Melting Snow

After all the snow and ice we got a couple weeks ago, it's gotten warm enough that much of it is melting. It's easy to get depressed in the winter with the gray skies and the sun setting as early as it does. But it's nice to see the sun is out today! I've missed the sun. I could do without all that gray slush/sludge/snow buildup that happens on the sides of the streets, but what are ya gonna do? I'm just glad it's been a bit warmer and I'm so glad to see the sun again.

Now, I need some thoughts and opinions from people. I consistently have this one spot in my yard where the snow always melts first. In the Summer, grass dies in this same spot. But I can't figure out what might be causing it. So I took a picture and figured I'd throw it out there and see if anyone else has some thoughts. You'll see the big melted spot in the lower-left, while the rest of the yard still has a layer of snow.



I have considered gas line leak - that might explain the dying grass, but I don't think that accounts for melting snow. Besides I don't think the gas line runs exactly under that spot anyway. This picture was taken from the sidewalk, my back to the street, camera facing perpendicular to the street. I hope it's not too dark to see, but the red circle shows where the gas line enters the house.

I presume that the gas line would not run at a diagonal, but rather be a straight shot toward the street to allow for the shortest amount of gas line that would have to be laid. If that's so, then the center of the snow-melty-dead-grass spot is a couple of feet to the left of the gas line.

Heat would explain both melting snow and dead grass, but I can't think of anything that would be there that would generate heat. And I don't see such spots in any of my neighbors' yards.

So, anyone ever seen anything like this? Have any thoughts? Ideas? Speculations? Let me know!

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Update June 2007

So now that it's warm again, here's a photo of the dying grass in the same spot as the melty snow that I talked about last winter. Weird huh?

Go Bluejackets!

The Columbus Bluejackets had an amazing comeback against the Anaheim Ducks (the #1 team in the NHL) last night!

With a little over 10 minutes left in the game, Columbus was down 0-3; and I have to wonder how many people might have left, or at least turned off the TV at home by that point. Then Columbus scored with about 10 minutes left, at least eliminating a shutout and making it a 1-3 game.

3 and a half minutes left, and the score is still 1-3. But shortly after that, Columbus scored 3 unanswered goals in about 2 minutes, making it a 4-3 score! It was a nervous last minute and a half of the game, but Columbus managed to hold them off, securing a 4-3 Win!

Go Jackets!

Things that are quirky

Happy new year, everyone. I thought I'd start off 2007 with a silly and lighthearted entry to make you all laugh.

This story is true.

I was emailing back and forth with a co-worker in a different building. This software tool that we're using for our project is one of the worst I've ever seen. Sometimes it works the way you expect. Sometimes it doesn't. No rhyme or reason. Sometimes it may take hours, maybe days for what you've done to actually show up. And one guy said that it took several months, yes months, for something he did to finally show up. And every so often it just gets stuck. And there's only one guy who has access to un-stuck the stupid thing. So when you're new to it, like I am right now, how on earth do you even know you did it right?

So to keep a little bit of my sanity, I needed to do something silly. So when the guy emailed and said "... [this thing is] quirkier than _____________ (you fill in the blank)" I decided to fill in the blank when I replied and had about 5 more questions. I googled for "Things that are quirky" to see what funny things I could find. The first thing I got was to a page that said "Quirky things we find interesting", with (among other things) a link to "Turtle become surrogate mother for hippo" (this story is cute, funny and a little sad all at the same time).

So I replied to his email, saying
"Quirkier than a turtle becoming a surrogate mother for a hippo. Does that work?" and included the link.

And he emails back and says "HAHA! I've had a picture of that hippo+turtle posted on my desk for a year now!"

How funny is that? Good way to end the day, with a good laugh.