TCC for 3/29/08

The Caretaker's Concern 3/29/08
Ghetto temp. 53 F. and steady.
Island tmp. 28 F. Yesterday's L/H: 28/32 F.
Current conditions: Mostly clear sky, wind from the North, 5 to 10 mph, gusting to 15/20.

In honor of "Earth Hour" today, the Caretaker not only turned off the lights, he shut off all electrical equipment, however, he did keep a radio on, but he used his wind-up radio which he cranked the energy for, also, he didn't wait until 8 o'clock local time, he shut off the electricity at sunset, about 7 o'clock. He figured why wait? Since 9 o'clock the only electrical device he has turned on is his computer, thus today's report. If you happened to have missed "Earth Hour" today, you can certainly celebrate it on another day. If you don't know what "Earth Hour" is: shut off the lights from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. local time. "Earth Hour" was founded by Andy Ridley and some "371 cities, towns or local governments from..." around the globe have signed up for "Earth Hour". The point of it is to promote awareness of the environment and energy consumption.

It was certainly a sunny day today, but rather windy and cold, the Caretaker stayed inside for most of the day. Much of the open water around the Island froze over last night, not thick enough to walk on, but froze over none the less. Some of the new ice was lost today, but most of the new freeze stayed ice throughout the day. Tonight is supposed to be even colder than last night, looks like the ice is going to be building a bit, which won't help the Caretaker much towards getting off the Island, he will still need to use the canoe method, but overall it will make it safer for him when he has to travel the ice on Monday for his court date--the dreaded traffic court date.

With the electric lights out in the Ghetto the Caretaker turned to his many oil lamps for illumination. Overhead was his large hurricane lantern, on the top of his roll-top desk was his small hurricane lantern, at desk level was two of his wine lamps, all of which run on soot-free liquid wax paraffin. The nice thing about the wine lamps is that they give off a flame the same size as a candle, and so produce the same type of light, but without any of the dripping wax issues of candles. Anyway, the point of this is that while at his desk basking in lamp light at dusk, the Caretaker looked out the North West window of the Ghetto and noticed the reflection of the dusk sky painting the newly formed black-ice a deep blue azure, the ice seemed to almost glow from the waning light of the early evening light. Had the Caretaker been using the electric lights at this time of day, as he usually does when inside, he would have never noticed this coloring of the ice and sky. Sometimes, there can be too much light, preventing us from seeing all that there is to see.

--The Caretaker