Winter weather comes to visit

First of all, I must apologize for not keeping this blog as often as I intend to. There are reasons (there are always reasons), I am being kept very busy by the many editors at Pearson. For those who don't know, I am nearing the end of a new edition of my grade 12 world issues book. The topics in this book are so interesting that it is not an unpleasant task but there are just so many details (and people) involved in the process that it keeps my busy. There are constant queries about everything (photos, captions, thinks that are not clear) as well as editting the chapters several times each as they go from Word files to something that looks vaguely book-like to proofs of the pages (without all the illustrations) to, well, you get the idea. It gets to be a problem when three or four editors working on different aspects of the book all want your attention at the same time.

To be subject at hand, weather. Compared to the Toronto area we have had a pretty easy time of it here, although it has been colder than average for this time of year. We did get about 8" of wet snow one day (pictures below) that I shovelled off the boat with a plastic dust pan and deck broom - that worked pretty well and got 98% off before the freezing rain came that night to make things really hard. The marina staff shovel a path down the docks so it is pretty good overall. This morning there was a bit of ice around the boats - they did not put the bubblers on until this morning and they were breaking up the thin ice that had formed. It is supposed to get warmer starting on the weekend. It will be nice to do some boat work outside when it happens.

On Ania - the name that is

Only one entry on the derivation of the name Ainia. My younger son, Ian, showing a willingness to do research that was not altogether present when he was in school, came up with a totally different explanation for the word, which works really well.



Where the name came from - "ai ni" in Chinese means "love you". We added the second 'a' to make the name longer (there is a big transom) and to make it (possibly) easier to say. It also is a palindrome which is of interest only to nerds like me I fear. A final take on this name - it could be seen as very Canadian, as in "Love you, eh".



Ian's research found the following. "In Greek mythology, Ainia was an enemy of Achilles and an Amazon, one of the twelve who accompanied Penthesilea to the Trojan War. Her name means "swiftness."" I don't know if swiftness is the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about a Bristol 45.5, but i doubt that there was an Amazon whose name translated as "comfort". Anyway, I think that this is a really apt name for a boat so now we have two meanings from two different cultures.



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So much for the 'news', now on to the weather... it was really cold last night and today. Yesterday afternoon it was about 7C and then dropped like a rock as a cold front passed. Last night was very noisy with wind (~35 knots at times I would think) blew through the masts and the boat rubbed the fenders. Our normal problem with a bit of condensation on the hatches became a layer of frost on the metal parts of the hatches - which of course melted and dripped off when we turned the heat up. At night we tend to keep the heat down because it is too warm under the duvet otherwise. With conditions like last night we have to be careful to insure that the whole boat is warm enough so we do not get freezing in throughhulls or inside the water-cooled refrigeration system. It is very slowly warming but will still be -8C or so tonight. Too bad June did not get this job in San Diego or somewhere like that.

US Politics I

I imagine that I will be writing a few entries about politics in the US since it really is quite fascinating - and entirely a blood sport. The 'Tri-State' area (NJ, NY, CT) just had their primaries as part of Super-Tuesday. Not much evidence of it in JC though - the night before the vote some small Obama signs appeared and brochures were being given out at the light rail stations (looks like a street car to me).

Compared to Canada, people here take their politics very seriously and it causes some big problems - as does the whole primary/caucus system. This extended and costly pre-election tends to divide the supporters within each party. This can be seen very clearly in the Republican Party where the right wing talk show hosts are going after McCain with devastating attacks - calling him the Clinton's sock puppet and worse and saying that if he is the nominee (which looks certain) they will vote for Hillary out of spite - not at all sure how those two statements can be seen as logically consistent but logic and US talk radio have little to do with each other. The Republicans just have so many factions that often have fundamental disagreements with each other. You get the libertarian types who just want the government to do as little as possible. Ron Paul was their hero this time and he has considerable grass roots support and lots of money donated a bit at a time. You get those who are financially conservative but not socially so - they tend to keep their heads down, but have had some success in pointing out that deficits have risen with GOP presidents and fallen with Democratic presidents in recent decades. You get the war-hawks who don't much care how much it costs (lives or dollars), they want to rebuild the world in the form that they see as best - the New American Century guys. Finally (or perhaps not) are the social conservatives who have rallied around Huckabee. He seems like a pretty nice guy, but hard to take seriously a president who does not believe in evolution. Add to the mix, the recently departed Mr Romney who would be whatever you wanted him to be so long as he got to be president.

On the other side, you have the intriguing pair of Hillary and Barack and the possibility that the US will have a woman or black for president (not sure why he is considered black when he is only half black but that is a discussion for another day). I will have more to say about these two later, but there is a marvellous column in the NY Times today that goes a long way to explaining the different appeal that each has. I hope this link works when it is no longer 'today's paper' . Perhaps it would work with ref=todayspaper cut
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/opinion/08brooks.html?ref=todayspaper

The weather

I have lots of catching up to do - I am not very reliable when it comes to keeping a blog it seems, but there is also the stuff that is happening now to talk about too. Oh, the complications!

Anyway, I have to talk a bit about JC weather in comparison to weather in the Toronto area. Before we decided to move on to the boat I checked climate stats and it seemed that in the winter average monthly temps here are about 6C warmer than Toronto. Not to get too climatic (rather than climactic), that seems like a reasonable estimate for what we have been experiencing. When it is -2C there it will be something like +4 here. I suspect that this is mainly because of the moderating effect of the ocean rather than latitudinal differences, although the latter likely does contribute a bit too.

The big news today is the enormous difference. I checked the weather in TO and it is -3 with lots of snow on the ground and more coming tonight. When I arrived at the library to get the internet, the temperature in JC was 21c! Of course there is no snow on the ground an there reall;y; has not been all winter -other than a few mm once or twice. There is a powerful cold front just north of New York City that will arrive only gradually. Even tomorrow it is to be something like 8C. We will get rain tonight - hopefully after June and I get back on the boat.

We have been really lucky with the weather. Several storms have hit just on the northern fringes of the NYC area but have missed us. Noreasters are the big winter storms around here - a low pressure area passes out to sea and the return counter-clockwise circulation can produce nasty storms. There have been a few of these that have nailed Boston but so far, not here.

Maybe next posting I will try to do some catching up or look at interesting things around here like politics and immigration.