Posts Tagged ‘winter’

Getting wood in Weirdcliffe

February 22, 2021

The fireplace in Weirdcliffe, before we installed a Lopi woodstove insert.

When Texas sank back into the Ice Age, I was reminded of the good old days on our wind-scoured rockpile outside Weirdcliffe, Colorado.

There, the power only went out whenever it was inconvenient. And it usually would stay off for an hour or two at minimum, which was the time it took for a utility guy from Cañon City to flip a switch somewhere.

We learned early on that not much works during winter at 8,800 feet in the ass-end of nowhere if you don’t have power. No water, no cooking, and most important, no heat.

I remembered the joys of a heat-free home from my stint in a 9×40 singlewide trailer in Greeley back in 1974. Its oil furnace was forever seizing up in the middle of a winter night, and there’s nothing that clarifies the mind for higher education quite as well as the backsplash from a frozen toilet when you get up at stupid-thirty to offload a sixer of the long-neck Falstaffs you enjoyed for dinner.

Our private road. I went backwards on this stretch in 4WD one evening. I wasn’t scared or nothin’, but somebody shit on my seat. | Photo: Hal Walter

So on our hillside, we kept ourselves prepared. There were canned goods and jerrycans of water in the hall closet, along with a Coleman two-burner and several 1-pound propane bottles for emergency cookery. And we had several candle lanterns and flashlights at the ready because this shit never happens in broad daylight on a weekday.

But the smartest thing we did was have a Lopi woodstove insert installed in our fireplace, along with buying a chainsaw and ax. When you heat with wood, it warms you twice — while you’re cutting it, and while you’re burning it.

And speaking of getting wood, yes, yes, yes, it’s time for the latest episode of Radio Free Dogpatch.

P L A Y    R A D I O    F R E E    D O G P A T C H

• Technical notes: I recorded this one in the Comedy Closet, using a Shure MV7 mic and Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. Editing was in Apple’s GarageBand, with a sonic bump from Auphonic. Music by Infernal Hound Sound; sound effects courtesy of Zapsplat. Special guest appearance by Shel Silverstein.

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Posted in Audio, Cold, Home and hearth, Podcasting, Radio Free Dogpatch, Winter | 12 Comments »

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

February 12, 2021

Red sky at morning, Mad Dogs take warning.

So much for the days of knickers and short sleeves.

I’ve gotten out every day this week, including two short trail rides — the first on a Steelman cyclocross bike, the second on the DBR hardtail — and one short but luxurious hike on a day so warm I could roll up my sleeves and go bareheaded, get a little vitamin D into the old chrome-dome.

A fella has to make hay while the sun shines, don’t you know. The weather wizards predict a wintry one-two punch this weekend, with the Duke City getting the worst of it on Sunday.

In the meantime, we were treated to a colorful sunrise this morning. A warning if ever I saw one.

 

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Posted in Albuquerque, Snow, Weather, Wind, Winter | 9 Comments »

White-line fever

February 20, 2019

Base camp at the overflow area in McDowell Mountain Regional Park, circa 2004.

It’s been a chilly, damp winter in Albuquerque, which isn’t saying much.

Still, it grates after a while, and never more so than during February, a month that is simultaneously too short and too long.

Herself has been to Costa Rica, the neighbors just fled to Mexico, and some other friends beat feet all the way to France.

And yet here I sit (no, this is not a poem, and it is specifically not that poem), rattling the bars on my window of opportunity and losing arguments with the voices in my head.

I’ve written often and at length about my irrational hatred for February, and I was getting set to do it again when I realized, “Hey, I’ve written often and at length about my irrational hatred for February. Why don’t I turn it into a podcast?”

Which I did. This is it. You’re welcome. Now hand me the snow shovel on your way out, would you? I want to smack myself in the head with it.

P L A Y    R A D I O    F R E E    D O G P A T C H

• Editorial notes: The “Mad Dog Unleashed” column headlined “On the Road Again: Frown Lines Search for a Few Tan Lines,” which is my onion at the bottom of this bitter pot of bitch stew, first appeared in the February 2004 issue of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. My line about February having roots in the French “febrile” is, as you may already know, complete and utter bullshit. The Cactus Cup has returned to McDowell Mountain Regional Park since that 2004 column — this year’s edition is slated for March 8-10. And finally, did you know that Peter “Sneaky Pete” Kleinow, pedal steel player for The Flying Burrito Brothers, was also a visual-effects artist and stop-motion animator who worked on “Gumby?” Neither did I.

• Technical notes: This episode was recorded with an Audio-Technica AT2035 microphone and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. I edited in Apple’s GarageBand on a 2014 MacBook Pro, adding audio acquired through fair means and foul via Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack (no profit was taken in an admittedly casual approach to various copyrights). Speaking of which, the pedal steel riff that closes the episode is from Merle Haggard’s “White Line Fever,” as performed by The Flying Burrito Brothers on their eponymous 1971 album. The background music is “Trapped” from Zapsplat.com. And the rewind sound is courtesy of TasmanianPower at Freesound.org.

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Posted in Audio, Music that doesn't suck, Podcasting, Radio Free Dogpatch, Road trips, Snow, Winter | 14 Comments »

Videocy: O, the weather outside, etc.

December 28, 2018

Why, yes, we are frightfully bored, thanks for asking. Hence the short video depicting conditions as we found them upon arising far too early this morning at El Rancho Pendejo.

These things always start as “short” projects, but by the time I’ve shot a little footage, tacked the bits together, tarted it up a tad, and then handed it over to CenturyLink and YouTube for the traditional hourlong upload — seriously, I can see every friggin’ pixel as it goes “bloop” through the pipeline — why, what we have is a couple billable hours down the loo.

Still, it beats going outside. It’s not actually all that bad out there, unless you’re a cardboard-placard engineer with offices at the corner of Windchill and Frostbite. Still, if I’m going to fall down anywhere today, I plan to do it indoors, where it’s warm.

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Posted in Cold, Videocy, Wind | 18 Comments »

Santa Protection Factor

December 23, 2018

Oh, the weather outside is … frightful?

I hope jolly ol’ St. Nick remembers to slather on the SPF 50 when he brings all my toys to the Duke City. Unless he wants his snoot to get redder than Rudolph’s.

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Posted in Albuquerque, Cyclo-cross, Winter | 12 Comments »

Shoveling

January 7, 2017
Behold the Driveway of Doom.

Behold the Driveway of Doom.

Jaysis. Some days, the writing, it goes smooth like butta.

And some days, it goes more like shitting broken bottles into a flaming toilet. Something of a pain in the keister, is what.

This is the grotesquely scenic route toward explaining the recent dearth of bloggery in these environs. With mots of the bon variety proving elusive I felt compelled to corral the few I was able to catch, hoping eventually to assemble them into a remuda of paying copy.

Nix.

Notions kept arising with malicious intent, like Martin Sheen surfacing in the lagoon en route to snuffing Marlon Brando in “Apocalpyse Now.” False paths with bad endings. Curiously shaped bricks that, while fascinating in their own right, didn’t quite fit in the wall.

Gah.

Also, it snowed. One of those obnoxious, featherweight snows that, coupled with a stiff north wind, basically glazes a steep, north-facing driveway like a cop’s donut if the homeowner is distracted by journalism and forgets to clear it first thing.

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeyit.

While all this was going on I was striving mightily to avoid the actual news, which, wow, talk about your false paths and bad endings. The road goes ever on and on. Here be dragons. This way to the Dark Side. Thus I shunned The New York Times and NPR in order to remain blissfully ignorant and focused on the task at hand, viz., to wit, earning the meager handful of coppers I require to purchase my common groats and lentils.

And now I believe I need a break from all that. It’s the weekend, f’chrissakes. The toilet will still be on fire come Monday morning.

 

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Posted in Albuquerque, Cold, Journalism, Pissing and moaning, Snow | 18 Comments »

Yesterday and today

December 22, 2016
From powdery to pouring.

From powdery to pouring.

So yesterday, I’m out for a bike ride, pulling off the arm warmers and glad of the sunscreen on my snoot … and today we got this whole other thing going on.

Hey, I’m not complaining. The trees like it, and I don’t have to to shovel it. It’s a Zappadan miracle!

 

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Posted in Good news, Rain, Winter | 11 Comments »

Black, white and red

October 29, 2015
Sure, the thermometer shows a temp in the upper 50s. You gonna believe me or your lyin' eyes?

Sure, the thermometer shows a temp in the upper 50s. You gonna believe me or your lyin’ eyes?

As the dark days of winter loom I’ve been tormenting people on Facebook and Twitter with photos of a sunny, warm Albuquerque, so it’s only fair that last night Herself and I both felt a tad chilly under just a sheet and lightweight bedspread, and this morning it was sprinkling as I backed the Forester out of the garage for its date with the Subaru wizards at Reincarnation.

Cycling home from the shop in a chilly breeze I had to stop to beef up my kit, pulling on a light jacket, long-fingered gloves and tuque. Happily, the rain cut me some slack and I got home without a soaking. Also without photos. I’m not good enough with Photoshop to turn today’s gray skies blue.

There’s a bit of red in the old fiscal picture, though. Subie wants a new driveshaft. Owie. I guess I’m lucky to have avoided a long walk home from this last trip to Bibleburg, the only one in recent memory in which a bicycle didn’t come along for the ride.

Meanwhile, how refreshing to find out that a Bush really doesn’t want the job before we give it to him: “Contributors detected little urgency in his voice, and some were taken aback when Mr. Bush announced that he had an hour free on his schedule and was going to go work out.”

Remember, this is the smart one.

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Posted in Albuquerque, Automobiles, Cold | 16 Comments »

I hate February

February 11, 2012
What passes for snow in February

A little cranky commentary on the back deck. I thought about putting it out front but property values are already low enough around here.

Fourteen degrees with a 12-mph wind out of the south and maybe a half inch of fluffy white powder on the deck — just three of the reasons that February sucks.

Weather like this makes me want to eat grease, drink whiskey and buy things, not necessarily in that order. I just looked back through a few old training logs and the February entries are full of low mileage and foul language. The month is bad for the legs and worse for the mind.

It doesn’t help that colleagues are taunting me from Tucson, where they have spent a few days test-riding bikes under sunny skies in 70-degree temps. There’s nothing a journalist likes better than seeing an open wound and the salt shaker within easy reach. Oh, the humanity.

Me, I did an hour of cyclo-cross in a bitter north wind on Thursday and about 90 minutes of unimpressive riding in a surprisingly snowy and wet Palmer Park yesterday. Who knew that last little poot of a snowstorm would linger as it did? Not me, and now I have a bike that needs a wash and brush-up.

Today I’m trying to nudge myself into the first trainer ride of 2012, but the pep talk is not going well. Cycling indoors is right up there with daytime TV, cybersex and listening to Republicans speak.

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Posted in Pissing and moaning, Winter | 21 Comments »