Zen Snow Shoveling

It snowed about six inches this weekend.

Steve- Snow is a frozen crystallized form of water which falls during the winter months due to the temperature being below 32°F (0°C).

OK, now that we’re all on a level playing field.

I heard all these snow blowers running and I just scoffed. Snow blowers are for old men and women, much like the only people without beards are young boys and women.

I find the act of snow shoveling calming and quieting. It turns off the unessential parts of the brain and gets you down to the essential survival parts.

It’s you, the cold, the shovel, and your muscles extending and contracting, much like ice-skating is you, the cold, the skates, and your muscles extending and contracting.

Everything else in the world is stripped away.

I also did a bit of electrical wiring in my house this weekend. I replaced some 1960’s vintage light switches. The wiring in the house is just scary. It’s that old shit with an inner layer of insulation and then kind of cloth wrap on the outside.

The three switches I replaced were all wired in parallel. They took the hot wire and just stripped off three sections on the continuous wire for each switch. Not exactly to code.

Then I spent like an hour and a half trying to get a timer switch wired into my outdoor plug to run my Christmas lights. Something was fucked up with the internals of the switch so I just went with an outside timer that plugged into the current outlet. I should have done that in the first place, it took all of 5 minutes to mount to the siding and setup.

Five days until the great Wisconsin Christmas Odyssey.

I’m your Neighborhood Spaceman… (terrible video, good song)