Total Snow Accumulation – Ottawa Airport Nov 2007-March XX 27, 2008

Go here for the 2008-2009 Data

**Check the post for April 12 – Environment Canada updated their figures and there are additional statistics available.

 Updated: March 30/08 – Total unchanged as of 29th March.   ;-}

Updated: Mar 28/08 10:00 am – no change 8-)

According to Climate Data Online we have had 426.7 cm of snow from November ‘07 to March 25 27 ‘08 at the Ottawa Airport. The record is 444.1 cm so we are still 17.4 cm away from tying the record.

Nov-07	59.8
Dec-07	121
Jan-08	42.4
Feb-08	89.9
Mar-08	113.6
	426.7

First Day of Spring – a technicality

So spring has sprung – the grass hasn’t riz and if David Phillips of Environment is correct we are looking at 6 more weeks of cooler than normal temperatures. That is probably a good thing what with the volume of snow that has to melt. There is going to be a lot of flooding. A sunny but cold Easter Weekend. Wonder if they got that right?

Test of Tests

There is quite an unusual and challenging test on this site. Let me tell you that I got the number right when I did it.

DOTHETEST

Consipiracy Theorists can make valid points

Subprime fallout: Spitzer targetted because he was about to target Bush Leaguers

“Greg Palast nails it as usual. Spitzer got nailed because,
and only because, he was going to use state law to
stop Bernanke’s quiet bailout of many dirty banks,
without any complementary measure to protect poor
families caught in the subprime scam or buyers of
“AAA” bonds that were criminally labelled same by
criminals. Not surprisingly many of the criminals
associated via the Carlyle Group which just went
bankrupt, a fact that Spitzer was already repeating.”

http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/

It is food for thought. There are so many examples of the Bush Administration screwing the American People you have to believe that some of it has to be true. Like the only plane that was allow to fly immediately after 9/11 carried Saudis out of the US. The war on Iraq that really had nothing to do with terrorism but with oil and money. Extraordinary presidential powers that have been included in various pieces of legislation the give the President unlimited powers. The close ties of the President and Vice President to big money corporations and the Saudis. The contracting out of the war in Iraq to friendly companies who make obscene profits and have virtual immunity from any rule of law. Contracting out of the supply chain for the US Military where prices can be manipulated up such as the acquisition of white towels for the military – the need was for plain white towels, a corporate logo was added and the price quadrupled. America had abandoned the rule of law in its handling of the detainees at Guantanamo, the use of torture, ignoring human rights and abusing its power for whatever reasons.  Then you can look at the “hanging chads” and voting machines that are vulnerable to manipulation and possible “stolen” elections.

The US had an image of the upholder of human rights and democracy for the world but in reality it has been trying to manipulate and control the world. Even in trade, they say they want free trade but what they really want is trade that is solely to its advantage.

The American people could correct this by taking off the rose colored glasses and seeing their government for what it is and not what it says it is. The average American holds the belief that their way and their countries way is the best way but they are being lied to by those in positions of authority.

My vote for the greatest hockey player – ever!

Bobby Orr – I first saw him play junior when Oshawa would play against Niagara Falls. He was great. Both teams were Boston farm clubs and this was the start of the good years for the Boston Bruins.

The March towards the record snowfall

Beware the Ides of March. An update on Ottawa by the Numbers.

We shall see if we are going to set a record. Trying to find snow accumulation data is an interesting exercise. I think I found the database on the Environment Canada web site. We were supposedly at 411 cm as of Monday last. Using the database and a comment on tonights weather I am guessing that we’ve have between 6.4 cm and a bit more like maybe 2 cm on the 14th (couldn’t find the data for the 14th). So that would mean that we would be at 417.4 or 419.4 cm. We may be about 25 cms from the record snowfall.

The 14 day trend for March indicates snow is probable from the 20th to 28th almost each day. 8 potential days of snow 3-4 cm per day would break the record.

Hopefully the thaw will be slow and deliberate rather than a quick melt. All we need is flooding to really make it a record winter.

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture

This is from Oprah. The full last lecture is available on YouTube in 11 parts, just search on the title of this posting.

Amazing story, an inspirational leader, as of today he’s still fighting the good fight.

http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.html

Greatest Comedy Routines

Who’s on first….

Costello proves to Abbott that 13 times 7 is 28

I wanna play

The morning after – cleanup time

Well by Friday morning Ottawa had 360 cm of snow for the winter, since then a double whammy hit brought us another 49 56 cm of snow for a total of 411 cm. The street hasn’t been plowed and we had a number of cars stuck this am trying to get out and about. The record from 1970-71 is 444.1 cm. We have a chance of beating the record all we need is 33 cm of snow. Let’s go for it. 8-)

The snow is up to the windows in our bedroom and living room, my office in the basement is a dark cave because the snow has completely covered the window.

I took some pictures of the front yard on Friday and again this morning – it’s getting to the point where my snow blower might not be able to push the snow up high enough. Compounding the problem is my neighbor has been pushing his now into my yard instead of his so I have 8-10 foot snow banks and he has 5-6 foot ones.

Half way there

So here it is Saturday morning and we’ve survived part 1 the introduction to the worst storm weekend. We had about 20 cm of snow on the ground when we got up. There is a calm right now and I was able to clean up the driveway but of course after I’d finished and gone inside to dry off – the snow plow came by again to tidy up his plowing – fortunately it was not much extra snow in the driveway. Everyone in this area is running out of places to put the snow.

Ottawa by the numbers

**Check the post for April 12 – Environment Canada updated their figures and there are additional statistics available.

Ottawa by the numbers as of March 6, 2008 (Source: Ottawa Citizen)

First snowfall: Nov. 20

Number of days since first snow: 108

Number of days with snow: 83

Number of days without snow: 25

Number of days with snow cover: 108

Number of events with 10 or more centimetres: 10

Average number of 10-plus-centimetre events: 4

Average March snowfall: 39.8 centimetres

March snowfall to date: 47 centimetres

Number of teaching days in March if there are no more snow days: 13 secondary, 12 elementary

Number of school snow days to date: 5

Average number of snow days annually: 3

City snow-removal equipment: 700 plows and trucks

Snow removal budget 2008: $65 million

Snow removal budget 2007: $62 million; overspent by $5.2 million

Amount of salt used: 220,000-plus tonnes

Average amount of salt used: 150,000 tonnes

Amount of snow moved: 2.4 million cubic metres

Latest recorded snowfall in Ottawa: June 27, 1950

Latest measurable snowfall: May 25, 1961, 2.3 cm

Latest and heaviest snowfall: May 10, 1963, 15 cm

Number of days to spring: 15 (including today)

 

Team Hoyt

Dick Hoyt is my inspiration as a father. His son Rick had problems during birth and was not like other children. The advice was to put him into an institution but Dick has given his all for his son. His dedication to his son was unfailing, his love for his son never ending. He has continued to run Ironman and Marathons with Rick even after he had a mild heart attack. Rick was born in 1962 and has graduated from University.

I heard this story several years ago and just couldn’t believe what Dick and his son were achieving. When I get feeling down, I often revisit their story and videos on YouTube for some inspiration. The answer to the question is: “CAN“

Winter Update

Ok so we are at 355 cm of snow this winter while the top record is 444.1 cm we are number two and we don’t want to try harder. They were predicting maybe 10 cm on Saturday coming but now they think it might be the worst storm of the winter whatever that means. The people that got into snow plowing for profit and don’t have cm limits are losing money and going out of business. I am surprised that people expect to have all their snow removed quickly for $250-$400 no matter how much snow. One man was saying that his crews have been out 60 days so far plowing. There has to be give and take by customers and suppliers. The snow banks are getting awfully high – in my back yard the snow is up to the top of the fence – 5 feet. This last snow fall was a mix of ice pellets, rain and snow and it was heavy. I had a hard time shoveling.

The Senators gained a single point losing in overtime to San José Sharks. They at least forced them to come back from deficits. At their current pace, the Senators might even miss the playoffs. Boston is 4 points behind with 2 games in hand and apart from a 10-2 spanking by the Capitals they are on a roll. As much as I’d like to see them do well in the playoffs I don’t see them pulling it together and going very far. They will have to get a goalie in the off season because Ottawa’s problems from the start have been in goal. This team would be unbeatable with a good goalie. I like Darth Gerber ;-) he’s good most of the time but he is fragile. Razor is a distraction and he thinks he doesn’t have to work to have the position of number 1. He has to go.

We’re supposed to be going to Morrisburg to visit on Saturday but with the potential storm I think we will miss out on Supper. We will have to get Hannah on Monday – she’ll be here for the spring (?) break.

I bought an OEM copy of Microsofts Home Server. I am using my old computer that wasn’t working all that well with XP Home. I dropped the ATA hard drive and used the 2 SATA drives and a WD Mybook external drive. I have over 700 gb of server storage. I am moving my common files like music, photos, videos and my administrative files (email and money) to the server. Setup was very easy and now it’s just setting up the files the way I want. The server can backup and restore your PC as well. With shipping and taxes it was $190 which is just a few dollars more than Vista Home Premium.

Ok we give up already

So as of now we have had the second snowiest winter in recorded history for Ottawa. We were at 327 cm before the storm and as I sit here we’ve had another 20 cm with another 10-15 cm possible (Estimated final tally 36 cm). This is a bad storm because the snow is so heavy. I found that it’s probably the heaviest this season. Now the joke is getting old about the snow. They are having a hard time finding places to store the snow. Last week they actually removed some snow in our area and we went from a tight 2 lanes to almost normal size. We have company that night and they could actually park on the street without blocking traffic.

There was a review in the Citizen yesterday about a networking product that uses your electrical wiring.

The Corinex High Definition Video Connectivity Kit is sure to become the best friend of homeowners who don’t want to knock down walls or fish fibre optic cables from the basement in order to network their older houses.

It is pricey — around $170. But it’s also ridiculously easy to set up. If you can plug in a lamp, you can use this product.

The Corinex device allows users to network electronics devices in their house through their home’s power lines. Just plug an adapter into a wall socket and plug your modem into the adapter. Then plug another adapter into an electrical socket anywhere else in your house. You’re done.

No software to install or computers to configure.

The adapter will send your Internet signals and extend your home network over your electrical cables. The adapter does all of the work, deciphering electricity from network traffic. All information transferred across the Corinex network is protected by 128-bit encryption.

You can have up to 32 adapters in any one home. And if you live in an apartment, don’t fret. According to Corinex, the network will automatically protect your signal from a neighbour who may also have a Corinex network installed. In other words, neighbours can’t piggy back on your high-speed Internet connection.

The Corinex kit comes with two adapters to get you started.

Why would you want to network your devices over wires when wireless technologies exist today? Well, wireless technologies are still far slower than the speeds users can achieve over wires.

While wireless may be fine for surfing the Internet, checking e-mail or downloading music, it’s not for people who want to connect two Xbox 360s in order to play head-to-head, or for anyone considering streaming video from a computer to their television sets.

Just try streaming that video of little Johnny on the swing set from the computer in your office to the TV set in your living room over wireless. The video will likely come out choppy as the network struggles to keep up.

The choppy video becomes even worse when there are other people on the network around the home or when the video is in high-definition.

Most current wireless technologies can move information at speeds of up to 54 megabits per second. Newer, more expensive versions of Wi-Fi (802.11 N) can move information at up to 120 megabits per second. Corinex’s powerline technology can transmit information at speeds as fast as 200 megabits per second.

Then there is the hassle of setting up encryption and firewalls for a wireless modem.

While many don’t find the installation of a wireless network complicated, there are those who would prefer to avoid the task.

The Corinex kit comes with a built-in firewall and offers MAC and IP address filtering — for you real techies.

While this kit is called the “High Definition Video Connectivity Kit,” Corinex offers other kits of its home networking technology that come with the same components, but carry another name on the box (the Corinex GameNet kit contains the same components). It’s a marketing thing, not a technology thing.

The company’s kits work on both PC and Mac computers.

If you’re less technically inclined and are looking for an easy way to move photos, video and music files around your home, the Corinex kit offers a straightforward solution that will work right out of the box.

I am beginning to wonder if the Senators will even make the playoffs. They are stalled and everyone else is moving up.