Unlikely Words » weather

New weather app for bike riders

aaron cohen — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:50:36 +0000

If the folks developing the Dark Sky weather prediction app have their way, you'll no longer have the ability to misjudge the weather and get caught in a storm when you're riding your bike to work last Thursday, the Tuesday before, and pretty much every time it rains I get stuck in a storm, and I'm fucking sick of it. Sorry. Anyway, how do they do it? Who knows! What's the catch?

Well, the catch is that it only works over a short period of time: a half hour to an hour in the future. But, as it turns out, this timespan is crucially important. Our lives are filled with short-term outdoor activities: Travelling to and from work, walking the dog, lunch with friends, outdoor sports, etc.

Via Kottke

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Flood on Lake St, Somerville

aaron cohen — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 20:17:39 +0000

My street floods fairly regularly because we're below the hills of Somerville so it's no surprise, with Hurricane Irene and all, that my street would flood this weekend, too. That said, I expected it'd actually wait for the hurricane to get here to start. Irene is supposed to get here sometime tomorrow...

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Hell of a day for a bike ride

aaron cohen — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:39:11 +0000

It was a hell of a day for a bike ride this morning. Though, in fairness, it felt more like 10° than -1°.

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Flood on Lake St, Somerville

aaron cohen — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:39:39 +0000

I live on Lake St and every couple years you find out why. We were away this weekend when our entire neighborhood flooded, stranding cars and trains. Here's an awesome video by Paper Fortress Films showing the situation Saturday afternoon.

A couple years ago, I made this much less awesome video to show a flood.

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Somerville Snow Emergency Robocaller, Tom Champion, Remixed

aaron cohen — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:04:10 +0000

Remember last week when I was telling you about how much the people of Somerville loves Tom Champion. And how they love him so much there's a fan group on Facebook? Cosmo Catalano has remixed the latest snow emergency call into some bumping Tom Champion fanmusic. Just listen to it.

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City of Somerville Snow Emergency? Not Today!

aaron cohen — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 04:02:42 +0000

Somerville is a city that LOVES its snow emergencies. We've had a snow emergency for every snow storm this year, during which, you can only park on the odd side of the street. The City LOVES them. Sometimes, they call a snow emergency the morning of the day before a storm. We love our snow emergencies so much, there's even a Facebook Group in appreciation of Tom Champion, the guy who records the snow emergency phone messages. This past week, we even had a cold emergency. There weren't any parking restrictions, but Tom Champion didn't want us going outside unnecessarily.

Except for a couple hours this afternoon, it's been snowing ALL day, and yet no snow emergency. You'll get'em next time, eh, Champs?

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Freaking Out About Freaking Out About The Snow Has Jumped The Shark

aaron cohen — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 23:44:04 +0000

I'm calling it right now.
To: All you hardy New Englanders making noise about other New Englanders making noise about the snowstorm.

Look, people freak out about the weather. They freak out about the snow. They freak out about the cold. They freak out about the hot. They freak out about the rain. They freak out about the lack of rain. It's not just weather either. Any event that is happening to a large group of people is going to cause some percent of that population to freak out. And you know what? Another percent of the population is going to stand on the side of the that group and they're going to ridicule them for freaking out.

This is no loner acceptable behavior. It's over. Right now. This has to end. It's possible you didn't know how many of your acquaintances freaked out about weather and such before Facebook Status Updates and Twitter, but you've seen television news, right? Who do you think the reporter on the side of the road in the parka and mittens was talking to? Who do you think was watching all that stock footage of plows and sanders rolling out of the DPW yard? This is how people are. People like getting worked up about things and getting fired up about them getting fired up isn't going to make them not be fired up next time. Believe it. And you better know I'm serious if I'm using a euphemism that involves sharks. I hate sharks.

From: Me

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Flood on Lake St – Union Square, Somerville

aaron cohen — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:08:34 +0000

Earlier this afternoon, a thunder storm rolled through Union Square, Somerville. I'm not sure what happened, but soon the street was flooded under about a foot of water. About an hour after it stopped raining, the water was gone.

Click on the picture to see a video of the scene.

My Prius is floating away.

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Lucero – Boston, MA – Rocks On Boat Cruise

aaron cohen — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:58:42 +0000

It was terrible weather for a cruise around Boston Harbor, but Lucero is one of my favorite bands and I was on a boat with several of my friends. The sound wasn't so good, but Lucero is one of my favorite bands and I was on the boat with several of my friends. You couldn't see the band at all, but Lucero is one of my favorite bands and I was on the boat with several of my friends.

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What to do with a Wet Laptop

aaron cohen — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:29:33 +0000

Every burgeoning bike rider probably has a stuck in the rain story, below is mine:

The clouds looked ominous as I left work, but I hoped the weather would hold off for the 20-25 minutes it would take to get home. Unfortunately, about halfway home, as I started across the Mass Ave Bridge, I felt the first drops. Big, intermittent, falling from the sky with more urgency with each pedal. By the time I crossed the bridge, it was a full out sideways rain thunderstorm. My shoes filled with water. Dirty water from the street was spraying into my mouth from the tires. My glasses were quickly rendered opaque by the drops and when I looked over them to see, water laser beams shot into my eyes. It was an angry, confused shower, filled with all the bitterness of a scorned Mother Nature.
I wasn't sure if I should stop (I should have) or keep going to meet the HVAC guy who was coming for a spring tune up (what a waste that was), and I wasn't sure how much protection my backpack would provide to my laptop.
Of course it stopped raining a couple minutes after I got home, but by that time, I had already seen the angry, blinking lights of my soggy D430 and taken the battery out. I tried it one more time after the HVAC guy left (seriously, a waste of time and money. He hadn't even brought a ladder to change the air filter, leaving it for me to do). And one more time a couple hours later before leaving it in an A shape on the table to dry. And then I waited. And waited. I'd say it was the longest 24 hours of my life, but that would be cheap hyperbole, wouldn't it? Finally, I couldn't wait anymore and put the battery back in and it worked no problem. It came right back from hibernation somehow and it seems to be fine.
For those of you looking here for instructions on what to do with a wet laptop to guarantee bringing it back to life... I don't know. Shut the power off right away. I guess probably don't leave it on standby on your way home to reduce the chance of it getting wet while it's powered on, also. And then hope it works after it dries for as long as you can stand drying it. Hope and Luck. That's what you need with a wet laptop, because I imagine I had as good a chance of getting a brick out of the whole experience.

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Free Barcelona Travel Guide – Day 6: Sitges and Beach

aaron cohen — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:24:55 +0000

Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.

Sitges is an excellent little city/town. It's small enough that you can walk all over everywhere and walk by the same streets until they become familiar, but big enough that it's still interesting to see everything a couple times. Right by our hotel was a block without an official name, Calle del Pecado, or Sin Street, with cafes on either side of the road. The outdoor tables for the cafes are lined up 4 deep to give the maximum amount seats for people watching. This was my favorite part of Sitges, I thought of it as walking the gauntlet. Watching people people watching is more fun than I would have thought.

As I said yesterday, the weather became perfect about as soon as we got to Sitges, so we were excited to head to the beach after slathering on the 800 SPF sun block J had gotten for us. The hotel was a block and half from the beach, so we were basking in the sun reading trashy novels in no time. This being a European beach on the Mediterranean, you should be warned that there are a fair amount of Speedo bathing suits for the fellas, and not all of the ladies wear both parts of their bathing suit.

After about 2 hours of basking and trashy novels among the half-decent Europeans, we walked over to a Creperie on the corner of Sin Street for lunch. Has anyone ever had a bad crepe? I doubt it. By that point, we were exhausted and needed a nap, after which we promptly went back to the beach for several more hours of basking and trashy novels.

After another nap, which admittedly I spent reading trashy novels, we headed out to find some food. Douglas at the hotel had suggested Al Fresco as the 2nd best restaurant in Sitges, but we ended up at their sister restaurant next door, the Al Fresco Cafe. J got the menu del dia which came with vegetable soup, lasagna, and this delicious mango bread for dessert. I can't remember what I got, but I remember liking this restaurant, so it must have been good.

There are 10 chapters in the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. I hope you find them useful.
Introduction
Day 1: Barcelona to Boston: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Map of where we went or wished we had.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

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Roasted and Curried Butternut Squash Soup

matt — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:58:01 +0000

Rachel and I just got back from a week in a Caribbean paradise, so getting off the plane in 5-degree weather (in short-sleeves, no less) was a bit of a shock. It was probably that, coupled with a desire to eat in a somewhat more healthy manner, that led us to dub this week the Week of Soups.

We spent Sunday morning searching the magical Internet for soup recipes, and found three that sounded pretty good. The first one was this butternut squash soup recipe from All Recipes.

I shan't reproduce the recipe here, since you can click that link and see it for yourself, but it basically involves roasting a squash, a head of garlic, and some onions, pureeing them, and then simmering them with spices in vegetable broth. Really can't be simpler.

Rachel liked it, but I thought it was only OK. It had the sweetness that you expect from a butternut squash soup, but it interacted kind of oddly, for me, with the curry flavor. (It's entirely possible that lame curry powder and broth are to blame.) If I were doing this again, I might have sauteed the squash with the curry powder to bring out more flavor. I also think it needed some heat -- when we get the leftovers out of the freezer in a few weeks, I'll probably add a dash of cayenne.

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Thank you, Yahoo

aaron cohen — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 02:45:46 +0000

People on Yahoo noticed the ridiculous pants the referees were wearing during yesterday's Patriots/Jets play off match up (playoff matchup? play-off match-up? (I'm uncomfortable with hyphens, now you know (but I LOVE parentheses))).

Instead of the short pants and long socks that referees always wear, Bill Vinovich and crew all had what looked like black track pants with a white stripe down the side. The folks on Yahoo Answers claim these pants are part of the cold weather optional uniform. Now, what I want to know is which ninny referee needed the warm weather option on this brisk, New England, January afternoon? I understand that in the future, when Massachusetts averages a balmy 63 degrees throughout the year, the idea of a referee wearing his winter gear will be outrageous, but… well, the future is now, Sunday was warm, and the refs had on the referee equivalent of snow pants. And it was outrageous.

Was this the best game to try these pants out? Have they used them anywhere else? It was 4 degrees a few years ago for a play off game in Foxboro, that wouldn’t have been a better time for the woolies? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I will pledge to spend a reasonable amount of time trying to quench our collective curiosity.

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Royal Buffet

aaron cohen — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 05:47:21 +0000

This evening, JR and I went to the Royal Buffet in Loew's Plaza in Cranston. After surveying the buffet options and sitting down with our first plate, JR said "This is a great place to blog about" and so I am. Although this place comes off as a Chinese buffet, more than half of the buffet options were of non-Chinese options. (Note: Chinese in this instance refers to what Americans think of as Chinese and not traditional Chinese cuisine.) There was french fries, hard rolls, onion rings, stuffed mushrooms, and apple pie. And there was seafood as well, which is how I think they pack them in. I don't go in much for seafood buffets, but I thought I'd check out the crab legs because it seemed like everyone was piling their plates high. The best part about this restaurant was what they were playing on the stereo right before we left. A cover of Michael Jackson's Beat It, in Chinese. Brilliant.

We got Jersey Girl from Netflix, the power of the queue and Kevin Smith. Anyway, this is one of those times where you watch a train wreck involving an actor or director you've previously enjoyed knowing full well all previous happy memories will be forever tarnished. It's unfortunate, when this happens, but what can you do? There are those that would say Kevin Smith's train wrecks started with every movie after Clerks, but I liked Mallrats and Chasing Amy. (Incidentally, JR has been laughing quite a bit, it's a little embarrassing.)

Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement today. I know there's going a knockdown dragout about who Bush nominates to replace her and probably again if/when Rehnquist leaves. We're about to weather some major political storms, but I wonder how the next several months will be remembered in history. It's likely BushCo will nominate someone totally reprehensible to the Democrats, but it's possible that that nominee will serve the court with distinction and not be a board member for Haliburton. If that's the case, history will soon forget the contentious months we're about to experience.

And finally, this is latest gadget I covet, a teenie, weenie, digi-cam.

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Hillary and Chuck

aaron cohen — Thu, 10 Mar 2005 06:37:00 +0000

Yesterday afternoon an intense weather system moved over the Northeast and made for some nasty conditions. Walking across the parking lot from the train, I came as close to having a Luke Skywalker killing his ton-ton moment as I've ever had in my life. One thing that stopped me was my semi-animal friendly disposition and another thing was my lack of ton-tons. I accepted my lack of ton-tons and trudged furiously to my car.

The locks on my car have a habit of freezing up when the temperature drops suddenly. I finally got in through the passenger side after several desperate minutes in the 100 million mile an hour winds and the snow, sleet, and hail, that was actually blowing up. After I got into the car, the windshield needed serious attention, except since I couldn't get out of the driver's side door, I decided to drive home and hope the windshield wipers would do their job. They didn't and I think this driving was the worst of my life including van and trailers in torrential downpours on steep mountain roads.

Anyway, this morning, as I got into my car to drive to the train it was the first beautiful morning in a long time and I was feeling pretty good. That was until I tried shutting the door and realized that instead of my door being frozen closed and locked, the latch had frozen open. The door literally would not stay shut without my holding it. WTF, right? Although I eventually figured out that I could keep the door jammed shut by shoving an ice scraper though the armrest, I drove to the train serenaded by the "Doo-Bee-Doop" door chime. I made the best of it by pretending it was techno.

Because of traffic and my car door, I didn't make the 8:30 train to South Station. Big deal, I'd take the 9:05. Unfortunately, the 9:05 got canceled. AT FIVE PAST TEN! The 10:02? I don't know if it ever came because I left the station at 10:35 with Hillary and Chuck, two strangers I had been chatting with at the train station. After realizing the train probably wouldn't come unil 10:45 anyway, I decided to drive and figured I might as well have company (and maybe some help splitting the cost of the trip?)

Anyway, I found out a lot about Hillary, not because she talked a lot, but because I think Chuck was hitting on her and kept asking her lots of questions. Chuck was probably mid to late thirties and he worked for a marketing company from Providence that had offices in Boston. Hillary, early twenties, was a bartender for a bar near Fenway Park and illustrated children's books. She just graduated from Mass Art and lived in Attleboro with her boyfriend. Chuck moved to Attleboro about a year and a half ago to live more in the woods. Hillary's brother plays music and he's a music teacher, but he's in law school now. He's pretty good with HTML and might help her make a website to display her art. Chuck plays music on the weekends in a Pink Floyd tribute band. Hillary didn't seem to mind Chuck hitting on her and at times she even seemed to be working him for a tip, like all good bartenders. Neither of them offered any money for gas or parking.

Everyone's got interesting stories if you take a minute to ask them questions. You find out a lot more if you let someone else hit on them for a while, though.

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