Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: RevDisk on February 03, 2011, 01:33:54 PM
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Did you learn anything during the snow/ice/weather?
I didn't learn anything earth shattering, but some stuff one doesn't think about.
- Keep spare set of gloves in the car.
- ANY gloves are better than no gloves
- A small fixed shovel is bulky, but very bloody handy
- Need to immediately build a multi-source boost converter charger for my cell phone. I'm building at a minimum of a AA->USB and a Solar->Li Poly->USB rig. Fully charged cell phone is the best tool to save your life during winter weather.
- Cash. Keep it handy, and not only in large bills. Credit cards are great until a transformer explodes (apparently even catching a nearby tree on fire, in the middle of an ice storm).
- Lighter beats any fancy primitive fire creating mechanism.
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Gloves suck. We have a big box of mil surplus mittens (with trigger fingers...) and wool liners. Love the dang things. If you're interested and wanna pay postage, drop me a note, I'll ask the boss what he wants for 'em, and shoot you a pair.
Get one of the adapters that has a 12 volt cig lighter hole on one end, and battery clips on the other. That'll charge your cell phone.
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That the power grid in Texas is pretty fragile in the winter. Gotta step up plans to score a genset.
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- Need to immediately build a multi-source boost converter charger for my cell phone. I'm building at a minimum of a AA->USB and a Solar->Li Poly->USB rig. Fully charged cell phone is the best tool to save your life during winter
You can buy the AA -> USB one cheap.
http://www.meritline.com/usb-2-pc-aa-battery-emergency-charger-ce01-ipo---p-55167.aspx
$5, actually less right now, and that includes shipping.
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That the power grid in Texas is pretty fragile in the winter. Gotta step up plans to score a genset.
Yep, my work site has no power ATM.
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My stove thread is one. Also need to replace a stolen ice scraper and stock up on candles, and acquire a battery-powered radio.
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My stove thread is one. Also need to replace a stolen ice scraper and stock up on candles, and acquire a battery-powered radio.
I need one of those for hurricane season.
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You can buy the AA -> USB one cheap.
http://www.meritline.com/usb-2-pc-aa-battery-emergency-charger-ce01-ipo---p-55167.aspx
$5, actually less right now, and that includes shipping.
Not bad. Think I'll buy two. But I'm still building my own, because it's important to learn how to do so properly. Nick and I spent too long haggling over designs to just BUY one.
Gloves suck. We have a big box of mil surplus mittens (with trigger fingers...) and wool liners. Love the dang things. If you're interested and wanna pay postage, drop me a note, I'll ask the boss what he wants for 'em, and shoot you a pair.
Get one of the adapters that has a 12 volt cig lighter hole on one end, and battery clips on the other. That'll charge your cell phone.
Will drop you a line.
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Re: emergency radios, I've been looking at the Eton FR300, for the lamp and crank accessory charging. Open to other ideas, though.
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I need one of those for hurricane season.
Let me shout out for the Eton/Freeplay series of radios:
http://www.rei.com/search?search=Electronics&jxBrand=Eton&hist=search,Electronics^jxBrand,Eton
I have a few of them at home and in the cars. I buy the models that also include the built-in flashlight and ability to charge the cell phone. If necessary, you can crank them to get enough power to run the radio, shine the flashlight or charge up the cell phone. The solar panel functionality can be relatively useless in Seattle, but may come in handy if Armageddon occurs during the summer.
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That the power grid in Texas is pretty fragile in the winter. Gotta step up plans to score a genset.
I don't know if the power grid itself is so fragile, but rather the power plants down in Southeast and South Texas just are not used to sub-freezing temperatures. They have heat tracing and insulation in places, but it often isn't complete and has gaps. Those spots aren't noticed until you get 50 or 10 degrees below freezing and stuff starts freezing up. It makes it worse when you are trying to restart swing plants that are shut down at night or ones that are idle.
I say this because the plant I work at had a lot of problems yesterday also. Interstage condensate knockout pots have a high level trip point that is normally not a problem until one of the sensor lines freezes up because of a gap in the insulation or the heat tracing isn't turned on, or the utility steam header in the area wasn't checked and is full of frozen condensate. We also had low temperature problems on a couple PLC controllers. The control panel has a heater, but it was fed off a utility breaker that was tripped off line (apparently for a while). That caused a lot of weird alarms that added to the confusion. Lots of little problems crop up that are difficult to anticipate. I imagine the power plants in the area had similar issues. Many of them are plants that are shut down or shut off at night so the areas that normally have a heat load are cold. Also, our service water line froze up in a couple spots so if we had to fill up a cooling tower or something, that would have been delayed.
In the frozen wastelands up North I hear that most chemical plants are enclosed in buildings to help with this.
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Lessons learns: A bit of frozen water vapor in the injection line can render the arctic kit ether injector useless on my truck and thus unable to start at -10*F.
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Lesson #___: A 230-pound adult male canNOT stand or walk on a roof with a pitch of 7:12 when said roof is covered with snow, which is in turn covered with ice.
Lesson # ___+1: Nothing short of detcord (or a STND) can remove ice dams from eaves and gutters after three major storms, in 20-degree temperatures.
Lesson #___+2: Women do not like to listen to water dripping into the master bedroom all night.
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Lesson: A heavy coat is all you need above freezing, but once you get cold down there, you really need something for you hands, head, and ears.
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That the power grid in Texas is pretty fragile in the winter. Gotta step up plans to score a genset.
Honda portables are excellent. Or are you looking for an installed, standby generator?
Our old genset with a Briggs and Stratton engine is also extremely reliable (as in fires up within the first couple of pulls virtually everytime)
Lesson #___: A 230-pound adult male canNOT stand or walk on a roof with a pitch of 7:12 when said roof is covered with snow, which is in turn covered with ice.
Honestly, snow covered with ice is very, very difficult to walk own on level ground. Wouldn't dare go up on a roof like that.
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Gloves suck.
Naw, I think for most people, most of the time, gloves are fine. It really depends on what you're doing, how long you're doing it, and how cold it is.
But now that you mention it, I should take my mil-surp mittens to work. They'll be perfect for the next time I'm operating an open-cab skid steer in a snow storm. When all you're doing is moving two big joysticks, and occasionally hitting the gas, you tend to freeze.
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Did you learn anything during the snow/ice/weather?
I didn't learn anything earth shattering, but some stuff one doesn't think about.
- Keep spare set of gloves in the car.
- ANY gloves are better than no gloves
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Lesson learned -- if you've lost you good gloves in the middle of the winter, the pickings at the store are pretty slim.
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A good video game can go a long way when stuck at home. Shame I don't have any.
+1 on the small fixed shovel. Started carrying my small Swiss WWII shovel in my car, and it's helped.
Wiley Post Airport (KPWA) NEVER closes. To all you airplane drivers, that doesn't mean we can dig your 152 out of its hangar when you get a bug up yer butt and NEED TO GO FLYING RIGHT NOW. :mad: Military and Medical Evac helos get first priority--they always have, and always will.
FOUR WHEEL DRIVE DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO SPEED PAST EVERYONE AND FORCE THEM TO SWERVE IN SNOW, JACKWAGONS. Slow the *&^%$ down!!!
Sludge on the roads will get on the windshield. This does not mean that your wipers will get it off, or that your wiper fluid lines are open. :facepalm:
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When my gloves get wet/cold, I use socks. Mostly just for snow clearing, walking the dog, running, etc. My cheap-but-good+versatile hand-protection this winter is a pair of Smartwool glove liners. When it's really cold and working outside, add a pair of those 2/$1 stretchy gloves from WM. The men's version is, iirc, marginally more expensive but actually has a cuff. When those get wet or cold, use socks on top of the smartwools. Wool or cotton, depending on what is handy and how long I need it to be warm.
Lessons learned?
Budget more for gas. Nationwide blizzards jack up prices fast, driving in low gear uses up gas faster. Not usually significant, but when cash is tight, it sure is.
Salt instead of sand for getting unstuck, as per D-Day. I dunno though, my father always said sand is better. Not sure why, I'll have to ask when I see him.
Synthetic tech fabric yoga pants over long johns and/or running tights is warmer and more comfortable than jeans over long johns. Is there a guy version of yoga pants? I guess just athletic type pants. Doesn't get damp/wet easily, doesn't get heavy, snow doesn't stick as much, etc. Discovered this by accident this morning when I threw some pants and a fleece on over PJ's aka t-shirt and long johns to dig out, but it figures. Can't believe I've been putting on jeans to shovel all these years just so they could get wet, cold, and heavy.
That's all I got. Pretty unadventurous around here. Stayed home yesterday with the kiddos, didn't even venture outside at all. Made brownies and did crafts. The kitchen floor needed cleaning, so I let the kiddos play "cooking" with the kitchen sink full of water. Did not need a bucket to scrub the floor. Read a story about animals hunkering down and storing food to prepare for winter and stay in PJ/loungy house clothes most of the day, and no one got upset about not going out and frolicking in it. Their dad can take the big one sledding this weekend.
But one of my neighbors snowblowed a path over my sidewalk yesterday. Still trying to figure out how to work in stuff like shoveling and dog-walking into the whole single mom thing. Not very robust about the cold this winter either. It snowed late evening through mid-morning and was blowing and drifting a lot for most of the day. I can't leave the kiddos in the house when they are awake, what with the into-everything eighteen month old, and I balked at going out late at night for some pretty good reasons. Headed out at 5 this morning to dig out, but the path had already been cleared. Don't know if someone is pissed at me for being lazy/slow or trying to be nice, knowing that I don't have a snowblower. =|
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^^^ I bet they were just being nice. I shovel the sidewalk and driveway for my elderly neighbors, because I know they can't do it, and otherwise they are housebound.
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Salt instead of sand for getting unstuck, as per D-Day. I dunno though, my father always said sand is better. Not sure why, I'll have to ask when I see him.
Sand.
Salt is for melting ice/snow. Sand is for traction NOW, without waiting to melt through six inches of solidly-compacted snow or ice to get the tires on pavement (or dirt).
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+1 on the fixed shovel. I've been dragging around a garden shovel with a cut down handle in the bed of my truck for years wondering when the dang thing would come in handy. I have now spent 3 days punching through hard packed snow and ice that would have laughed at anything made of plastic. Also, college students are completely unprepared to deal with being snowed in on a closed campus. I just helped a young couple dig their way out of a drift because they were using a T-square and a windshield scraper to shovel their way out.
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Lesson #___: A 230-pound adult male canNOT stand or walk on a roof with a pitch of 7:12 when said roof is covered with snow, which is in turn covered with ice.
Lesson # ___+1: Nothing short of detcord (or a STND) can remove ice dams from eaves and gutters after three major storms, in 20-degree temperatures.
Lesson #___+2: Women do not like to listen to water dripping into the master bedroom all night.
Lesson #___+3: Wear a hardhat and goggles if you try to chip the ice dam from the gutters with a small pickaxe while standing below. It does not matter than you are not *directly* below. (ouch)
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* 600lbs (480 sand, 120 salt) in the truck bed provides enough heft to keep the *expletive deleted*ss end of my rice-burning pickup firmly planted. Also a margin for traction use under the tires if need be. When I got home, I transferred 180lbs of the sand into the back of the Element.
* When traveling by auto, dress/bring clothes as if you are going to spend all day outside in the cold. Lotsa accidents happen on ice. If it is your lucky day, you may be standing around in the cold for a while or in an unheated auto.
* The dumbazz/reasonable person ratio rises on the road when conditions get icy/slick. Here's a clue: Exceeding 55MPH when the only non-slick spots are ruts between ice humps is not done in honor of Sammy Hagar, it is done in honor of Charles Darwin.
* If one of your drivable autos has already been condemned as totaled by an insurance company and the only thing keeping you from handing it over is the ice storm and its effects on business, drive the totaled auto around, not the un-wrecked one.
* Wool. Hats, gloves/mittens, blankets. Wool.
* Water softener salt pellets will melt ice. In one small spot directly around the pellet, but nowhere else.
* Jammies, especially flannel jammy bottoms. Normally, I am a skivvies-only to bed kinda guy, but the aforementioned bedclothes get use when it gets this cold.
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* When traveling by auto, dress/bring clothes as if you are going to spend all day outside in the cold. Lotsa accidents happen on ice. If it is your lucky day, you may be standing around in the cold for a while or in an unheated auto.
Kids are a challenge in this regard. For a while, I tried to always have outdoor-suitable gear in the car for each kid. But daycare wants spare snowpants for each kid, and mittens disappear, and coats cost a small fortune and don't last. I've settled on a stack of wool blankets, a long piece of wool for a kid carrier if need be, and a sack of mixed sizes of socks, mittens, and hats. Cheap milsurp jacket for me, adds warmth to whatever I'm wearing. Obviously for longer trips I make sure we've got everything for everyone, but my compromise has come in handy a couple times and didn't cost extra.
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FOUR WHEEL DRIVE DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO SPEED PAST EVERYONE AND FORCE THEM TO SWERVE IN SNOW, JACKWAGONS. Slow the *&^%$ down!!!
Nah, let them go. Chances are real good you'll find them shiny side down a little ways up the road. The first winter accident I see often tends to be a single SUV slid off into the bushes.
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The dumbazz/reasonable person ratio rises on the road when conditions get icy/slick. Here's a clue: Exceeding 55MPH when the only non-slick spots are ruts between ice humps is not done in honor of Sammy Hagar, it is done in honor of Charles Darwin.
During the last Big Storm a couple of weeks ago down here, those ruts between the ice humps were ice that was nicely packed down into one very slick surface...not a good idea to trust 'em. the areas outside of ruts/traveled areas with snow (but an ice crust) were actually safer to drive/walk on because your weight broke through the crust and then you were kinda "anchored" in the snow (although some of these areas had thick enough ice that you wouldn't break through and it was still very hazardous to walk).
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I keep left over garden feritlizer on hand for ice melt at the house. plain old 10-20-10 does a pretty good job and isn't as hard on the concrete and doesn't kill grass with the run off. I carry a couple hundred lbs of sand in the back of the Jeep.
Having a 4wd compact tractor with a front end loader makes clearing 75' of driveway something I will actually do.
I carry a full size square point shovel in my '92 4X4 Cherokee. I've used it twice to get my self unstuck this week. 1st time was my fault for trying to blast through a plowed up berm, 2nd time was due to drifts blown across the plowed section of the county road at the top of the big *expletive deleted*ss hill I live on, didn't have enough momentum to get through it.
The city I live/work in did a fine job of clearing the parking areas infront of all the businesses on main street, except the phone company office where I work ;/.
Had to take my little brother on a 40 mile round trip to the next town to retrieve his big ole 4X4 truck becasue he had loaned to friend of his and "didn't think" about getting it back before the storm. ALL the vehicles I saw off in the ditches along the higway were 4X4 SUVs and trucks (need a Nelson Munch smiley)
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- Keep spare set of gloves in the car.
Extra jacket and hat are good too.
- Need to immediately build a multi-source boost converter charger for my cell phone. I'm building at a minimum of a AA->USB and a Solar->Li Poly->USB rig. Fully charged cell phone is the best tool to save your life during winter weather.
Save a bit of hassle:
http://www.amazon.com/XPAL-XP600-Portable-Phones-Others/dp/tech-data/B0029U2WW8
Basically, it's your LiPo battery with mini-USB in and regular USB out. Holds enough power to recharge my phone twice from low-battery warning to full bars, so it should be a couple days standby or several hours talk time for most phones.
- Lighter beats any fancy primitive fire creating mechanism.
One advantage of being a smoker is that I don't go anywhere without some way to make fire. I do keep a couple boxes of wooden matches in the car too, both as a backup for the lighter, and because if you have to use a very volatile starting method (like gasoline-soaked wood) it's nice to be able to stand back and throw your flame at it.
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* The dumbazz/reasonable person ratio rises on the road when conditions get icy/slick. Here's a clue: Exceeding 55MPH when the only non-slick spots are ruts between ice humps is not done in honor of Sammy Hagar, it is done in honor of Charles Darwin.
Same goes for trying to crank the wheel the wrong way while your car is spinning out, with your shoulder cranked up to keep the cell phone against your ear.
Same also goes for taking the 40 foot horse trailer out when the roads are iced over. If the horse needs to be anywhere that damn bad, saddle it and ride it.
* Water softener salt pellets will melt ice. In one small spot directly around the pellet, but nowhere else.
You're supposed to use more than one.
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This reminds me, I still need to restock the road flares in our car. Great fire starters...
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Plastic snow shovels work better than metal ones for big snow... Metal works better for ice stuff...
The three members of the He Man Woman Haters Club dug about 100 yards of driveway, cleared the intersection to the gravel road, and then the intersection to the paved road. Then dug out the drive at Arne's folks... Then managed to get the road to the shop marginally passable (I made a snow angel about halfway up the first stretch of the steep hill, and told Arne that if he Really Wanted To Continue, It Was Up To Him. He managed to get up the road in the 4x4 eventually...
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Plastic snow shovels work better than metal ones for big snow... Metal works better for ice stuff...
Really? I never seem to manage to avoid massive frustration with a plastic shovel. I've got three or four of 'em in the garage, and yet I keep myself grabbing the metal one, despite the fact that three of its corners are bent or curled up. I'll probably try to bang the dents out of it before I'll reach for a plastic shovel. This may be regional. We've had a lot of the real heavy snow the past couple years--I don't mean many inches of snow or particularly wet snow, even, just hard frozen, non-fluffy snow that piles up dense and heavy and thick. It seems no match for a plastic shovel
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Well, quality helps... But the snow was sticking to the traditional metal shovel, and the plastic ones were (a) lighter, and (b) moving the material... We settled down to three guys trading off between two shovels... Took the top foot off the snow, down to about 4-8" or so, working out that the vehicles didn't "plow up" to high center, and then called it "good."
The 4x4 van has standard tires, but just flat out goes... The Mercedes hasn't been out yet. My 2x4 van hasn't been out yet. Arne's van has studded tires, so he pulled it out when we cleared some space. The 1970s Buick Regal has been out, but it's got monster snow tires on all four wheels, with the rears studded...
Oh yeah... I -love- my Carhartt canvas insulated overalls...
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Really? I never seem to manage to avoid massive frustration with a plastic shovel. I've got three or four of 'em in the garage, and yet I keep myself grabbing the metal one, despite the fact that three of its corners are bent or curled up.
It seems no match for a plastic shovel
We dug out #2 Son's car Wednesday ('bout time, it's been dead in the water for a week and needing to go into the shop), out of this weeks snow, compounded with solidified slush mounded around, against and under it by the snow plow. The plastic shovel cracked, snapped, and gave up the ghost.
The choices at Farm & Fleet were aluminum, and steel.
I went with steel. It makes short work of the sort of stuff I have to deal with, digging vehicles out every snowstorm.
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I have an aluminum grain scoop and a steel show shovel. I use both. (I need to wax and buff them this weekend; haven't done that in a while.) The steel SS's are getting kind of hard to find, everybody is going to plastic or aluminum for less weight I guess -- I got mine at Fleet Farm.
A little wax helps keep the snow from sticking.
This would have been a good year to build an igloo. This summer I may make a snow block form for next year...
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In getting my ducks in a row for this storm it became apparent that I was a bit lacking in flash lights. Namely any that'll run off AA batteries. Got a D Cell one, a few that run off AAA, but nothing that does AA.
So I'm trying to find a durable LED based flash light that runs off two AA batteries. Cheap. If I find one that doesn't suck I'll probably grab 5 so I never need to hunt for one again.
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A whole lot of them seem to run off AAA batteries... I've got an LED headlight that takes AAs, but my two "go to" lights both run on AAAs...
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In getting my ducks in a row for this storm it became apparent that I was a bit lacking in flash lights. Namely any that'll run off AA batteries. Got a D Cell one, a few that run off AAA, but nothing that does AA.
So I'm trying to find a durable LED based flash light that runs off two AA batteries. Cheap. If I find one that doesn't suck I'll probably grab 5 so I never need to hunt for one again.
Not quite what you're looking for, but at home depot last time I was there they had bins of 3 AAA led lights, aluminum, for like $.99 ea. I bought about 8. Gave one to each of the kiddos, put one in my gun safe, sock drawer, wife's nightstand, and a few more in the kitchen.
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I was at walmart and picked up a couple of $0.99 AA regular bulb flashlights. They're not LED, but they work okay in a pinch.
Lots of makers want to put multiple LED's in the lens of a bulb, but then they can't get a tight reflector pattern. Beware LED flashlights if you want a tight, far-reaching beam... especially if they have multiple bulbs that are not in the direct center of the reflector.
I just got a pair of Smith & Wesson (translated: Chinese contracted tactiwear) LED flashlights. Here's my thoughts on them:
http://www.neardeathexperiments.com/smf/index.php?topic=5404
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In getting my ducks in a row for this storm it became apparent that I was a bit lacking in flash lights. Namely any that'll run off AA batteries. Got a D Cell one, a few that run off AAA, but nothing that does AA.
So I'm trying to find a durable LED based flash light that runs off two AA batteries. Cheap. If I find one that doesn't suck I'll probably grab 5 so I never need to hunt for one again.
Mini maglite 2AA (http://www.maglite.com/AA_Cell_LED.asp). I've got one. Not tactikool, but I like it.
Not cheap, $20-something at Wally World. it uses a single LED, and the focus is adjustable.
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Brinkmann Rebel. I've had one so long I don't remember when I bought it.
http://www.amazon.com/Brinkmann-Rebel-Flashlight-Model-809-1055-0/dp/B0000AUSJ7
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Not quite what you're looking for, but at home depot last time I was there they had bins of 3 AAA led lights, aluminum, for like $.99 ea. I bought about 8. Gave one to each of the kiddos, put one in my gun safe, sock drawer, wife's nightstand, and a few more in the kitchen.
I get those spring loaded clips for hanging handled tools on the wall... like brooms, mops etc. Mount one behind the door in each room, and put a flashlight in it. Holds them well, and that way you have a standardized spot for a flashlight in each room.
My favorite flashlight is a 4 C cell maglight. The C size just fits the hand well. I use a clip on the headboard of the bed to hold the C cell light vertical with the beam pointing up. Wifey has the same on her side of the bed. Lights went out a week ago for several hours. Turned on the flashlights, left them in the clips and illuminated the room sufficiently to surf on laptops until the lights came back on.
DD
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Save a bit of hassle:
http://www.amazon.com/XPAL-XP600-Portable-Phones-Others/dp/tech-data/B0029U2WW8
Basically, it's your LiPo battery with mini-USB in and regular USB out. Holds enough power to recharge my phone twice from low-battery warning to full bars, so it should be a couple days standby or several hours talk time for most phones.
Proper mad engineering philosophy is twofold. If you want it done right, you do it yourself. Second is, there is no kill but overkill, and more dakka is its prophet.
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You can also buy larger add-on batteries for a lot of cell phones - they replace the main battery, but stick out more. I used to do that with all of mine.
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So I'm trying to find a durable LED based flash light that runs off two AA batteries. Cheap. If I find one that doesn't suck I'll probably grab 5 so I never need to hunt for one again.
Wally World sporting goods, look for one that's a flat body, angle head, kinda like a modernized version of the old LifeLight. It's about $5, and you need a screwdriver to change the 2 AAs, but the battery life is long enough that for an emergency flashlight, you may never need to change them. It's no tacticool photon cannon, but it'll get you around the house.
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In a pinch, an inverter is a great thing to have - I've got one in the van that is hooked to a pair of 12 volt marine batteries (wired for a single 12 volt load) that get charged by the vehicle. I can run a cord inside if I need to, or I've also got LED lighting in the van, along with a place to plug a computer, etc... So if I want, I drive up to Starbucks, and haz instant interwebz...
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Mini maglite 2AA (http://www.maglite.com/AA_Cell_LED.asp). I've got one. Not tactikool, but I like it.
Not cheap, $20-something at Wally World. it uses a single LED, and the focus is adjustable.
I have never had one of those that has not failed...they seem to have a design deficiency that causes connection problems due to the twist head. One memorable time, I had three Minimags fail on a camping trip within 20 minutes (and they were my only lights)...all had fresh quality batteries before the trip, all worked when I tested them before putting them with my gear, all started flickering on and off intermittently. Another time I had two standard minimags and a LED version fail, exact same thing, flickering and crap. That was the watershed moment when I dropped the coin for a Surefire G2Led and never looked back...a light I have carried everyday and used pretty frequently for the past two years without a failure, a light that is now mounted on my rifle. I buy maybe 6-8 batteries a year for it, and the batteries last a long while for the intermittent type of use it sees...
The one and only "cheapie" that hasn't failed on me yet is a Brinkmann plastic bodied flashlight. Think it was called a Rebel or something, don't recall. Works OK, takes AA batteries. I'm told the energizer hardcases are good lights, going to try one eventually.
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Here you go:
http://www.quigley4x4.com/
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Hurricane lamps are better then flashlights. They can light up a room and a jug of lamp oil last much longer then batteries.
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agreed, but with kids around. the led/florescent lanterns are better. and you can get them with remotes. [popcorn]
they don't work as heaters to though.
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i've got oil lamps with reflectors mounted on the walls in most rooms burn long safe can't be reached by lil ones or knocked down
if i build again i'm gonna plumb soft copper to all rooms for gas lights
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The functional IQ of the common motorist drops 20-30 points or more when snow is actually falling.
Yesterday I had to make a trip to the next town for a visit to the eye doctor. On the 20 mile trip to town the roads were slick and snow/ice packed but perfectly manageable in 2 wheel drive. Traffic on the road and in town was moving slowly and in a more or less orderly fashion. After the eye appointment we slid on over to wally world to get supplies for my mother in law and daughter who lives with her, they hadn't thought it necessary to stock up on essential like food and diapers before the storm hit :facepalm:.
When we came out of Wal-Mart it was snowing at a pretty good rate. People idiots were sliding all over the place, several vehicles in the ditch. It was like they had never seen snow before.
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The functional IQ of the common motorist drops 20-30 points or more when snow is actually falling any time there is a significant weather change.
The first day that it warms up and the snow melts, they'll be driving like idjits again. Have several nice days followed by a windy day? The cartards will appear once again. I've decided it's not so much what the weather is, it's the fact that it's suddenly "different".
DD
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Last night was up at the shop - 700 foot driveway, and steep. And I had to walk out down to the road. One of the guys met me there, and he has a hand-crank LED flashlight that he keeps in his glovebox. VERY nice...
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What brand? How long did it hold enough charge to keep the LEDs lit?
Every hand-cranked LED I've seen or touched was a POS that could not stay lit for five minutes, and most cranks either broke off or were so tiny that cranking them was torture until they broke off.
stay safe.