OT Another MO ice storm (winter Plym screensaver)

[Norm's Coupe]

Actually Eagle Brand once almost changed my life. Twenty two years ago I was working for Borden at a cheese plant in Ohio. The cheese plant closed and I was offered a job with Borden at a location in Fon Du Lac, Wisconsin where Eagle Brand was made. I was also offered a job at a Beatrice Cheese plant in Pennsylvania. I went to Pennsylvania and hated the job. I often wondered how my life would be today had I taken the job in Wisconsin. I would hate to think I could only drive my car to the end of the driveway and back like Norm:rolleyes:

Don, that was a wise decision not to take the job at Borden's in Fond du lac. That plant shut down many years ago. Even the one in Plymouth was shut down. It has reopened though under a different company. My coupe is restricted to the garage and driveway again now for obvious reasons.

Bob, that's a long time to be without electricity, but I guess some in Oklahoma are much worse off. I would pick up a generator if I had that many power problems.

[Don Coatney]

Norm;

I had heard that Galloway West closed. The cheese plant in Pennsylvania is also closed. Food manufacturing is not like it used to be.

[Merle Coggins]

Don, it sounds like you've had some cheesy jobs in the past.

[Powerhouse]

WOW! My brother and his family from Rogersville(springfield area) are visting out here on Long Island NY. Seems like they missed it all...stinks for their house though...and animals...I hope their house sitter was able to stay warm and get water to the animals.

Well, stay warm out there and have a happy and safe holiday!

[BobT-47P15]

Power came back on in our neighborhood around noon today (Friday).

Still areas of town that are out.

They say things were worse over in Oklahoma.

Feels good to be back home.

[Jim Saraceno]

Man, you guys out west got clobbered! In St. Louis, we just got our first snow of the year. Just a few inches of light snow, no sign of frozen rain. We had that last year in January and lost power for a few days. The summer before, we had a horrendous thunderstorm that knocked out power for a week.

Glad to hear you have your power back.

[Norm's Coupe]

Nice to hear you got you power back Bob. Now you can get back to your everyday living. I'd still consider picking up a generator though. That's no fun going a week without power, even if you do have another place to go. There's no place like home.

[BobT-47P15]

Norm, I've thought about getting a generator. To me, the problem is what

to do with it between ice storms. My storage building is overly full....guess

I should clean it out some, but all that junk is valuable.

Can't think of much I would do with it between times. It would be $400 to

$600 worth of equipment just sitting there gathering dust. But, it would

be handy when needed.

[Norm's Coupe]

Bob, it seems like a waste because you are thinking of the generator as just for an emergency. Like a lot of tools and equipment, you can also use it for other things. For example, if it's one with a 220 outlet, you can use it in the garage to run a welder for example. Or, you can use it running other electrical equipment outside. Most will have an outlet for 110 and 220 volt. For example, if you want to use an air compressor outside, it's not good to hook them up to a long extension cord. If the compressor is on wheels, you can roll the compressor to the location along with the generator and just plug the compressor into your generator. You could even run an extra heater off it for in the garage or shed if you want. Lot's of things you could possibly use it for if it's just sitting around.

That said, like all gas equipment it is not good to leave it sitting idle all the time. Will tell you to run it ever so often just to keep it in good working order, in the instruction book. Remember, it's not just ice storms that can knock out the power. An overload in hot summer or thunder storm could also knock out the power.

I've considered it lots of times. The most we lose power for is an hour or two though, and that's very rare. So........I have trouble justifying it to the wife, so don't have one. Almost had her convinced last summer though. Lost power for about 4 hours. Found out later it was because someone cut a tree down and hit the main power supply line.

[knighthawk]

south east Kansas here, we got rain, sleet and now some snow, wind chill 14 degrees..........should get above freezing tommorrow afternoon

[BobT-47P15]

OK Norm----now you say i need to go out and buy a welder and compressor, etc. Don't currently own any of those things. Might be handy on occasion

however. Next thing looks like maybe a snow blower as it's now begun

snowing. Just one more reason I've come to dislike winter time.

Anyhow.....hope everyone has better weather and is getting along OK.

[Norm's Coupe]

OK Norm----now you say i need to go out and buy a welder and compressor, etc. Don't currently own any of those things. Might be handy on occasion

however. Next thing looks like maybe a snow blower as it's now begun

snowing. Just one more reason I've come to dislike winter time.

Anyhow.....hope everyone has better weather and is getting along OK.

Now you get the idea Bob. One toy like the generator gives a good reason to buy more things to go with it.

As for the snowblower. Those really come in handy if you don't already have one. We aren't getting any snow, etc., out of the current storm just south of us. However, it's been snowing ever since about 5 or 6 AM this morning. Supposed to get between 1 to 3 inches. Looks like we already have the 3" and still coming down good. This is just snow blowing in off the lake though, not a regular storm. Sometimes we can get more off the lake than we do in a regular storm.

[BobT-47P15]

Well, not enough accumulation for a snow blower yet (5 pm), may be only a couple

inches (hopefully). Gotta go play our Elks Lodge Christmas dance tonite (Sat)....so hope it doesn't get much worse.

At least maybe this won't cause any more damage to the trees.

Could maybe write my name in the snow, but wouldn't want to take a

chance that the writing instrument might freeze up.

[Norm's Coupe]

Bob, looks like I'll have to fire up the snowblower tomorrow morning. Our 1 to 3 inches of lake snow has now changed. We already have about 6 inches of new snow on the ground, now they say we will get a total of 9 or 10 inches out of the lake snow by 6 AM tomorrow AM. That should give us a total snowfall for the month of close to 20 inches since the 3rd of December.