Sliding on the Walking Dune

sliding on the walking dune
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

We were all home again today. School was canceled and state government was shuttered in Kent and Sussex Counties because of the terrible great snowfall.

I spent the morning e-caucusing with my conference planning committee, talking about whether or not to postpone the 2010 Delaware GIS Conference which was scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. We used e-mail, cell-phones, google sites, and EtherPad to determine that, with roads still a mess from the week-end storm, and another sizable snow storm on the way, we should postpone it.

In the afternoon, I took a ride out to Cape Henlopen State Park and headed up to the walking dune to watch people sledding. We don't really have hills here so when there is enough snow, people head for the walking dune.

Coming back through town, I poked around and checked on the status of several streets.

It's pretty snowy around here.

Digging Out

We spent much of our day digging out from the Great Delaware Blizzard of 2010. It was a family effort. We had great help from the City of Lewes road crew, who were kind enough to plow away the snow bank at the end of the driveway.

The Blizzard of 2010?

We've had a bit of snow around here. It started snowing late yesterday afternoon and continued pretty steadily until around 7 this evening. Along the way, we think it changed over to rain for a little bit overnight last night. But most of it was heavy snow and high winds.

Our Saturday was blizzardy and wild.


This was mid-afternoon when the white-out was at its height. I took this video from the garage door, without venturing out. The girls asked me to leave the driveway alone until they can get out and romp in it tomorrow.

A bit later I went out in the back yard to check the heat pump. There I found drifts up over my knees.

This has been a rare sort of a storm for us. We don't usually get this much snow and I don't recall ever seeing "Blizzard Warning" on the evening newscast before. Also unprecedented was the order from Governor Markell last night through most of today banning all but essential folks from driving.

As a state, we hunkered down and waited it out, except for emergency crews, snowplow drivers and National Guard troops who were out helping the few morons who did try to drive -- and moving folks whose power died get to shelters.

We're suffering a bit from cabin fever, but here in Lewes, we've been lucky. we kept our power all day (but for one 10-second blip). We lost the cable for a short time, but had lots of Lucy and other favorites stored up on the TiVo.

Tomorrow, it's snow shovels and aching muscles for all!

Shoveling the Driveway

shoveling the driveway
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

We don't really get a lot of snow here in southern Delaware, so when we do, we get pretty excited about it. That's one reason why I was all revved-up about shoveling the driveway this morning. The other was that it gave me an excuse to try a time-lapse photo thingy.

When I first came out and took a picture from the garage door this morning, Barry, from across the street, asked whether I expected photography to melt the snow away. He's originally from York, PA, and snow is nothing too special for him.

I took a picture from the same spot every two passes across the driveway. I tried to remain consistent as to angle and aspect; I used Mary and Barry's dormer window, in the upper left, as a reference point.

This sequence starts at about 9:30 a.m. and runs until around 11:15 a.m. I took my time, enjoyed my coffee and came in at one point to take a phone call.

More Snow Video

Snow is still pouring down on us here in Lewes. We're probably up to 4 or 5 inches by now. So how to spend a snowy afternoon? Why not try out a video editing software tool?


This is video from our front yard, taken around 3:00 p.m. And this is my first-ever attempt at video editing. Be kind.

Backyard Snow

backyard snow
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

It started snowing at about 10:00 a.m. here in Lewes, Delaware. When I stepped out on the back porch at a bit past one to collect this minute of video, there was already about two inches on the ground. We're expecting a few more before this ends this evening.

It's pretty. There is nowhere we have to be today. We have enough food and firewood on hand.

I was trying to capture a sense of the peace that's possible in this situation and almost succeeded -- until the neighbor's air-pump kicked on.

Unforgiving Grammarian Moment #298

I know this is petty of me, but I get annoyed by bad grammar in newspaper writing. It is usually the subtle little errors that irk me the most; so subtle that sometimes I'm not even sure they are errors.

Like this one from a story on a fish kill in today's News Journal:

Unlike many other regional species, DNREC Fisheries Manager Craig Shirey said the croaker spawn late in the season, in the early fall, and are therefore less equipped to handle cold temperatures and rough surf.

My first question is, what do the other species say about when the croaker do their spawning? And is Craig Shirey really a distinct species? I've met Craig, by the way, and he is a nice fellow, but not that unique.

The fix is simple, by the way. Simply insert a comma:

Unlike many other regional species, DNREC Fisheries Manager Craig Shirey said, the croaker spawn late in the season, in the early fall, and are therefore less equipped to handle cold temperatures and rough surf.

Or even better:

Unlike many other regional species, croaker spawn late in the season, in the early fall, said DNREC Fisheries Manager Craig Shirey. They are therefore less equipped to handle cold temperatures and rough surf, he added.

You could probably leave off the "he added," I suppose.

Yes, I know. I am being petty. And I am often guilty of equally egregious grammatical errors. But newspaper writers and editors get paid to write.

I'm just blathering on here for my own amusement.

Fans? In January?

left behind
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

Walking to the post office in Dover today, I went past Legislative Hall in Dover. Lying on the grass across from the Capitol Building were a pair of "lobbying fans" from a protest out there yesterday.

A group of workers -- union members in a variety of trades -- had turned out to urge the General Assembly to act to support job creation in Delaware. They were supported in part by the folks proposing a new horse-racing track and casino complex: DelPointe.

That project would require General Assembly action, and it would lead to jobs -- at least in the short and medium terms.

So the DelPointe folks brought hats and lobby fan signs to hand out. These fans are a long-standing tradition. They are cheap and easy to hand out and they function both as signs and, in warmer weather than we've had lately, as fans. They are handy when things get sticky in the heat of political debate.

It seemed odd to see them out there in January.

This demonstration also gave our Governor a leg-up to a great headline, by the way: Markell calms angry crowd of jobless.

The newspaper reports that the protest had gotten a bit heated when the Governor stepped-in and stepped-up:

The rally ended after Gov. Jack Markell, scheduled for an appearance a few feet away, climbed onto the front of a state police SUV to address the crowd through a megaphone, promising to work to bring jobs to Delaware.

Nice press if you can get it.

On a Less Clear Day

The Atlantic Ocean from the dune at Fort Miles
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

This morning started with dreadful wind and rain, but by mid afternoon the skies had partly cleared.

I was off for a day of car service, eye exams, and furnace-checking and by the time things cleared I was free and ready to head out to Cape Henlopen State Park to have a look at the ocean. I went up to the dune gun emplacement at Fort Miles and found empty dunes, beach and (mostly) ocean.

A closer (telephoto) look revealed a distant freighter in the mist that clung to the water well off-shore.

I watched until the mist, drifting out to sea, revealed the ship was heading out as well.

Social Media Success Story #286

Meet Phineas Gage... Or how flickr changed our life
Originally uploaded by photo_history

This is an old Daguerreotype found by a couple and posted to Flickr. They thought he was a whaler, but comments from viewers eventually led to the discovery that he is a man named Phineas P. Gage who, in 1848, had an iron spike accidentally driven straight through his skull.

There's a more detailed story on NPR.com: The Face Of A Famous Skull Found On Flickr. This is, to me, one of the great values of social media tools; we can, collectively, by sharing and talking across all of many societies, learn so much more.