Winter Sucks

[kevinmccune]

Actually I am my own worst critic. Now I see that if I ran the black battery discharge wire to the right it would have vanished against the black chainring. I learn best from making mistakes. I did three rides today, an AM, a mid-day, and and an afternoon test ride in the hills with the owner of that Yuba, for a total of about 32 miles. The guy loves it. His wife will do 90% of her in town arends with it and the kids, getting rid of the second car, saving money and having health fun. It is faster than a car in town because of bike separated paths that do not have car traffic or lights. And no searching for parking and walking from parking. I needed a long sleeve denim shirt and a t-shirt to ride today. August can be cold here as the fog rolls in.

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco"

bit of a quandary in those parts!

 

[kevinmccune]

My Generator is portable but what I did do is convert it to bi_fuel so now I can swap it out with my bbq and run it on natural gas. Since doing so 7 or so years ago I haven't needed it and in +30yrs living here I've only used the generator twice. I figured spending money on the conversion was a pretty good insurance policy that I won't need to use it .
My situation with this storm is that I'll be on my own taking care of mom as I probably won't see an aide for a few days. It's a 24 hr job so it can become taxing at times. But I've handled it alone before and am hands on even when I have help so it's nothing that I can't handle. With her just getting over a viral cold and now developing a UTI, she's pretty weak... I just hope the dementia doesn't decide to be out of control in this period as well.

keep her hydrated a bit of cranberry juice should help with the UTI.

 

[Gionnirocket]

keep her hydrated a bit of cranberry juice should help with the UTI.

@98 the UTI are chronic and she has been getting one 2 to 3 times a year. We're all set up with cranberry juice, cranberry supplements, probiotics, electrolytes and as much water as she can handle. With this recent virus she was pretty weak and slept a lot so it was difficult to keep her hydrated. We had the local paramedics come out several times to give her an IV which helped a lot and kept her out of the hospital. The aides are a big help as well as a nice distraction/diversion to keep the dementia at bay. Without she ends up more often with her primary delusion that her mother has abandoned her.... it's a tough one and sometimes difficult to reason her back to calmness.
In my late teens she would promise me that one day I would pay for being a no_good_dirty stayout with my friends.... She's called in that debt with penalties and interest

 

[dodgeman]

I'm due east of you in PA and it's pretty much the same around here. We've had bigger storms with far less media hype than this one. I guess it's because of the size and the number of people affected that makes this one noteworthy.

We've survived storms with twice the snowfall predicted for this one and take the usual precautions. Well stocked with food, generator gas, TP, etc...etc. The only difference this time around is the new whole house diesel generator. I got tired of going out in the cold to start the portables and sprung for this one. I installed it in the back of the barn with a thru wall exhaust so it can be serviced without getting cold or wet. It can be started from the house and uses fuel oil from our 1000 gal furnace storage tank.

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If things get really bad, I may have to get one of these for the e-bike:

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I’d love to have one those Kubota generators, they are very nice. I have a diesel tractor so I have the fuel around for it. I have a gas generator but I have to run extension cords and it’s loud

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Meanwhile in Warsaw Poland

 

[DDBB]

I haven't ridden my ebike in two and a half months. Only two and a half more months to go. Oh well, I appreciate it more when I don't get to ride it every day

 

[kevinmccune]

Me too. I can work on a bike for hours/days and be fine with it. Then take a pic and I suddenly notice all sorts of little things that I'd like to change or do differently.

Love that long tail cargo bike. For me without kids I prefer a cargo trailer that I can hitch up or remove whenever I want. This way 75% of my riding is on a regular ebike (so a bit more nimble than a cargo bike), and the trailer only comes along when I need it (then not so nimble). Plus it's a less expensive setup.

Final thought on this really cold weekend. I now know what the low end of the lubrication specs actually mean. This morning at -25C (-13F) the grease is thick ... really thick and so much so that it's tough getting going from a stop for a couple of minutes until the motor warms up a bit. I've never experienced that in such an obvious manner.

its funny pouring bar and chain oil into a chainsaw oiler it just kinda stacks up,guess I need the winter blend.

@98 the UTI are chronic and she has been getting one 2 to 3 times a year. We're all set up with cranberry juice, cranberry supplements, probiotics, electrolytes and as much water as she can handle. With this recent virus she was pretty weak and slept a lot so it was difficult to keep her hydrated. We had the local paramedics come out several times to give her an IV which helped a lot and kept her out of the hospital. The aides are a big help as well as a nice distraction/diversion to keep the dementia at bay. Without she ends up more often with her primary delusion that her mother has abandoned her.... it's a tough one and sometimes difficult to reason her back to calmness.
In my late teens she would promise me that one day I would pay for being a no_good_dirty stayout with my friends.... She's called in that debt with penalties and interest

wow,sorry to hear that,been around a good bit of that( my wife's an RN)you do what you can and let nature take its course,palliative care is the norm,do not let anyone slip into that terrible state,sounds like you are doing a good job with the care,when my aunt got dementia she didn't last long.

 

[stompandgo]

We ended up with a foot, with an inch or two more due later today. The boss closed the store, so no work. Up next, we have a Nor'easter setting up off of South Carolina that could hit us this weekend.