Ground Hog Blues

For the record, this groundhog saw his shadow yesterday and would love to crawl into his "Hobbit Hole" until spring. Get a load of this weather forecast:

Issued: 5.00 AM EST Saturday 3 February 2007 Today: Sunny with cloudy periods. Becoming cloudy this afternoon with a few flurries. Amount 2 cm. Wind west 30 km/h gusting to 50. High minus 10. Wind chill minus 26 this morning. Tonight: A few flurries ending this evening then cloudy periods. Wind west 30 km/h gusting to 50. Low minus 18. Wind chill minus 29. Sunday: Sunny with cloudy periods. Becoming cloudy in the afternoon with 40 percent chance of flurries late in the day. Local blowing snow in the afternoon. Wind west 30 km/h increasing to 50 gusting to 70 early in the afternoon. High minus 14. Wind chill minus 30. Monday: Cloudy with 70 percent chance of flurries. Low minus 17. High minus 10. Tuesday: Cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries. Low minus 17. High minus 11. Wednesday: Cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries. Low minus 14. High minus 10.

Needless to say the Arctic Jet Stream still has Southern Ontario in focus.

On a positive note tomorrow morning I will have no excuse not to defrost my deep freeze at last. The balmy weather we "enjoyed" through the Christmas and New Year Period prevented my doing this chore at that time.

For all the problems my own Condominium Apartment Building has had in the last week two buildings in Oakville suffered worse. The rental building to our north suffered a break in the weld at the top of its fire-fighting standpipe resulting in a flood augmented by the high-pressure fire-pump in the basement. I feel for the poor wretches who had their earthly possessions soaked by that deluge—insurance, however good hardly covers the loss. A sister Condo suffered a fire in an electrical panel resulting in a fire-call that shut down traffic in the area. I consider myself fortunate that I wasn't caught up in that one as I drive by that building on my way to and from work every day.

My E-mail "In-Box" is empty this morning. No one I correspond with has written me in over a week. Guess everyone is busy shoveling snow and sanding ice? I can't boast that I've accomplished that much more myself. I've already written about my miss-adventure with Office 2007 so I won't bore you further. I continue to attempt to keep up with the items I download to iTunes, but it is fun. I have also listened to the latest from Harry Connick Jr. and managed to catch up on my electronic magazines. My reading has suffered though I'm still making progress reading Can Lit Poets. Dipped into The Waltons though this romanticized version of life in the Blue Ridge at the height of the depression occasionally gets a might saccharin—see review in my sister blog. For a complete change of pace I've switched to a copy of Little Boy Blue which I managed to locate. The West Family personifies the concept of dysfunctional family but let's be honest; the main draw here is the opportunity to watch the camera pan lovingly over Ryan Phillippe's virile young naked body.

I continue to plug away at preparations for my upcoming vacation. I've been working on adapting shopping list software to my needs. If I keep it up I'll soon have my entire life recorded on a Hard Drive:

http://www.homeplansoftware.com/shoplist.htm

The software is freeware and recommended.

It has just occurred to me that it's now February and I haven't changed my calendars as yet. Luckily the computer automatically updates itself. Windows XP even does a decent job of keeping track of time as well. Guess I'll finish up for the moment and go attend to those calendars.