As some of you may have noticed, New England has had some snow lately. Notably last weekend and this most recent one. This has had some impacts on things like travel, collapsing houses, high tides, massive powers outages, etc.
On a less massive scale, it also caused the cancellation or postponement of all sorts of events. Among them were concerts that my friends and I were supposed to perform in. Ah, winter.
I have had an interest in astronomy for much of my life, and for much of the past 15 years or so that interest has focused on comets and asteroids. I even own a fragment of a meteorite that I keep on a shelf with my science books (along with my jar of ash from Mt. St. Helens – that’s another story). Years ago I wrote a paper on the Impact Theory as the cause of the dinosaur extinction and have been fascinated by the subject ever since, even going as far as to visit several impact crater sites in the Southeastern United States: Wetumpka; Flynn Creek; and Wells Creek. And I even managed to have an e-mail discussion with the Dr. Walter Alvarez that I was able to incorporate into my paper. I dare say that was one of the most memorable and meaningful experiences of my life.
This week, two distinctive events have brought the subject of cosmic impacts on the Earth back to the forefront of my mind: the spectacularly close passing of Asteroid 2012 DA14 tonight; and the equally spectacular destruction of a slightly smaller meteorite (about 1/3 the size of 2012 DA14) over the Ural Mountains that actually caused damage to buildings and injuries to bystanders.
Most of you know that I’m not a big Valentine’s Day fan. Despite the fact that I’m married I’m still not a big fan. I think today is mostly about Hallmark and chocolate companies making money and about making people feel guilty about having to buy some over-hyped and over-expensive gift for someone else. It’s also death for a relationship that’s beginning or in trouble.
That being said, there’s nothing like cute animals and Grumpy Cat to make me smile. So, I bring you our Valentine. This year I didn’t even put it together in the spirit of the Valentine’s Day Massacre! Progress?
This popped up on Boston.com today and it made me laugh. As it involves Geoff’s family’s ancestral home of New Bedford, MA I thought it worth posting here.
Last week my mother and I were talking on the phone and she mentioned how she and my dad are fans of Downton Abbey. I mentioned that Geoff and I had never seen it. Not one episode.
That could not stand, so my mother shipped us season 1 and 2 on DVD. They arrived just before Nemo did. We watched all of them during the storm. We may have over done it a touch.
Continue reading “How to know when you’ve been watching too much Downton Abbey”
Well, they said this would probably be a historical storm, in regards to the intensity and snowfall amounts, and it looks like that has pretty much held up to the predictions.
It turns out that this storm ranked #5 in the top ten snowstorms in the history of Boston, with an official total of 22.5 inches for Boston. Here in Cambridge it looks like our “official” total is about 26 inches.
And, no, Nemo in this case isn’t a cute little clownfish. Nemo was a giant record setting Blizzard/Hurricane that just dropped 2-3 feet of snow on us and flooded out parts of the New England coastline. Whee?
On to the pictures.
Right now.
This popped up on Boston.com and it just thrilled me to pieces. These guys filmed this in the wee smalls this morning in between bands of falling snow. You’ve gotta figure that the chances of them ever getting to do this again without getting run over are basically nil, so I’m thrilled they did it.
Continue reading “Some snowbound Beacon Hill rich person is clutching their pearls”
So yes, we got some snow, and as David Epstein said on his weather blog, some of the recorded snowfall amounts were epic. I am not sure what our official amount is, but I am positive we got over 20 inches easily.
Kelly and I headed out this afternoon to clear the steps and the walk and even with both of us working (even using our little snowblower) it took a little while to clear just a path through the snow, much less clear the walk, which at this point would be impossible. There’s simply too much to move and nowhere to put it.
I managed to get a few photos before it got dark. The snow had not started coming down too hard just yet, but it was awfully scenic.
