The Storm’s Over — The Numbers Are In

The dry air was the wild card. Radar showed moderate snow over all of Connecticut for hours-and-hours before anything hit the ground.

snow-shovel-on-the-steps.jpgThe snow has come and gone. There’s never a bullseye, but the forecast was reasonably close. If success is judged by number of complaints, or lack thereof, I’m doing fine. Here are the final DOT numbers. I have also added the Boston and New York NWS snow totals, which include Connecticut, for the Dec 20-21, 2009 storm at the end of this entry.

Not everyone was as lucky. A friend who forecasts in Springfield sent a text message saying he’d received nothing! “Bust of the decade,” he said. Ouch. Been there. I know exactly what he’s going through.

I was right about Southeastern Connecticut getting the most snow followed by the shoreline in general. The snow was fluffy and windblown as predicted. Accumulations were generally in line with my numbers. My call for the Northwest Hills and most of the area directly adjacent to the Massachusetts line was a few inches higher than the actual totals.

I wrote about this last night, but it bears repeating the most unusual and interesting part of this storm was the exceptionally dry air. During the summer we sometimes see 30 grams of water content per square meter. Last night it was around 1 gram per cubic meter!

The dry air was the wild card. Radar showed moderate snow over all of Connecticut for hours-and-hours before anything hit the ground. Once the atmospheric column over any location became saturated light snow turned to heavy snow. I’d never seen a situation quite like this before. It cut inches off all the accumulations.

It’s a shame this storm will impact Christmas shopping. Otherwise we’re lucky it came on a Saturday night when travel is usually light.

And now the dig out begins.

(NWS totals after the jump)

Continue reading “The Storm’s Over — The Numbers Are In”

How I Became A Maine-iac

Here’s the setup. I had vacation time I needed to take (and there’s more where that came from). So did my friend Bob from North Carolina. Neither of us wanted to spend much money, but he had a plan.

If we went on vacation to Maine, he could do some work for a radio station that carries his syndicated morning show, and we could visit Maine on the cheap. Anyway, he loves Maine and is very attached to the radio station in Bangor where he’s been heard for 10 years.

We made our plans, such as they were.

We’d drive up to Maine on Sunday and stay until Wednesday. I needed to be back in time to hand off the camera, “Clicky,” to Helaine and Stef who were going to a concert.

In return for Bob’s on-air visit, the station would arrange a place for us to stay. This was the first in what would be a string of incredible luck and good fortune that marked our trip.

Bob flew up from Charlotte, and we left midday Sunday. Though my car’s a convertible, you can’t drop the top when the trunk’s full – and it was full. That’s OK. Our 415 mile, six hour fifteen minute, trip was a little long for that much wind noise. And, as it turned out, once we got to Maine, the top stayed down!

We drove through Connecticut, into Massachusetts and then onto the Mass Pike. We exited near Worcester and then headed northeast into the Merrimack Valley and New Hampshire. From there, we paralleled the coast, without seeing it, on I-95.

Maine is a big state. Once you’re north of Portland, there is little but trees to see. We watched for moose!

Off the Interstate, we drove east toward Mt. Desert Island. It sounds foolish when you first say it, but it’s pronounced “deh-ZERT.”

The topography of Mt. Desert Island was set into motion as the Earth’s tectonic plates collided to form mountains. It’s only in the last tens of thousands of years that the true lay of the land was set by the advance and retreat of glaciers.

It’s an island – you expect to see water. There’s more than you expect! The island was scoured by glaciers, which formed lots of lakes, harbors and Eastern United States’ only fjord!

Our home was in the town of Southwest Harbor. More succinctly, it was on Southwest Harbor.

Because of the shape of the harbor, it has wide tide swings. High and low tide can sometimes be separated by 10-15 feet! For the tidally deprived, that’s a difference in depth. The actual water’s edge can, and does, retreat by hundreds of feet.

Our landlord/hosts were Mary Jo and Rhonda. They own the house we were in, one next door and another home well inland. They could not have been friendlier or more gracious.

Let me stop here and say, everyone was friendly and gracious. This wasn’t because I’m TV-boy, or because Bob has been on the radio for a decade. People on Mt. Desert Island and everywhere else we were in Maine were just nice.

The perfect example came later in the trip. We were on a tiny island – only 75 full time residents. I was in the general store looking for Chapstick. No luck. As I was about to walk out, a woman approached me, handed me one, and said it was in her purse, unopened.

I offered to pay for it, but she said (and this is an exact quote), “It’s my good deed for the day.” To me, that one sentence typified Mainers.

Our house was interesting, in that it was bigger inside than out. Built like a boat, it had slightly low ceilings and no wasted space.Upstairs there were three bedrooms. The two Bob and I used each had large picture windows that opened onto the harbor.

The bathroom was compact as well. I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but I’ve never been in a shower so small you had to be under the water at all times.

After unpacking, we headed to Cadillac Mountain. Cadillac is inside Acadia National Park, and at 1,500 feet above sea level, offers an amazing view in all directions.

While we waited for the Sun to set, we looked around. The air was clear and clean and richly blue. Below us were Bar Harbor and a number of coastal islands. Holland America’s Amsterdam was leaving port, continuing its New England/Canada itinerary.

We left the mountain and drove into Bar Harbor. With only 5,000 or so permanent residents, it is definitely a tourist town. However, don’t think honky tonk.

This is Mt. Desert Island. There are no 7-Eleven’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks or any other franchise or (shudder) big box stores. It is 1950s America as depicted on sitcoms – all white (97.88%), all Christian, all industriously hearty.

We had to get up early (for me) on Monday. Bob was going on the radio from a natural foods supermarket over 50 miles away. This would be the beginning of the “Fatiguing of Geoff.”

Getting up early is no problem. It’s the getting to bed early part I can’t hack. Day-by-day that took its toll.

The appearance was Bob’s. I was just an appendage. Still, I was impressed with how he handled himself and the genuine affection of the listeners who came by.

On Sunday’s arrival I had discovered my laptop’s PC card slot was no longer functioning. That meant no Internet! There was, however, an Internet Cafe in the market. This would be my only time online during the vacation.

It’s tough to remember each and every thing we did, and in the proper order, but we visited nearly every inch of the island and its three main towns: Bar Harbor, Southwest Harbor and Northeast Harbor.

We also ate lobster. I’m not talking one meal here. We ate lobster twice each day – lunch and dinner.

Lunch was a lobster roll. Think chicken salad on a hot dog bun, but substitute lobster for the chicken! Dinner was boiled lobster.

It doesn’t take long to understand lobster is a major employer on Mt. Desert Island. It’s not some ‘photo op’ touristy thing. You see men, and at least one woman I saw, scurrying about on stubby lobster boats nearly every time you see water.

Lobster buoys, the makings of the prototypical Downeast Maine photo, are everywhere. Yes, they’re hung on walls and piled on docks, but any stretch of water deep enough for lobsters has hundreds, sometimes thousands of traps marked with buoys.

Though surrounded by water, Mt. Desert Island is not a bather’s paradise. The water is too damned cold, even during the height of the season, when it’s in the low 50&#176s!

Even if the water was warmer, there is only one sandy beach – Sandy Beach! The rest of the coast is speckled with large rock outcroppings, and crashing surf.

We spent part of one afternoon at Sandy Beach and Thunder Hole – both are in Acadia National Park. Thunder Hole is a natural rock formation which, when conditions are right, produces 30-40 foot tall columns of sea spray accompanied by thunderous booms.

Though Hurricane Florence was passing off to the east, and we came before and stayed through high tide, Thunder Hole was silent.

On Wednesday, our last day, we took the mail boat past the Bear Island Lighthouse to Islesford on Little Cranberry Island. This tiny community has a permanent population of 75.

At first, I thought it was neat to be an interloper in their little society. Then I thought, do they feel as if they’re zoo animals on display? Wherever reality lies, I felt welcome and I loved the island!

It is small enough to transverse on foot. Bob and I followed an unmarked road to a lonely stretch of rocky beach. We turned around and walked, cross island, to an art gallery.

It didn’t take long to figure out there was something strange about the island’s vehicles. Most homes had a car or truck parked outside – a very old car or truck.

When the island’s tiny, your car’s engine will never wear out. However, the exterior is another story. Exposed to salt air 24/7/365, the finish dims and sometimes rust pokes through.

This was a great trip with a great friend – a guy I met my first day as a professional broadcaster, over 35 years ago.

The trip itself was better than the sum of its parts. Yes, Maine is spectacularly beautiful – possibly the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.

It was more beautiful because the Sun was strong each day, the temperatures mild, the stars very bright. I might not have enjoyed it as much if it hadn’t cooperated with me. Still, that’s an outcome I didn’t have to worry about.

I shot over 1,000 photos on this trip. Some of them illustrate this entry. There are nearly 180 more in my online photo gallery. I hope you get a chance to take a peek.

Another Reason Not To Smoke

I saw this just a moment ago on wired.com:

A San Francisco man learned the hard way that littering — especially burning objects — is not a good idea. Jonathan Fish was driving across the Bay Bridge on Thursday when he tossed his cigarette out the window. But the cigarette blew back into his $30,000 Ford Expedition, igniting the back seat and filling the SUV with smoke. Fish pulled over and leaped from the flaming vehicle, which kept rolling and crashed into a guardrail. “It was in flames by the time he got out,” said CHP Officer Shawn Chase. “He had some of his hair singed on the back of his head. (The car) burned down to the frame.” Fish likely faces a misdemeanor charge for littering, which carries a fine of up to $1,000.

It’s a sort of funny, ironic story. Except for me, now over 20 years a non-smoker, it hits home.

It had to be 1969, wintertime, and a Saturday night. I was living in Boston, making believe I was attending Emerson College and working as a talk show producer on the Steve Fredericks Show at WMEX.

Being a talk show producer sounds more glamorous than it really was. WMEX was a second rate station with an awful signal. It was owned by Max Richmond, a larger than life caricature of himself. Everything he did was done with an eye to cost. That’s fine, but reward should be factored in as well.

We were in a building originally designed by a movie studio for their Boston operation. That’s probably the reason it was built of cinder block with no insulation.

I answered calls and watched the door to the outside. I didn’t even screen all the phone lines. Some came to my little booth – others didn’t.

The show ended at (I think) 2:00 AM. I found my car, a faded green 1960 Volkswagen Beetle&#185 and headed toward the Mass Pike. I was going to Albany, NY to see my friend Larry Lubetsky, a student a SUNY Albany.

Back then I was a smoker. My cigarette of choice was Tareyton. That was the brand which showed smokers with black eyes and the caption, “I’d rather fight than switch.”

This was the time when a pack of cigarettes in a machine cost 40&#162. I remember going to WHDH-TV (then Channel 5) for a conference and seeing cigarettes in a hallway machine for 35&#162!

I’m sorry. This story isn’t going in a straight line. Back to what I’m writing about.

As I drove, I smoked. And, as the cigarette would burn down toward the filter, I’d roll down the window and flick it outside. Looking back, that was wrong and I apologize to society in general for my selfish attitude.

Somewhere between Worcester and Springfield the car seemed a little smoky. Of course I had been smoking. So, I rolled down the window, let in some fresh wintry air, and then rolled it back up.

You didn’t want to keep the window down long in a 1960 VW. The heating system was vigorous enough to keep you warm through early September. After that it was a losing battle against the elements.

I continued driving, though the toll booth at the eastern end of the turnpike and through the Berkshires into New York State. The smoky conditions were getting worse. The window was going down more frequently.

It is only in retrospect that I realize I should have stopped and looked.

I merged off the Berkshire Extension of the New York State Thruway onto the main line. Even at this late hour there was truck traffic and my VW’s lack of power (the car topped out at around 60 mph… and took around a minute to get there) made me check my mirrors constantly. It was then I spotted the red glow from behind the back seat.

The 1960 Volkswagen had bucket seats in the front and a bench seat in the back. Behind the bench was a rectangular, deep pocket where you could store things. When I bought the car, there had been covers on the front seats. These fabric covers were in that pocket and they were on fire. One of my flicked cigarettes must have been blown back into the car.

I pulled to the side and jumped out. I didn’t think about safety at the time as I reached back in, flipped the front seat forward, pulled the slipcovers out and began stomping on them on the shoulder of the New York State Thruway.

I left them there, on the side of the road where they could commiserate with lost shoes and socks and the other things you find at the highway’s edge. I was shaking, now realizing what had… and what could have happened.

Still, I had to make it to Larry’s apartment before dawn. I hopped back in the car, lit another cigarette and started to drive.

Some people never learn.

Blogger’s note – I have been smoke free since the winter of 1984-85. This event had nothing to do with quitting. Of all the things in my life that were smart, quitting smoking was one of the smartest.

&#185 – I couldn’t find an actual photo of a green 1960 VW Beetle. I did find a yellow one and with Photoshop, made it green. Helaine took a look and said the color was unnatural. Actually, the color is pretty close. Though this was glossy paint when it left Germany, it was a very dull green during my ownership.

Flag Day in Hudson, NY

All the photos on this page, and lots of parade pictures, can be seen in my photo gallery.

Back in 1969, when I got my first paid on-air radio job in Fall River, Massachusetts at WSAR (Ahoy there matey, it’s 14-80) I met Skippy Ross – a fellow disk jockey. He was older, wiser, married, and the station’s music director. We became friends.

Later, in 1971, I went to WBT in Charlotte, NC. Skippy was already there… he just wasn’t Skippy anymore. In Worcester, MA he had become Skip Tyler and now he was Bob Lacey.

For nearly 35 years he has been Bob Lacey, working at the radio and television stations at 1 Julian Price Place, and becoming a Charlotte institution. He and his partner, Sheri Lynch run a woman friendly&#185 morning drive radio show, syndicated across the country.

Bob and I have remained friends through all this time. When my life was falling apart in the mid-70s, Bob took time off and drove with me through the Western United States. We have shared good times and bad longer than most married couples – and with a better relationship.

On-the-air Bob refers to me as his ‘gold best friend.’ It’s an honor I treasure.

We are two very different people. I think the difference can be best explained in a little story. The year was 1973 and I was leaving Charlotte, moving to Cleveland (based, as it turns out, on bad information from someone who wanted me to leave). It was my last day there and I was getting a new tire put on my car. Bob joined me at the tire store on Independence Boulevard, a busy Charlotte business district back then.

We went to the Coke machine. Bob went first. His soda plopped from the slot, he put the bottle into the opened, pushed down and was ready to drink. I got my bottle, went to the opener, pushed down and… soda all over me. It was as if a midget was in the machine, waiting for me to shake the bottle.

To me, Bob has always seems suave and in control. I have always seemed like an unmade bed – scattered and kinetic.

We are both lucky, because in spite of setbacks in our lives, we’ve done well – both with our careers and families. And, for two old guys (and he is much older and very, very short… make that very, very, very short) we’ve aged well.

I was on the phone with Bob late last week. It was the usual chit chat. I asked him what he was doing over the weekend and he told me he and Sheri (his radio partner) were flying to Hudson, NY for Flag Day. There’s a parade, which they ride in, the emcee from the reviewing stand.

Hudson is a few hours from here – a nice drive if it’s a nice day. There’s some highway to take you away from the urban areas and then it’s small, sparsely traveled 2-lane roads through rolling hills. The trip goes up through Northwest Connecticut, cuts through the Southwest corner of Massachusetts and then west into New York and the Hudson River.

I decided to go.

Since I knew neither Helaine nor Stefanie would want to take this road trip, I prepared a geek’s journey. My camera was ready with two sets of batteries and two flash memory cards (I could have taken 350 high resolution photos, but only took 273). I put my old Dell laptop on the passenger’s seat, plugged an inverter into the cigarette lighter and threw a GPS antenna onto the armrest between the seats. This trip would be well documented.

The trip up was uneventful. The weather superb – truly perfect. Though I had printed directions before leaving the house, the GPS receiver was really helpful, showing me my turns before I got to them.

With the top down, on a sunny day, there are lots of sensations. The warmth of the sun (I was worried about the warmth of the sun on my laptop, which I removed from the seat and put on the floor while still in Connecticut), the breeze, the aroma.

Springtime has good aromas. There weren’t many restaurants to pass at this time of day on this route. I did smell freshly cut grass (a watermelon-like smell), freshly cut lumber (as I passed a mill) and a dairy farm. They were all distinct, but the dairy farm was certainly the most pungent.

I have a radar detector mounted in the convertible. When I first bought the car, I had electricity brought from an interior light directly to the unit. It only went off once on the trip, and then because a police car was going the opposite direction and must have had his transmitter on.

By the time I got to Hudson, the streets downtown were closed off for the parade. This was a bigger deal than I thought – and as I’d later find out the longest parade I’d ever seen.

The main street of Hudson, Warren Street, was lined with happy people. For some reason I expected this to be a lily white town. That was not the case. There was just about every shade of person imaginable, and they were all out on the street together ready for the parade.

It seems like Hudson is a town that was, and possibly still is, down on its luck. I walked on cracked sidewalks with tall weeds growing through them. There were small houses with chipped paint. On Warren Street itself the homes were old but freshly painted. It had the aura of gentrification – a two edged sword which rebuilds and displaces.

I moved toward the river, where the reviewing stand had been erected, and waited for Bob and Sheri. They arrived, first in the parade, sitting in a convertible. It is only now, looking at the photo, that I realize it is a used car, for sale, with the price tag nicely affixed to the windshield. Still, it looked great rolling down Warren Street, and Bob and Sheri were enjoying every second of it.

We chatted for a few seconds and then they made their way to the microphone and the parade began. It was a bad day to have a fire in the Hudson Valley, because I believe every piece of fire equipment for a hundred miles was rolling down Warren Street – even a blue fire truck from Philmont, NY! Along with the fire equipment there were policemen and soldiers and and organizations, plus kid from schools and sports leagues.

This was the longest parade I had ever seen. As we approached the 3 hour mark, I turned to a policeman standing near me and asked, “Are they going around for a second time?”

There was a sad moment. A float in memory of a local soldier who had been killed in Iraq. The base of the float was full of American flags – one for each death in this war. In a glass case, the soldier’s uniform was displayed. Very, very sad.

The parade ended and Bob, Sheri and I hopped onto a golf cart to head down to the riverside where the festivities would continue. The scene was very much like those beeping carts that careen through the terminals at airports, taking people with more pull than us to the next gate.

It was getting late. I had a drive ahead of me. They had autographs and then a plane ride back to Charlotte. We’d all get home around the same time.

I wish I could have spent more time with Bob, and with Sheri who I like a lot. Bob and I are already trying to figure out a time for next summer. But maybe there will be time sooner.

The good thing about gold friends is, their friendship will wait.

&#185 – When I say woman friendly, I mean a show which is not based on sex, bodily functions and stretching the vocabulary envelope. Stern, Imus and Bubba the Love Sponge don’t qualify for this genre.

All the photos on this page, and lots of parade pictures, can be seen in my photo gallery.