How's the weather for everyone out there? Any of you without power and heat? Here in West Virginia (southern WVA) it's just plain ugly. My child hasn't been to school since last Friday. The county is on its 6th snow day for the year. The sky is falling again on us. We had nasty rain/sleet/ice storms last night that brought power lines and trees down everywhere. The are thousands upon thousands without power across the state.

I looked out the window to check it out... Cops are out there because it appears the mailman nearly plowed through a house. The city and PD are here as the road next to my house is a solid sheet of ice and sleet.

Be smart folks.., stay home if you can and don't brave the weather. We've had several weather related deaths here too.

Minus 32 Celsius(-25F) here on Cape Breton Island...colder than a mother-in-law's kiss...ice pellets and then about 11 inches of snow expected tonight...gonna warm up to -10C(14F)...downright balmy.

It's even cold in Louisiana. Yesterday at noon it was 72. By 1:00 it was 47. Right now it's 30, but we dodged the ice storm that hit above us.
But it will warm up by the weekend!
I feel your pain!
DonM

Maybe this explains your icy demeanor here just lately, Ian

Come on down and thaw out in Florida... you are always welcome, son...

Two inches of snow yesterday, followed by two additional inches last night, then a nice layer of freezing rain. It's currently 34 degrees, raining, temperatures are going to dip to the upper 20s tonight so everything that melted will freeze up. If global warming gets any worse I'll freeze to death.

One of the smartest things I ever did in this business is to issue a NEW contract to all of my accounts every December that lists all of the next seasons play dates. In that contract, in clear, concise language, it clearly states:

"5. Term/Termination. This agreement may be terminated by either party up to 45 days prior to the performance without penalty. Cancellation within the period of 30 to 45 days of performance date will result in forfeiture of deposit. Cancellation within the 30 day period prior to performance requires full compensation to the service provider by the contractor. No refunds will be made after that date. Cancellation due to inclement weather conditions such as snow or freezing rain may be made by either party without penalty. Cancellation due to illness may be made by the service provider without penalty."

I've had to cancel a few jobs because of weather since the first of the year, and in each instance the event was rebooked for a later date.

Cheers,

Gary

I'm cool Diki...but hardly icy (although it being -33 right now might help it along) although I can be just as determined (some would say pigheaded ) as you when it comes to proving a point.

Cape Breton is a place of extremes...-32C in the winter, and +32C in the summer.

I'm not much for beaches...I like the rugged landscape of this little island, and it's clean air and easy life style.

For a small place, it is very rich in music...probably more musicians here per capita than any other place in Canada...nearly everyone plays an instrument...and most of them, very well.

Still it would be nice to hear you and Richard, and not have to be concerned about snow and ice for at least one winter.

Thanks for the invite, son...much appreciated.

Ian

Troy has 10.5" of snow and we're sitting at 21 degrees.

Rescheduled two gigs today, stayed home except for a quick run to the market for a few groceries.

I'll be calling my township offices over the next day or two and compliment them on the stellar job they did cleaning up the roads. At Noon, they were totally covered, with 3-5 inches of snow...it was coming down so fast they weren't even trying to plow it. By 3:30, streets are clear of snow...amazing...



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Bill in Dayton

My weather is the same as Gary's. I did go out last night and today to play jobs. But I've had the wife and 15 year old in the house since last Friday. It was funny, at last night's job they had a poster that said, "Come see and hear Joe Ayala. He's the perfect cure for cabin fever." I told them at the beginning of the show, you guys were my salvation. I've been watching the clock all day. My son was bored and my wife was wanting to start up new projects. Plus, after I got back from the jam, I ordered a Zoom H2 and I couldn't wait to fire it up. I recorded both shows and it's amazing the quality I'm getting. Oh well, tomorrow is another day in the frozen Peoples Republic of Maryland.

Joe

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Songman55
Joe Ayala

2" of ice/rain slush this morning.....
hard rain since 3pm all gone 45 degrees now....sunny tommorow... Yeah!!

Some snow earlier today, changed to freezing rain, then rain ... fortunately, the temp is supposed to stay above freezing overnight ...

Lydia has a cousin who lives in California and plays drums with different groups ... one group he is working with is appearing in Waterbury CT tonight -about 2 hours from us- ... we had scheduled to drive down, catch the show, stay over ... forecast for Waterbury was 5 - 7 inches of snow followed by ice, with a 1/4 inch of ice accumulation expected ... We canceled the trip ...
Snow I can handle ... ice is something else ! ...

t.

[This message has been edited by tony mads usa (edited 01-28-2009).]

ooops ...

t.

[This message has been edited by tony mads usa (edited 01-28-2009).]

What happened.......you slip on the ice?




chas

Back to back ice storms. Over 470,000 homes in the area without power. Many accidents and road closings. Temp in the high 20's in the day; low teens in the night.

Most businesses closed today...may not be any better tomorrow.


Nasty!


R.

Hard to say what's worse... bad winter weather or the odd hurricane.

Mind you, after a winter storm, the gig (and your house) is still usually standing!

Hey Squeak: Shouldn't be a big deal. West Virginia - you probably just got electricity installed just a few years ago, so you guys should be used to the bad weather. Couldn't resist.

How's my weather. Splendid. For now, at least. But I am in S. Fl.

Hurricane season can be a different story.

I've lived in Philly, Ga., WV, Mass. and FL. They all have their pluses and downsides.

This time of year, while seeing all the misery up north, I go to work in 70 degree temps. Most of my audiences now are...you guessed it...from the northeast and mid-west.

Summers, though not as busy, can also be pretty decent...as long as there are no systems coming out of Africa and across the Caribbean.

Eddie

Geez.., just got the phone call from the county school auto notice system (got the call at about 10:15pm too). Once again schools closed! That's 4 days in a row my kid has been out of school! This was one mean winter storm that swept through here. I can't even remember the last time we had weather like this in West Virginia.

I feel for you guys.
Used to live in colder climate, now in So.Cal.
Today was 72 and tomorrow 76.
Come on down if you want to warm up.
Eric

But the big chicken Gore said it was warming..i'm so so confused.

t.

Well here in the south of Australia we're cooking; today I measured 46.6C in the shade that's 116F. I've never measured temperatures this high before, makes you wonder about global warming - crazy weather everywhere.

Wow! That is HOT!

Do you have an air conditioner in your home?

There was even snow on "my" golf course this morning. Just enough to see.
It will be warm by the weekend though.
I'm on my way for a root canal. I would almost rather stay home and read the SZ war games.
DonM

Another Australian here. Melbourne is into its third day of 43C temp (109F). The poor International tennis players are at the tail end of the Australian Open in that sort of weather. A hell of a way to earn a living. Mind you one or two of them get a million or two for the effort.
Keith

Yeah.... I'd happily play outside in those temps for THAT kind of moolah!

Not sure if my arranger would take being baked in the sun though! My contract rider has me and whoever I play with at least in the shade, down here in FL...

But I've had a few outside gigs where the heat index got above 110ºF... but I can STILL take those easier than playing in cold weather

Someone sent me a cartoon a few weeks ago that depicted two guys wading through waist deep snow and their car buried in snow to the windows. The caption said "Repeat after me--At least we don't have hurricanes, at least we don't have hurricanes..." I would rather live with the threat of a hurricane than endure the six months of winter we have up here in the People's Republic of Maryland. Just got home from a job, the driveway is a 300-foot sheet of downhill ice and I had to put on golf shoes to negotiate my 160 feet of sloping sidewalk. Todays high was 30 degrees f. Tonight the mercury will dip to 10 degrees f. and snow showers are in the forecast for tomorrow.

Damned I'm cold,

Gary

We just had our share of winter here in the People's Republic of Maryland. Both my SUV and my wife's can negotiate out the uphill icy driveway. Tonight my son decided to drive down and couldn' get out. After an hour and a half of salt, kitty litter, ect, we were able to drive him out. Add to that I had 5 people at choir tonight. I usually have 15 to 20. I'm also damned tired of the cold.

Joe

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Songman55
Joe Ayala

Watching one of the matches they reported that it was 147 degrees on the court !!!!!
t.

Well.., that makes it a whole week now. Got a call at 5:15am saying schools were delayed 2 hours...., then get an update call at 5 minutes to 8 that all schools are closed again. Now they're talking about another possible major winter blast coming by Monday. At this rate my kids probably not going to be out of school until July....

My elderly neighbor told me s that when he was a kid, it was so cold in the farmhouse that the flame on the candle froze, and they couldn't blow it out.

They threw it out the window, and come the spring, it thawed out and set the field on fire.

ianmcnll,
Airconditioning? You betcha, what a wonderful invention.

Another stinking hot day today, a bit cooler than yesterday though, it only reached 45.5C (114F).
This photo gives you the idea.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SqhhJb_P3Kk/SH...hot+weather.jpg

That was a good one!

Only 45.5 degrees...time for a sweater.

It was that cold here yesterday, I saw some people pushing a house down the street trying to jump start the furnace.

If your area is like mine, a 1/2 hour drive is all it takes to locate hundreds of people who have nowhere to go to get out of the cold.

Man, we're lucky. I wish we could make all the pain and discomfort go away.


Russ

Probably not a bad idea, on the whole!

If you compare hours in school and length of school year in the US compared to most western countries, we are short-changing our kids over here. In a global economy, your kids are competing with kids from across the planet. It simply stands to reason that if they are in school longer, they MIGHT learn more

The practice of letting them out of school at 2pm or thereabouts, long before their parents will get home just seems INSANE Another two hours in school a day might bring up SAT's across the board...

(Don't let your kids read this post, I don't need the death threats! )

It's 2:45 P.M., and the power is still not back on at my first house job of the evening (5:00 P.M.). Haven't been able to get my car close enough to the front door to easily load the little guy who had his foot amputated to take to his clinic appointment. Luckily, we can carry him...he's lighter now than he was before the operation (MY BAD!).

Whole shopping centers and older subdivisions are still without power, and some rural areas are looking at 6-7 weeks before things are back to normal.

What a difference! I lived in Maine, Minnesota, Michigan and Alaska for extended periods of time...places that were used to this kind of thing. The warnings now involve ice falling as things melt, causing further problems.

Luckily, the warehouse and my place didn't lose power. I've had a steady stream of people staying until things clear, or just stopping by for a shower.


R.