Stupid freezing rain.....

[80W150]

So the past two days we've had rain, freezing rain. Makes for awesome walking/driving experiences.

The wife and I went down to Battle Creek yesterday (about 70 mile drive) to see friends that were up from North Carolina. The drive down no biggie. Coming home (roughly 10:30 pm) yeah, that was fun. Once we got onto the expressway it wasn't horrible, just crappy. Only counted 3 vehicles in the ditch/median. However, we got close to Lansing (about 25 miles from home) and couldn't help but notice really bright flashes. Wife asked "is that lighting?" to which I respond "nooo. probably a transformer or something really big, handling a lot of electricity, blowing." I must have been right. A friend of mine that lives in that area said he was without power.

She slipped getting out of the ram yesterday and tweaked her back. My younger great dane is scared to climb the deck steps to come back in so I have to pick her up and carry her up the steps. (she only weighs 145 lbs. Should have bought a corgie) Limb on the neighbors tree broke and landed on my side of the fence. Not huge, didn't break the fence but it took a branch off the tree in my yard which sucks. That tree is beautiful when it blooms in the spring. (but hey, at least it didn't land on my metal storage shed)

Of course I go to get more salt (or anything that will melt ice) yesterday afternoon and no dice. Every place was sold out. (I had used the last of mine) Thankfully the pet store we get dog food at had it so I bought two 50 lbs bags. Now I get the fun job of spreading that today to try and clear the sidewalk and driveway and of course deck steps. (don't think I want to keep picking my dog up)

On the bright side, we made it home fine last night. (that little 97 town & country handles pretty good was probably better off with that than the ram) and we haven't lost power so I can't complain more than what I already have. Guess after spreading salt I'll just play in the basement for a while (always something going on down there) and after that I set my butt in my recliner, my older dane (she only weighs maybe 130 lbs) will get up there with me and we'll probably take a nap.

[The War Wagon]

61 & overcast here... and da' STILLERS are playing in snow in Green Bay right now.  Oh well...

It'll be down to 17 here on Christmas Eve... joy to the world! 

[80W150]

It's been a long time since we had crap like this, guess we were overdue.

[SixGun]

Brrrrrrr....dipped into the 40's tonight.   The only ice I saw was in my ice tea at Cracker Barrel.      mmmmmm.... homestyle chicken.

[crazzywolfie]

my drive to work was a bit scary. it was raining all morning. roads were plowed but no salt or sand had been dropped so roads were fairly white. now mix the white stuff and rain together with freezing cold temps and you could run into issues. i was pretty lucky. didn't run into any issues. drove through a couple intersections without power. the Tim Hortons that i bought my hot chocolate at this morning had no power when i drove by it on the way home from work. it has just been crazy how much ice we have been getting in GTA.

[SixGun]

I can't even imagine how you guys do it.

[crazzywolfie]

sometimes you got to do what you got to do. as long as you can still see white on the road you are safe to drive. it is when the roads are black and you have rain and freezing cold temps that you got to worry.

[80W150]

I can't even imagine how you guys do it.

Meh. You get used to it. Waddle out to your rig, start it, let it thaw out for about 10 minutes, break the ice scraper trying to get the windows cleared, cuss, and then go. (or in my wifes case, open up garage door, start van, back out, close door, and go. I try and spoil her by keeping a bay clear in garage so she don't have to deal with this kind of stuff.

Here's a couple of pics. We got snow last night. Lots of power outages in about a 30 mile radius of here. We had friends over yesterday cuz their power is out. My buddy rigged a cord to his furnace so he could run that off his generator so they have heat and can run some lamps. So far we've been fortunate.

The bottom pic is the cities skating rink. That's good to go.

[MT_84Ram]

Crazy weather here too.  About 5" new snow Sunday, 10 below yesterday morning,  and now this AM it is 35 above and raining.  I don't even want to go outside - probably fall on my ass.

[80W150]

You folks out west get some nasty temps. Buddy of mine has been working in WY. Said the work truck wouldn't stay running last week. (and it's injected) Couldn't even pull the generator, oil too cold. They put it by tailpipe of truck (once they got it to stay running) and let the exhaust gas heat warm up generator enough so they could pull the cord. Man, I just can't imagine.... It's rare it gets that cold here.

We got a little more snow yesterday. No big deal. Took my generator to my friends folks' place. Theirs wasn't running reliably, he called and asked to borrow mine. I fired mine up, shut it down, put it in back of the ram, stopped, filled it up, delivered it. Last I knew it was running/working just fine for them. It can't run everything (it's only a 3.5k) but, it's enough to run the furnace, some lights and a few other things. The upside to cold weather. If your fridge quits due to power outage, stick the beer in the snow.

MT, don't let slippery stuff and gravity beat you man. Defy it. Show it who's boss. If that doesn't work, wear lots of padding.

[crazzywolfie]

i bet your friends folks generator wont run reliably because they filled it with cheap gas and it has sat for a bit. i bet if you were to pull the float bowl off and clean the needle/seat with carb or brake cleaner it would run like it should again. the ethanol in cheap gas is very bad for small engines that don't get used every day. i know my neighbor ran cheap gas in his snow blower and he couldn't get it running last year and this year i had to use oven cleaner to clean the jet of all the ethanol build up. 

[80W150]

Oh, it has sat for a couple of years from what my friend was telling me. He put seafoam in it and said it was starting to run ok but then started in with the quitting. We're thinking some crap broke loose and is creating chaos in the carb. After they get power back my friend is taking it to his place, we'll throw it up on his bench, drain the nasty fuel completely, I'll clean the tank while he cleans the carb and we'll get new fuel line for it. We'll get it running good again. Just needs a little love is all.

I'm just glad it was producing electricity. Normally a gen sets for that amount of time it raises hell with the brushes and such. I don't enjoy getting into that end of a gen. Did it plenty of times in the army. Never cared for it.

[crazzywolfie]

sea foam won't clean parts that are gummed up by ethanol. clean the carb and put new gas in it and i bet it runs like it should. i would have been on top of fixing the generator asap if there was a possibility of more power outages. most likely a 30 minute job max. start running premium fuel in it and maybe add a bit of sea foam to each tank and it should be fine to sit for extended periods of time without running.

[80W150]

Right. Well, my buddy was just trying to do what he could do at that particular moment. We'll get it squared away. Like you said, clean the carb good, fresh gas, run it for a bit then before shutting it down I say close the petcock, let it run the fuel out, then add stabil or something to the fuel. I bet my buddy doesn't let this happen again. (because Lord knows his dad won't haul the gen out of the shed couple times a year and run it just to make sure..)

That's why I usually run mine roughly once every four weeks or so and hook it up to the camper and put some kind of load to it just so things get worked like they should. My gen has roughly 1,000 hours on it and still going strong. (when I camp during the summer once that gen gets started it doesn't get shut down until we go home. That can be overnight or 3 days..... And yes, it gets "hot fueled". Meaning I don't shut it down to refuel. Army taught me some bad habits. lol)