Maine weather

Current prediction is that we will jump from daytime highs in the low 60s F (or upper 50s) to highs near 90 over the course of the next day or so.  For those of you who think in degrees C, that's from about 15 to 32...

Maybe I need to switch a few windows from the winter storm configuration to screens?

The universe in a grain of sand

Today, since we live in a booming metropolis, trash and recycling trucks roam our neighborhood.  And I've noticed a change in the last couple of weeks.  Previously, the Pine Tree Waste trucks ran each side of the street separately, up one side and down the other, while the city recycling truck did both sides at once.  I've always assumed that the trash truck guys did this so that they wouldn't have to risk their asses crossing traffic.

(They still block the street pretty effectively, either way, because we live on horse-and-buggy-width streets.)

Now they are collecting both sides at the same time.  I have to assume this reflects macro-economics on a local scale, cutting fuel consumption and cutting worker hours...

Further on the weather

Just spent my exercise walk on mowing the weeds, because of the afore-mentioned threat of godawfulhotmuggy* for the weekend.  Grass still wet, clogging the mower, and temperature in the upper 50s F.  Dank.

*You Tejano-types don't have to redefine godawfulhotmuggy for me.  I worked for the County one summer in Georgia, collecting trash and shoving asphalt into potholes.  We turned down the chance to move back.

EDIT:  Raining now.

Tentacles

Item in the paper this morning about how the State of Maine is intercepting federal "stimulus" checks, both mail and electronic transfers, several thousand so far.  Projected take of over a million bucks.  While the end is moderately laudable, snagging assets for delinquent child-support and such, it's another flag on how deep Big Brother has sunk his claws into all of us. 

Distant Early Warning radar

Our home heating oil dealer has set the "cap" program price for #2 oil at a maximum of $4.89.9 per gallon.  This is rather over a buck a gallon more than last year.  To put this in perspective, we burned a little under 1300 gallons of oil last winter.  Degree-day stats say that was close to an average Maine winter.

Lotta people going to be burning wood next winter, people who don't have a clue about how to do it safely.  I can see our Fire Marshal people wincing already.