Modern Vespa

Rather than "how cold will you ride?" it's more like "how cold will you exist" around here this week. With the snow Monday....close to a foot, the city schools and hospital outpatient clinic closed. Today, cold and snow's out of the way...though mercury is stuck at zero. Tomorrow wind chills are supposed to be around -50F. Heard the other medical center is shutting down as well (that's pretty unusual around here).

Of course I'll probably have a go at work. Probably should start the car at noon just to keep it warmish for the trip home.

So, in preparation for the day, I'm working on my cold weather language....

Up to now my favorite is "Brass monkeys are howling all over town..." as in cold enough to freeze .....

Then there's "Cold As A Witch’s Ta-Tas In A Brass Bra"

The one I just read today was a benchmark of cold temps:
1. “Cat sleeps on the bed with you,”
2. “Cat sleeps in the bed with you,”
3. “Cat sleeps in your pajamas with you.”

Then there's the family classic, the simple "Pinche frio."

Did I miss any? How are the rest of you Midwesterners, etc, holding up?

a friend of mine said it was so cold in Wisconsin, they were closing bars. i cant imagine bars closing in Wisconsin ?

Pretty darn cold here in New England, too - but not what you folk are experiencing - everybody stay warm and safe. May the bars stay open!

Yeah, just read that. If there's any doubt we're in a state of emergency....

Hitting here too, all sorts of warnings. I'll be bundled under a Hudson's Bay blanket again tonight. The old girl (dog) that sleeps on the floor will have the Dyson heater turned up a few degrees tonight for her.

yes the cold is a bit nuts, Vespa safely put away in garage with trickle charger and stabil gas treatment, even too cold for the car, but I will try to go in tomorrow although most people due to see me have cancelled, I am used to cold but this is a bit much.


larry

Yeah, I get the whole USPS not delivering the mail (not really) but bars closing?
In Wisconsin?
How is anyone supposed to get their 10th DUI if the bars are closed?!?!?!

Frankly I'm disappointed about where we're going as a society if bars close down because it's cold out.

I never, NEVER missed work due to cold.
Didn't own a car when I was in college.
Temp got down to -30F actual, -80F windchill for a day or two.
I rode my bike. BICYCLE. To work. 6 miles each way.
Got to say, the first mile sucked. Bad.
By the time I got to work I was so hot I took most of my clothes off outside.
So much water vapor coming off of me I looked like a torch.

But then, that was when (young) men were (young) men, and for some reason none of the girls were scared.

Ahem. Anyway, where was I....
Oh yeah, that's right.
Stay safe everyone, it's cold out.

I once experienced -40C, before windchill. -40C is where the Farhenheit and Celsius scales meet, so -40C = -40F.

How cold is that?

Couldn’t turn on the radio once I jump started the car because the viscous damped radio control was frozen solid. The clutch was so cold it took all my strength to get it to the floor. After a twenty minute drive the heater was still not warming the cabin with more than tepid air. Had to set an alarm at 3:00 a.m. to start the car and warm it up so that it would start in the morning. If you breathed in hard through your nose, your nostrils froze shut.

Hmmm....

I only experienced -40(F/C) once. Was up staying at my sister's near Minneapolis (River Falls for you locals) on a Superbowl weekend. After looking at the temperature, decided to see what it felt like. Stepped outside in the still air, and could feel the skin on my face crackling for lack of a better word. My car had faithfully started for many a winter, but when I went out later to start it, it VERY slowly turned over once or twice and just clicked. Fortunately my BIL was buddies with the owner of a car dealership, so he came out and heated the crankcase oil and got us on the road. I finally realized why all those crazy Minnesotans had plugs sticking out of their grilles.


Welcome to my world.

Backup natural gas electrical plant going at it.

Well, the smart ones kept their distance....

i've experienced some cold windchill while hiking in the whites and probably skiing...not sure how extreme though...hiking at least you're moving and your blood is pumping and hopefully you're not spending a ton of time above the treeline...skiing you're moving and then sitting on a lift freezing your ass off in the wind...they usually shut down lifts if it's really bad...but keeping skin covered is a must for frostbite and you may need to cover your eyes with goggles...especially if you have contacts cause they can freeze in your eyes...stay inside/warm you guys

Frozen pipes.

Fortunately for me it's only the dishwasher drain that runs behind some kitchen cabinets where the indoor heat doesn't reach. The dishwasher has a sensor that tells if it's not filling or draining. Blasting a heat gun through an access hole cleared the problem, so all's well for now.

Furnace trouble.

Fortunately I had a new flame sensor on hand.

Stay safe & warm, folks!

-27 Below this morning in the Twin Cities. Schools closed. Even the US Mail
has shut down for the day.

I drove my blushing brides new Honda CRV to work today. The heat gauge was
going up and down as I would turn into the wind. Also, the low pressure tire
indicator is acting up. False reading - sensor is frosted over and froze.

Stay warm everyone,

Bob Copeland
Minnesota

Could be cold enough your tire pressure could just be low. Once it warms up you will be at the bottom of the min-max range.

Bitter and. brutal on the Mississippi in Minnesnowta. We had a bizarre winter and then our first big snow dump. Schools, USPS, and more shuttered.

Neighborhood bar was open but no one came out.

In the late '70s, there was a polar express that brought -40F actual air temp and the wind howled. -70 below wind chill. We moved to the Caribbean the next winter and stayed away for 30 years in tropical and desert environs. As a working stiff, I'd be bummed!

Retired? It's a bright beautiful sunny day viewing from my leather easy chair. The coffee is hot and I'll likely work on a new eBike.

For giggles we do stuff like this...

Who's out riding in this?

Windchills around -25 to -30 here, so not as bad as some places. I think our mail will not be delivered today but our garbage is still going to be picked up. I don't even want to step outside to take it to the street. With the wind howling like it is the can may take off.. We have one of those big "wheely bins" but when the wind hits them just right- the lid comes up and off it goes.

Stay warm and if you don't HAVE to go out- stay in. Nothing is worth risking it in these temps.

Bob

It's always nicer when you can sort out the problem quickly.

Second time this year already water lines to toilet and bathroom sink froze. Like yours, pipes are in a bit of a precarious location, heat-wise. If I think about it, I leave the closet door open downstairs for air movement. This time it was open, but so much colder. I have some insulation to upgrade this summer....

Anyway, good luck with that.....at least with faucets, you can let them drip. Hard to do that otherwise... Damn. At least you Minnesota folks are civilized. I'd never heard of closed bars in Wisconsin until yesterday!

Back in the day, living in Green Bay, I went cross-country skiing for the first time when the thermometer was -17F in the morning. We did all right, other than having to thaw out someone's feet in our armpits, but then she was kinda nice and a little cute...

Used to go out skiing on an afternoon off, and on a similar day, went around my usual 3 mile loop. Because I went all-out, I just wore a shell and a cap. I missed the parking lot exit and was making a second round. Finally saw another person (fool) out skiing and asked where the lot was....my cheeks were so still my words were pretty slurred. Good I got back because if I stopped for long I'd be hypothermic.....

If the closet has a light, turn it on when it gets this cold out and close the door. Maybe upgrade to 150 watt bulb.
You could put it on a thermostat.

this morning i left home at 5:45 a.m. it was -29f and the wind was howling. the weather man says the wind will die down but to expect colder temps. tonight ! i can hardly wait, on the upside we are supposed to get temps in the upper 30s and low 40s this weekend. that will feel like a heat wave.

Hmm a friend posted that he perused the list of places closed in his area of Wisconsin. The list included government buildings, schools, churches, assorted other businesses but not one tavern.

Today is sunny and beautiful at 30f but a couple days ago it was -11f with a wind chill of -38. We binge watched Midsomer Murders with the fireplace alight. Snow was swirling so bad we couldn't see more than 30' outside the windows which normally have a crystal clear view of the ski slopes 3.5 miles across the valley. Really enjoying have heated floors.

Not bad here in this part of the Rockies (Boulder) today. 41 and sunny. We did get slammed on Monday with a boatload of snow. 8 inches in about 5 hours where I live, took me 3 hours to drive 12 miles to work.

I'll take the snow over the ridiculous lows going around. - double digits! yikes and no thanks.

Stay warm and safe everyone.

As many are experiencing the Polar Vortex, we have had extreme heat.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/adelaide-records-hottest-day-on-record/10747636
I think I can safely say there is something going on with the weather.

Just saw a report that beer deliveries are stopped. Because the beer will freeze in the delivery trucks.

Oh the humanity!

Here's an idea: we'll drill two tunnels straight through the Earth. Then we can pump cold air from here to there in one tunnel, and hot air back through the other. [Comment on other $6 billion American construction projects withheld.]

We are a resilient species and shall overcome this cruel test of our faith and shall obtain a good pint of beer. If we're really lucky maybe it'll just be Budweiser and Coors deliveries that freeze along with all the NA beers.

Just remember it is GLOBAL warming and LOCAL climate change. At the moment Australia has 3 metre floods at one end and terrible forest fires at the other. Very hot in between.

Hey, give Clausthaler a chance!

For all the rest, I'm with you.

You do have a point....the less alcohol the faster it should freeze....

I don't see the point in NA beer. It's like (bad) sex but without the happy ending. Ok in this case without the depressant ending of alcohol but I stand by my words.

Someone also stole 4 1/2 of my little mod targets. What is this world coming to?

For a long time I would feel crappy after even half a regular beer. Not sure why, but I was able to handle non-alcoholic beer better. Kind of disgusted with most of it until I found Clausthaler. It's pretty hoppy, which is what I'm looking for. For some reason I handle regular beer much better now, but I don't really miss the alcohol anyway.

Don't worry about your mod targets....somebody just swept them into a tidy pile.

If I come across it I'll give it a try. I'm more of a stout and port guy and I don't think those will hit the NA market with any quality. Funny thing is they are usually lower in cals and alcohol than "regular" beer. I also really like trappist beer and low alcohol they are not!

Didn't realize we have housekeeping services here but that's OK, I can get used to it

I have a similar issue. Pay close attention to which beers bother you. I get an allergic reaction from certain beers. It's not an issue with beer in general, since beer is still my go to drink. It's happened very infrequently but has happened with both a large national brand, and a microbrew from a restaurant. Very strange. Only thing I can guess is must be a certain ingredient that's not in other beers.

You could be onto something. OTOH, I was never inspired to do in-depth research. Now if it was more on the "gee, which one makes me feel best?" I'd be right on it.

Big warm-up tomorrow-going to hit 18 degrees ABOVE zero. And 40's and rain by the weekend.

One of my twitter follows said she was going to wear two bras this morning so she didn't accidentally key her car with her nipples.

What kind of Midwesterner are you?? Alcoholism takes work, man, dedication, a can-do attitude. Suck it up and suck it down, boyo.

I drank horrible non-alcoholic beer for a couple years as a means of cutting down, and of course snotty friends scoffed "why don't you just drink water?"

And I sed "well, alrighty then, I will! harumpf."

And so I do.

I mean, I still drink beer, but a lot less (less than one a night) cuz I think my brain just wants the ritual of cracking a can and having something carbonated.

But then I'm sitting here drinking my morning decaf, as well, and I ride a Vespa...so, well, good gawd I'm a wimp.

WEB-Tech,

You were spot on about lower air pressure in the tires due to extreme cold.
I went over to the Honda Dealer to get the Low Tire Pressure warning light turned off. The Service Manager said they had over 50 vehicles in with the
same problem.

After a check, my tires were 5 pounds low. WEB-Tech - you really were Mr Wizard on this one.

Bob Copeland
Still -23 This morning in Frost Bite Falls - warming soon.

Ah, LaCroix. Good taste, man. BTW, originated in Wisconsin, from the LaCrosse-based G. Heileman of Old Style fame. Unfortunately owned by a Florida firm now. Not sure where the heck the water's from now, maybe all over....but beats the carbon footprint, of say, Fiji water, at least in the U.S.

I think Wisconsin's #1 for binge drinking or the like, so my paltry contribution won't be missed. The stuff I lean towards is a bit intense for guzzling anyway.

Yeah, Vespas are game-changers for image. Just don't tell too many people about the decaf....

I've heard unconfirmed reports of valves freezing open when people go to fill up their tires. Saw a new Cadillac on the highway this morning with a flat tire, wondered if that was a result of cold weather. And my Honda Civic has had two tire pressure sensors that leaked, though not necessarily in such frigid weather.

Oh No! Quick! Delete that before he sees it. There's no living with him now, can you imagine later on today?!

Not that bad here. Was 11 F this morning when I took the Dingo, er, dog for a walk. And all he did was want to stay out and play. This is my 3rd white German Shepherd and all of them would stay outside day and night all winter if I were to let them.