The coldest, most wintery winter I have experienced in Seattle in 30 years, seems to have come to an end. We actually had snow that stayed for more than a day. Ice that didn't melt during the day and re-form at night, but stayed for WEEKS. It was refreshing to have an actual winter season, and not just an extended wet autumn! That changed yesterday. And I am glad to see the rain again. We Seattleites do love our rain, and hearing it on the roof, seeing it outside, and watching the last of the ice succumb under the delicate and persistent fall of rain, made me love my city even more. In other news I am finally getting my various art framed. I've collected original art for decades. Bought from street vendors and artist friends all around the world, most of it has been pinned on the wall, or sitting in flat storage for ... well ... some of it for decades. Now, with a little extra money in savings, I have decided to finally frame much of it, and get it up on the walls in my home so I can enjoy it. This feels surprisingly good! Nesting. Settling in. I'm also in the process of planning my garden workshop/writer's shed that I will build in the coming months. A place where I can work, whether that's on home projects or writing, a space away from the house... my man cave thing. I'm patiently excited about this project...
Kids in Portland have had 8 or 9 snow days so far this winter. Someone told me that they have only had 17 days of school since Thanksgiving. My kid was out sick for a few days before Christmas break. The rain started yesterday but it's pouring down on roads that have more than an inch of ice. Thawed ruts with lakes in-between. I'm over it. Dropping the kid off for a late start in about an hour.
It's kind of shocking to me that a major city at the base of a mountain seems to have no game plan for more than an inch of snow. I've been applying for jobs all over the place this past week, and I've had to walk to all of them because the buses were running so late. Never thought I'd be so happy to see freezing rain
I can't speak for Portland, but Seattle has crowned roads in order to improve runoff from all the rain. A crowned road gets super-exciting with ice. And since ice happens so rarely, and there's so little that can be done about it, most people just call in a snow day. For a while Seattle had this awesome relationship with a surplus dude. Seattle would have a snowstorm and the rabble would rouse about the lack of snowplows. So Seattle would buy snowplows and it wouldn't snow for two years and the rabble would rouse about the money we're wasting on snowplows so they'd sell them. To the surplus dude. Who would sell them right back the next time the rabble roused. I can't find it online but I swear he sold Seattle their used snowplows back to them like three times, profiting each time.
In my 16 years of living here I've never seen weather like this. In my wife's forty years of living here she last saw weather like this in 1980. You've arrived on the tail end of the most ineffective mayor that I've seen misgovern this town. Charlie Hales can't make or implement a plan for more than five minutes that he doesn't abandon and make a committee to come up with a new plan for six month only to abandon it five minutes after it goes into effect. But yea, it's kind of stunning. I know a guy who works on the crews that do street cleanup and they are mismanaged and unprepared. Every one in his department from the people with the shovels to the guys who drive the trucks knows this but management has no idea. Welcome to the "City That Works!" What do you do for work? Every once in a while I have a line on something. Mostly I'm not helpful but I've gotten at least one person a dope job in the last year.
Shameless plug: my wife runs a frame shop. Really small operation, just her and a single part-time employee but she does great work. Not sure what your budget is, custom isn't cheap. I too am glad to have the rain back. The cold was fun at first but so many days in a row at or below freezing is rough. Definitely nice to pull the raincoat back out of the closet.
Oh yes? Tell me more! Anywhere near Burien? I have one triptych that I need to frame, but that's the only "fancy" one. The others just need simple matte and frame. I'm paying a local Burien shop about $150/ea to frame a couple of others. my wife runs a frame shop
She's over in Columbia City. About to move her shop up the street to Hillman City.
I kept waking up last night because my building would start shaking right before some big chunks of ice/snow came sliding past my window. For the last few days it was overcast but still warm which generally means snow is coming and it came right on que this morning to replace those chunks. I can't imagine living somewhere everything melts over night.
You have rain in winter? That's very unusual for me as a Siberian. I was talking to johnnyFive about it in IRC; it was suprising to hear him complaining about ice on the roads. In my head: "Well, of course there's ice on the road! It's winter, innit?". The season of minus 30 centigrade seems to have just come to an end; they say Tomsk had -43 at one point, which is something I'm completely used to. Seattle sounds a lot nicer. Maybe I'll visit someday.
Well, we are sitting directly on the Pacific Ocean. So our climate is incredibly mild. Freezing temperatures are rare here at sea level. But 45 minutes away, they have 10 feet of snow at the ski resorts, which are 4k feet above sea level. It really is a heavenly place. I love it here.
The high today was 62 F, which is ~17 C. It rained some late last week, and is expected to do so again later on. In my state in particular, it's not unusual for us to have snow on the weekend, and then it'll be 17+ C by the end of the following week. Of course, we pay for the (relatively) mild winters by having to deal with 38+ C in the summer, with the humidity hanging out above 90%. That's why we all have guns.