h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

[Amy] - Snow here this morning. A bit of a surprise .

It looks to me that our snow will not last long. We are due to see temps in teh 50s later this week. We need the water in the mountains.

It looks to me that our snow will last long. It's cold here, windy and the sky is clear but tomorrow it'll start to snow again. Actually it's quite average weather for February but as this time winter started couple months earlier I kinda expected the early spring too...

And I turn round and see it's snowing here as well right now.
Finally got here from a weekend of backlog - but there were good times in Edinburgh. I tried curling. Much, much, harder than it looked on the tv during the winter olympics.

Did you fall over much? I never progressed beyond sweeping due to a sore and damp arse.

In most comical fashions indeed
I was up there as part of a friends stag do and about 15 complete beginners were taken out on the ice by 3 or 4 people who used to play while at uni there. I do now have aches in places that shouldn't ache from falling over, trying to stretch out properly when launching the stone and furiously sweeping when told to.

Snowstorm started yesterday evening, continued during the night and is still going on - difficult to say how much snow we've had during the last 24 hours, because of the storm - bare ground in some places, huge snowdrifts in other places... temperature hovering right above/belove freezing point...

webcameras of Stockholm right now:
http://stockholm.idg.se/2120.htm
http://www.projektstyrning.se/fullzize.htm

So that is what's going to happen tomorrow...

Our weather has gone back to the drizzly grey nothing much that we have come to expect.

I used to really like Simcity 2000, my copy got left behind when I moved out, but I'm quite heavily into the sims, so ought not buy any more games.

Curling would be a nightmare for me, I'm no good at stopping on the ice

No snow here, and it's a bit warmer than it has been in a couple of weeks. But in one of those striking coincidences, it IS the first Monday of the month here too!

Mac, I felt like you did after the Challenger disaster too. I had watched all of the early shuttle flights religiously, and trailed off just before we lost the Challenger. I started watching them religiously again, but then found it was too anxiety provoking and purposely stopped watching the live launches. Of course, network TV stopped broadcasting them, so there was not much choice eventually.

Morning all *waves* It is currently 61º with the forecast calling for rain and 20º by morning with snow possible later in the week.

It's the dramatic changes in the weather that drive me crazy. And it doesn't do my plants a whole lot of good either. My elm trees are starting to bud. But then elms are not the brightest members of the plant kingdom. Now oak trees....they're smart.

I ordered four grape vines yesterday. I have some old unused clothesline poles made from 4x4's that I'm going to use to make a small arbor.

Not only smart, but very sympathetic too, oak trees... I remember an old one growing in a public garden in my home town - in the spring I'd go for a walk there, and if the weather was sunny, I'd sit down with my back against the trunk, sheltered from the wind, surrounded on two sides by thick roots, rather like an armchair - and sitting on a thick and springy tuft of grass that always seemed to grow there...

Oak trees are also my favourite trees to hug, although the bark is a bit rough and uneven against your cheek...

Ti, you should see the oak in my mother's yard. It is enormous. Must be 100 years old at least. We moved there when I was 5 and it was large then. The trunk is straight, it's beautifully shaped. It's a magnificent tree. I've hugged it on many occassions.

Sweden's oldest tree is an oak - the Rumskulla oak... there was a thorough investigation into its history by the end of the 1930ies, and it was then estimated to be 950 years old - the county bailiff was amazed by its size and age and described it in a book in 1772

Nowadays you're not allowed to hug it though - in 1998 it was severely damaged after a bunch of kids climbed in it - even oak trees grow old and brittle

A picture:
http://www.vmbild.com/galleri/trad/images/prevs/prev4.jpg
...and it grows here:
http://www.bosjokloster.se/park/park_eng.html

That's what I imagined Ents to look like. The ones in the movie were good, but not quite what I imagined.

I have an oak on my front lawn (it's the one responsible for blocking up my sewer pipes every couple of years), but it has a long ways to go before it becomes one of those grand old oaks. This one is probably only 50 years old or so.

Just thought of a sandwich for your article, Amy. Thought I'd post it here, just in case it just a Canadian thing. It's also a sandwich whose name tells you nothing about what is in it.

The western sandwich is basically a toasted omelet sandwich. The omelet usually has ham, green peppers and onions in it.

Is this also known in the U.S.?

I'm familiar with the western omelete, GL. I haven't heard of it as a sandwich, although it makes sense.

NPR radio had a segment on the harvest ants in space and the high school students that set up the experiment:

http://npr.org

Click on Morning Edition and go to segment 15 of the broadcast.

Nobody can sneak like a sloth...

The western is indeed very popular in the US- especially when smothered in ketchup.

Now I'm hungry.

?

There is a big and old oak forest at my hometown.