The Oppenheimer Report 3/17/14

With spring scheduled to arrive on Thursday, I’m not running out to buy plants for the garden just yet. This has been a ballbuster of a winter, and if I hear the term polar vortex one more time, I’m going to hunt down a groundhog and strangle it with my bare hands (just kidding, I’ll use a gun). Due to this frigid winter and the wild temperature fluctuations, we have had some weather-related issues at Jasper Bark Lodge. For one thing, there have been some roof problems. Ice build-up in the valleys of our roof has been an issue in the past, and a few years ago we installed heat lines to keep that buildup under control. This winter was so unusually cold winter, most of the time it was too cold for the heat lines to be effective. Our Hydro bills have been astronomical (don’t get me started on the electric company!) so I unplugged the heat lines during the extreme cold snap. As it turns out, that was a big mistake.  I forgot to plug them back in when the temperature rose, and now we have thick ice covering our roof, blocking drainage in the valleys. In places the ice is a foot thick on our roof now, and it could be a while before it melts. We should also have been shoveling the snow off the roof as it accumulated, but again, the weather was a factor. Our roof is about 25’ at peak, steep, and a little dangerous to be walking around on in the winter. Next year I will not make the same mistakes.

Another unanticipated problem related to the temperature fluctuations is that the logs which make up this house have been checking (cracking) more than usual. Moisture in the logs expands, and sometimes it sounds like a gun going off. It is quite alarming when that loud bang goes off at 3AM.  I’ve heard a few locals complain about this happening to their houses as well, and there is very little we can do about this. A minor casualty this winter was the starter motor on my ATV. I tried starting the bike one morning when the mercury dipped to about -15F, and that apparently put undo strain on the motor. After a few tries, it finally burned out. Live and learn. Better to run a trickle charge on the battery in extreme temperatures, or put some kind of low voltage heating device on the engine block. Again I am learning from my mistakes, but I am hoping this winter will not be the norm from now on. Between the issues with propane delivery, the occasional inaccessibility of our driveway, and the weather related mechanical failures, this winter has been Snowmageddon for us. While next week promises to be a little warmer (it was -11F last night), I think it will be a while before we see robins on the lawn. Because of the volume of snow we have, the concern on the minds of many locals now is flooding. Every spring there is a debate about how the municipalities regulate the flow to the waterways that take spring runoff down to the Georgian Bay, and I’d sure like to know what they’re going to do about it this year. Last year we had bad flooding and it was a relatively mild winter.

Did anyone see that mock interview with Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bieber on the internet comedy show Funny or Die? Tres Amusant. Galifianakis has done a lot of these spoof interviews, including one with President Obama, and from what I have seen I think they are pretty funny. Galifianakis reminds me a little of the late Andy Kauffman, channeled with Bob Newhart. While his edgy, off-putting humor makes me a little uncomfortable, he also makes me laugh.

They still don’t know what happened to the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Malaysian authorities are finally on record as confirming it must have been some kind of hijacking, but have not been particularly cooperative in sharing their information with outside investigators. Watching the bizarre flight path, and knowing that several different tracking devices had been consciously disabled, one is left to conclude that this was some sort of foul play. Still, apart from speculation- and there has been no shortage of that - no evidence has yet surfaced to indicate exactly what did happen to the jet or to its 239 passengers. I think it is probably at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, and the more time that passes, the less likely it is that anyone will know the truth. What was the motive? I feel terrible for the families of the victims. The uncertainty about what happened, coupled with the increasingly likelihood that this was some kind of terrifying hijacking, must be torture for these surviving families. Who did this? Was it the pilot, the co-pilot; one of the passengers on board?  Some have suggested the missing jet secretly landed somewhere, but that seems unlikely. This was a big jet, requiring a skilled pilot to set it down, not to mention n at least 6000’ of runway. Perhaps they will eventually locate the jet, but the search field keeps getting wider and the clues are still few and far between. Very strange to have something so big simply vanish into thin air.

Come on spring!!

 
Cold vinyl car seats, wipers that freeze
Scrape the windshield search the snow for my keys
Five layers of clothing, thermal socks on my feet
Winter is kicking the crap out of me! (excerpt from Cabin Fever)

  -  Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED