Good morning and greetings, deep freeze fans. Last week, I wrote about our lovely February weather, which lasted on through the three day President’s weekend. It made for perfect golf conditions for the AT & T Pebble Beach Pro Am National Golf Tournament. Well, at least till the fog blew in on Sunday.
Or as it says on the wall at the DMV, “Living without faith is like driving in a fog.” Don’t let the shroud surround you.
Yes, the weather was ideal, with the tournament play being televised on the Golf Channel. When you tuned in, besides seeing the celebs, the beautiful fairways and landscape of the three golf courses on the Monterey Peninsula, you also had a chance to view the incredible coastline and overhead shots of dolphins, whales and corporate sponsors, along with the abundance of sea life that is Monterey Bay.
Now I don’t usually watch much golf, as I think it’s more enjoyable to listen on the radio, but recently retired anesthesiologist Dr. Michael Schur was heating up my phone lines, calling in from his waterfront estate in Satellite Beach, Florida.A couple years back, he had celebrated his 60th birthday playing on the course at Pebble Beach, calling it “a lifetime dream come true,” and he wanted me to experience the majesty and wonder of God’s most beautiful golf arena.
So I put down the Hardy Boys book I was reading, (“The Mystery of the Chinese Junk”) and turned on the tube, and watched in amazement. And then the fog blew in and blew out on Sunday and Tiger Woods was nowhere to be found. Game over.
The conditions couldn’t have been any better for the tournament, but as the golfers teed off, the east coast was being bombarded with an arctic blast and freezing conditions. The blizzarding snow just kept on falling, so as soon as people dug themselves out, they were greeted with another large dose of the white stuff. .
To this point, I believe it was either Oprah, Dr. Phil or the Dali Lama’s brother who once said, “Sex is like snow, you never know who many inches you’re going to get or how long it will last.”
It has been a nightmarish 2015 for residents in the northeast, as the storms just haven’t let up, as Boston set a record for the snowiest February in history. It doesn’t seem like winning the Super Bowl came with any good weather karma.
It’s like the old Chinese proverb, “Three feet of ice does not result from one day of cold weather.” Or as the old Eskimo proverb says. “You never know your friends from your enemies until the ice breaks.” I’ve always said, if you’re going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance.
So as our week began, the skies went temporarily gray. As we donned our sweatshirts, another winter blast of snow and ice swept into the midwest and into the south, burying some regions in more than a foot of snow while paralyzing transportation and cutting off power to a quarter of a million homes. The eastern third of the country was locked in a deep freeze.
The bitter cold air was coming down from Siberia, where the the temperature was minus 50 below. Southern states like Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and the Carolinas were frozen like popsicles. You didn’t need to head to the local skating rink. Just open your door and step outside, as admission was free and no skates were needed.
And reporting in on the weather carnage coming out of Nashville is field scout Nancy Mager, who’s the director of Sponsored Programs at Western Kentucky University. As she reported, “It’s all ice and Syrian rebels. We had an inch of ice on the trees, roads and power lines. The schools have been closed all week.”
“The ice is beautiful and sparkling, but it’s dangerous as hell, as the roads haven’t been plowed or the sidewalks shoveled.” A New Jersey native, she added that with the wind chill factor at minus five degrees, “It’s never been this cold.”
I’ve also skated on thin ice and driven on icy roads and it’s a nightmare. You hit the brakes but you just start sliding, with no control over your vehicle.
I had the pleasure of being in an accident like this years ago back in New Jersey, when a car had stopped ahead of me, but when I hit the brakes, I just went into a slide and rammed him. And the ironic thing was, I was on my way to the gas station to put snow tires on the car, something we east coasters have the pleasure of doing.
So bitter cold temperatures shattered decades old records last week all across the Great Lakes region and in cities like Louisville, New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Miami, just to name a few. They’re shivering in Chicago as it’s been the coldest February since 1876. Niagara Falls was turned into an ice spectacle and in Eastport, Maine, they’ve had 109 inches of snow in 23 days. That’s brutal.
But the grand prize went to the city of Embarrass, Minnesota, where folks woke up to a thermometer reading Thursday morning of 41 below zero, without the wind chill factor. I just have one word for them. Brrrrrrrrr.
And finally, to put the cherry on top, on Friday, twenty one states had temperature in double digits below zero. It was the coldest day in February history in Cleveland (minus 17), Flint, Michigan was a balmy minus 25, and in the blue grass state of Kentucky, it was the chilliest day in Lexington in 21 years (minus 18.)
And over the weekend more misery was headed their way, with another blizzard warning for the northeast,with more storms on the horizon . While out here on the central coast, we’re struggling with temps in the mid 60’s, while in the Hawaiian Islands, they’re looking at a high of 82 degrees. Somehow, it all doesn’t seem fair.
But as the late, great, Johnny Carson once quipped, “If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.” Amen.
For our photo department, we are returning to the morning of Christmas Eve. I was a fantastic sunrise, with vivid cloud colors, painted reflections and wild surf pounding in the background. I was shooting from the sand at Its Beach, before making my way over to catch the sun coming up over the bay at Steamers Lane. Just awesome beauty.
On to some late night humor. “Jeb Bush gave a speech yesterday. He had a pretty rough time. He accidentally said that ISIS has 200,000 men instead of 20,000, and then he mispronounced the name of the terrorist group Boko Haram. So if history has taught us anything, Jeb is well on his way to winning the White House.” – Jimmy Fallon “Yesterday during a speech on national security, Jeb Bush mispronounced Boko Haram and got confused between Iran and Iraq. When reached for comment, his brother George W. said, “He sure sounds presidentiary to me.” – Conan O’Brien
“Starbucks has launched a home delivery service. It’s perfect for anyone too lazy to walk one block in any direction. Little Caesars has introduced a giant, deep-dish pizza with a crust wrapped in three feet of bacon. Two hours ago Pizza Hut surrendered. Here’s a new device that allows airline passengers to completely isolate themselves from their row mates. The device is called a baby.” – Conan O’Brien
“Gallup, the polling company, released its annual well-being index where they rank the health and happiness of residents of each of the 50 states. Alaska finished first and Hawaii was No. 2. It’s interesting that the top two happiest states are the ones that are farthest away from the rest of us.” – Jimmy Kimmel I spent the past four days in Cuba shooting a special episode of this show. I had an amazing experience in Cuba. People there are fantastic. But I do have to say it’s very nice to be back home in front of all of you capitalist pigs.” – Conan O’Brien
It’s a beautiful morning here on the bay. Wishing sunshine to our east coast friends.
Comment by Babs — February 23, 2015 @ 10:04 am