Sunday Musette
WX
It was an interesting week. First, there's the ice storm. Tulsa was hit Thursday, with dropping temperatures and high winds. I would have had a ferocious tailwind coming home that day, but I was hurting, so I chose to drive instead.
The ice arrived Friday morning, starting as a nasty cold rain that froze on contact. It progressed to occasional snow flurries, but mainly involved wave after wave of sleet. It looks like the ground is snow-covered as I write this. It's actually about 4 to 6 inches of compacted sleet, an almost solid layer of ice that I can walk without breaking through. This will last a while.
Temperatures are expected to remain below freezing until late in the week. As it looks now, I'll be driving until the roads clear. The cities here have very little snow removal equipment, and this stuff is more like boilerplate. I don't think snowplows would have much effect.
The other news
I wrote that I'd had an interesting ride home on Wednesday. Along 56th Street North, I discovered the remains of a meth lab. Two big plastic tubs filled with chemicals sat in the ditch near the Bird Creek bridge, along with a coffee maker, a microwave oven, some tubing, and other debris. I could see cans of Coleman fuel and the tubs had been carefully placed, not thrown. The leftover chemicals are highly toxic, so I didn't want to approach too closely and I kept the wind behind me. When the cops clean up these dumps, they wear hazmat suits.
I called it in to the Owasso PD, but it was outside their jurisdiction, so they transferred me to the county sheriff's office. The dispatcher took the particulars, then said an officer would be enroute. I waited about 20 minutes, but I was getting cold, so I rode on toward home, passing a TCSO car a few miles later. Apparently there was some dispute about whose jurisdiction this fell into, Tulsa city or Tulsa county, and that's important because the sites are a costly clean up.
By chance, I ran into one of our local librarians the next day at Braum's. She lives just down the road, and she said the cops were there until well after dark dealing with the dump site. I was glad they removed the chemicals before they got into the watershed. She was probably relieved that they didn't affect her family or animals.
And finally, pain.
As I mentioned up top, I've been hurting for about a month. Both knees have been painful, the right one so bad I had to lean heavily on my cane in order to walk. The left one, of course, only hurt when I was riding. I was diagnosed with pseudo-gout some years ago. It's a kind of arthritis that is aggravated by proteins in beer, cheese, red wine, and red meat, and since Thanksgiving I've been over-indulging. Mea culpa. Regular exercise helps since I need more protein, but my diet is the most likely culprit. Well, that, and a complete lack of will power when it comes to good food.
It was an interesting week. First, there's the ice storm. Tulsa was hit Thursday, with dropping temperatures and high winds. I would have had a ferocious tailwind coming home that day, but I was hurting, so I chose to drive instead.
The ice arrived Friday morning, starting as a nasty cold rain that froze on contact. It progressed to occasional snow flurries, but mainly involved wave after wave of sleet. It looks like the ground is snow-covered as I write this. It's actually about 4 to 6 inches of compacted sleet, an almost solid layer of ice that I can walk without breaking through. This will last a while.
Temperatures are expected to remain below freezing until late in the week. As it looks now, I'll be driving until the roads clear. The cities here have very little snow removal equipment, and this stuff is more like boilerplate. I don't think snowplows would have much effect.
The other news
I wrote that I'd had an interesting ride home on Wednesday. Along 56th Street North, I discovered the remains of a meth lab. Two big plastic tubs filled with chemicals sat in the ditch near the Bird Creek bridge, along with a coffee maker, a microwave oven, some tubing, and other debris. I could see cans of Coleman fuel and the tubs had been carefully placed, not thrown. The leftover chemicals are highly toxic, so I didn't want to approach too closely and I kept the wind behind me. When the cops clean up these dumps, they wear hazmat suits.
I called it in to the Owasso PD, but it was outside their jurisdiction, so they transferred me to the county sheriff's office. The dispatcher took the particulars, then said an officer would be enroute. I waited about 20 minutes, but I was getting cold, so I rode on toward home, passing a TCSO car a few miles later. Apparently there was some dispute about whose jurisdiction this fell into, Tulsa city or Tulsa county, and that's important because the sites are a costly clean up.
By chance, I ran into one of our local librarians the next day at Braum's. She lives just down the road, and she said the cops were there until well after dark dealing with the dump site. I was glad they removed the chemicals before they got into the watershed. She was probably relieved that they didn't affect her family or animals.
And finally, pain.
As I mentioned up top, I've been hurting for about a month. Both knees have been painful, the right one so bad I had to lean heavily on my cane in order to walk. The left one, of course, only hurt when I was riding. I was diagnosed with pseudo-gout some years ago. It's a kind of arthritis that is aggravated by proteins in beer, cheese, red wine, and red meat, and since Thanksgiving I've been over-indulging. Mea culpa. Regular exercise helps since I need more protein, but my diet is the most likely culprit. Well, that, and a complete lack of will power when it comes to good food.
posted by Ed W at 8:20 AM
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