Another foot of snow today

[Dyer retired]

Bird,

The only reason I liked the IBM selectric was because of the carbon ribbon, but you either got a good one of those machines or a lemon. I think they were the first completely assembled by machined production line (no human hands until inspection) to be produced? I remember the Pharmacy I worked at in H.S. got a brand new selectric that was acting up. It turned out that they had tried to sell the Pharmacy a refurbished machine at a new price (I seem to recall them being pretty pricey even for back then?) Needless to say, IBM made good and feigned any knowledge of this machine not being brand new, but I suppose they got away with it more than they got caught.

When I graduated the Academy, we had to do everything in triplicate using the old carbon paper. Talk about making a guy slow down on typing and learning to hate reports. Of course, if you made a mistake, the "white out" worked for the original copy, but massacred the other two copies. The harder you tried, the worse it got....start all over. It always ended up, pre-FLSA, that you ate the time and ended up doing all your reports on your own time. I laugh now because young Troopers in 20 years will be saying, "Hey, are you old enough to remember when they had those things called pagers?" State Police here just got rid of all pagers and are transitioning to Blackberries, so technology I used is already headed for the museum. I wouldn't have changed a thing....except maybe for the pay, ha!

This may shock you, but my BX 1800 does not have a PDA, pager, Cell phone, GPS, radar, metal detector, side seeking sonar, or "On-Star" set up. Not sure how long I can hold out, but I try not to stray too far from the driveway with it, so I should be o.k. for a while.

Dyer, retired and feeling old

 

[Dyer retired]

Just a posting showing the difference between my rear deck after the storm of March 1st and today. Dyer, retired

 

[Bird]

That's hilarious, John, especially when you talk about pagers. I believe it was 1980 when my boss (Assistant Chief) called one day and asked if I wanted a pager. I jokingly said, "Nope, if I want folks to be able to contact me, I'll tell'em how." Well, it seemed that I was the only captain on the department, and my boss was the only assistant chief, who didn't carry a pager. And the Commander of the Inspections Divison had told the Chief that we ought to have pagers. So I carried one for about a year and I think it was used one time while I had it. But the next year, I was transferred to become Commander of the Inspections Division myself, and never carried a pager again.

Now I've heard a lot recently about Blackberries, but if you can't eat'em or make a cobbler or jelly with'em, I don't know anything about'em.

 

[Dyer retired]

I agree with the Blackberry talk, mostly because I can barely see the keypad and then I get my thumbs on one key at a time anyway. For about the last year, we found that we could send text messages from our computers to pagers, so the Troopers used them mostly to get notified of overtime details. Other than that, no one has much use for them anymore.....cell phones are stuck to everyone's ear now. The advantage in this area right now for Blackberries, for those who just have to have something, is that they seem to get through better. I've been sitting beside a cell phone tower before and wasn't able to get a signal, so it was always pretty frustrating to repeat everything or have something repeated...or just lose the call all together. I'm happier without all of it. Jhn

 

[smfcpacfp]

smfcpacfp,

Make sure not to get too sunburned, ha! Thanks for thinking of us in the meantime though. What happens with that Kubota of yours and all the snow that drops while you're in the bath water scuba diving? Does it wait, or do you let someone else have fun with the rig in the meantime? Enjoy the diving....a week or two in that kind of weather sure makes the winter seem a lot shorter when you come back to it. Dyer, retired

I just wanted to show you snow bunnies that there is another way,greeting from Grand Turk:

 

[Dyer retired]

smfcpacfp,

That picture is just wrong on so many levels, ha! The only fault I can find with it is that there doesn't seem to be enough wind in the background for sailing my little Zuma in. Here's the latest picture from Maine this morning. Keep having fun. Dyer, retired

 

[Megado]

Too funny!!! Dyer...all that bear needs is a cold Heineken resting in one paw to finish off the picture!

 

[Dyer retired]

Too funny!!! Dyer...all that bear needs is a cold Heineken resting in one paw to finish off the picture!

Megado,

He/ or she (?) does look comfortable for sure. That was a National Geographic photo from Kodiak, Alaska a few years back. I have some fun with an old Photo Suite program and that poor old bear has turned up in Christmas Cards, family pictures, and now snow storm pictures. You can kind of tell that Cabin Fever was beginning to set it, ha! I've seen commercials with Polar Bears drinking Coca Cola, but no Heineken adds yet. Heineken probably wouldn't use this picture....kind of depicts a bear that's already had too many.

I'm attaching a couple of real pictures of things we have hanging around the back yard. One picture is shot through my sunroom glass and hope you can make out the wildlife depicted. I threw in a picture of the rear deck without the bear, or the snow, to give you an idea of the before and after.

We are nearing the end of our winter here. Temps. are predicted to get back into the lower 40's tomorrow and that will start things melting....finally! Already doing maintenance on the BX 1800 during the non-snow days. Best Regards, Dyer, retired

 

[LOOPHOLE]

Curious, .... Are you using that ladder to get to your BEDROOM ??

 

[Dyer retired]

Curious, .... Are you using that ladder to get to your BEDROOM ??

LOOPHOLE,

What you can't see in that picture is the 30 foot ladder to the right of the propane tank that leads up to the roof over the upstairs bathroom. It has a very slight pitch and a sunlight in the middle, so needless to say it doesn't shed the snow by itself. If the edge of the roof freezes....and it always does, the water will back up behind it and down through the roof it will come. I decided years ago that it would just be easier to go up after snow storms and shovel it off. The 30 footer stays right there all winter (pretty much all summer too, no sense taking it down with summers so short.)

The ladder you can see in the picture gets moved around to the various lower roofs, but those only get cleared after the real big storms. The shoveling part after a storm takes about 2 to 3 hours before I can get on the tractor and have some fun. As you've read though, the fun part of snow removal for this year is wearing pretty thin now and people are ready for warmer weather. We got up to 30 degrees here today with a bright sun, so we might see the end of this yet, ha! Take care, Dyer, retired.