Flood of 2008

We have had rain. This is a set of pictures of the secondary pond across the road and the pond nearest the house. In the middle of the closest pond I would estimate the depth of 10 to 12 feet. I really don't have any idea about the other one but I could guess the same. The second picture is looking up the other way or west of picture number 1. The overall length of the pond is 300 yards +. You can see where the grass turned brown from the muddy water due to the errosion of the ground. The culvert support is approx. 2 foot tall and it was submerged. It took two days for the ponds to deminish enough for the sump pump to quit running almost non-stop. At the height of the water the pump would only shut down for 2 to 4 seconds and start up again and run for a long time trying to keep up. Somewhere in an e-mail to the city of Kettering there are exact numbers. First time it happened was the rains before the Blizzard -No -Blizzard and then somewhat after the snows melted. Thought the worst was over until the rains came. We are fortunate, no sewer and no water in the basement. The pump kept up and the backup system never had to run, however, I did run it the make sure the pump was sufficient enough to keep up if needed. Next thing I need to do is contact the pump manufacture and find out what the true duty cycle of their pump is so that I know if we have shortened the life span of the pump and if there should be a spare on the shelf. I would not want to rely on the back up pump to be so reliable and to function under these conditions.

Calling Dr. Phil

Now I know why there has been a report whimpering sound coming from a certain garage in Beavercreek, OH. It is that of a lonely 1987 Corvette. It has an identity issue. As you can see, it doesn't know whether it is a former Stingray (Sting-Ray), a Prancing Horse from Italy are a raging Bull from Italy. Hopefully we won't see stars on it and it think it's from Japan. Poor thing, anyone have the good doctors number?

Wanna be

My buddy Gene saw a F430 Ferrari in Canada at one of the Indian reservation casinos and fell in love. I do believe he has taken it further than I have with the wanna be thing. I might say my little Miata is a Porsche wanna be but I don't believe I have put a label on it just yet. He can't deny it, the car has his name all over the front of it. I even recognize the L-98 decals he put on this past summer. If he drops a 12 cylinder in it then I know he went over the edge. He really has a nice Vette. He is really very proud of it. I heard through the grape vine that the car was crying in the garage at night because its feelings were hurt. Gene, shark gills and prancing horses don't go together. Sharks eat horses, just ask the boys on the ALMS circuit. Just wait until the Blue Devil takes on Ferrari, the ZO-6 is hard enough on the horse and the Blue Devil is still less than half the cost.

A snowy day project

Well, we have the blizzard so we needed a project. Since they were kind enough to give us a warning we were able to go and get the material (paint) needed to paint Cindy's office. She matched the color in the drapes real well as you can see. Since it is snowing it is nothing but fitting that the shelf sitters go up, all 18 snowmen.

Blizzard of '08

I'm glad I'm retired. No need to go out in this. Thirty yrs. ago we had the blizzard of '78. I remember it well. I had played a late hockey game. It was raining and I had to stop at the UDF ( United Dairy Farmers) to get milk. When I came out it was snowing big flakes. I traveled about 2 miles to the edge of town and the roads were getting slushy. Another 4 miles down the road and the my speed had dropped. As I turned right to go north on Rt 49 I put the truck in 4 wheel drive. By this time the road had all but disappeared. Three more miles and I was in the garage. I got my gear and went in to see if there was anything on the news. I had grown up for about 11 years between Maine and South Dakota. I just knew this was a blizzard. Sure enough they were calling for a super low pressure drop. I went out to the kennel to get our two Malamutes, Lobo and Shanna. The next day all you could see of their 6' high kennel fence was the top 6". The dogs, they just loved it. You couldn't keep them in. They would go out, bury their heads and go to sleep.

78's blizzard was much worse than this one, at least in this area. It went on for over 24 hours. Where we were located they couldn't get to use until the Air Force came up with their snow blower for the runways. A semi was found buried 1/2 mile from our home at a junction of 5 roads. It looked like one large snow drift. The drive, he got out and into town somehow. Our road was only one mile long but it was the only thing with power the whole time. The road 1/2 mile north or south lost power for several days. We had a month old baby, Stephanie, that all the neighbors evidentally knew about because they kept checking in on us on their snowmobiles. We had only been their since Sept. so we didn't really know anyone.

I'm ready for spring. I need to do some gardening. I'm retired, I'm not suppose to play in snow, just watch it at Olympics time. It needs to be TDW, TOP DOWN WEATHER. The little car is itching to be driven. It's autocross time. Where's Summer?