Driving up to Williams on Thursday for the big Williams/Amherst face off on Friday. Looks like snow in the forecast. Maybe the groundhog will tell us differently in the morning.

10-Day Driving Forecast for
Williamstown, MA (01267) On The Spot Weather

Forecast Conditions High/Low °F Precip.
Chance Precipitation Wind Speed High Temperatures Low Temperatures
Thu
Feb 2 Cloudy
45°/36° 10%
10 %

Fri
Feb 3 Showers
45°/35° 60%
60 %

Get Tips for Driving in the Rain
Sat
Feb 4 Mostly Cloudy
48°/32° 20%
20 %

Sun
Feb 5 Snow Shower
36°/24° 30%
30 %

Mon
Feb 6 Few Snow Showers
30°/22° 30%
30 %

Get Tips for Driving in the Rain
Tue
Feb 7 Few Snow Showers
29°/18° 30%
30 %

Wed
Feb 8 AM Clouds / PM Sun
29°/15° 10%
10 %

Thu
Feb 9 Mostly Cloudy
32°/22° 0%
0 %

Fri
Feb 10 Scattered Snow Showers
34°/21° 60%
60 %

With this kind of forecast, I sort of miss the Bay Area.

Well, Snuffysmith ...

The Perils of Pauline all over again ...

And lose the groundhog ...

Far too commercial anymore to be of much value up here in the once-and-former cold country, here in OUR America ....

And lose the weather forecasters, too ....

You could gut a chicken and check its entrails for liver spots or something and probably come closer than they to what the weather up here will be, and that is a fact .....

I was just saying to someone yesterday that if January were to be like this every year up here, why I wouldn't mind it at all ...

And to be truthful, a lot of those days, I found myself saying, "WOW, THIS IS LIKE SAN FRANCISCO!" ....

Without the bay and the ocean, of course, but what the hey ....

WHEN CAN YOU EVER HAVE EVERYTHING?

It's going to be above freezing into the weekend is what I am hearing, and yesterday was not bad at all, and today is quite nice already ...

Sun shining ....

Blue sky ...

It is above freezing ....

Almost basking weather, in fact .....

There might be some wet snow, and rain ..

BUT ...

As to the rain, you could get the same in California right now .....

And so ....

Anyway, safe travels out there in the very hinterlands of civilization, Snuffysmith ....

And enjoy the big game .....

Punxatawny Phil SAW HIS SHADOW.

WTF does this mean?

Three more years of Bush?

All of that and more, jeffmoskin ....

Plus a cost of living that will have rich men feeling poor just to buy a hamburger ....

Which just might be made out of the poor ....

Soylent Green ....

This morning, Snuffysmith, the STORM TEAM RADAR PEOPLE who do the weather on the local CLEARCHANNELSWORLDWIDE radio station were saying that clouds would hide the sun today ...

And where I was ...

It was beautiful ...

Blue sky ...

And lots of sun ....

Now, somewhere twenty miles away might have been different ....

But that didn't affect me ...

At all ...

We will hear that rain is pushing in from the south and west, and sometimes, that rain will skirt right on by me to the north, veering east over me as it goes ...

And so .....

In a lot of ways, this is like the west of Ireland up here in terms of weather ....

If you are getting wet ...

It is raining ....

And there is the measure ....

I've seen little squalls both here and in Ireland cover a patch with hard rain, and you can stand there dry as a bone next to it, and watch it happen ...

Rain on one side of a road ....

But not on the other ...

And so ...

Sigh, another perfect day, out here in Kah-Lee-FAWN-Yah. Or is it Kah-Lee-Fawn-Jah?

I forget.

Only you guys (youse guys for nyawkers) aren't doing your part by freezing to death. My youngest daughter who lives in Brooklyn, tells me it is like spring.

I remember (ahhhh ruh membah, for old geezers) that it SNOWED the day before I graduated college.

That was enough for me.

They handed me my diploma, said "Congratulations. You're free to go now"

And I did.

As far as I could.

There were two ground hog reports today, and the groundhogs did not agree. Pretty much sums up the scheme of things in Washington.

And it was beautiful today. Even the Jersey Turnpike was pleasant. 52 degrees in New York. 49 in Williamstown. Hey Liv - where is winter? Going to rain most of the weekend. This is unheard of right? Global warming? I'm not complaining. Beats snow and ice and THE GRAYS.

Well, Snuffysmith, glad to hear your travels to the hinterlands of civilization were uneventful ....

And the GRAYS have not necessarily gone away ...

At least right over my head right now ...

Plenty of that to go around for this morning anyway ...

But as to winter ...

Well ....

Now there is the question ....

And it does make us wonder ....

A warm winter is bad for bugs come spring and summer, for one thing ....

Without the cold to hold back their numbers come spring, they can do some damage to crops come growing season ...

And there is no ice down here where I am, which means no water held in storage ....

I call it global re-energization, myself, instead of merely global warming ....

The energy distribution itself is different, which is separate from the emissions of green-house gases .....

Whatever, it is not a theory ....

But of course no one in a position of power down in the sink-hole of corruption down there in the TEN-MILES SQUARE has a clue about that, since to them, everything is a theory, and the better theories have a lot of zeros written in behind the principle digit up front, such as 1,000,000, or 2,000,000 .....

Now, those are not bad theories there, but they get better, and so ....

Not worried about the groundhogs in Washington.

Am worried about the hogs.

I don't know, jeffmoskin ....

These groundhogs seem to be getting awful commerical, too ....

Say ...

I hear they got Soylent nowadays that tastes just like chicken .....

They say if you didn't know better ....

You would swear it was the real thing ....

"Groundhogs - - the other white meat."

I hear Walmart's have developed one heck of a full-bodied red wine that just goes divinely with groundhog .....

Brings out some of that subtle aftertaste they say ....

And the best part is that a jug of the stuff is only supposed to cost 3 bucks ....

So how can you go wrong there, hey ....

Well, Snuffysmith ....

It is now Sunday night ...

At least up here where I am ...

AND ...

There was no snow ....

A ton of wind last night ...

Or early this morning, actually ...

But it is still warm ...

And so ....

Some geese have started to come back around ...

And the little birds are out there singing away ...

God is protecting us small folks up here from the ravages of the PROFITEERS and GOUGERS in the OIL BID-NESS is our thoughts on things ...

Up here in the hinterlands of civilization itself ....

And now it is Monday morning ....

And the snow is back ...

Not much though ...

Just a slight cover of white ...

And that is the way it goes, I guess ...

Since it did ....

Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2006 5:17 PM

Subject: DID YOU EVER HEAR ABOUT HARRY BINGHAM?

DID YOU EVER HEAR ABOUT HARRY BINGHAM?

READ ON .....

Sometime ago, then Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a posthumous award for "constructive dissent" to Hiram (or Harry) Bingham IV.

For over fifty years, the State Department resisted any attempt to honor Bingham.

For them, he was an insubordinate member of the US diplomatic service, a dangerous maverick who was eventually demoted.

Now, after his death, he has been officially recognized as a hero.

Bingham came from an illustrious family.

His father (on whom the fictional character Indiana Jones was based) was the archeologist who unearthed the Inca City of Machu Picchu, Peru in 1911.

Harry entered the US diplomatic service and, in 1939, was posted to Marseilles, France as American vice-consul.

The USA was then neutral and, not wishing to annoy Marshal Petain's puppet Vichy regime, President Roosevelt's government ordered its representatives in Marseilles not to grant visas to any Jews.

Bingham found this policy immoral and, risking his career, did all in his power to undermine it.

In defiance of his bosses in Washington, he granted over 2,500 USA visas to Jewish and other refugees, including the artists Marc Chagall and Max Ernst and the family of the writer, Thomas Mann.

He also sheltered Jews in his Marseilles home, and obtained forged identity papers to help Jews in their dangerous journeys across Europe.

He worked with the French underground to smuggle Jews out of France into Franco's Spain or across the Mediterranean, and even contributed to their expenses out of his own pocket.

In 1941, Washington lost patience with him.

He was sent to Argentina, where, later, he continued to annoy his superiors by reporting on the movements of Nazi war criminals.

Eventually, he was forced out of the American diplomatic service completely.

Bingham died almost penniless in 1988.

Little was known of his extraordinary activities until his son found some letters in his belongings after his death.

Many groups and organizations including the United Nations and the State of Israel have now honored him.

His postage stamp will be out in 2006.

PLEASE honor his memory and resend.

Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.

-Ann Landers

And the full moon is on its way ...

And so ....

Down goes the temperature ....

And winter returns ....

Well, Snuffysmith ....

Winter is back ....

For a few days, anyway .....

Good old February ....

It can be a tough old bugger, that February can ....

No February thaw that you ever hear of ...

That is for wimpy January .....

15 above zero this morning ...

Which is not cold ....

But compared to the heat wave we were having ...

Well ....

In the end ...

It is all relative ....

Is there a connection between Bingham and Binghamton. NY?

Interesting question, jeffmoskin ...

Have to dig around and see .....

Subject: Dead Horse

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount."

However, in government education, and in corporate America, advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip.

2. Changing riders.

3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.

4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.

5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.

6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.

7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.

8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.

9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse's performance.

10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.

11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.

12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.

And of course ....

13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

What do you do when you find out that what you thought was a horse is really a...


JACKASS?

Well .....

Karl Rove capitalized on the opportunity and .....

But you already know that story ...

And so ....

Add a #14 to the list above, to deal with the necessary conversion factor ....

And then go back to #13 ....

And LE VOILA ...

There you have that ending ....

And Snuffysmith ....

Nor'easter coming this weekend ....

Or so they say ....

And so ...

You know Liv - Storm Warning/Watches have already been posted in DC. Glad I'm not up at Williamstown this weekend - but the team has already left to drive up to Colby where they will play tonight, stay there and then head to Bowdoin tomorrow. If they win either one of these games this weekend, they will host one of the playoff games next weekend at Williams and I will be making the drive then.
Washington panics with advancing snow - and from what I can see, it shouldn't be too bad here - and depending on the track of the storm and the snow/rain line, we could just get rain and it will be a non event here. I'm ready for some snow here, but not on the road. With the exception of that one driving event a month ago, I've been pretty lucky with the weather. I understand though, its cold in your neck of the woods. And so - stay warm.

You've described the Bush 2006 Budget

And it is all thanks to Karl Rove and that conversion factor .....

Well ....

It's a little "bitey", anyway ....

But beautiful clear blue skies ....

I've got enough wood inside down by the stove to last me into March ....

And so ....

There is where I will be ....

Significant Snowfall Expected by Afternoon
Up to 14 Inches Possible in Some Areas

By Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 11, 2006; 8:06 AM

Winter, the real one, will return to Washington this afternoon in the form of a slow-moving storm likely to dump between 4 and 14 inches of snow across the region, according to the National Weather Service.

While the heaviest snowfall will be in the south, from Charlottesville across the Eastern Shore, the city will not be spared and could get 4 to 9 inches.


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Light snow and rain began falling across Nothern Virginia and the District about 7:30 this morning.

Forecasters said that the serious accumulation would begin after noon, continuing with considerable intensity into the night and through Sunday morning. Some thunderstorms are possible, they said.

The storm will "really kick in" after about 5:30 p.m., said Jackie Hale, a weather service spokeswoman in Sterling.

Specifically, the weather service said, the region will get 1 to 3 inches during the day; 7 t0 11 during the night and possibly another 1 to 3 early Sunday morning. The wide variation in totals is not unusual for a storm moving from southweat to the northeast.

The system will move up the east coast toward New England, with transportation disruption possible, according to authorities.

Area school systems had little to cancel today, but most canceled what they could, including various tests as well as recreational activities.

Ah, yes ....

Winter ...

And for us up here in the hinterlands of civilization ....

The possibility of the dreaded nor'easter .....

Storms that can drop thirty inches of snow in a day ....

With a howling wind ...

That piles it up in drifts ...

That can reach fifteen feet or so high ....

Which is not a lot of snow as compared to some places in the United States ...

Or the world ...

But still ...

It can be a distraction ....

Which is why I have my firewood stacked up inside ...

Out of the elements ....

As I get older, more like the wise woodchuck (groundhog) I become ...

Just with more creature comforts ....

Like the wood stove in my own hole .....

Ah, yes ...

Hibernation ....

Let it snow, Snuffysmith ...

Let it snow ...

When it is spring ...

I will know ....

And so ...

Let it snow ....

"Snow spares Capital Region"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Saturday, February 11, 2006

ALBANY -- Those who want a dose of winter will have to go south this weekend -- not far south, just south.

A strong nor'easter which took form over the Carolinas is expected to stay offshore, bringing the heaviest bands of snow over the major cities of southern New England, as well as New York City and Philadelphia.

Those areas could see a foot or more of snow.

Some areas south of Boston and onto Cape Cod could see blizzard conditions before the storm passes into the North Atlantic on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.

Early on Friday, the weather service posted a winter storm watch for areas south of Albany, including Greene County, eastern Rensselaer County, western Columbia County and Bennington County in Vermont.

But by mid-afternoon, computer models forecast the storm to be much stronger, but not so widespread, and the storm watch for that area was dropped.

By late Friday, the weather service was forecasting less than an inch of snow for Albany and possibly no snow for Saratoga Springs and further north.

But while there will be no snow, temperatures will be hard-pressed to get out of the teens on Sunday, with wind chill sending temperatures below zero.

-- Bruce A. Scruton

Well ....

The old groundhog (me) is up and out and about ....

And so far ....

So far ....

While it is snowing ....

It is not a blizzard ...

And so ....

Hang on to your snowshovel, Livyjr.

The blizzard she is acomin'

Binghamton--The larger part of the city of Binghamton is built on land once owned by William Bingham, after whom the city was named. Some 30,600 acres were patented to three men of whom Bingham was one, by the State of New York, June 27, 1786. In less than four years, a division of the property gave William Bingham nearly half of the grant, including the present site of the city.

William Bingham was a native of Philadelphia, served as consul on the Island of Martinique during the Revolution, married Anne Willing in 1780, and lived the life of a wealthy landed proprietor in Philadelphia and abroad. His agent in the handling of the Bingham holdings was Joshua Whitney, to whose vision the settlement of the city is mostly due. Chenango Point was the name under which this new settlement started, and Captain Joseph Leonard was the first settler who came with his family up the Susquehanna in 1787 and located on the west bank of the Chenango. The Chenango joins the Delaware near the heart of the present city. Plans, and a map of a village at this place has been made in 1800, although the date of the power of attorney given Whitney in March of 1802 may be taken as the date of the founding of Binghamton; the date of it incorporation a village, May 3, 1834. The hamlet was little more than just a struggling rural center until 1848, when it became the western terminus of the Erie Railroad. After a number of changes in the village charter, Binghamton was incorporated as a city April 9, 1867, this charter being revised six times, the last being in 1917.


http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/state/his/bk10/ch1.html

Re: Binghamton & Bingham

Thanks, Jeff. I never knew this and I was born in Binghamton and lived in Chenago Bridge (a burb) until about age 4. Still have relatives there. Amy was also born in Binghamton.

Binghamton was home to quite a bit of IBM business for years and years. And I remember well the
trains rolling through all day and through the night, as my grandmother lived quite close to the main lines coming from the north.

Snow shovel, hell, jeffmoskin ....

This is snow blower country up here ....

Like in that one movie with Chevy Chase, I think, where his neighbor had a lawn mower and his brother had a snow blower mounted up with fuel-injected and blown 327 cubic inch Chevrolet motors on them ....

Do the job in a hurry, them puppies will, and that's a fact ...

Except we got about 2 inches of snow up here where I am ....

Thanks to GLOBAL WARMING, the weather patterns have shifted so that the snow now goes to the south of me ...

Where it never used to go, in my memory, anyway ....

But at least it got "coldish", kind of .....

Down to 5 above zero this morning ....

But they are talking mid-40's and rain by mid-week ...

And so .....

What a small world .....

I am not from down that way ...

But when I was younger ...

I used to work with trotters and pacing horses ...

And we would take them to fairs down that way around Afton and Bainbridge ....

Where they used to have races at the fairgrounds for these types of horses ...

To me, back then, Binghamton was a BIG CITY ....

A lot of history down that way, and that is a fact ....

My college roommate was from Norwich. I remember Binghamton for ANSCO, once a big rival of KODAK in the photo biz. Back when that meant film and chemicals.

My recollection was that IBM was in Endicott, home of that other great extinct dinosaur, Endicott-Johnson shoes.

Time marches (slithers) on.

This year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address fell on the same day.

As Air America Radio pointed out, "It is an ironic juxtaposition ......"

"One involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication ....."

"And the other involves a groundhog ...."

Well ....

Full moon time came in February ....

And it did not get below zero ....

And the full moon is beginning to wane ...

And the temperature is going into the forties today ....

But I must be dreaming, of course ....

There really has been no shift in the weather patterns ...

And there is no GLOBAL WARMING, of course ....

And nothing else has really changed ...

And ...

WOW ...

I'm freezing ...

It's really cold out there ...

Yeah, right ....

We here in southern Kah-Lee-FAWN-Jah have only gotten one or two inches of rainfall. Normal is 14. Last year we got 35.

Climate change?

Naaaaah.

I think what has actually happened is that we have slipped over some edge here that is most likely associated with older age .....

And likely ...

We are hallucinating ...

Or something like that .....

Because nothing has changed ...

SO ...

You are thinking you have no rain out there ...

But very likely, you are really in some kind of denial ....

Me, of course, am around the bend ...

I actually thought it was fifty degrees outside today ....

When certainly, it was probably really ten below, or something like that, as it should be ...

Since nothing has changed ...

But it sure did feel good out there in that sun today ..

And so ....

I thought that was a river in Egypt

Watch the crocodiles, jeffmoskin ....

And speaking about knowing where you are going in life ....

Subject: Country Funeral

As a young minister, I was asked by a funeral director to hold a graveside service in a new cemetery for a derelict man (with no family or friends) who had died while traveling through the area.

The cemetery was way back in the country.

This man would be the first to be laid to rest at this new cemetery.

As I was not familiar with the backwoods area, I became lost.

Being the typical man I didn't stop for directions.

And when I finally arrived an hour late, I saw a crew and a backhoe, but the hearse was nowhere in sight.

The workmen were eating lunch.

I apologized for my tardiness, but the workers just looked puzzled.

I stepped to the side of the open grave, to find the vault lid already in place.

I assured the worker's I would not hold them long, but this was the proper thing to do.

As the workers gathered around, still eating their lunch, I poured out my heart and soul.

As I preached, the workers began to say "Amen," "Praise the Lord" and "Glory," (they must have all been Baptist).

I preached and I preached like I'd never preached before.

I began from Genesis and worked all the way through to Revelation.

I preached for 45 minutes.

It was a long service.

Finally, I closed in prayer and it was finished.

As I was walking to my car, I felt that I had done my duty and I would leave with a renewed sense of purpose and dedication, in spite of my tardiness.

As I was opening the door and taking off my coat, I overheard one of the workers saying to another.......

"Ya know, I've been putting in septic tanks for 20 years, but I ain't never seen anything like that before."

Not the first story about a man who is totally lost, preaching the wrong sermon to people who don't care to listen.

Well ...

I don't know, jeffmoskin ....

He was lost for sure ....

And being a man, of course, he wouldn't stop and get directions ...

But it sounds like he finally got himself collected a bit there ...

And when he got on a roll there, preaching up a storm over that septic tank, well ....

He did get some "Amens" and such ...

And that was a start, anyway ....

And just think ...

Somebody got the added bonus of living in a house that had the only consecrated septic tank in the whole county ...

Maybe even the whole state, even ....

And if they are not consecrating septic tanks in any other states in this fine union of ours, well ....

And what a fine February day this was ....

Incredible, actually ...

Considering that it is February ...

And the full moon time has just gone by ....

On a day like today, I feel that I am blessed, indeed ....

And so ....

And what a change a day can make ....

Howler winds have come to prowl during the night .....

Fifty today ...

Going down to ten above tonight .....

And the wind is going to blow ...