October Snow

We received one foot of heavy snow last night, power likely to be out for a few more days. We have a generator, but cable Internet is out. AT&T Internet access for my iPad wasn't accepted until just now. Power might be out at work, too, won't know until tomorrow, if I can get there as many trees are down. Presence here might be minor for a little while.--Percy

Thanks for the well wishes. We're not suffering as we have a generator, but there's no Internet or cable. Phones and this iPad are our only connection to the outside world. Boredom will be our greatest enemy.Work is also without power. My wife's work does not have a storm hotline, so she's dtriving over now, she'll know soon if they have power. Apparently the trees on the roads have been cleared for the most part.Here in New England we don't think in terms of global warming but of climate change. I've been 25 years in New England, but the last 10 years have been nothing like before. Storms that cut power across wide swathes now happen about once a year, and this is the second time this year, as there was hurricane Irene a couple months ago.--Percy

Weather's different now. In our area leaves used to begin changing at the end of August, now it's the end of September, and this year it was the beginning of October. Most of the leaves are still on the trees. August used to be a killer month for lawns, these days we breeze along with no extra watering. Major snowfalls have become more frequent. Overall the weather has gradually become wetter, more temperate and more extreme. Here's a document that seems to have a lot of data for New England generally: http://www.climateandfarming.org/...Sheets/I.2Indicators.pdf--Percy

I would tend to doubt it. Chech out some of the pictures from today's Boston Globe. This is the kind of thing that happened wholesale around here. If the tree falls on a power line, that's that:October storm pelts East Coast with snow - Boston.comIn the case of ice storms, it isn't just falling trees but also ice build-up on power lines and other lines that can become hundreds of pounds, snapping lines and poles.--Percy

So I'm back online, sort of. I usually only check in a couple times a day while at work.Might be a while before power is restored in our neck of the woods. After the big ice storm of 3 years ago there were utility trucks from as far south as Virginia helping restore power, but this time the states south of us have as many problems as we do. On the back roads I take before reaching the highway there were many trees down, several leaning on power lines and no sign of town or power company trucks. I'm guessing we may have power back at home between Thursday and Saturday. The propane company has been alerted and will come out every few days to keep the propane tank filled up. For those who are curious, it costs from $50-100 a day to run a full house generator, not that much different from the cost of a motel, but with a full kitchen. Cable TV and Internet are also still out.--Percy

Power was restored Tuesday, Internet and TV Wednesday. Back in business. Released a new feature yesterday evening that I'd completed last Saturday.--Percy

We used to work with a company in Edinburgh (Eucad), actually visited once. Got the ghost tour, the castle was closed the day we had free to see it. I remember calling over there one afternoon, it was 10 PM your time in the summer, he was still working on his car out in the driveway.Your weather changes are very similar to our own. Leaves used to change end of August, it was beginning of October this year. A big snow in October has never happened before - if the leaves hadn't still been on the trees there wouldn't have been so much damage.--Percy

Any ideas for those of us with forced hot air? Oh, wait, I have a generator! Speaking of which, it just got its annual service today. It passed and is ready for another year.What I really need is an Internet generator so I can have Internet when all the lines are down. Oh, wait, it's called DirecTV. But I can't have DirecTV, no line of sight to the satellite. --Percy

3G (the locally available mobile communications standard) is used by the iPad, so that was our Internet connection during the outage. Unfortunately the iPad isn't a real computer, for example, try downloading a file in Safari or transferring a file to another computer in your home. Also 3G is pretty slow.But 4G is 10x faster (around 10 mbs) and should be available nationwide by the end of 2014, and possibly in our area by as soon as the end of 2012. It would be the logical way to connect anything to the Internet if it weren't for cost - unlimited bandwidth, which I would need, costs way more than any of the other alternatives.But paying for a month of capped service once or twice a year when there are outages would be fine. Assuming that the outage is only for a few days to a week, the standard amount of monthly bandwidth should do it.I don't know when it happened, but somewhere along the way cell phone service was deemed essential, so the cell towers have backup generators.--Percy

Oh, sure, there are places on the property that would work. A small tower in the backyard could see over the house, or we could mount it on the roof, or we could mount it out at the street, though that's 300 feet away.We originally had DirecTV but switched for HD because we would have had to buy a new dish and find a new location for it. We already had cable coming into the house and had cable Internet, so it was an easy choice. Plus we discovered we liked never having to clean off the snow, and never having rain storms interfere with the signal.If you have a DVR then snow is a particular problem with satellite TV. You think it recorded something while no one was watching, but you start watching the recorded show and only then are reminded that, oh yeah, it was snowing at the time and no one was watching so no one knew to go clean off the dish.But nothing against DirecTV (or Dish Network). While we had it it was fine.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Minor clarification.

Oh yeah? Well, we've got Kim Kardashian and...and...the Tea Party, yeah, that's it, the Tea Party. So there! Seriously, here in the states we've been hearing that our Internet and cell phone technology has been lagging behind the rest of the world for quite some time. Finland and Korea are usually held up as shining examples.--Percy