Right now, the National Weather Service and The Weather Channel are discussing which one will get to move to a new domain name, ourbestguess(.com/.gov)
Showing 5 responses by trelja
My neighbor put one of these in during the Y2K paranoia. It's a large, very robust looking unit, sitting on a concrete slab, powered by an underground propane tank. If I remember correctly, it was something like $25K - $30K at the time. It comes on like clockwork every time the power goes out on our street(seems to happened more in the past 2 years), and it's the first thing I listen for (despite the distance between our homes, it's easy to hear) when my lights go out to know whether it's just me or the whole neighborhood. From what I can tell, it comes on immediately. I mean, so quickly, that I'm not even sure one would have to reset their digital clocks. Interestingly enough, he passed on almost two years ago (VERY unique and interesting guy, who founded the Philadelphia Folk Festival, and owned a bar called The Main Point which often featured such unknowns as Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel and made both staples here in the Philadelphia area well before they reached national acclaim), and the subject came up when his widow and I were talking about a month ago. She considers it a colossal waste; a needless and worthless extravagance, and disagreed with my opinion that it was a nice thing to have. Even he was laughing at himself on January 2, 2000. However, after reading some of the thoughts in this thread, more than ever, I think it would be a decent buy. |
I was on my way "down the shore" as we call the NJ beaches here in Philadelphia tonight or tomorrow for about 10 days. With the mandatory evacuation of the island where I have a vacation home to by midnight last (Thursday) night, it looks like the earliest I can hope to go is Monday morning. That is, if I still have a house down there. The last big one was 1962, when half the homes on the island were destroyed. As my father loves to say, factoring in the one before that was 1944, we're way past due. Our prayers go out to the folks who are going to try to hang in there - keep safe. |
Thanks all for the well wishes! Hang in there buds, you know we're going to make it. Sunrise on the beach http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBODVcsaPP0 A look at the bay (Intracoastal Waterway), separated from the ocean by the two hundred or so yards of the island http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo0zYjxZ7-E And, a sunset on the wetlands side of the bay http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZqk4aVmQMw&feature=related Get a taste of how wonderful the experience of the beach is for a child http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACVJiIn4QdM&NR=1&feature=fvwp and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZFS-jehn2A Amen, Kbarkamian! Idiots?!? Yeah, we probably are, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLJSYklnQ40 But, I will make you this promise. You know when you can routinely get 20K people, 5K of which were willing to dive into the frigid Atlantic Ocean, on an otherwise desolate barrier island on a Saturday in the middle of February, when we're as pasty white as we ever get, we are going to pick up whatever pieces needed to put things back together |
Glad you left safely on Thursday, Joe. My sister's family also left then, as the town ordered everyone out by midnight. Hopefully, you didn't have any excitement in Cinnaminson. Frank Pittaluga's Shell station? As a kid I used to call him Frank "Spit a luga". The Ocean View Wawa you also mentioned - if you called it "offshore" as we do, it would sound bass ackwards to anyone not from these parts, as they would (rightly) assume offshore means out in the ocean. So far, this has been more or less a complete non-event here. I'm thankful to not have lost power. It rained OK in the early evening, but that seemed to be the height of things. 5.5" of rain in Philadelphia over the course of many hours. Not sure what part of town that number comes from, but I can't believe I got that here. We got over 4" last weekend, and 2" several times in the week or so prior to that - all of them in very order. This was not a bad storm at all. I WAS scared last Thursday night, the lightning was hellacious. In this, the wettest August here on record, most of the storms I've seen over the past two weeks made this look like a pretty nice day. Thankfully, the overall damage at the shore is minimal, if anything. Looking forward to tomorrow, and starting what should be an absolutely beautiful week there. FUNNY story, I was just watching the local (Philadelphia) news, and they obviously have a lot of their team down the shore. The beachfront house the 6 ABC reporter was standing in front of in Goldeneraguy's hometown of Ventnor had its lawn's sprinkler system come on about 10 minutes ago. You can't make this stuff up!!! Here's hoping you fellows north of us don't see anything of note, either... |