Jimbo is visiting Bellingham 2/12 to 2/18, and a rant.

meh

 

Visiting Bellingham without "Wifely" supervision, with a credit card in the pocket, definitely requires a trip to "Hardware Sales" to get caught up on all that is right with the world. Enjoy the trip west!

 

Have a great trip, Jimbo!

As to the rant, I agree. Remember the Commodore Amiga? It was years ahead of the competition, but stealth marketing did it in. Other companies died out because they didn't make changes quickly enough. Sears is a great example. They were Amazon before the internet. All they had to do was use it.

 

isn't that always the way?

 

There was more to it than that. A few years ago I contacted my local Sears about buying their garden tractor, wanted to talk to someone about it. Based on my dealings with them I decided that I'd be a fool to buy their product, no matter how nice it was, because nobody in the company actually knew how to do anything that went beyond ringing up something that was already in the store.

 

I hear that hundreds of flights in were cancelled. I-90 also closed for 72 miles with poor visibility and multiple collisions. One can get around the trucks partially slid off the road, but the jackknifed units are quite effective at blocking all lanes. Many other roads with problems too.

I'm back at the farm, snowed in.
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Update: to 8 pm, 402 flights cancelled, 267 delayed.
As for the I-90 closure: "The biggest issue at this time is a lack of big tow trucks that can help pull the semi trucks." While I regularly see such large tow trucks in that area, it seems that demand has seriously outstripped supply this evening.

Some carports and awnings collapsed, but just one residential roof that I've heard in a locality with about 2 feet of snow. But with rain falling atop the snow, more collapses seem likely.
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Message from 3,000 crashes: Stay off Seattle streets, use transit
"Public transit, including light rail, present "your safest options for getting around the region," added Peter Rogoff, CEO at Sound Transit."

Um, did you see how many of your transit bus (especially the jackknifed articulated buses) were stuck and blocking the streets? Last week, I had to detour around five stuck buses blocking a single hill, and one more closer to my home.

 

All the best on your trip!

Since I'm east of the Rockies, I'll have to pop in one of these days when you're in the Delta.
Bellingham was a WONDERFUL place the last time I was there.
(30 years ago?? )

Enjoy!

@ rant:
I was tinkering with single board 'puters a while back, a market that was then, and is now, dominated by the venerable Raspberry Pi which is a $35 unit that's immensely popular in the maker community.
There was a $9 upstart which claimed to be a "Raspberry Pi killer" - reminiscent of the "Prius killer" articles that I used to read about in this forum.

Unfortunately....they named it a "CHIP"...
CHIP (computer) - Wikipedia

That name made internet searches for this product nearly useless and contributed greatly to it's ultimate demise, IMHO.

---"what's in a name?"

 

I-90 will remain closed all day today too. First alternate, Highway 2, is also closed for a section, with a no-big-rigs-allowed detour.

 

How deep is the snow down there? On the news last night they said over a foot in Seattle, and more to come?

Feels like a lot up here, but when I pushed a tape measure into it, read a mere 6", an hour or two back, but coming down fast.

 

I'm not actually there right now, but am inland at the family farm. Due to wind drifting, depths here are zilch to 3 feet, depending on wind patterns. I am no longer snowed in today thanks to some plowing, but it could repeat tomorrow. 3-axle ATV barely high-centered on me feeding the smaller herd, but managed to grind its way through after several attempts. It has chains on a single axle, I'll try out some other sets to try to get more axles chained up.

Spouse back home reports over a foot of settled depth from multiple rounds of snow, but hasn't recently taken out the yardstick. Garbage collection cancelled again, same as last week. She used my snow-tired Prius to pack a path down the shared driveway the past couple days (had to broom off a top layer first), but the neighbor's small SUV got stuck in it with today's additional snow.

A friend reports 32 inches in her yard at Leavenworth this morning. Various Snoqualmie Pass ski resort and DOT stations reporting 48 to 53 inches in 48 hours. Stevens Pass ski reporting 26 inches in 48 hours at the base (Highway 2), a bit more at mid-mountain. Paradise (Mt. Rainier National Park) overtopped their daily gauge that reads to only 32 inches.

 

Yeah, the balmy States...

 

82 and sunny...

 

45 and rainy.

Over 2 inches expected in the next couple of days, so they are opening some of the dams to compensate here.

Tahoe expected to get several FEET of snow in the upcoming days.

Great for the skiers soon and us later in the year.

 

I just received this image, though through a completely different path:

Two Feet of Snow in Seattle












(OK, not real news. Image search finds it >7 years old, swiped and re-copied repeatedly, real source / date / location unknown.)

 

We were just there in Bellingham in September visiting a couple of our adult kids. We love the area with its hiking and sailing, but the real estate prices have sure skyrocketed since I was visiting there before in the '70s.