The bitterly cold 13° temperatures we experienced last week did not leave us unscathed.

Believe it or not, this flooded cellar was the result of an exterior spigot freezing and cracking. We thought we had the spigot well covered with an insulated sleeve, but it was just too damn cold for too damn long.

The spigot froze and snapped entirely off. Instead of flooding the yard, the water rushing out of the pipe shot straight into the still-secured sleeve where it hit a dead end and rebounded into the cellar ventilation. The resulting underground swimming pool did a whole lot of damage to the water heater and furnace.

Thanks to a lot of help from restoration professionals, plumbers, HVAC technicians, and electricians, we're getting close to the other side of it now that the temperature is back to an unseasonable 70°, warm for January even by Georgia standards.

The entire experience has taught me two lessons. One, we should tie the insulation sleeve on much more loosely (a frozen yard is better than a flooded basement). And two, winter sucks.

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By the time you read this, you probably will have heard about the EF3ish tornado that roared through downtown Newnan, Georgia at midnight. Know that my family and I are fine and feeling very, very fortunate.

UPDATE 2021-03-29: Still no estimate on when Internet might be restored. They're still working on digging out downtown. Rumor had it that the high school might have to be bulldozed, but they've decided to try and save it. Hooray?

UPDATE 2021-03-30: Back online! The utility company says that in three neighborhoods they will have to rebuild their network essentially from scratch. That's terrible. Ours was only out for four days, and I was already suffering intense withdrawal.

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Almost everyone reading this already knows that in April 2014, my father moved to Fountain, Florida. What you may not know is that Fountain is only 37 miles due north of Mexico Beach, the town Hurricane Michael wiped off the map this past Wednesday.

Through a series of unexpected coincidences, Dad wasn't at home when the hurricane hit, which is good. (He has temporarily relocated to Heard County, Georgia for... other reasons.) Also good is the news that although trees fell everywhere around, including on his barn, the house emerged unscathed! Even his whole herd of cattle survived.

That's even more amazing considering that this news came from my father's friend who lives not 10 miles to the west. His friend's house was all but completely blown apart and submerged under water. (Fortunately, his friend was also out of town on business planned before and completely coincidental to the arrival of Michael.)

Both properties are without power and are expected to be so for another month. And while Father has offered his house to his friend, travel between the two will be quite the hike until Bay County can get around to clearing the roads of fallen trees, which might take considerably more than a month.

Anyway, the point of this story is that everyone is alive, and one day we'll all look back and laugh about it. Assuming that Dad's friend can find clean water and get gas to keep his generator running, and assuming that Dad ever gets over the fever he hasn't treated for the past two weeks because his doctor is unreachable.... Did I mention that the livestock seem fine?

UPDATE: I wrote this post on the 12th. On the 13th, Dad finally decided he'd had enough and visited the ER in Newnan where he was diagnosed with abscessed diverticulitis. That's bad. The hospital docs will determine on the 15th how well the abscess is responding to a heavy dose of antibiotics. Otherwise, there may be emergency surgery in Dad's near future. Freaking hurricane.

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While most of Georgia spent the past 24 hours stuck indoors looking at snow — not that they have a choice here in Coweta County as Newnan has declared a mandatory curfew — I've been stuck indoors in a bed. For the third time in 10 months, I'm sick.

Why does my phone come with the ability to take this photo pre-installed? Who needs this?

I haven't seen a doctor, but my symptoms are consistent with the flu. You know, that thing that's been killing people this year. Which is not to say that I think I'm going to die. I won't. (At least not right now. Not from this.)

I can't remember being sick three times in a year since my senior year in high school. In that case, I wasn't even sick, just using new excuses to play hooky. I spent "Senior Skip Day" as the only person in most of my classes because I'd already missed 30 days on the year. Poor Mr. Smith didn't know what to do with me, so we just talked about Hamlet.

I've got to figure out what I'm doing wrong these days. Is my diet deficient? Am I too reclusive? Am I just a filthy pig? Whatever the cause, I'm making it a priority to get it fixed in 2018.

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It snowed today. In December. In Georgia.

I was looking for some way to commemorate the event here on the blog when I stumbled across this in my collection:

"Where Walks a Snowman" in Batman #337 (July 1981) begins as "a typical evening in Gotham City; under a sky heavy with the threat of snow, the city sparkles...". But the story isn't about snow. That probably would have been a better story.

Odd events during a smash-and-grab at a sporting goods store soon convince Batman that albino Olympic skier Klaus Kristin is involved. There's no chain of evidence, but Batman's got a hunch. So he steals Kristin's mother's diary and discovers that she had sex with a yeti. (Are all albinos yetis, or is Batman just racist?)

Being the offspring of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed hottie and a "mythical creature of the Himalayan peaks" has endowed Kristin with the ability to transform himself into an abomination that can project sub-zero temperatures from his fingertips. Calling himself "Snowman" (probably because he was a big Smokey and the Bandit fan), Kristin uses these abilities to rob sporting goods stores.

Uh, yeah, ok. I think that will hold up in court.

Anyway, Batman brings Kristin to justice by startling him off a cliff. Don't call it murder, though. As Batman points out, Kristin let him "get close." So it was all his fault. Again, I'm sure that would hold up in court, too.

Fortunately for Batman's ethics, Kristin wasn't dead. He survived his fall and went into peaceful, penitent seclusion in remote parts of the Himalayas. Peaceful, at least, until Batman tracks him down in "Snow Blind" (Detective Comics #552, January 1983). Justice will be served!

Despite being pursued to the literal ends of the earth, Kristin saves Batman's life and for his trouble is shot by the Chinese Sherpa he calls "Chi." (Apparently Batman is racist.)

Kristin chooses death and is carried off into the sunset by his father. Aw. Kristin finds his daddy, and Batman gets his Justice. How's that for a happy ending?

So next time it snows in December in Georgia, remember the sad tale of the Snowman. Stay inside reading comic books. That's what I do.

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It hasn't rained at my house since September. That's probably my fault. My birthday was in September, and the one thing I asked for was a new rain suit.

Sorry, Georgia. I'll take the blame for the rain. Trump is still on you.

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For most of this week, Atlanta was snowed under. We had ample warning that the storm was coming, but a delayed response by the state government and the Department of Transportation caused thousands of commuters to be trapped in their cars for 19 hours or more. Some children had to spend the night trapped in their school buses!

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal blamed the National Weather Service despite their predictions being remarkably accurate as far as 12 hours before the storm arrived. Adding insult to injury, the Georgia Emergency Management Agency Director said that GEMA didn't respond to the crushing gridlock for more than 3 hours because "it wasn't as gridlocked as it is now."

That's Georgia's government for you: we can't read a weather report and we don't open our umbrellas until we are already soaking wet.

But not everyone has been unhappy about the weather's effects. July and Victoria have spent as much time as I will let them outside playing in the snow.

I think it's funny that they hate rain but love snow. I've tried to explain to them that snow and rain are pretty much the same thing, but they don't listen. They never listen.

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Everywhere I went today, someone asked me what I thought about the upcoming Georgia Bulldogs' football season. Was that because the season kicks off in just 2 weeks? Or was it because the abnormally cool weather makes it feel like late football season already? Either way, bring on the football already!

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Today's headlines on The Weather Channel's Weather.com:

• "Locusts Could Wipe Nation Out"
  (a locust plague is consuming vegetation in Madagascar)
  
  
• "A Frightening FIRST for Mankind"
  (global carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached prehistoric levels)
  
  
• "Huge Rats Devour Gulf State"
  (invasive Argentinian swamp rats are destroying Louisiana wetlands)
  
  
• "What Happens Next is CHILLING"
  (a Russian woman crossing the street slips and is run over by a car)

Happy Mother's Apocalypse Day from The Weather Channel!

Other than that one story about ice cap-melting greenhouse gasses, what do those stories even have to do with the weather? Maybe it's time to rename the station "The Whatever Channel."

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