Thank Grog It’s Firday,
So, we here on the West Coast know that you folks from colder climates are likely to make fun of all of the news of our “Snow-Ma-Geddon” (not to be confused with Rhiannon Giddens, the absolutely stunning folk/roots singer). Not sure why my mind jumped to that…but I have had so little sleep, and so much added stress this week, that my brain (what is left at this advanced age) is in free-fall (no…not the Tom Petty song). But, I digress…
This week, right in the final stages of planning our huge FUNdraiser for my Rotary club…and pulling 16-hour days, 7 days a week for the last 4 weeks, we got hit with what they are calling a “100 year snow event.” It was impressively insane…but, anyone my age remembers a handful of “snow events” bigger than this one. We did get almost 2 feet…really fast ( we got 4′ in 1969). And it was the kind of heavy, wet snow that breaks trees…and power poles…and all sorts of other stuff.
It’s the kind of snow that had all of the West Coast folks going, “Oh…isn’t it beautiful! I hope we get a Snow Day!” after a few hours, but then, “OH DEAR GOD…PLEASE LET IT MELT!! So they can turn the electricity and cable back on!” after three days of more snow…freezing rain…and biting wind.
And by Wednesday night…it was obvious…we had to postpone the event. So there were 225 people to be informed. Catering cancelled. Everything put on hold. And boxes and boxed of auction items stacked up in my family room.
But then…things got weirdly joyful.
First… more than half of the people responded with, “Thank God! I wasn’t going to be able to make it! I still don’t have power!” The other half said, “Thank you for making this tough decision…we’ll make it an even better when we do it in a few weeks!”
And the good news…we were completely done. Everything ready to go. So, now…we just have it locked and loaded, and ready to pull the trigger. My house is full to the brim with “Hooch.” (It is a SpeakEasy event). So…let it snow.
Then, when I finally got around to opening up the Mini-Event in TSTO, I realized it was indeed, “Mini.” But, immediately got the “YOU ARE FULL” warning again…DAMMITALLEA!
So….I stored a nine shrubs, so I could place the items that came with the first wave of this update… and just settled in for another few weeks of frustration.
But…just when I was ready to start shaping all of my water features into indecent gestures to EA, in protest of the stupid Item Limits…
BOOM!! They raised the item limits again Thursday morning!
Thursday morning… when I went to place my KEMs, I got this message.
WHAT??? Soooooo….just to be sure…I started placing a ton of stored fences to see what the new limit was…BOOM!!
So then I stored the fences…and thanked EA silently for a small reprieve…and started to relax a little more.
And then, I got the Sky Finger statue…which works great! No it doesn’t clear jobs…but it does a GREAT job of clearing buildings and rents and menus…which I long ago had grown tired of collecting every day. So cool. Maybe the wrong finger…but cool.
And, just when I thought nothing else could make my horrible-week-turned-joyful week even more joyful…
I got this message from my friend, Terri.
Hey Pat, I wanted to thank-you and Debbie and all of the prayer groups…got the best news today. The tumor has shrunk by at least half and in some cases the initial metastatic bits have disappeared .
It was such a significant reduction that there was no question of what type of surgery it will be (now scheduled for March 8th), it will be laparoscopic. So less invasive and less recovery time. Then in about 4 weeks after I’ll start the chemo again for three more treatments. The doctor was ecstatic with the results, almost as much as we are!!
Love you two and the awesome support you’ve shown.
So there’s that.
Maybe it was being exhausted. Maybe it was such an overwhelming sense of relief on so many levels…that I found myself doing an insane “happy dance” with tears of joy running down my face.
Perspective. Misery, stress and joy…all just pieces of the same perspective pie.
Sure…it was a hard week. We lost a ton of trees. We lost the gazebo to our hot tub. But, right after I got a sense of perspective from Terri’s note, a casual visitor stopped by to remind me of the beauty of this earth…in any sort of weather. Our fence was down…so, this casual friend needing “shelter from the storm” (not the Bob Dylan song), was there for hours…and let me feed her an apple without running (I tossed it her way, from our deck).
So, Item Limits? Come on. Thousands of people in Eugene won’t have power for a week or two. So…no. I’m not going to lose my sh@t over Item Limits.
Have a great weekend. And THANKS TO ALL WHO SENT TERRI HAPPY, HEALING VIBES! Her surgery is March 6th. Keep ’em coming!
Peace. Love. Hope. It’s all real…
My Wife’s VW Beetle is under there somewhere…
So…yes…there was a bit of snow after two days…
Our poor, majestic sugar maple…got severely pruned.
You can mostly see the steps to the street….kinda
Our Hot Tub is under what’s left of the gazebo. Not cool…
Again…after another 6 inches on Wednesday.
A panoramic view from our lower deck… Snow-Ma-Geddon, indeed!
And then…shortly after hearing from Terri…this beauty showed up…
Pretty cool….
It’ll all be gone by Monday. But, the joy…that is gonna stick around for a while.
A visit from good news and a deer, I’ll settle for that any day. Glad Terri’s treatment is working, long may it continue.
Still sending good thoughts for Terri! I love your song for her Patric! I have it on my playlist now.
Anyway – In Melbourne Australia we are having the hottest March days & nights on record. Our rooftop aircon cannot cope with the heat & humidity. Please send me some snow & I’ll send some sunshine! – I’ve not seen snow since I was a small child in London; England – over 50 years ago!
OMG- that snow looks insane. This past week, We’ve been sweltering DownUnder with 38’c (100’f) – no more complaining when I look at the alternative!!!
Sending positive energy to Terri 🙏🏼❤️🌈
Craig
Thanks, Craig! Still hanging around today… supposed to be melted…but it’s not. Grrrrrr…
Yep. I think we all better buckle up for extreme weather. Already happening.
That is wonderful news about Terri. We will be continue to pray for her.
Thanks!
Thanks for the pics and the perspective!
The limit is now 13,000 … makes me happy! 😊
That is amazing. Two jumps in one week? EA is listening.
I just landscaped my golf course. Much happier now.
I might do another 2d picture now 👍
I notice a few of my building’s income are ready for collection, even before the timer has reached… the Cinnabun, Northern Crossings, just to name a few.
Wow! What an amazing week! Speaking as someone who lives in tornado country—we have a lot to be grateful for. Always good if you can keep the power on.
So happy to hear about your friend Terri! Prayers going up!
Thanks Bangles! And you people who live wher3 the tornadoes play…man. I’ve had to drive through a couple of wall clouds and the fringe of a tornado forming up. No thank you.
Rats! Sad 😞 to hear about Terri, I’m glad that there still a chance of a good outcome.
Send good vibes across to Terri.
Actually… This development is miraculous! Her prognosis a few weeks ago was far more dire.
We are all very excited for the progress.
About the Skyfinger Monument:
Would you have liked a one which looks like digits rigidus tertius? 🤣
By the way:: Half an inch of snow 🌨 in Holland made a lot of trouble to the railways and traffic. It almost brought it to a standstill
I consider myself lucky with the wether we have now. Temperatures up to 20 Celsius
As someone who makes a living translating Latin from Catholic Church archives (currently working on a 8th century inventory of Church properties around Naples) I have to laugh…
Golden Goose Realty is no longer giving me free land. WTF? I’m nowhere NEAR unlocking even half the land that requires tokens.
Anyone else?
On another site, they mentioned that once your land token to purchasable land reaches a certain percentage the Golden Goose will revert to paying out currency. The percentage wasn’t mentioned. Ah! Goose eggs! I guess they didn’t want to give us another way to farm donuts.
Very likely.
I think what Mog is referring to is that they haven’t purchased all the land yet, but the GGR should still be earning tokens. My GGR should’ve given me a token this morning, but the timer had reset when I logged on so I didn’t get the token. It’s got the token icon under the timer, not currency, so I know it should have got one. I know this because I had got all the land I could (still have 200 or so to get) the night before, and when I logged on 12 hours later, all the land token boxes were grayed out. I’ve submitted a ticket to EA on this issue, and I’d recommend others to do the same so it gets fixed. It’s not a massive issue for me as I’m max level and have thousands of donuts, but it’s the principle that matters.
There is not a lot of “principle” when we are talking about a free game. All of this is a digital illusion… Including any “bonus“ that we get from Golden goose.
This may be related…just happened to me….didn’t know about the glitch so I’ve been spending 12d a crack to get all the land tokens i need to unlock the new lands. Once my token hoard was equal to the number of unopened land tiles I got a message saying exactly that (something like the number of land tokens you have is enough to open all the lands so GG is now reverting to grunge currency ((obviously not the words they used:-))
I can use the tokens fine, but if this is a permanent change and not related to the glitch, then there is no point to keeping one square undeveloped any longer.
Scott
Thank you for sharing all of that Patric. Wow 😮 that was some snowfall you had. I am so very happy to hear that good news about Terri. Will keep my prayers and good wishes going to her. You take care too.
Thanks!
Great news about Terri and the snowmageddon story/pics pretty great too. I can just imagine how much loot you had to find temporary housing to store.
Like 50k worth.
Thanks a lot for your thoughts, Patric. We’re happy for your friend 😊
Hmmmm….
And here in Europe we just had the warmest last week of February ever… People walking in shorts and sitting in the sunshine…
Enjoy the snow for as long as it’s there…
Thank God for Terri, and praying that God will guide the surgeon’s hands…
YAY!
Great Post Patric and I’m glad everything is getting better for your friend. Take care on the snow and I love the photo with the deer.
Will do… and thanks!
Them’s good eatin’!
You fed her an apple, she could feed you…. 😉
Oh, and, yes, that is great news about Terri. Hope all goes well!
I only shoot animals with a camera…
Pat we feel your pain up here in Seattle. Not more than two weeks ago we got the same weather treatment, and also nicknamed it Snow-ma-geddon 2019. My house received almost 2-feet of the wet-sticky “perfect for snowmen and snowball fights” snow. We still have little piles of it where the plows and shoveling left bigger piles.
Now, I know the east coast and mid-west people will reply “cry me a river”… And I, being originally from Detroit Michigan, usually have a similar response for most snow events in the northwest. I remember the blizzard of 70-something (don’t remember exact year), when we got 5-6 feet of snow with drifts up to the roof tops. And people in the upper peninsula of Michigan even laugh at that with snow annually topping that amount.
But, what people that don’t live in the northwest don’t know, is that with the lush landscape as a result of our wetter than most weather. When it snows the heavy “Cascade Concrete” snow, those lush tree branches simply break from all the weight and take out power lines everywhere. This area is just simply not used to the extensive damage that is created by a once in a 20-year+ event, and resources aren’t even available to clean up after the “ma-geddon”. Power crews are limited in staff for line repair, snow plows are few to come by, etc. I think the City of Seattle has something like 35 plows available for the entire city. The other factor in a snow event is that the roads on the numerous hills in this area just simply become impassable by all vehicles buy 4×4’s.
The fun in all of it is that the area just shuts down for a few days and waits for the snow to melt away. A few days off of work left me with more time to tap-a-tap-a-tappa!
All true! Plus, Eugene has about three plows for the whole city.
❤️ 👍
Great news about Terri, all the best from me.
As for the snow it looks lovely but take care out there.