Sunrise today is still almost an hour away at 0847 AST and sunset is at 1509 AST. It’s been about that for the last two or three days. At the solstice, the Earth kinda wobbles around and the days vary a few seconds a day for a few days. BUT in a day or two the days start getting longer. That’s why the old Winter Solstice holidays, the date for which sets our date for Christmas are a few days after the actual solstice. By the 25th or so, using a sundial or similar kind of instrument or even an observatory like Stonehenge, you can observe that the Sun has indeed begun to move higher in the sky and that it won’t remain Winter forever.

Six hours and 22 minutes and another hour maybe on each side of twilight makes for a really short day and a long, cold depressing night. No wonder it was cause for wild celebration when the Sun could be seen to once again begin its climb towards long, bright, warm days. Even if it does’t represent the date of Jesus’ actual birth, December 25 and the re-emergence of the Sun is an awfully good choice of days to celebrate His birth.

it makes me really uncomfortable. I was tooling down the highway minding my own business listening to Rush last week, doing maybe 50; speed limit is 55 but it was icy so I was holding it down a bit. I was in the right lane and I saw motion in my rear view mirror. Some guy passing me in the left lane lost it on the ice, started fish-tailing and hit me just at the back of the cab. Hit me hard enough that even with studded tires I went around two and a half times, but I kept it in the road and didn’t hit anything. He went flying off the road and out into the tidal flats. Neither of us were hurt. My cab is cruched in the lower left corner, the whole left side of my bed is caved in and torn in a couple of spots and my rear axle is all out of alignment. His right front quarter panel is cruched and steam and coolant were pouring out of it, but I don’t know how much damage he got. He got cited; that’s all I cared about, and uncharacteristically here, seems to actually have insurance. Anyway, my long-suffering ’90 Ranger is probably going to be totalled.

The guy had just moved here. He had it in 4wd-High and thought he was bullet proof. Happens constantly here with new drivers or new to here drivers; they have 4WD and think they can just cruise like its summer when the road is icy or snowy. First couple of snows or good spell of cold icy weather, the ditches are filled with 4WD trucks and SUVs.

from ’87 until ’06. When wife 1.0 and I split up, my daugher and I wanted to move, so I sold my truck and camper to pay the costs and fees on the illegal wrap around that I used to get into this house. The economy here was in the toilet and houses couldn’t be sold. I was just divorced, had lousy credit, but I did have a high-level State job and enough cash to pay the costs.

As long as I worked for the State, I didn’t have a life, just a job, so dump runs and building supply hauling either didn’t get done or got hired out. My boats have always been slipped and when the 24′ needed hauling out, I could always find somebody with a 3/4 ton p.u. and an appetite for beer. The 30′ requires either a marine lift or a commercial hauler, so moving it isn’t an issue – except for what it costs.

When I retired, I was looking at ten plus years of “deferred maintenance” around the place, so a truck was necessary. Don’t know how I ever lived without one and hardly ever drive my Chrysler 300 anymore. It just sits under its cover and only comes out if we’re going to dinner or I have to go meet with a client or the like. Now I’m back to driving the Chrysler until the insurance gets sorted out with the Ranger. I have an old S-10 down in CA, but it is an expensive hassle to drive it to Bellingham, WA and bring it up on the ferry or to SEA to put it on the barge. It isn’t a vehicle I’d drive through northern BC and the Yukon to get it here on the Canadian road system this time of year. But anyway, after this summer’s fuel prices, there’s a lot of trucks on the market for a song. Bought my kid that was getting out of the Army an ’02 Explorer in great shape with low miles for $4000.

for starting and for deep snow and worse for almost anything else except for some of the very expensive variable AWDs like the Audis and Porsches have. ONLY a 4WD will push snow. If it’s deep enough that the underside is scraping on it or the spoiler is pushing it, you aren’t going far unless you have 4WD; good excuse to come in late or just stay home.

I also find an old fashioned RWD handles better for everything but starting up or deep snow than either FWD or 4WD.

A conventional 4WD is absolutely evil handling in sliding conditions. Your typical understeering (pushing in NASCAR parlance) RWD “wants” to keep the tail behind it if you get off the power and will tighten a turn with more power up to when it starts “pushing” the front wheels or the rear wheels get “loose.” Even in very slippery conditions, you can steer one with your right foot up to when they just lose traction. None of that works right with conventional 4WD because it is pulling the front end and pushing the rear end. It has a lot more basic grip but once it loses its grip is almost uncontrollable; you just back off and ride with Newton’s Third Law.

Likewise, a FWD has more basic traction, but when it loses traction it is Godawful tail happy. My 300M has a very elementary traction control and ABS. It will go anywhere, any time as long as you aren’t asking it to push snow with the spoiler. Mine’s an inch and a half lower than stock, so that means it isn’t going anywhere until the roads are plowed if we’ve had more than four inchs or so. But with a set of Blizzak MS50s (studless snow tires) it will go like a tractor even on glare ice.

Wierdest driving I’ve ever done was on the Kuskokwim River out in Western Alaska. The river freezes up solid in winter and the State plows a road on it. When I worked out at Bethel Agency, I had a big old Dodge PowerWagon Crew Cab, had the aerodynamics of a house. You’d take off on the river ice and you can tool along nicely, fifty, sixty mph – ice isn’t as slick as you think when its 20-30 below. Then you’d be just tooling along like you were on I-5 in CA and you’d reach that point where there was more air resistance than there was traction on the ice and all four wheels would start spinning and the truck would go every way but straight until you got a grip on it. Kept you awake!