Hey who turned off the lights?

[DMC]

What going on up there in Canada...?

We lost pow in NYC around 4:00

[Frankontour]

We bring power in NYC ??
I knew for Boston, but not for NY

Nothing in particular here, we still have power

[Mumster]

Wow! I've never seen the MB so quiet during the week - no ones been cruising all evening...

Who's in the dark?

It must be the work of :disinfo:

[surfy]

Hey Mumster,

I'm at work right now and we are running on generators. Nobody in the city has any power at all right now. It's about the darkest night I've ever seen. I'm here until midnight and in no hurry to try and make my way home.

surfy

[Mumster]

Hi Surfy:

:lips: those generators. It's like a ghost town on the MB tonight.

We have 100% power in Philadelphia - I didn't even know there was a problem until I got home from :atwork: a couple hours ago...It looks like they are making good progress with restoring.

I'd rather have snow than power any day :skifemcool:

[Frankontour]

I guess tonight many people here just can't visit the internet, cause of the power stop. We're lucky here... 100% power in Quebec. The special thing is that Ottawa is completely in the dark, may be for many days and just on the other side of a little river, it's 100% with power at Gatineau. I just heard that there was a problem with the post of DMC oops.

The federal minister of "I don't know what" in Canada (NOT :disinfo: )got the information that it wasn't a lightning in a power plant near Niagara falls, but a fire in a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. There is actually many many different versions and I'm eager to see who is right in all that !! A very sure thing, if it's a fire in a nuclear power plant, the governments will never admit it's true and the story will be completely hushed.

I hope that the Canada minister (Canada is the country beside Quebec) was as good as :disinfo: for the informations today !!

[Mumster]

Franko:
I can't comment on the powerplant, but we have power in Phila, and my son (in the PA Poconos) also has power. If there was a fire in a PA power plant, it didn't impact us.

I'm wondering how everyone else is doing - it must be scarey and/or annoying to be in the dark for so long...

[Frankontour]

Well, the informations about the power plant have been denied by the US government, but this doesn't prove that it's not true, as they would have denied it even though it have been real. (and it would have been the same thing if it occurred in Canada anyway)

For the long blackout, as I'm a Quebeker, I can tell you that it's not so worst than that. In january 1998, I was in the lucky ones. We ONLY missed power for 3 days during the ice storm. In Montreal, most of places missed of power during 4-5 days I think, but in the regions, it went up to 1 ½ MONTH !!!!!!!

Imagine in january. It was a chance for us that it wasn't very cold, at this moment, but before the power came back, the weather in the house was in the mid 40s. Not easy to sleep with that and it was comic to be clothed almost like for skiing while we were in the house.

I will remember forever the january 9, 1998. While Montreal almost missed of drinkable water (it remained for 2 hours in the reservoirs when they finally got power), we were listening to the news, at Mt Garceau, in the powder with a little bit of tiny ice cubes that I don't know the english term to name them. Even though they had power, they were only running the double chairlift which can work with Diesel gaz. So it was good in the lodge, good in the slopes and the chairlift wasn't going to stop...... not like Tremblant not so far from Mt Garceau, but in a less snowy-coldy place, so they lost power during that day and they've been obliged to unload all the skiers of the chairlifts by cables.

Mt Garceau was real great choice... and if La Réserve was open, that year, I guess they would just have gotten snow... and surely something like 40" of fresh powder.

Finally, the electricity network of southern Quebec have been almost completely destroyed by 5 INCHES of ice and it took many months to repair all what have been broken in 5 days of hard freezing rain. Cost of the storm : 2 000 000 000$ just in Quebec that... as the northern part of New England was also touched a little bit.

[Jolly J]

Frankontour:
I hope that the Canada minister (Canada is the country beside Quebec) was as good as :disinfo: for the informations today !! Huh??? Last time I checked Quebec was in Canada.

It's funny how Canada is blaming the US and US is blaming Canada when officials on both side of the border are not sure what caused it. You'd think with the world in the state it is, officals would check out the problem and find out what it is before they start pointing figures at each other. Maybe if they did this in the first place there wouldn't be as many problems in the world as there is.

Just my 2 cents CAD. Come on snow dammit

[DMC]

Frankontour:
We bring power in NYC ??I have good friend who's from Canada - he lives in Atlanta now.

He used to always tell me that Canada provided the East Coast with a lot of it's power.. From hydroelectric... I never beleived him :)

My first instinct is the "blame Canada" because of what the news was reporting.. but.. I'm going to wait until this is all sorted out ..

Just glad NYC survived another disaster relativly unscathed...

I took lots of PIX of the skyline with no lights - I'll post them later... Very strange.

[M@]

2 months from now: Run on Pregnancy tests
9 months from now: Maternity wards are over run

Hope everyone had a nice night last night ;)

M@ :ducttape:

[kmrnskier]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by M@:
[QB] 2 months from now: Run on Pregnancy tests
9 months from now: Maternity wards are over run

Good thinking M@!!! How VERY true!!

[Jolly J]

Canada owns (for lack of a better word) something like 1/3 of the worlds fresh water. But I think Ontario gets some of it's power from the states...I could be wrong on this though. I guess we'll find out when the smoke clears.

[DMC]

NYC last night... It was wierd seeing all the stars out... Like being in the country...

http://www.powderhound.org/2003/CliffsidePark_08-14-2003_blackout_1.jpg

[elwood]

wow... eerie. Thanks for the pik DMC!

[Mumster]

Eerie pic, DMC. Thanks for sharing it.
Hope everyone gets their lights back on soon.

M@ :ma: :
As usual, you are totally right :eek: - I must be slipping....with hubby working and our lights on,the new baby boom didn't even occur to me.

[kmrnskier]

DMC - very cool pic, but very eerie is right.

[Frankontour]

Jolly : Whoops, you're right, I forgot it was the liberals that won the last elections.

DMC : I think Hydro-Québec brings something like 25% of the power in Boston and surely few places in New England, but certainly not all NYC ! Our network wasn't broken as there was no connections with the American one when the event occurred. Ontario was importing some power, so they got caught in the problem.

In 1965, it took 6 days to understand the reason of the giga-blackout. We'll see this time if they will beat that !

Thanks for the pic, DMC, it's probably the last time of your life that you'll have the "badchance" to take a pic like that !

[Bannick]

I am getting "I Survived Toronto 2003"
T-shirts made up. Jeez what a year.
SARS
Mad Cow (more of an Alberta thing but Chicken and fish prices went up)
West Nile
BLACKOUT 2003

Apparently we (Ontario) was only getting 1,000 megawatts from the States at 4:00 PM Thursday. I find it interesting that Ontario could not get any power from Quebec during this whole thing. Apparently the power Grids between the two provinces are completely separate. And now the finger pointing is aimed at Ohio.

Saw the milky way in downtown Toronto on Thursday, first time ever. People everywhere, on porches, having candle lit dinner in the park. The bizzare thing were the abandoned street cars everywhere early the next morning. We had power back at my house 8 hours later. My boss did not have any power untill yesterday and he lives like 5 blocks over.

It was kinda cool really. I need to see some satilite photos.

[DMC]

Someone told me this morning that the power stuff happened in Ohio traveled to Canada then knocked out NYC...

I guess we'll know soon...

[Mumster]

Bannick:
I am getting "I Survived Toronto 2003"
T-shirts made up. Jeez what a year.
SARS
Mad Cow (more of an Alberta thing but Chicken and fish prices went up)
West Nile
BLACKOUT 2003
Bannick: Wow! It has been quite a year for you - Maybe mother nature will make it up to you by giving Canada the best ski season ever...

[Frankontour]

Bannick : Congrats to have survived to the blackout !

For Quebec / Ontario, I don't really know why we didn't send you some power. I know we had 4 megawatts easily available. Also, it's not a political thing as it's not the "Parti Québécois" on the government actually. It's possibly a misunderstanding between Hydro Québec and Ontario Hydro.

Mum : I don't think there is a lot of interesting ski areas near Toronto. Do I mistake ? In Montreal, I don't know if it's our "little misunderstanding" with Ontario, but we often hear that if it falls 4" of snow at Toronto, the schools are closed for 1 week ! lol. I guess it's just an exaggeration. I know there is some correct ski areas in Ontario, although they're not really high. If one was able to remain open until May 3 last season, they should have enough snow in some other areas of this big province !

[Bannick]

One of my first reactions was that I had just sent my girlfriend into the subway to get downtown to run some errands as it was hot on the surface. Thankfully she spent a few extra minutes gathering her things before she left the house. It is hard enough being a Seattle mountain type in the land of heat and flat as it is. If she had been stuck in a dark subway tunnel that would have been it, the car would have been packed and she would have hit the road. Toronot and not working is hard on her.

Not so much in the way of "mountains" around here (toronto), ok we have nothing here. Locally around 500 feet of vert is all. Searchmount in Sault Ste. Marie has some decent vert for ontario. That is why I spend as much time in the west or at jay that I can. There is more vert in the gatineau.

[Bannick]

Yea we have called in the army to clear snow ha ha. Mild, relatively snow free winters have made Torontonians soft. But I can remember watching Seattle TV stations while living in Whislter when they had several live news trucks out to report on STORM 96 where about a half inch of snow shut the place down, literally. Vancouver ain't much better.

[Frankontour]

A half INCH or half FOOT ? If it's a half inch, ouch, I see that we were not laughing of Toronto on this point for nothing !! Although Montreal is not a snow place neither, we always receive one storm of 12-16" in a winter and have an average of snowfalls of 6-7 feet.

Searchmont is effectively the ski area which closed on may 3. Blue Mountain looks also not so bad ?? and there is a ski area which looks to have some serious steepness near Sudbury or Thunderbay... not sure.

[Bannick]

Yes 0.5 inches of snow. Shut Seattle down. It was funny to watch the TV Coverage. The next year (I think) was the world record snow fall recorded at Mt. Baker. I believe seattle got much more snow that year. I think they only have a couple of sanders and plows, if that.

I watched a flatbed truck full of wood trying to get up a hill to a construction site in Vancouver that almost took out about 50 parked cars on either side of the road. I think that was about 10cm.

Montrealers have always laughed at us Toronto types. But hey we get to laugh at you guys just as much. I mean...the Montreal Canadians??!! Sheesh. Go Leafs Go!

[DMC]

Bannick:
Yes 0.5 inches of snow. Shut Seattle down. It was funny to watch the TV Coverage. Funny - reminds me of when I did a job in Atlanta... They got a DUSTING of snow... The town shut down... All the toilet paper and milk flew off the shelves...
I went into work.. The only ones in the building were me and 6 Indian contractors...
the snow melted by 10AM...
Funniest thing I ever saw...

[M@]

Speaking of pictured of blacked out NYV from NH, today's APOD is the same:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030818.html

M@ :ducttape:

[Frankontour]

OK, it was Seattle, I thought it was Toronto that have been closed with 0,5 inch of snow. I thought Seattle had more snow, as they're near some huge snow places, but it's true it's just beside the Pacific ocean.

Honestly, I don't really care anymore, for Hockey, but let me remind you that the Habs have the most Stanley cups of all time, far before Toronto ;) hehe

The Expos also have more won games than the Jays this year. (64 against 61 today) :D

It's always the big fight between the frogs and "square heads" (for 244 years now !), but every skier is my friend, even Ontarians ;) lol

[Bannick]

Don't care for hockey!!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:
Quel dommage!

[DMC]

"Square Heads"?

***?????

[Bannick]

"square heads" derogatory term the Quebecqois use for us anglo canadian toronto types I think.

[Frankontour]

DMC : the "Frogs" are how the Ontarians normally call the Quebekers and the Quebekers call them the "Square Heads". It's the same thing since decades or centuries and nobody probably still know who gave those names....

Funny story, DMC, for the dusting in Atlanta ! lolol

Bannick : no, I don't follow the Montreal's Canadians since the 4th game between the Carolina Hurricanes in the playoffs 2 years ago. The referee, Kerry Fraser voluntary decided to give the victory to the Hurricanes while we were leading 3-0 after 2 periods. He gave us something like 7-8 penalties without reason in the 3rd period just to be sure the Hurricanes were able to tie. We were leading the 2-1 in this part of the playoffs and 3-1 would have been really rough to beat for the "Canes". Since this day, Kerry Fraser is "persona non grata" in Montreal and he better not come here cause many people would like to **** him. Since this day, every sport with referees = **** arranged, for me, hockey first.

Hmm, what was already the topic of this thread ?? lol. Sorry for this little detour.

[Jolly J]

Frankontour:
Honestly, I don't really care anymore, for Hockey, but let me remind you that the Habs have the most Stanley cups of all time, far before Toronto ;) hehe
That reminds of a joke....

How many Hab fans does it take to change a light bulb?

5 - 1 to change the bulb and other 4 to talk about how great that dead bulb once was.

Just teasing ya Frank. I'm not really a Leaf's fan either.

I read somewhere that Montreal has the largest snow removal budget in the world.

I think here in New Brunswick we export most of our power to PEI and New England.

[DMC]

Bannick:
"square heads" derogatory term the Quebecqois use for us anglo canadian toronto types I think. Well thats not very nice....

I guess it's like us asking people "You know the only things that come from Texas?"

[DMC]

Frankontour:
DMC : the "Frogs" are how the Ontarians normally call the Quebekers and the Quebekers call them the "Square Heads". "Frogs" is a term for the French as well...

YOu guys are really doing a great job at turning my perception of Quebeckers around... Seriously..
I would say maybe - 25% of the Quebeckers I've (tried) to talk to were actually nice to me...

I have used the term Quebeckerhead in months...

WE ARE THE WORLD.... Come on everybody - SING!!!

[Bannick]

We are the children.....

[M@]

We are the ones who go to tuckerman in any season.

M@ :ducttape:

[Bannick]

Kerry Fraser is "persona non grata" in Montreal and he better not come here cause many people would like to **** him. Since this day, every sport with referees = **** arranged, for me, hockey first.[/QB]I am with you on that one my friend. See for me the referees in hockey are for the most part upstanding types but the incident of which you speak was a travesty and I'm not even a habs fan.

Personally I am fed up with baseball. The last strike really turned me off of that one. I know they get paid millions but hell they don't have to rub my face in it. If they gave half as much to infrastructure upgrades as professional athletes get paid in a year from hockey, baseball and basketball we probably wouldn't have had the blackout.

See brought it back to topic again.....

It is nice to see that most every discussion in here, no matter the topic, tends to progress to snow and winter sports.

[Frankontour]

Jolly : this joke have at least 85 different versions, but I admit you're right ! lol. At least, we're one of the 5-6 last teams to have won the stanley cup, back in 1993. Only NYC, NJ, Colorado, Dallas and Detroit won it since that time. When was the last Stanley Cup by Toronto ?? Mathematically not since 30 years, although I don't remember exactly when. (74-75 PHI, 76-79 MTL, 80-84 NY Islanders, 85-90 : Edmonton, Calgary and MTL. After that : PIT, MTL and the other ones.

DMC : for the Quebekers, it's not really surprising. Montreal is 50% english, and enough french canadians in MTL must be bilingual in their work. Exit of MTL and the about only sentence in english that French canadians are able to say is : I don't speak english ! so when a person just don't understand what you mean, it's not really surprising that he/she's look to be not very nice with you. Yesterday, we looked few times enough "not very nice" in the mountain cause people were talking fast, not understanding that we were really slow to understand them. So we often looked idiots or unsociable. I don't have a lot of problems to read enligsh (write is not so worst) but to hear and talk....... oh my god !!! it's 200x tougher.

[DMC]

My bad perception is lies deeper than not understanding english... sorry..

I've had things said to me IN ENGLISH that I found to be a little disturbing...

I've been to a few countries and have made friends with people that barely speak english...

But like I said - my perception is turning around as I meet cool people like the people from this board...

Now if you guys could stop leaving your change around down here... I actually found a Canadian quarter in Atlanta... I always check when I get change back for Canadian... My friends in Atlanta were cracking up when I gave it back to the cashier.. I told them - up East you need to check... :p

[Frankontour]

Bannick : yep, for the incident, in fact, Kerry Fraser possibly did that for Gary Bettman or so... cause think to this. If Montreal had won the game... and this part of the playoffs, they would have played against the winner between Toronto and Ottawa (eventually Toronto). East Final with 2 canadian teams. Not good for the marketing so decision...

After that game, Hurricanes became really incredible, I think we lost the last game 8-2 ! lol and may be the hurricanes would have been able to win this part of the playoffs 4-3, but it really looked like all was arranged, that evening.

Anyway, this is the past..... but for the $$$$$$$$, I agree with you, they don't deserve to earn more than normal workers. They want to offer an agreement of something like $20 000 000 by year to Vladimir Guerrero (surely not with the Expos ! lol). Imagine Babe Ruth actually, it's surely enough to make him return of side, in his tomb. The salary of the professionnal players of just Hockey / Baseball in North America is far bigger than the $production of ±90% of the countries in the world. and it's getting worse each year...

A bad hockey player is paid $1M by year. George W. Bush declared less than that last year (although we won't talk of his family). Don't you think there is a little problem somewhere ?? lol

(we are very less capitalists here than in USA, I admit.)

I'm back to ski now ;)

[Frankontour]

Hmm, I always 1 msg late, me !

It's possible, DMC. We're not some angels neither, but I'm surprised of the 25%...

For the money, it's probably because a quarter of Canada doesn't value a lot compared to a US quarter, so people throw them... lol

[DMC]

Frankontour:
For the money, it's probably because a quarter of Canada doesn't value a lot compared to a US quarter, so people throw them... lol you guys got great looking money... That buys really good beer...
I just wish Kootney and Kokanie didnt sound so close when your drunk slurring .. :)

[Jolly J]

I'm quite sure our money is color co-ordinated for drinking. When your drinking heavily stateside you get a pile on 1 dollar bills with a 20 stuck inside it's pretty easy to drop a 20 by mistake. :-)

[DMC]

Excellent point!

I also believe that toonies(sp) were createed to confuse tourists so bartenders can get a better tip...

[Bannick]

Dammit Frank they are on to us...wait till we launch the 5 dollar coin. Tipping will go through the roof.

On the subject of cool cash...Australian bills are made of plastic and have windows in em. So you can keep em in your board shorts while surfing, they easily clean when you blow chunks into your wallet after numerous pints with your mates, (spend some time in whislter during australia day and see what I mean) and the windows allow you to see the man eating, spiders, snakes, crocs, lizards and sharks, etc. that have a bad habit of trying to take you out. It is all done in pretty colours too.

[DMC]

When I was in BC/Alberta last spring at Kicking Horse... One of my pockets in my backpack was full of loonies and toonies... I get to wasted at happy hour to worrie about them so I just slip them in my pack and use bills...

Everytime I jumped into a chute my friends were laughing cause I jingled...

[Frankontour]

Honestly, I prefer our bills to the US ones, cause they're easier to difference with all the colors. I also find exaggerated to place some $1 bills with some $20, but it's just a question of being used I guess.

Funny for the ones in Australia and other countries. I guess to make them in plastic should cost a lot more than some paper.

[Jolly J]

The Toonie is a pretty cool coin, but they are getting way to big. If they ever do a 5 dollar coin, we're going to have to carry backpacks everywhere. Change dishes bring a whole new meaning when your scrounging around the house for loose change and you find a handful of loonies and toonies.

[Bannick]

There is something to be said however of emptying out the pockets after a night at the bar and haveing 20 bucks in change that you had no idea you had. I do the same thing in the fall when I put the gear back on. There is always a few bucks and a couple of laundered bills in the pockets.

[Jolly J]

Finding cash in your ski gear unexpectantly is always the best.