Re: Pearls Before Swine: Rat The Luddite

On 9/3/2024 4:50 PM, rkshullat@rosettacondot.com wrote:

William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:

Paul S Person wrote:

On Fri, 16 Aug 2024 17:31:43 -0400, William Hyde
<wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>

Paul S Person wrote:

On Thu, 15 Aug 2024 16:22:11 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
wrote:
>

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:

On Wed, 14 Aug 2024 18:13:46 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>
<snippo mucho, response is to plastic reusable shopping bags>
>

I use cloth bags....

>
I have a box with handles (e.g. a document storage box) that
I keep in the car.  Tell the checker to leave everything in
the cart and transfer from cart to box at car.
>
No bags necessary.

>
I'm non-motorized, so I not only need bags (currently boxes, as noted
elsewhere) but need exactly two of them (having exactly two arms to
tote them with), which affects how much I can buy at one time.
>
But walking to and (especially) from the store is great exercise!

>
To, yes, but from is a cardiac arrest waiting to happen. Or a fall,
given the state of the sidewalks here in winter.  But then, why not both?

>
Walking is aerobic. It strengthens the cardiovascular system.

>
I am aware of this, but in current circumstances I must be careful.

 At one of our houses the closest grocery store is 5.4 miles, at the other
it's 1.9 miles. No sidewalks, no protected crossings. The 5.4 miles is all
two-lane roads with 50-60 MPH speed limits and a drop from the narrow and,
in some places, unimproved breakdown lane into the bar ditch. The other is
not so bad, but it requires crossing a six-lane road. I contemplated it one
time (needed to drop off a car for service) but it felt too much like immersive
Frogger.
 

OTOH, the "freezing rain" we had a while back defeated me. I'd never
encountered it before. I'll be paying attention to it in the future.

>
After one particularly gentle freezing rain event I was standing on a
sidewalk and slowly sliding down a hill I had never known was there.
Seemed flat to the eye, but not to gravity.

 That's the most common winter "weather event" in the places I've spent most of
my life (central Oklahoma and north Texas). Dangerous stuff. I was headed
home from work early one afternoon with freezing rain coming down. About a
mile from home I was waiting to turn at a stop light. It was an out-sloped
rural road with a deep bar ditch on the downslope side. The car in front of
me, completely stopped, suddenly started to slide sideways and fell into the
ditch. The driver waved at everyone to indicate he was ok and got on his
phone. I made it home, but it was several days before we could get out of the
neighborhood.
We were lucky...a really bad ice storm left my dad without power for over a
week. He was able to convince someone to deliver a good quantity of firewood
and both he and the dog slept in front of the fireplace.
      Robert

Freezing rain is pretty much the worst weather event I experience here
in New England - I'd rather have a two foot blizzard.
I live in a pretty rural area, and there are trees around my house and
a forest behind it.
Freezing rain can coat trees and overhead wires with enough weight to
bring them down.
Back in 2008, I lost power for 8 days due to an icestorm.
Its not unusual for an icestorm to be followed by a clear, sunny day,
and the effect of having every branch and twig encased in clear ice,
twinkling in the sun, is extraordinarily beautiful - the world
is dipped in crystal.
pt