How to read this post

We've had a few weather-related posts recently, so I figured I'd continue the trend.  I noticed this fairly bizarre instructional link on the Yahoo Weather page.  Check out the field highlighted in red:

I'm not sure that someone who can't read the "Detailed Local Forecast" will be able to handle "How to Read This."  Out of morbid curiosity I followed the link, and found this helpful information:

What's in the text forecast?
The following information is available in the text forecasts provided by weather.com:

• alerts, if relevant
  
• basic forecast data for that day or night
  
• forecast data for five days from that day or night
  

Again, if "Clear to partly cloudy" is difficult to understand, I doubt this additional information will help.

It looked like this

I had another post all lined up and ready to go, but I couldn't pass up a response post to Jonathan/Yoni's most recent post.  Check it out first.  The truck they sent next looked something like this:

AAA truck having trouble

In Boston, Triple A having engine trouble . . . 

you should have seen the truck they sent next!

Leaving windshield wipers sticking straight up?

So recently I've noticed a bunch of silly Bostonians raising their windshield wipers before a snowstorm. It looks pretty silly.

Photo courtesy of granitegeek.org

Another blogger has written a good and extensive post about this, take a look here. Most of the comments are great too. But some missed the whole point of his article.

The main point is - do not leave your windshield wipers sticking straight up. You will wear out the springs and getting the blades stuck to the windshield is not really a big deal. Damaging the blades also isn't a big deal, you can replace them, but the blade springs are much harder to replace.

I'll sit in the dark

There's an old joke about stereotypical Jewish mothers :

How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a light bulb?
Ah, don't vorry about me, I vill just sit here in the dark...

Well, up until today, we were sitting in the dark.  Our dining room had no lighting fixtures, and the only light we had was whatever came from our living room.  But today we had an electrician install our new chandelier.

The chandelier came with a pair of white cloth gloves, presumably so as not to damage the thing when installing it.  See if you can spot them in this picture of (some of) the other tools needed for the installation:

Boston Security

Way back in Feb 2006 I reported a high school kid being killed (shot) right next to my old school back in Newark NJ. Well, as a flashback to the old days there was incident at Boston University last Wednesday. After extensive testing of their security announcement technology back in September, the BU police were finally able to use it in a real situation by warning us:

"There is Police activity in the area of 705 Commonwealth Ave. Please stay clear of the await further update."

It turns out that a student reported seeing another student with a bullet and ammunition clip. To make a long story short - Boston is great. Read the BU news article here.

Super Icicle

There's a fantastic gigantic icicle under an overpass on Route 4 in Teaneck.  It's hard to tell from this picture I snapped from a bus, but it goes from just under the road, all the way to the ground on Route 4.

Weather Update - Odd Cloud

In the constant hope of it actually snowing where I live I've been watching the weather. The other day there was a cloud which was apparently "odd" so odd in fact that it required its own headline title see below:

The odd cloud has passed now, but just in case another odd cloud appears over the coast you had better keep a keen eye on: http://weather.boston.com

Note that about a week after this odd cloud appeared - it did in fact snow a significant amount here . . . maybe thats how it works.