So I guess today is not a good day to talk about 70 degree temps, huh?

Hello from Arizona!!!

:hi: Do your best to stay warm!

I have been up, and taking care of the animals on the farm.

The cattle have extra hay, and the chickens are in their nests.

The barn kitties are in the hay barn.

I bought in extra wood for the stove, everything is covered.

Now, it is time to sit back and play on the computer.

Looks like you were well prepared to weather the storm.

Just a few years ago we had a terrible cold spell here in the Phoenix area. Temps dropped to 22 degrees for 3 nights in a row.
We almost lost our citrus trees, and many trees around the city died. It's very unusual for us to be that cold.

The pipes are taken care of.

Back in 1983 in the Houston area we had a month of temps in the teens.

I hope all the norfork pines make it.

I have several big ones in the back yard at home.

They are tough trees.

I've been sick since Christmas with a severe sinus infection. Who knew you could die from that. It was bad. Now that I am feeling better, I can't risk going out in this windy cold weather.

I want to move to Port Isabel. Temps there are in the 60s.

I did feel really bad for about a week.

It will be spring soon, think of the wildflowers coming.

Temp at Port Isabel is now 67 degrees. So tempting

I drink a cup of water with a air raiders tablet now, everyday.

I haven't had any sinus problems since I started.

I don't want back whatever I had.

watching the red fluffy cardinals flitter around the birdfeeder. All is well here, despite the chilly weather.

I miss cardinals. They live in AZ but I don't ever see them around. Plenty of hummingbirds though.

I'm in central NC so the cold at night has only dropped to 18. Not terrible.

My neighborhood has lots of established trees and bushes (older neighborhood) and I've counted up to a dozen cardinals at once vying for the birdfeeder. I put black thistle seed in one of the feeders and get cute little "Carolina chickadees."

Love hummingbirds! We get them in the summer here and they are beautiful--and fight a lot with each other.

A pic I took last summer:

Do you guys have a spare room? A warm attic? A big box I can sleep in? I need sun and warm!!!!!!!:scared:

Well, everyone except my mom and me. My guestroom doesn't get the use I thought it would when I moved to AZ from PA.
Yep, the guestroom is empty but I gotta warn ya... the pool is waaaaay to cold to use.

Phoenix is called The Valley of the Sun. We get 350 days of sunshine a year. On the rare times we see clouds for 3 days in a row everyone gets depressed.

Then you're missing all the fun back east. Here in WV, like I said, we haven't seen the sun in about a week or so and there's a big snowstorm heading our way tonight (6"-8" of snow locally). Fun stuff.

I've already warned my family that I'm moving South very soon as I have had enough of winter. I thought I would have to get a place with a fat guestroom, but considering your story, maybe not.

Oh, and Phoenix sounds very pleasing.

:hi:

I moved here almost 20 years ago. I don't miss winter one little bit. Even winter here in the Phoenix area has gotten to be too long and too cold for me.

I can deal with our very hot summers easier than winter.

Oh and AZ can always use another Democrat!! I want this state to turn blue!

x(

It's 28 degrees here in the Atlanta area. it's going to snow late today or this evening, and I'm loving every freezing degree. I am a winter person. I hate summer.

I like it cold.

Pass some of that snow this way.

Usually, it doesn't stick to the ground for too long here.

I was hoping it would snow a little at the farm.

My luck it would snow in Houston.

.
Had a girlfriend in Atlanta quite a few years back. Rarely saw snow. Had
read about a certain "activity" in the snow that she always wanted to try,
but snow that accumulated was a RARITY in Atlanta.
.
Long Winter night. Woken up by said girlfriend at 3 AM and dragged along
stumbling mumbling sleepyhead to the Great Outdoors of our backyard.
.
Where she proceeded to use me to write her name in the snow.
.
Woke up pretty quickly, and was soon laughing so hard that I was no help
to her whatsoever when she attempted to dot the "i".
.
No experience whatsoever, but I would've given her a B+ in pen--manship.
.
Talented woman.
.

But just to let our northern and eastern brethren know that we too feel the bite. I am going to have to wear a heavy 4/3 wetsuite today.

That's my measure of warm weather.

Enjoy the surf!!

I have never had it too cold to sleep (and that includes sleeping in a snow cave). On the other hand, I have experienced sleepless nights when it's just plain too hot. Anyway, it may only be 23° right now, but the roads are bare and the sun is shining. The current view from a local traffic cam:



And the best part about this time of year is that the sun is so low, the light comes into the house almost sideways:

How is the seeing there. On second thought how can you stand the night temperatures?

and make sure M42 is still there. Yeah, it's cold but not too bad if you put on a hat.

I am on hiatus until I find two things; a Foucault tester, and some fresh pitch. Is your telescope a reflector or composite?

PS OP sorry about the attempted threadjack

I have a Celestron telescope that I have barely used. I need to learn more and get it set up properly.

I love star gazing.

We have gone every year for the last few years. I don't know if we are going in the next couple of weeks, but if we do, why don't you come out and camp with us "rock heads" and bring your scope.

One of the guys in our club made a big one:

http://www.runway.net/pilots/dan/fortyone-page1.html

Wow, just wow. I was awestruck then, and I still awestruck by the magnitude of that undertaking. My club just finish a Newtonian using a perfect mirror that was a back up for the old sky lab station. The mirror was donated to the Los Angeles Astronomical Society years ago, and some of the guys (we have lots of aerospace techs) got together and made a rock solid mount and Truss tube (I helped with the tube a tiny tiny bit) for it.

Here it is at first light RTMC Expo last spring.





www.laas.org

As long as you don't mine me talking about 70-degree temps six months from now... yanno, when it's 130 degrees in the shade and the tires of your car have just melted to your driveway.


Again.


:-)

:)

Yep it sure does get hot here... but I can deal with that easier than I can the cold and snow and ice.
Summer nights by the pool, staring at the stars, drinking tequila - nothing finer than that!!

:P

Hey, the summer stars are great here, too. Not as nice as the winter ones, though. Orion hanging in the sky, Sirius shimmering in multicolored glory, Prycon, Aldebaran... ah, it's nice.

At our local dark sky site we can just see Omega Centari over the horizon at 5,000ft elevation.

And briefly.

I guess being flat out here helps!

So feel free!

he said "69"

Just to complete the whole B&B effect. :D

And don't hide behind the couch when we knock on your door.

;-)

I'll take a little bit of snow if it means I'm not drenched in sweat day and night during the summer.

I hardly notice it any more. Oh and we have a little thing called A/C now! :hi:

Call me crazy, but I view summer as a time for outdoor activities and the like - it's not fun to be cooped up at home running up electricity costs with the air conditioner on all the time.

Plus, for those of us who work, the heat is often unavoidable. I don't like having to constantly crack the windows of my car, or burning my hands on the steering wheel, or sweating profusely the minute I walk outside my house.

I also never got used to all the brain-dead idiots that reside in the Phoenix area, or the blatant racism, or the constant harassment I got for being a liberal.

I also never got used to the low wages and shitty treatment of workers (right-to-work = right-to-fire), or the vaporizing job market that is now there.

I was unemployed for the last 5 months I lived around Phoenix, and couldn't find a job for the life of me. This was with my college degree, mind you. I was job hunting every day - I made it my job to look for a job. Nothing. Zip. Zilch.

I moved back to CT, and within two months I was not only employed, I'm now getting job offers that include a very nice salary. And I also don't have to live in a Mecca for right-wing shitheads.

"Hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix, a clean and well-lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except (or the ones who know in their hearts what is missing.... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back ordered."

-Hunter S. Thompson

:hi: But feel free to have some fun reminding about the heat in a few months.

I really need a sweating smilie.

I'd rather live in Greenland than survive another Phoenix summer.