TCC for 2/22/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/22/08
Ghetto temp. 47 F. and rising, hopefully.
Island tmp. 22 F. Yesterday's L/H: 20/24 F.
Current conditions: Sky completely cloud covered, no wind.

Today's snow storm that seemed to cause a bit of trouble in NYC and the tri-state area, only brought about 3 inches of snow here on the Island and Lake. It is a super fine powder that will probably blow away in the wind. It snowed all day, at times creating total whiteout conditions. Nothing too severe for too long, but for the most part the East shore was not visible for most if not all of the day. It's good to have the snow, too bad there isn't more of it. The Caretaker thought about going out for a ski on the Ice, but not knowing where is compass was and not feeling like looking for it he decided to pass on going for a ski. During snow storms it is always good to have a compass while out on the Lake, when you can't see either shore, you don't know where you are nor which direction you are going in. Sure you can follow your tracks back, but if it is snowing hard enough to fill in your tracks or the wind is blowing enough to wipe away your tracks you won't be going anywhere fast. So the Caretaker decided to save x-c skiing on the Ice for another day.

The Caretaker has still not picked up more fuel, he is running low on both propane and kerosene. The low quantity of kerosene does not bother him because he is seriously thinking about abandoning his kerosene heater, he is having too many problems with it. Although, to do this he must then rely more on propane, he is down to two 40 pound tanks, which should give him at least another week of heat, perhaps more. If all goes well, the Caretaker will be able to pick up more propane this coming Monday. In the meantime the Caretaker has switched over from his propane stove to his alcohol stove for heating tea-water in the Ghetto. This switch has not resulted in a compromise of the Caretaker's living situation. For those of you who are familiar with the traditional style alcohol burning backpacking stoves, you are well aware of the rather middling performance of such stoves. The Caretaker does not own one of those, if you are interested in ultra-light hiking, or just like to keep things simple, the Caretaker highly recommends the Brasslight brand of alcohol backpacking stove. It is a brilliant little device, the model that the Caretaker owns has just one moving part, and if it breaks or breaks off, the stove is still highly functional. The Caretaker won't go into further detail about this stove, you can find out all you want about it at the company's website:

http://www.brasslite.com

The Caretaker will share this about the stove, essentially it burns alcohol in a blowtorch fashion, thus burning much hotter (or at least much more effective) than traditional alcohol stoves. The Caretaker has owned this stove for some 5 or 6 years and it has yet to fail him. So, other than shifting around his heat sources and use of fuels, the Caretaker spent much of the day doing little else of interest.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/21/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/21/08
Ghetto temp. 40 F. and steady.
Island tmp. 22.5 F. Yesterday's L/H: 12/27 F.
Current conditions: Mostly clear night, light layer of clouds, little to no wind.

It was a mostly cloudless day, a bit of wind from the West, gusty at times. It's good when the wind comes from the West because Clay Island blocks much of the wind from hitting here on the Island. The Caretaker walked the ice to try and fix his parking break, after some labor he was able to properly route the cable that had come out of place, unfortunately this did not solve the problem, it appears that the parking break still does not hold. So, realizing that the repair was beyond his ability with the tools on hand he figured he might as well look into the electrical problem which amounted to him checking the fuzes for the devices that have stopped working, unfortunately none of the fuzes were blown. Thus concluded the Caretaker's attempted repair work. With nothing left to do on the mainland the Caretaker walked the ice back to the Island.

Upon returning to the Island the Caretaker became aware that the Island phone line was dead. After unplugging all of the phones he went to the connection box and plugged in a phone to see if the problem was in the house lines or in the telephone company's line. The test seemed to show that it was in the phone company's line. So using his cell phone he called the phone company to report the problem. After performing a line test the automated system said that a repair person would be out the following day. This made the Caretaker smile, he highly doubted that a repair person would walk the ice, during a snow storm. While going to reconnect the phones the Caretaker noticed that one of the phone cords used to connect the handset to the wall jack was corroded over on one of the terminals. His deduction was that this is perhaps the cause of the problem, it could be generating a cross or dead signal or whatever but either way was probably telling the phone company's system that the phone was off the hook, thus the phone company's system would shut down the line. Sure enough that was it, after waiting a half an hour or so the Caretaker plugged the phone back in using a different cord and there was a dial tone. In the past, every once in a while the phone line would go dead for a while and then come back on. The Caretaker could never figure out why, now he knows.

There is talk of snow tomorrow, the early report was calling for 6 to 8 inches, by the afternoon it had been reduced to about 3 inches. Whatever the amount turns out to be, hopefully it will be enough to ski on. The ice has been mostly bare but for a very thin layer of snow with occasional patches making for terrible skiing ice and none too sporty skating ice. It will be good if it is a substantial snow, in a few days the Caretaker might then be able to ski over to the East shore.

In other news, the Caretaker has been wondering how it is that he has been put on the fake Rolex spam list. Pretty much everyday he gets at least two or more spams advertising "great deals on fake Rolex watchs". Well, he doesn't really wonder why or how it is he is on this list, but he does find it mildly amusing. The Caretaker doesn't wear a watch. There are times when the Caretaker loses track of what day of the week it is let alone what time it is.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/20/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/20/08
Ghetto temp. 41 F. and rising.
Island tmp. 18 F. Yesterday's L/H: 19/ 26.
Current conditions: Crystal clear night, no wind.

The Caretaker went to the mainland this afternoon to run a few errands. Upon arriving at his car he reconnected the battery hoping it would not be dead, thankfully it wasn't and the car started right up and so he motored on down the road. He really had only one important errand and that was to drop off some photo-cards at a retailer. After doing that, and forgetting about the eclipse of the moon the Caretaker went on to do a few other errands. One of which was to try and locate a particular food thermos. So off he went a "hunting". His prey proved elusive. He knew he would probably stand a good chance of finding what he wanted at any of the box stores, but what if he didn't want to support them? Where would he go to find such an item? He thought about it for a while and other than the Hardware store he could think of no other stores outside of the box stores. This prompted the Caretaker to think about the time when there was no TargDeath, or WalMonster, etc. the Caretaker can remember a time when that was the case, at least where he grew up. Sporting goods stores perhaps? Not that it matters now, and not that the Caretaker has anything in particular against the box stores, however, if he can give his business to a local business owner he will. In the end, the Hardware store did not have the model he was looking for. This was mildly surprising because it is an excellent Hardware store, in most ways it is far superior to HomeDespot, etc. Anyway, the Caretaker went on to the local box stores, no luck there either. So the Caretaker gave up.

While walking to his car the Moon had come up over the Green Mountains in Vermont, it was a glorious Moonrise. The conditions were such that the Moon appeared to be some 5 times larger than it normally does. Dusk was just beginning to rise causing a three color pastel rainbow on the East horizon. Broad swaths of purple, pink, and blue, and rising through it was the huge face of the Moon in cool white, almost chrome. The Caretaker had wished he had his camera with him. However, his lack of camera did not prevent him from enjoying the Moonrise, he hopped in his car and drove down to the lower parking lot to get a better view. After a while it occurred to the Caretaker that tonight was the Eclipse. Not wasting any more time he headed back to the Island.

The Caretaker made it back in time to take a few photos of the Moon before the Eclipse began. It was a crystal clear night with little to no wind. The Moon was so bright that a flashlight was not needed to see one's way in the night, the light of the stars was mostly drowned out by the Moonlight leaving them barely visible. The ice was doing quite a bit of singing, keeping its own rhythm in pops and pings, booms and bangs, squeals and sighs. And then the Moon began to fade from view, certainly not a quick process but definitely a wondrous one. As Earth's shadow blocked out more and more of the Moonlight the stars became brighter and brighter. At total Eclipse the stars punched out of the sky.

The last time the Caretaker had seen a total eclipse of the moon was some 8 or 9 years ago while he was living on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Hopefully it won't be another 8 years or so for him to see his next eclipse. He tried photographing the Eclipse, but he was not too successful, the lack of light poses a bit of a problem. Duh.

--The Caretaker

TCC 2/19/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/19/08
Ghetto temp. 51 F. and rising slowly
Island tmp. 26 F. Yesterday's L/H: ?/45 F. Caretaker missed the low.
Current conditions: Mostly clear, occasional clouds, occasional wind from the West.

The day started out well enough for the Caretaker, then it went South, then it got weird, then it got good, and then it got quiet. The Caretaker had to go to the big city of Albany to drop off a ton images at the photo printer he uses for prints to be made so he can fill out his portfolio. After that he was to meet up with S. for lunch at Justin's. The Caretaker had dropped a memory card in S.'s car the last time he was down in Albany, luckily S. found it. The Caretaker also had to give S. a belated birthday gift for L. and so lunch at Justin's is where the exchange would take place. After lunch the Caretaker would head back North, take care of a few errands and then return to the Island. At least that was the plan for the day.

The Caretaker woke up very early, took a shower, got his things together and skied over to the mainland, reattached his car battery and bumped on down the road. In less then 10 seconds of turning onto the main road a police officer drove by in the opposite direction. Just before the officer passed a piece of ice from the Caretaker's windshield flew off towards the path of the officer's car. The officer passed without incident. However, the Caretaker expected the officer to turn around, so the Caretaker didn't go racing down the road and sure enough, in a few minutes the officer was behind the Caretaker with his lights flashing. The Caretaker pulled over. The Caretaker is not omniscient.

This piece of ice that flew off of the Caretaker's windshield was placed there strategically, the intent was to cover up the car's out of date inspection sticker. However, as stated above, it probably worked the exact opposite and ended up drawing attention to the out of date inspection sticker rather than concealing it. The Caretaker was hoping to pull off the Albany trip and then take care of his car's inspection problem. In the end the officer was kind enough to let the Caretaker go without giving him a ticket. The Caretaker then decided that perhaps it would be best to pop into the closest garage, have the car go through inspection, (knowing it will fail), get a failed inspection sticker and then continue on down to Albany. The Caretaker was born an raised in New Jersey, he has only been a legal resident of New York for three years, this is the first time he has had to deal with his car not passing inspection. After the car went through inspection the Caretaker learned that unlike New Jersey, New York state no longer issues failed inspection stickers, instead they just scrape your old inspection sticker leaving you with nothing.

Ha-ha.

Ah, but it gets better, the Caretaker expected his car to fail inspection because his exterior door handle does not work. After learning that his out of date inspection sticker had been removed, leaving him with nothing, the Caretaker was informed that his car would have passed inspection if only the door handle was broken. Apparently working door handles are not a part of the safety inspection, which would have been great if that was all that was wrong with the Caretaker's car. Instead the mechanic produced a list of some 6 items that needed to be repaired before the car could pass inspection--none of which could be accomplished in a short period of time. So the Caretaker paid his 10 bucks, said thank you and went on his way. He figured that if he got pulled over again on his way to Albany he would show the officer the paperwork on why his car failed and that he just learned of it today, blah, blah, blah. Luckily the Caretaker never got pulled over again this day. This might have been in part because after meeting with S. for lunch he drove straight back to the Island foregoing his other errands.

After the Caretaker dropped off the images at the printer, he decided he would stop in at a repair shop that specialized in German cars, the shop is behind the Honest Weight Food Co-op, so after looking into the Car he would be able to pick up a few things from the Co-op. En route, just after passing the Armory on Lark street the Caretaker saw a collection of police cars parked at the side of the road. Behind him an officer had his lights on to pass, the Caretaker pulled over, while stopped two or three more police cars came whipping around corners all converging at this one spot. The Caretaker was quite sure that there would not be this much show of force just because he was driving with no inspection sticker, so when it looked safe to pass he pulled around the collection of police cars to continue on his way. While passing he noticed that three or four police officers were in the middle of subduing a man. Two of the officers had the man's arms behind his back seemingly trying to work him to the ground. Then the Caretaker heard a loud buzzing sound, immediately followed by loud painful screams from the man. The Caretaker quickly realized that while driving by in his car he saw a man get tazered by the police. It neither looked nor sounded like fun. The Caretaker then brought his attention back to driving. Going down the road, life became surreal. Stunned, he kept going straight. It never occurred to him to turn around and watch the rest of the events unfold on these mean streets of Albany.

Lunch went well. It was good to see S. and some of his friends. After lunch the Caretaker drove back to the Island. After disconnecting the battery of his car he skied back to the Island. It was nightfall by this time and the moon had risen. The Caretaker dropped off his gear in the Ghetto and headed out on to the ice with his camera and tripod. It was mostly a quiet night but the ice was a bit unsettled. There was one crack that buckled his knees. This made the Caretaker smile at his insignificance.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/18/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/18/08
Ghetto temp. 54 F. and steady.
Island tmp. 35 F. Yesterday's L/H: 27/30 F.
Current conditions: Calm at Island level, steady West winds aloft, mix of clouds and stars. Bright moon light.

Given the blast of warm weather today the Caretaker spent much of the morning working on things outside that are all that much more difficult when it is below freezing out. It was like a day right out of early spring. The one important thing the Caretaker was able to do in the morning was to remove most all of the ice from the steps to the main house, due to the mix of snow and freezing rain of late the steps had long since ceased being steps, rather they had become an icy ramp. Granted it was a ramp of just two steps, but they had become difficult to navigate and rather treacherous.

In the afternoon the Caretaker threw on his skis and went over to the mainland to shovel out some of the snow from around his car so he could then make his way to the Post Office and take care of a few things in town. Due to the warm weather there was an immense amount of water and slush on the ice, at times it was three inches deep, it was more like water skiing than x-c skiing. About halfway across the Caretaker realized that he needed to waterproof his ski boots again. His feet were pretty well soaked by the time he made it to the mainland, however given the warm weather his feet weren't so cold to be uncomfortable. After removing his skis the Caretaker sloshed in his boots to his car. After he messed around with the snow shovel for a while he got in his car and started it up. Unfortunately he made it about 20 feet and then got stuck. He had backed into the neighbors driveway so he could face forward while driving out of the main drive to the road, unfortunately the driveway was icy and there was a hump that the Caretaker backed over, when he went to drive forward his car would not come back over the hump, his tires just spun uselessly. The Caretaker turned the wheels in the direction he wanted the car to go and then got out to try and push, this was much less effective than he had hoped. So he got back in the car, then the engine died. Why that happened he wasn't sure so he turned the key to start the engine, nothing.

Silence. The Caretaker having already gone through this a few days ago, was not too pleased, especially now that his car was blocking the neighbors driveway. The Caretaker knocked on G.'s door but received no answer, since all his cars were there the Caretaker figured that G. was out on the ice. Having no other alternative the Caretaker let himself into G.'s garage to look for a come-a-long. The Caretaker found one and then returned to his car to winch it over the hump. After getting things set up, he worked the winch a few times, then it occurred to him that perhaps this wasn't such a good idea. At the moment the Caretaker's car was blocking a driveway, but not the main drive to the road, if he winched his car over the hump and into the main drive but couldn't move it from there his car would then be blocking all traffic. This would be bad in more way's than one. Getting over the hump wasn't the only dilemma, he also had to contend with a dead battery. So the Caretaker stopped working the winch and allowed the car to return to where it started. He then walked down the neighbor's driveway to see if anyone was there, no one was, so at least the Caretaker knew he wasn't blocking anyone in. Perhaps out but at least not in. With that settled the Caretaker returned to his car to figure out what to do next. In the end he decided there wasn't much else he could do other then try G.'s again to see if he was home, if not he would head out on to the ice to find him. The Caretaker needed to borrow his battery again. As it would turn out G. was home and had been the entire time, he was in the shower when the Caretaker first knocked. They chatted for a bit and then the Caretaker grabbed G.'s battery from the basement and repeated the process he used on Valentine's day. Once the Caretaker got his engine running and the batteries swapped, G. pulled his car passed the Caretaker's so he could tow the Caretaker's car out via a strap. This worked right quick. Then the Caretaker backed his car back into its usually parking space and shut it off. The Caretaker decided to pass on his trip to town, he had forgotten that it was President's day so the Post Office would be closed and the other errands he was going to do weren't all that important, besides, by this time his wet feet in his wet boots were starting to not feel so warm.

The Caretaker disconnected his battery and brought it into G.'s garage to put it on charge for the night. This way it would be good to go for his trip to Albany tomorrow. The return trip to the Island across the ice was even wetter than the trip to the mainland, upon arrival to the Island the Caretaker immediately changed his socks and boots--dry socks and boots never felt so good. Aside from getting things ready for his trip to Albany tomorrow, not much else happened.

Happy President's day! Gooooooo Presidents!

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/17/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/17/08
Ghetto temp. 50 F. and steady.
Island tmp. 32 F. Yesterday's L/H: 13/24.5 F.
Current conditions: Windy from the South and cold, but not cold enough--it's raining.

Today was mostly uneventful. The Caretaker spent much of the day in the Ghetto doing further work on images for his portfolio. Late afternoon the Caretaker skied over to the mainland to help G. hook up his new printer. Not far from the mainland the Caretaker noticed that some weather had rolled in, a bit of a mix of rain and sleet. After some heavy wrangling with G.'s somewhat antiquated computers the Caretaker was able to get the printer to work. After a few printouts the Caretaker decided it was time to head back to the Island, skiing in rain and sleet is not much fun.

By the time the Caretaker hit the ice for his return trip, the precipitation had stopped, but the wind had picked up considerably from the South. If the Caretaker wasn't careful he ran the risk of being blown down the Lake, which given the condition of the ice that would have most likely ended up being a rather wet and cold experience. Although there were a few times when the Caretaker did a bit of side-sliding due to the wind, he was able to either keep his position or make some headway and eventually made it back to the Island without incident. The Caretaker wasn't all that worried about being swept down the Lake. For those who are interested, should one ever find oneself in such a predicament as being swept down a frozen Lake here is what you do: If you have ski poles or ice spikes, fall to the ice, drive them into the ice to get ahold and lay flat until the wind lets up. If you have no poles or ice spikes, fall to the ice, splay yourself out flat and try catching an edge with both your boots and your elbows, drive the inside edge of your elbows into the ice--unless you can catch an edge with your hands, do not try to stop yourself with your hands. If neither of the above things work, well then the wind is blowing so strong that you're pretty much out of luck, so think pleasant thoughts and enjoy the ride for as long as you can.

Back at the Island, the Caretaker notices during his walk across the Island to the Ghetto that if the rain of late keeps up he won't have to worry about trying to skate on the Lake, he can just skate around on the Island. Meh.

--The Caretaker