[LMB] Port on a plane OT:

[James]

On 11/29/06, Marna Nightingale <marna at marna.ca> wrote:
> James wrote:
>
> >> I'll be the one on Denman St laughing that special nasty laugh reserved
> >> for Ontarioans whose BC relatives incessantly give them a hard time
> >> about their choice of residence and even call them up to gloat about
> >> their superior weather.
> >
> > Wow, I didn't think that actually happens.
>
> What, the Easterner taunting?
>
> Oh yes, Yes it does. I have until the snow melts to pay my father back
> for 20 years of him pitying me for my weather.  Plus that time he came
> here in January with a pair of dress shoes, a Gore Tex jacket, and a
> full sightseeing schedule and I had to spend a whole week trying to keep
> us sufficiently on the move that he didn't get frostbite or worse.

Heh. Well, that's us Vancouverites. It isn't a day until we're skiing
in the mornings and golfing in the afternoon. In the dead of winter...
Vancouver gets very unCanadian weather.

> > Outside of downtown Vancouver, you can't tell. The roads now are more
> > or less ice.
>
> Co-incidentally, that is EXACTLY was happens when you salt snow. Melts,
> runs, refreezes overnight -- ta dah! Ice. However, IIRC Vancouver
> doesn't do salt, so I assume it's because of daytime highs above zero.
>
> Sand still helps. Somewhat.

Well, Vancouver only salts and sands. They actually had to borrow a
deicing truck (magnesium chloride, I believe) from interior BC. Even
if they didn't salt, the plows didn't keep up, so all the cars melted
a bit of the snow, which refroze into nice ice...

> > Snow's no fun when you aren't on vacation. When you have things to do
> > and places to go (work), snow's more of an annoyance.
>
> I had noticed. *g* It may be freakishly warm here now, but I _am_ still
> an Ottawa resident. At least your snow and ice won't be staying until
> April ...

Yeah. If it says longer than two weeks, it's unusual. Even when it
gets into the negatives, it often doesn't snow (there was a stretch
where it was -10C...).

> And in all seriousness, sympathy for the crappy weather. My whole
> family's out there, I'm not really taking this lightly. Be careful and all.

Luckily, it's all melting now. Amazing how one day of plus
temperatures has managed to clear a lot of the sidewalks and roadways.
The really iced up areas still are icy, but the parts that had enough
traffic more or less is just wet.