warm last night, a lot of it stuck to the trees. That always makes for a pretty view. I went out to clean off the cars and everything came off pretty easily. The snow was all melting around me. By the time I got to the mailbox, it was all turning to slush. That’s the kind of snow I don’t mind.

The Ice Has Turned into Harder Ice

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

I went outside last night to chisel out the cars. They were covered with ice. I got on all my old snowboarding gear…jacket, snowpants, mittens, etc… I was as warm as a bedbug on the floor of an overheating pickup truck.

I started up both cars and let them run for a good long time. I didn’t think I was going to get them uncovered. Then, I saw a little speck of water and I had hope. After a while, I had thawed both cars out completely. I had to use a pick ax to move the cars out of their initial parking spots. I was even sweating a little bit.

Today, I went outside to try to fix up the driveway a bit for the tile dude. He is going to need some space to work out there. He needs to cut some boards and mix some thinset. It should be interesting. I got a nice area cleared out down to the gravel. The sidewalk is still about three inches higher than normal, but I threw some driveway gravel on it for traction. It was pretty warm today, so some of the mess melted. The sun does a good job of hitting the dark gravel and melting whatever is around it. Tomorrow is supposed to be around 45 degrees, so the ice should melt even more.

I tried my old driving back and fourth along the driveway trick. It didn’t work out too well. I almost got stuck once and then the car just drove on top of the ice. That didn’t do too much good.

This afternoon, I had to run out to the store. I backed up all the way to the street. I made the mistake of stopping while half way out into the road. I gave it some gas and felt the car sink into the ice/snow. I had to get out of the car and bolt downstairs for that damn pick ax again. I got the car out quickly, but it would’ve been embarrassing to be “that guy” to the cars driving by. Luckily none did.

Ice on Trees - Photos

Tuesday, December 11th, 2007

I took some pretty cool photos this morning of all the ice on the trees. I heard that the midwest got hit hard. We didn’t get hit nearly as hard. Things are icy, but it is actually really nice outside. It is warming up fast, so you can hear all the ice falling from the trees out in the woods. It’s a really neat sound and very beautiful.

I was walking around outside this morning with my coffee. Just what I always wanted. About halfway through my little walk, I realized what I was doing…

A Little Bit of Ice and Moving Some Furniture

Monday, December 10th, 2007

We woke up this morning to a little bit of ice hugging the tree branches. Not too much in the way of bad roads, but a bunch of schools were closed, none the less. The cars were covered with a coating of ice that could’ve made this morning a real pain in the butt, but we didn’t have to go anywhere until around 10:30AM. It was all melting by that point.

In the late morning, Laura and I had to go move some furniture for a friend. That wasn’t too hard, because the stuff was pretty light. Also, I am quite strong. If you saw me with no shirt, you would know what I am talking about.

I am taking a few days off from the kitchen while the joint compound dries. I feel guilty.