Why You Should Carry a Gun, Snow Removal and Sloppy Weather

Why You Should Carry a Gun Dept:  "An Army lieutenant has been charged with breaking through the window of a Girdwood cabin and fighting with a man inside while drunk, according to Alaska State Troopers. The homeowner, an Anchorage doctor, says he protected four children inside the cabin with his fists and an antique ice ax."

... "What followed was a bloody scuffle with the larger, younger man, Laufer said. It would be about 15 minutes before neighbors arrived to help Laufer restrain Curtin and about 45 minutes until a trooper arrived to arrest the lieutenant, Laufer said."

45 minutes before a trooper arrived?!? Carry a gun, people - a cop's too heavy and the gun's a lighter burden than regret.

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Where does the snow go? Dept:  I get asked, each winter, what we do "with all that snow." Well, first we clear the streets.

This is a residential street-sized unit. The highway trucks have scoops that can eat cars.

Then we have dozens of "snow dumps" around town, where the snow gets piled after each storm. It eventually melts, but sometimes not until late July, depending on how much we got that winter.

This pile is bigger than the pic makes it appear, and we still have 4 or 5 months of snowstorms to come.

The picture here is from the parking lot at my building. There are community snow dumps where the pile can be 100 feet high, and easily cover a quarter-acre.

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The weather outside is frightful Dept: Our weather has taken a decidedly sloppy turn. The temps yesterday afternoon rose into the upper 30s, and then fell overnight. We got another inch of snow, and now the temps are going back up. It's raining sideways due to the chinook winds bringing the warmth, and we could see temps in the 40s over the weekend, with more rain.

This, on top of the three feet of snow we've received in the last month, and the frozen streets. I recommend four-wheel-drives or Zambonis for transport, today.

Okay, I kid. A little.

UPDATE: the rain has formed a solid sheet of ice 1/8" thick on all the sidewalks. I've been outside spreading ice-melt, watching pedestrians falling down after being told "Watch out - it's slick!"  "Okay, thanks."  THUD.