Wednesday February 25, 2009
Posted in Fun-Stuff by Jeff Thorsett
Well yet again I received the cursed email from the National Park Service:
Thank you for submitting a lottery application for a Grand Canyon noncommercial river permit. We regret to inform you that you were not a winner. We wish you better luck next time.
Well next time I have 5 chances to win the lottery (assuming I don’t go on any Grand Canyon trips in 2009 or 2010), the maximum for non-carryover-from-waitlist people. For all who are interested in how the lottery went this year I have provided the Park Service’s statistics document.
At least we still have Pumphouse Wash unpermitted…
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Monday February 9, 2009
Posted in Flag-Stuff by Jeff Thorsett
Short Term Forecast
NORTHERN ARIZONA SHORT TERM FORECAST
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FLAGSTAFF AZ
350 PM MST MON FEB 9 2009
AZZ007-008-015-038-100030-
COCONINO PLATEAU-OAK CREEK AND SYCAMORE CANYONS-WESTERN MOGOLLON RIM-
YAVAPAI COUNTY MOUNTAINS-
350 PM MST MON FEB 9 2009
.NOW…
…WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM MST TUESDAY…
VERY HEAVY SNOWFALL WILL CONTINUE ACROSS THE MOGOLLON RIM AND
NORTHERN YAVAPAI COUNTIES THROUGH AT LEAST 530 PM MST. SNOWFALL RATES APPROACHING 2 INCHES PER HOUR WILL COMBINE WITH SOUTHWEST WIND GUSTS TO 40 MPH TO PRODUCE NEAR WHITE OUT CONDITIONS. TRAVEL IS ALREADY
HAZARDOUS WITH NUMEROUS ACCIDENT BEING REPORTED IN THE FLAGSTAFF
AREA AND ALONG INTERSTATES 17 AND 40. UNNECESSARY TRAVEL IS
DISCOURAGED. SNOW LEVELS ARE BETWEEN 4500 AND 5000 FEET THIS
AFTERNOON…AND WILL LOWER TONIGHT WITH HEAVY SNOWFALL CONTINUING
TONIGHT.
Sunday February 8, 2009
Posted in iPod-Stuff by Jeff Thorsett
In my recent obsession to find the perfect chess app for the iPod I discovered that pretty much all of the applications could either play online or be really challenging chess engines – never both. Anyway I picked up the free application Chess With Friends as an introduction to the networked iPod chess world and convinced one of my wannabe chessmaster brothers to do the same. It is a great little application. Starting a game is easy and the interface is pretty user friendly. It keeps a record of all the game’s moves and has little tiny icons that show what material has been captured. So far so good (I haven’t completed a game yet). One feature lacking is a chat of any sort, so we have had to resort to emailing trash talk. If you want a game, my email is “chess” at thorsett [dot] net
Lately I have been getting into the whole twitter scene, due to my light brewing schedule so far this winter. It is a great tool for Flagstaff Brewing Company to announce new beers on tap and whatever else we need to tell the community. There are countless apps in the appstore that deal with twitter, but very few were appealing and lacked the features I was looking for, until I found Tweetie.
For starters, Tweetie uses a nice, quick and visually appealing interface that fits in with native iPhone apps. Seems so much snappier than NatsuLion. Tweetie also beautifully implements hybrid positioning (XPS via Skyhook) for all of us GPS lacking iPod users. Tweetie’s “Nearby” feature can filter tweets from 2-100km pretty quickly. Twitter trends are also easy to monitor with Tweetie’s “Trends”. Always fun, and sometimes unexpected, to see what people are talking about in the twitter world. Handling multiple twitter accounts is a snap with Tweetie, as well as a bunch of other useful features. I don’t know if I would ever use anything else to waste hours twittering.
Saturday December 13, 2008
Posted in Flag-Stuff by Jeff Thorsett
Finally looks like winter is going to arrive in the Flagstaff area soon. This storm is shaping up to be a pretty significant one, with snowfall totals being measured in feet. Our good buddy Lee was interviewed at KNAU the other day talking about the upcoming winter weather.
Sunday December 7, 2008
Posted in Flag-Stuff by Jeff Thorsett
While watching Oregon State’s Rose Bowl bid fall apart, my house had a friendly visit from one of our local sheriff’s deputies reminding two of my house guests that they couldn’t park on the streets in the county between November 1st and April 1st… ever. Now being a typical county residence, my house has a two-car driveway, which is usually filled with our two trucks, so I have found myself in a holiday party-throwing quandary.
Before macro climatic warming events began, Flagstaff and the surrounding area used to get snow, a lot of snow. Of course, snow removal equipment needs adequate access around the streets to get rid of all that white stuff, so the city has a pretty cut and dry policy of not parking on the streets overnight, meaning Midnight until 7 AM in most of the city, and 3 AM until 7 AM in the historic downtown area (mainly to accommodate bar employees and patrons). The county, however, hasn’t done that great of a job clarifying the issue.
Searching the web for the Coconino County seasonal parking ordinance will return you with absolutely nothing of substance besides a few interpretations of the ordinance. The actual law is County Ordinance 86-6 so kindly emailed to me by Julie Moyer at the Board of Supervisors office.
Any motor vehicle parked in a manner that presents an obstacle to efficient snow removal operations may be cited.
So does this mean if the vehicle is parked and there is absolutely no snow removal activity happening at that time, that vehicle is legally parked? Or does it mean, as the local deputy had suggested, that vehicle could be construed an obstacle if snow removal were to happen sometime in the future (or past)? I imagine the latter is the case. Now if the county could let me know how I am supposed to clear my driveway on my way home from work so I could use it, without parking on the street to do some quick driveway shoveling, I would be able to sleep at night. And forget about having anyone over to your house that has to drive, lest you will be spending lots of time and money driving to the impound lot. Maybe my lawyer type friends could figure this one out.
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