Enjoying Snow

About a month ago my wife and I purchased snowshoes.  The purchase came after we borrowed snow shoes of a neighbor.  After snowshoeing at Lake Kegonsa State Park one morning we figured our knees and hips could take the different movement associated with snowshoes, so that afternoon we went to REI,  Dick's and back to REI and purchased our snowshoes.  About the same time we purchased our snowshoes there was an article in the Wisconsin State Journal  (Jan 28) which provided an outlook of what to expect with our changing weather and climate.  Given what the article noted, it seems as if past trends tend to more snow at least for part of the winter, which means if we want to live in a northern climate we ought to get out and better enjoy the snow.

Feb 21, Devil's Lake

Warmer, Wetter and Snowier, is the expectation.  The news article noted that, as we enter a new decade, weather data will be updated to have weather data from the last ten years (2000-2019) replace weather data from 1980 to 1989.  In 1980, Cheers, Family Ties, Magnum PI were some of the favorite television shows for at least part of that decade.  The 1985 movie Back to the Future is perhaps a commentary on the weather data.  Without getting into a great amount of detail, the last decade was warmer than the 1980's.  For example in 1980 the average daytime high for December was about 29 degrees, in the 2000's that jumped to 34 degrees, and even worse, and this corresponds to weather data I had learned about while still working, is the night time highs were more than seven degrees warmer.  With the warmer weather it means less snow.  The past two Decembers had little snow.  We had more snow in October 2019 than we had in two months later in December.  Halloween was colder, and had more snow, than Christmas Day.

Feb 21, Devil's Lake

Yet snow has come, and this year and last year after little snow Decembers and first part of January  snow falls and amounts picked up after mid-January and has continued.  Unlike last year, where the snow was followed by a day of warm and then extreme cold, this year even the extreme cold has been bearable.  Take this past week where the low one night in the area was -7, with a daytime high near 16.  As of Friday, February 21, our snowfall is 5.5" above normal, and for the season 13.5" more than normal (and this with a little snow December).  2019 was the wettest year on record, and the 2000's had an average of 8" more of annual precipitation than did the 1980's.  The wet and cold weather in late October 2019 made things difficult for farmers, football and bio-solids.  (The new data will be added to create the "normals" next year.)  The yearly average in snow fall. according to the new normal is expected to increase by about 2.1".

Feb 21, Devil's Lake

Way back when I took my college weather and climate course I learned that warmer air holds more moisture, perhaps this is why we are likely to see more snow, as the temperatures are warming, but it seems that December will become the new November, meaning that you are not taking a sleigh ride to Grandma's house on Thanksgiving or Christmas, but could do so on Martin Luther King, Jr, or President's Day. heck maybe even on St Patrick's Day.  Or if weather like last year continues you could do a sleigh ride near the end of April. We have not had a white Christmas since 2017, although two non-snow Christmas' does not necessarily a pattern make, but the way the temperatures for December are going a brown (green?) Christmas may be the new normal and 50 years from now people may wonder what a white Christmas looked like.  Of course, warmer temps mean heavier snow to clear.

Devil's Lake 

While we may not have snow for Christmas, the next couple months of winter, per the prediction are to be snowier.  Hence, why we need to enjoy the snow, and why we bought snow shoes.  We went snowshoeing  three times this past week--Lake Kegonsa State Park, Viking County Park, and Devil's Lake State Park.  At Viking the high for the day was about 18, but little wind made for a pleasant excursion. Devil's Lake on Friday, the temperature was about 16 when we started on our two hour voyage, but was about 30 when we completed at 12:30 pm.  To me the temperature could be in the single digits and if the wind is low, it can be pleasant.  Strong winds can make for a negative experience.

Lake Kegonsa State Park

I guess hills can also make for a negative experience. Before I get into the hills, let me say a few things.   I used to cross country ski a good amount when I was young, before marriage. I bought my first pair of skis  in my freshman year of college (although I first skied in high school)  and would ski the Kettle Moraine area, and around the UW-W campus and the nearby parks.  Later, when working, I would take a Friday off and would meet my brother Joe and we would travel to his home near Conover and cross country ski Friday, Saturday and Sunday. One Friday we were skiing and I broke my hickory wood ski when it hit a tree at the edge of the trail; into town we went to get a new pair, and of course they no longer had the old hickory.  I still use my same shoes, but one of my old bamboo poles broke when my son was using it, so I have new aluminum poles.

Devil's Lake, Feb 21

Anyway, back to the hill.  When I was either dating my wife, or after we just were married, I got my wife to try cross country skiing.  Now, I have no real recollection of this story, so I have relied on her story since it is highly ingrained in her memory, perhaps more so than the birth of either of our children.  What turned her off to cross country skiing, she says, was a hill.  She says it was not your typical little hill, but a big hill (although I wonder if the hill is not unlike a fish in that it has gotten bigger in her mind than it really was).  I made her, yes made her, go up a really big hill.  It was the first major thing to do on her first major outing on cross country skis. In cross country skiing there are two ways to get up big or steep hill (assuming classic skiing) side step, or do a V shape waddle up the grade.  Being bright in her mind, she is pretty sure the location of the turn off was Anvil Lake near Eagle River. She still has night mares about this experience.  I guess Tom Hovel is where fun goes to die.   As she was a down hill skier, perhaps going down hill first would have been more fun.  That experience still sticks with her to this day, and I am sure it will be a story she will tell when I am long gone.  Our oldest son heard the story as we traveled to Lake Kegonsa on February 15 to cross country ski and snowshoe. I am not sure if it was the first time or the fifteenth time he heard the story.  This is to her as piano lessons were to our youngest son.

Devil's Lake

Lake Kegonsa, where I skied on February 15, was basically my first time doing any relevant cross country skiing since probably the Anvil Lake experience. Focus changed, and I could not get my wife to ski again.  I don't recall when, but one time after Anvil Lake I got out the skis, I recall it being Super Bowl Sunday, and went skiing in the back yard, where I promptly fell going down the short, but steep hill in the backyard.  On Wednesday following I had such terrible back pain, I could hardly move my legs, so off we went to Urgent Care.  They asked if I had fallen recently, and I said well not recently.  My wife said yes, you fell on Sunday.  I said yeah, but that was a few days ago.  Turns out the fall tightened back muscles three days later.  In any event it was nice to get out to ski once again on Saturday the 15th.  I did fall twice, once on purpose going down a hill with a curve and my sore left knee was not quite cooperating.  The second time was a fall after having just gotten up from the purposeful fall and started back down the course. My wife was snowshoeing off to the side of the ski trail, and when we met up with her she asked if I had fallen, and gave the location, near a campsite we used last June.   No my back did not tighten up Tuesday. 

Lake Kegonsa State Park, Feb 15.
No, those are not leggings, or leg warmers
They are gaiters.  

Because my wife will not cross country ski again, we decided to try snowshoeing.  We have found this winter sport can work for both of us.  That is a good thing because it is quite nice being outdoors on a beautiful winter day.  At Devil's Lake we saw three other persons on the Grotto trail, and none on the group camp trail.  The Grotto trail was a pleasurable snowshoe experience with snow untouched but for the path, and looking up the bluffs on one side of the trial you see large boulders, tops covered by snow,  a few deciduous and evergreen trees mixed in and the large outcroppings of Baraboo quartzite rock against a cloudless blue sky.  To the other side was mainly a deciduous forest with long shadows of tree branches and trunks overlaying the white snow.  It was made all the better as I was snowshoeing with my wife.  Now the question is, could I get her back on a pair of cross-country skis?

 Images by Toni Hovel or Tom Hovel

Pay the Bill

My wife normally pays the bills, but a few weeks ago I paid two bills by mail.  Well, I failed to sign one check, and received a call and then rectified the matter.  My wife, of course, shook her head on a failure to sign the check.  She likes shaking her head, which makes me think she likes to exercise her neck.  The problem  with filling out the check was that the address was on the part of the bill to return with payment, so as I was filling out the check I figured I better address the envelope before I would mistakenly seal before addressing the envelope.

Anyway, for every error there may be a bright side.  My error got her thinking that I would not know what to do if she passed away or became incapacitated.  Almost all our bills are paid on-line through the bank.  When she asked what I would do, I said I could send the payment in the old fashioned way by check.  I also would not be adverse to going to the bank to make deposits to checking from savings rather than also doing that on-line.  She did not find that a sufficient response.  She got out a pen and paper, and wrote down the directions for on-line bill paying.  She then said the big test will come in the next month when she will have me pay all the bills.  The thing about on-line paying, I suspect, is that the software program will tell you if you forgot a step, which is not available for accomplishing payments the old fashioned way.  The old fashioned way has no double check.

 A relative of mine, who recently retired, paid a bill on-line a week or so ago, and got somewhat of an earful from his still working spouse when she found out that he had paid the invoice.  She thought he was poised to take all bill paying away from her.  She was not, as it turns out, ready to give up paying bills,.  She wrestled it back from her MBA degree husband.

I think it became clear early on in my marriage who would handle the bill paying.  She would never have trusted me to pay the bills since I was a person who once in a great while would balance a check book.  My wife, being financially fastidious balanced a checkbook every month.  I wonder if on-line bill paying has made balancing your accounts easier?  Would not the account, if you tried to pay on-line now tell you if you had insufficient funds?  Even the copy machine at the library will tell you if you have insufficient funds for the number of copies you wish to make. It is not like I am fully a Luddite.

When I still worked, my last year or so of work involved obtaining purchase orders and paying invoices through internal software that was under control of the Finance Department.  It was not an easy program to use.  I paid small bills for office supplies, and paid large invoices in the several hundred thousand to perhaps over one million dollar range for building projects I managed.  Of course, I did not have to balance the checkbook, but I needed to keep track of all expenditures and where they sat in terms of monies allocated.

There are also funny stories.  About a decade ago we went to a wedding in Chippewa Falls, WI.  On  the way back I stopped for gas at a Love's travel stop on the interstate, near Oakdale, just south of where the "I divides".  I guess it was a several weeks later when I get home from work and my wife questions me right away about what I bought at a place called Love's.  You can use your imagination to think what I thought she thought.  Taken aback by the veracity of her question, I asked the date.  it was then that I realized WE (all four of us actually) had stopped at the Love's gas station on the interstate back from a wedding (on her side of the family).  She calmed down after that.

Anyway, other than the two bills I paid a few weeks ago, I think most all other of our bills are paid on-line.  Some we may get in the mail, while others are sent by email.  The thing I have found out about technology is that often one needs to continually use it so it makes sense.  I recall having worked with ESRI Geographic Information System Programs (GIS), but as we hired an additional staff person they were well versed in GIS so most GIS work was done by that person.  It became difficult for me to then recall all of the ins and outs of GIS if I wanted to use the program after not having used it for several weeks.

When, in a couple weeks time, it is my turn to pay the bills, I will follow her instructions and I have no doubt she will be nearby to watch over my every effort.  Then I will, unlike my relative's wife, be glad to not have to pay the bills. What is rather ironic is that we just watched an episode of the former television show "Everybody Loves Raymond."  In that episode Raymond takes over bill paying and finds himself overdrawn by $3,000.  To show how well he is doing, he even creates a second ledger.  He then blames Debra, when talking to his brother and parents, by saying she cannot keep a check book.  As she goes to the bank to get some money he tries to get to an ATM to deposit a loan from his family, but a series of funny events transpires.  At the end of the episode Debra is trying to balance the account and it is not working.  Raymond pulls out a third ledger he used when he screwed up on the second one.  I know what my wife was thinking, that is how it would be if my job was to pay the bills and balance the checkbook.

IOWA

Iowa and technology apparently do not go well together.  The Iowa caucus, the first in the nation has been criticized for often setting the stage for the candidate selection although it is not considered a microcosm of the United States as a whole.  Has the caucus process outlived its usefulness?  Iowa Democrat leadership may now be regretting the use of the application Shadow.

I am not sure, but in my mind a company named Shadow should be suspect.  The company is affiliated with a firm called ACRONYM, a Democratic non-profit.  The New York Times has apparently reported that Shadow's leadership is composed of persons connected to the former Hillary Clinton campaign.  It notes that the alphabetic acronyms of leadership:  CEO, COO and CTO are all former Clintonites, or depending upon your point of view Clintonistas.  The Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) was charged with running the Monday, February 3 caucus and they, and Nevada (after New Hampshire) paid about $60,000 for the application.  On Monday night I first read reports that there was a problem with the application, app for short.  Monday morning, the talking points were that the app was not the problem but that they were reconciling three different aspects that recorded the votes in caucus--the other two being photos and paper ballots. Why the need to reconcile, and the level of differences was not explained.  Later in the day they said the application worked, but that it did not properly record everything.  Is partially getting it right now the new normal?  If a cars transmission does not work, but all other aspects work, the car, as a whole, does not work.  Nevada has chosen to simply dump the app.

The backup was a phone line, but there were problems with that too.  I suppose they did not have sufficient personnel to handle phone calls.  Some precinct reporters were said to be on hold for over two hours.  Chris Cuomo of New York noted that the Iowa Democratic party had one thing to do and do it right and it did not do that.  He went on to say that millions of dollars are spent in Iowa and they have deprived the winner of claim, and strength as the campaigns head to New Hampshire.  Although, Pete Butttigieg claimed victory, apparently believing in the anchoring tendency, but getting some grief for claiming victory with no votes recorded.  I guess at this point Beto could claim victory.

The real loser may be Bernie Sanders.  Early predictions had him doing well in Iowa, although a number of his supporters noted a concerted effort by the other campaigns to deny his votes.  Reports noted that Mayor Pete supporters defaced signs of where Bernie supporters were to gather (at  at least once precinct) to get a head count to meet the 15% viability threshold. Another report noted that Sanders had received 20% more of the vote in one precinct, but given only one delegate, that same as four others some who barely made the threshold.  They walked out.   Given comments by John Kerry and others in the party, perhaps before ABT (anybody but Trump) there is ABB, anybody but Bernie.  Not unlike 2016 when election Democrat election rules favored Hillary Clinton, are they now working against Bernie.  Bernie apparently has headwinds wherever he goes.  

Of course, with delay there will be charges of tampering.  Joe Biden, who on Monday was not thought to be doing well in Iowa has already made comments about the election process.  If he does not do well he will blame the app, not unlike San Francisco 49er fans blaming the referees for their meltdown in the Super Bowl on Groundhog Day.  Elizabeth Warren's campaign noted that for every second of not announcing the votes, there is the possibility of tampering.  IDP officials noted that the app was not hacked.  Russia took a pass on this.  But, did Pete B?  Besides supporters vandalizing Bernie signs, Pete B paid Shadow $42,500 for software rights and information.    I guess there is not such thing as a conflict of interest with IDP and the candidates running.  

For fifty years Iowa has had the preeminent role in presidential elections with its caucus.  For fifty years they have set the tone.  Would Obama have moved ahead if he had not secured an Iowa victory?  Besides spending a great deal of money on ads, organization and events, many candidates spent over 60 days in Iowa.   No other state receives that much attention.  Will the IDP and their actions this year have set Iowa caucus on a death spiral?  Claims have been made that Iowa, since it is not "like" the nation as a whole does not deserve to be the first state to hold a primary or caucus. Will they be relegated to a later time in the candidate process?  (It is not always the democrats, several years ago Mitt Romney was declared the winner of Iowa, that is until Rick Santorum actually won.  Romney go the early press and the nomination, Santorum went to oblivion.)

The nation has a variety of soci-economic, demographic and geographic metrics that could be used to determine, "most like the nation."  Add even more if one gets to less hard to quantify measures of belief.  I examined two metrics, race and urbanization.  Iowa is the fifth most Caucasian (non-Hispanic) state in the nation (2010 census) at 92.4% compared to 70% for the nation.  The second metric was urbanization, which Iowa is at 64% while the nation as a whole is 80%.  However, New Hampshire, which has held the first primary in the nation for 100 years is not any better on those two metrics.  It is actually worse compared to the national figures than is Iowa; it comes in at 95% Caucasian, and 60.3% rural.  By my analysis of these two metrics, if you wish a state that most signifies the nation Oregon should be the first at 78.5% white and 81% urban, or Washington at 72.5% Caucasian and 84% urban.   Although, overall, I would say those two states are more like each other than the nation as a whole.  

This was the first time the application was used, and it was not good.  Perhaps the same software engineers worked on the Boeing 737 software.  There is a saying that Iowa stands for I Owe the World and Apology. Since many in the US have a view of the US to the world, as New York residents have a view of NY to the US, world is correct.  It is a matter of perception.  I have long said, that perception is 99% of reality. Poor Iowa has little going for it but for being the first voting in the presidential primary, and perhaps the Iowa writer's workshop.  Interesting, showing concern in the application the Department of Homeland Security offered to vet the application, the request was turned down.  I believe it was Winston Churchill who once said that democracy is messy until one compares it to the alternatives. It seems that Iowa is in a time wrap, not unlike the movie "Groundhog Day."   Many waiting.  

As I post this, Iowa is promising release of at least one half of the vote totals. 

Revision at 5:12.  Preliminary votes totals have Pete with a slight lead over Bernie and Biden in fourth.  Statistician Nate Silver provided an analysis of Bounce for a winner after a primary.  Super Tuesday, with 15 states and Samoa, including heavy weights CA and TX, the winner gets a 30 Bounce magnitude of +30, while Iowa, a lone state, gives a bounce of +23.  So, yes, Iowa carries a great deal of weight in the election process.  

Oven Door

Our current cooking range is almost ten years old.  For some reason, condensation or other stuff somehow was between the glass panes on the oven door window which makes it look unsightly.  It is not an unusual problem.  My wife has been wanting to try to clean the inside of the panes for sometime now.  This will be the tale of our cleaning the oven door, and how it was accomplished.

It was a Monday, near mid-afternoon, and I was at the kitchen table doing something I cannot now recall (so it must have been important) when something struck me, perhaps it was a conversation I was having about the same time with my wife.  At that point I grabbed the I-Pad to look up cleaning the interior of oven glass panes.  The top Google search was a video form GE on how to clean the between the panes of glass on your oven door.  Great, I thought, other than being stainless steel, the oven looked similar to ours.  The video noted how you can take off the oven door and dampen a wash cloth or dishcloth soaked in water and dish soap. attached to a yard stick by a rubber band.  You then stick the yardstick with the cloth up some openings in the bottom of the door and angle back and forth to clean.   A spacecraft can be sent to the far reaches of space, but the best way to clean between the oven door glass is  with a yardstick and a rag.  Well, before taking off the door I got on my back and looked up and sure enough there two slots about a 1/4" wide and a few inches long along the bottom of the door between the glass panes.  I got a drop cloth to put on the counter and the wife and I took off the door, per the video directions.  It was rather simple really, moving two clamps all the way to the door while the door is down, shutting the door to about 3" from close and lifting it out.  I was surprised how easy it came out from its mooring at each side of the oven opening.

Our oven door reinstalled after
cleaning between the glass panes

My wife noted that the wood yardstick with a cloth would not fit. I tried and she was right.  Lucky, we have a thinner metal yard stick.  We grabbed one of the cotton cloths that we often use in lieu of paper towels to attach to the yardstick with one of the greatest inventions ever--a rubber band.  Yes, according to the video instructions that is how to attach the cloth to the yardstick.  Well, the grooves in the oven door in the video must be wider than our because we could not get the cloth and the yardstick in to the door.  My wife went downstairs and grabbed an old sheet from which we tore a couple pieces off.  We then followed the directions of using dish soap in water to dampen the cloth and put up in the groove(s) and move the yardstick up and down and around to clean the glass.  What we noticed is that the rubber bands prevented the sheet from getting good contact with the glass.  So, besides not cleaning very well there was also streaking.

But, we were not done.  The directions said to use the same cloth rinsed in clean water and use again to remove the soap.  I figured some of the streaking would come off with rinsing, so we tried the rubber band way and  the lack of contact meant not much was happening., the streaks remained, and we had made it worse.   I took off the upper rubber band and kept only the lower on one hoping the sheeting rag would not come off and make an even bigger quandary.  Due to deft and expert handling of the yardstick, and keeping eye on the rubber band which attached the sheet rag only in one place I was successful in removing the streaks.  The window is not perfectly cleaned, sometimes you have to leave well enough alone. We used a dry sheet rag and a hair dryer to help further dry the inside. The video said to wait an hour before placing the door back, but my ever non-rule following wife said she was not going to worry about that.  I think she used a certain term to describe me. The two guys doing the cleaning in the video made it look much easier and simpler than it turned out in real time.

The last thing was to put the door back in.  The video made this seem really easy.  Essentially it is a reverse of the process, but a groove on each hinge needs to get in the exact place and then you pull the door down parallel to the floor.  The door  will not go down parallel to the floor if the grooves are not properly set in the accepting part of the oven.  We must of tried twenty times to get the door in place.  We took the door out several times, we looked at it to see if everything looked good, we watched the end of the video about four times, we even tried to find other videos. It was so desperate we even found the directions and read them a few times.  Everything looked in order.  One thing that can go wrong, our research showed, was that the hinges may end up in the wrong place.

Not sure what the situation was with the hinges, I left home about 4 pm to take the door to Birrenkott Appliance, from where we bought the range in November of 2010.  The gentlemen there thought it looked right.  They went over to what appeared the same model and pulled that door out and sure enough it has the same mechanism.  He easily put the door back in.  We again looked at our door and realized the hinges seemed correct.  The worker at Birrenkott took out the door on the range in showroom once again, and tried our door.  It went right in.   He took it out.  The door, we now knew was taken our correctly and the hinges were in the proper position.  I realized, it was just getting the hinges in the proper place in the opening.  As I left, it was approaching 5 pm, and I told them they may get a call tomorrow morning if I was not successful.

We  were doing everything right in positioning the door, it was just not getting properly set.  I thought of it like putting on a mower on a power take off--the ring won't go back unless it is in the right position.  Realizing that this could be a hopeless situation, on the way home I said a prayer to St Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes.  My wife would probably be the first to admit I am near a hopeless cause, so I thought this appropriate.  Perhaps, St Jude would like me, although more likely he would probably take pity on me.  I got home, and the first try it seemed to set better, but no luck, I was thinking that perhaps one side got set, but not the other.  While in place I tried to lift up slightly and set back down, but again no luck.  I then fully removed the door and while doing so, said another  quick prayer to St Jude.  The third time was a charm, as I set it in place, it felt as if it was properly set, I lowered the door to fully down, the hinge locks released and we dropped them in  place.  The door was on. Don't ask me how I did it.

My wife was impressed that I got it, (I told her I said a quick prayer to St Jude) and with that she gave me a handshake.  While I thought the method of cleaning with a rag and a yardstick was funny, the simplest method is probably the best.  Oh, and by the way, the door was out for over an hour, per the instructions.  The moral of the story--most things are not as easy as they seem.