April, April!

Anybody can have an April 1st joke on April 1 - however, it took an innocent letter to a friend who shall remain nameless but to whom I will refer  as "Val" because I used this name last December and it seems like a plausible solution now as it did then.

Please click on the link to recall the history.

Yesterday I had a thank-you letter from "Val" and I pointed out to her that Santa had already checked his list once for 2017 - on his way, of course, to checking it twice as is required by protocol. I can only think that the reindeer found that funny and kicked over the snow that I had been storing up for the coming winter when there might be a need for a little extra until all the new devices had been tested - you know, beaver, dolphins, drones, entanglement, 3-D printers, and "X-factors".

So this is what happened at middle earth this morning:

It is -2C! On Monday the forecast is plus 23C and sunny. Go figure that out! By the way, a practical alternative to the sleigh is the bicycle so in recent days I have been pushing my helpers, leading by example, of course, to bike that bike. I have been pushing my limit, slowly, to #10 on the scale which gives me approx 150 Watts and I am currently able to do that 4 times 4 minutes in 30 minutes. I know, that is peanuts, and I would much rather be pulled than have to pull. And the rolling friction is slightly less than sliding friction, unless of course, I had to bike today through this "hot mush" .

W O B