21 degrees out, high of 25 forecast

So, for Portland, Oregon, this is cold. Really, really, cold. And we're not even talking wind chill factor here, so effectively its even colder. Mind, folks are being directed to websites for explanations of what wind chill factor is all about, which would make my friends in the Midwest fall over laughing, to think that anyone would need an explanation of wind chill, probably as much as I lost it laughing when I read an article in a Chicago paper explaining about slugs, which they were having a problem with given a warm winter, slugs being something any Willamette Valley native knew about before they entered school, Nursery school that is.

But yes, we're a wimpy bunch here in Portland, didn't actually have that much snow, and it's not really that cold if'n you've lived anywhere East of the Rockies and north of Mason & Dixon, yesterday [Sunday] they already had the school closures out for today, and trust me, every school was listed as being closed. Guess they had deeper snow in the higher altitudes, have to remember that I'm not that much above sea level here in the Brooklyn neighborhood, SW hills are much higher, and East County has the Columbia River Gorge, aka The Great Wind Tunnel of the Pacific Northwest

Whoa! Red Cross is opening Emergency Warming Centers. Actually a good idea, given that if you don't have heat this weather will kill you.

Well, once the sun comes out I'll bundle up again and clear the walks again, it's now 6:30AM so it'll be a bit until I do that. In Portland you are responsible for clearing your walks, are held legally liable for injuries if you don't attempt to keep them clear, be it snow or leaves or whatever, back in Chicago the deal is the opposite, only responsible if you try to clear you walks but don't do it properly; given that snow on top of ice is safer than ice without snow, both could use better definitions of what is acceptable and what is not.

It's been kinda fun listening to the wind whistling around, hearing the gusts rattle the porch roof; real glad I used pop rivets, zip tie anchors, screws, and zip ties to fasten them down a while back, used to really rattle in the wind, but now it just indicates that it would like to rattle.

Which reminds me that one of the projects for the summer is to reroof the porch, or at least reflash it, which also requires making it easier to get to the building roof, so one can approach from above. Making it easier to get to the roof would also aid in checking the condition of the roof.

See, this building has a totally flat roof, OK, it may have a slight slope but it is effectively flat with just enough slope to direct rainfall to the rain gutters. The roof access is via a hatch above the internal stairway, currently requires using a ladder in an unstable manner to get to the internal cover, then climb up like a yard to the external cover, then you're at the roof. What I want is to install a pull down ladder, one of those attic ladder jobbies, to the internal hatch, making it much safer and easier to get to the roof, so we can see how the roof is doing, and can then use a removable boat ladder, the kind that hooks over the side of a boat when it's on a trailer so you can get into the boat from the back, like we had back when we had the 16 foot tri-hull, anyway with such a ladder it would be possible to get to the porch roof from above and inspect the flashing, which I know needs replacing because water has been creeping down the side of the building between the porch roof and the building, resulting in water damage above the 2nd floor kitchen doors, which open on the porch, and this damage is a bad thing, and needs to be stopped.

Huh, radio just said lows around 15 overnight. Like I said, for Portland this is cold. Me, I just drag our my medium weight Chicago winter clothing from storage, the heavy weight stuff is for -50 wind chill...

7:00 AM, still dark out, but I should fix some breakfast, yes?

So...

Post this Puppy!