Benjamin, Steven and Daniel: Suspected Criminals

It's a dark day for Barnharts everywhere, but I must dutifully report that there are wolves among us sheep. Have you been wondering why your checking account seems abnormally low? Puzzled by the recent loss of all your finest jewelry? Have you recently walked out of Meijers to find yourself a victim of grand theft? These are all signs of crime. And the following article will helpfully guide us toward the perpetrators:

http://www.livescience.com/culture/090128-names-crime.html

Interesting. Both myself and Dad are the only upstanding fellows in this whole bunch (according to the first line of the article, which is all I read). Things are starting to make sense now. I'd always wondered why I felt a vague sense of dis-ease around Daniel. In the presence of a crimial, I now see! And here I'd already assumed my discomfort could just be attributed to his prolific activity in the post-gastronomic regions.

Show Us Your Snow!

Alright, it's time to see who's got a real winter and who doesn't. Please add your picture to this post with a short caption. Make sure to include some young children for scale or tell us how many childs the snowbank is.

January 20, 2009 (Ben)

Well, Steve, thanks for kicking off this Arctic challenge. Scientists have shown that unwarranted pride can actually generate a small amount of heat for the human body. So take pride knowing that you're doing your part to make sure each of us stay warm. In addition to the pride you can derive from that "nothing but snow" forecast.

Unfortunately we Minneapolitans are not blessed with the deepest and coldest Great Lake on our doorsteps, so we have to settle for numbingly cold temperatures. This is a little graph of our temperatures over the course of the last week.

Pay special attention to that stretch from midnight Tuesday to midnight Friday where our highs were zero degrees. Man, I'm feeling a little warmer already.

January 21, 2009 (Rachel)

Here are a couple of photos to give evidence to the vast quantities of snow we've been blessed with (these were taken on the Friday of the posted weather forecast for Houghton). Our girls LOVE the snow (thankfully!). Please note that the snowbank to the right of the girls is significantly higher than either Steve's or my head, and completely dwarfs the girls. But it does make a great sledding hill down the other side (into our yard, not into the road).

January 22,2009 (Lisa)
Well, I didn't PERSONALLY take this picture, but this WAS taken somewhere in Kalamazoo. I think we have about 2 feet of snow right now, which doesn't seem like a lot compared to Steve and Rachel's pictures...

January 23, 2009 (Steve)

In case you all were wondering what the rest of January's weather will be like, I just pulled this gem of a forecast off the National Weather Service website.

JANUARY FORECAST

THE CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER (CPC) IS FORECASTING EQUAL CHANCES OFABOVE AND BELOW NORMAL PRECIPITATION AND AN ABOVE AND BELOW NORMAL MONTHLY AVERAGE TEMPERATURE OVER ALL OF UPPER MICHIGAN IN JANUARY2009.

Februrary 1, 2009 (David)

I know I'm a little late to the game, but I figured I'd save the best for last! Although we might not get as much snow as Michigan, nor as cold of temperatures as Minnesota, I still suffer immensely. Four times a week I set out on my bike for the four-mile trek to class. When temperatures are around 20-30 degrees, I'll actually arrive to class sweating. In the teens and below however, parts of my body begin anxiously volunteering to bail ship and venture back to my warm apartment without me. Friday night, I decided to take my camera along for the ride to get a nice clip of how it feels to be riding my bike right now. I quickly learned that the videos I tried to shoot were rather boring and lacked the bite of that wind chill. By chance, though, I just happened to spot something at the side of the road and had my camera with me to document:

Floor Revival

I felt a little like the character in Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" this weekend as I started tearing up damaged floor boards. But I didn't find any beating hearts underneath my floor. Or money, either. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I find that stash of Confederate silver.

Here are some photos of the process.


1 - Cutting out the center of the damaged floor boards so I can remove them individually.


2 - A clean opening.


3 - There were three damaged boards together, so I took them all out.


4 - Nailing in the replacement floor boards.


5 - Almost good as new. Just needs to be sanded, along with the rest of the floor, and poly'ed.

There are bigger gaps between some of the boards than I'd like, but I think it will all blend together a little when it's finished. I was a little bothered by them at first, but then I started noticing gaps between boards all over the floor, and I didn't want to show up the previous high-quality workmanship.