Saturday, January 23, 2016

Google Public Alerts Is Forecasting 24 - 28 Inches Of The White Stuff...

...for lower NY State, including NYC and Long Island (except for the eastern forks where they predict a few inches less). I am guess, that where we live, we have had at least 18 inches so far but it is very difficult to judge because of the winds causing drifts in some areas and bare spots, and I do mean virtually free of snow, in other spots. There I a pile of snow on my very small front lawn that is about 4 to 4.5 feet deep. Just a few feet away from there is an oblong area about 4x10 feet with no snow. I could not even shovel it that clean right now because when I have shoveled, where the snow is piled up, some of the snow underneath sticks to the ground keeping it white no matter what. In this particular spot though, it is virtually bare. I had thought the spot in my backyard, where the snow is only about a 1/4" deep, was strange but the bare spot in front of my house is freaky.

Right now, from what I can tell, they say the snow will stop falling at about 0200. That probably means at least another 6 inches by then at the rate it has been coming down and who knows how high the rifts will be. I just shoveled out the walk on the side of my garage and the snow was between at least 3 to 4 feet deep along it. After I got to the front, I saw the snow on the sidewalk is only about 8 inches deep in most places up to about three feet deep in a drift near my driveway. My son shoveled the sidewalk earlier today and it looks as if my neighbor may have also come by with his snow blower; if not that, then the wind has been helpful in that regard. As for me, I am waiting until it stops to do the sidewalk again.

This global warming man-made climate change sure is something. It was almost 50 degrees a few days ago now we are in the middle of a mega blizzard (at least for Long Island) but it should hit the mid-forties by Tuesday. And to think, it is all early man's fault, as in mankind about 7,000 years ago (well according to the leftist eggheads anyway)!!!

I am going to do my share to keep the climate changing and have a couple or three alcoholic beverages along with some junk food of one sort or another. (I wonder if I still have those Andy Capp's Hot Fries somewhere.)I am sure all that alcohol and all that junk food will combine in my gut and will eventually come out as methane. Surely, that indubitably will help to destroy the natural order of our climate just as much as any farmer slashing and burning an acre or two several thousand years ago. You don't believe that do you but then you have never smelt one I have dealt cause if you had, you would believe I could destroy our climate in a night or two.

All the best,
GB

High Snow Alert - High Bid Achieved

As I had mentioned earlier, I did not drive up to Geneva, NY for the Hessney Auction Company's rod & gun auction because of the then predicted blizzard. Well they were right, as in the weathermen, and the snow has been coming down and piling high since late last night. We have drifts up to 4 feet high in our small backyard and yes that almost bare spot, I mentioned in an earlier post, is still virtually free of snow. The grass in that one spot of my backyard is laying flat but and is not covered by snow. In other words, the snow in that area, about 8 feet or so in diameter, is only about a 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch deep. In most places, where I just shoveled, it had built up another 6 to 8 inches within about the last 3 hours. Had to shovel to let the dogs out, otherwise the Chihuahuas would just do it in the house.

Along with the high snowfall I also had the high bid on one of the rifles I bid for in the Hessney Auction Company rod & gun auction - a Mossberg M44US. It was the very last firearm on which I had planned to place a bid in the order items that came up for bids. The auction info did not say anything about it being the version marked "U.S" Property" which would have made it somewhat more sought after but I don't care. I already have one marked that way and wanted this other one as a shooter and maybe later to sell or trade.

I wish I could have been present at the auction hall as I had planned but now that I have seen just how bad is the blizzard we are getting hammered by, I am quite content to have stayed at home. It would have been next to impossible to have returned home tonight, from the auction, as I had hoped. Oh well, maybe next time I'll be able to be there in person and have first hand idea of the condition of any items before I bid on them. I usually don't take the chance of buying an item, pretty much sight unseen, but in this case I decided what the heck.

This is the actual one on which I placed my bid. I can only
hope that the other side looks as good as this one appears.

I think I go it for a good price but it is hard to tell because there is scant to zero info on the condition of any of the auction items offered, unless the description notes a gun is offered as new or unfired. There was a single pic of one side of it and it looked good enough to take the chance. I'll see how I did, well or not, once it is delivered. I figure it will be about a week or ten days before that happens. If worse comes to worst, I'll have a spare parts gun for my other Mossberg M44US.

The Blizzard Had Me Wishing For Bikini Weather...

...and it looks like I did not have to wish to hard because for some folks it's always bikini weather.
 


All the best,
GB

I've Been Bidding On Guns...

...as an absentee bidder since about 1020 this morning. Hessney Auction Company is holding a Rod & Gun Auction today. I have not had the high bid on even one of about 10 guns I have bid on so far. Eiher prices just jumped even higher than they had been or people are truly stupid. A few guns being sold, in as new condition, had high bids at least a $100 to $200 above what you could get the same gun for new in a local gun store. Considering that the auction house tacks on a buyer's premium of 10 or 13% (depending on method of payment, cash or checks are the lower premium and credit cards the higher premium) and then they add 7.5% sales tax, someone buying a $1,000 gun for a hundred or two hundred bucks over retail at this auction has got to be out of his friggin mind or just an out and out idiot. I checked the prices at a local gun store in my neighborhood, and they were lower than some of the bids placed on these guns at auction and all my local gun tore adds is tax, there is no additional 10 or 13% buyer's premium. People are strange!

Anyway, I did come very close to owning a Colt Anaconda, being sold "as new" in the original box, a hard plastic case. I bid $1750 and the high bid was $1850, I could hear a woman screaming it out in the background as I was on the phone with the auctioneer's wife placing my bids. The women who called out bid sounded like she was a maniac, well she sounded that way to me. The auctions on which I have bid so far have gone fast an very high in price. I don't think I was closer than $500 from the actual high bid for any bids I placed and I was placing bids based on either on prices for new guns in my area (if the gun being sold was listed as new) or on the prices I found in The Blue Book Of Gun Values, The Standard Catalog of Firearms, and the going prices (one with actual bids) on GunBroker.com. I just don't get it except maybe that it has to do with Obummer and the anti-gun hysteria of the left making people buy, buy, buy at any price (and of course with some of the gun buyers being out and out moronic arsehats).

I still have a few items left on which I plan to bid, that is if they call me for them. I missed the chance of bidding on a Remington Model 105 CTI 12 Ga. shotgun because they failed to call me when it went up for bids. Stuff happens like that with telephone bidding. I would have preferred to have been there in person but had to cancel my scheduled trip there because the storm that is hitting my home area would have made it impossible for me to have returned today and maybe even tomorrow. Roberta, the lady taking my bids, told me they are jam packed with about 800 bidders. I have been there in person several times and never saw it that crowded before.

Anyway, I am awaiting her call for a few more items. It should come soon, so I am going to stop typing for now. I'll add more later if I have the high bids on anything.

All the best,
Glenn B

It's Been A Long Week...

...working every day. I am not complaining, I can use the cash but I have to say that since retirement and in my post-cancer age, I find it a whole lot harder to find any time for blogging after a full day's work. I suppose it is not just because of the job but have to consider the getting here and back home again that has made it a tiring, if not sometimes exhausting, thing for me. The walking a mile to the train, taking three trains, then walking another half mile or so to the office, after which I walk about one to 1.5 miles during my lunch, and I walk another mile back to the rail road after work (I take a different train home, with no connections) and then another mile walk to my house from my local station is all a good thing though, because since I have been doing that almost every weekday, my BP has been down.  I know, it's not really all that much but it has been enough for me; I am no spring chicken anymore. Anyway, my days have been tuckering me out and I have little desire to blog when I get home. Sometime in the not too distant future (next month), the out fit for which I work is supposed to have a full timer come aboard and I probably will not be working more than a day or two a week (and eve that will be dependent on folks calling in sick or taking vacation). I plan to keep up the walking, probably at the gym on a treadmill but also some out and about through the neighborhood. I shouldn't stop a good thing, I have lost about 6 or 7 pounds since I started. Whatever, once I am working less, I will have more time to blog.

All the best,
Glenn B