feeling is good, lack of feeling and redness are bad

Back in 1991 I think it was, I bought a pair of Perl Izumi Lobster gloves. I was bicycle commuting to work through the winter in Maine and I had arrived at work a couple of mornings unable to use my fingers because they were so cold. The lobster gloves made all the difference in the world. With the lobster gloves my hands still got cold occasionally, but the wind didn't go right through them and my hands remained usable through whole winter. If I remember right, I had to part with the equivalent of nearly a month of grocery money. I fretting seriously about sinking that sort of cash into gloves but they were worth it.

I don't bicycle commute anymore, but I still have the lobster gloves and they still work better than almost any other glove for cold dry conditions. They aren't waterproof anymore if they ever were so wet snow will render them ineffective pretty quickly. When my hands got too cold in insulated work gloves while running the snow blower today I switched into the lobster gloves and finished up with warm hands.

This thought ties in quite well with the Vimes Boot Index: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/26/terry-pratchett-jack-monroe-vimes-boots-poverty-index If you can afford to buy good gloves, you probably have good gloves for quite a long time.

Pearl Izumi still sells lobster gloves and the prices are the same or less than they were back in the day.

board, not bored

Right now life feels like an endless series of boards. During the month of January I've made good progress on the siding prep project. I could have theoretically done more, but I'm not sure I could have practically done more. I started another batch of 50 today. By schedule I should have started it yesterday, but I wasn't going to open up the windows for ventilation with a blizzard blowing. After this batch I have two more batches of 8 footers to go, then I have some shorter pieces to do. So I might be able to finish all of it by the end of February. In the meantime, I'm doing that, work, and dishes.

In the product endorsements department: the Hobbyair supplies air respirator system is working well. In the last month it has probably saved countless brain cells. All of them mine. Ten or so years ago I didn't think anything of breathing noxious fumes, but I guess I should try keeping those little suckers alive.

The snow yesterday blew around a lot! One tiny part of the driveway was clear, most of it had about 8 inches, there were drifts on the driveway about 2ft high and in some places near the house around 3 feet. It was light and fluffy, hence all the drifts, so snow blowing was relatively easy. I did some of it last night and finished it up this morning in the sunshine. We have enough snow cover now for snowshoeing and maybe enough for some sledding.

This weekend I'm trying to reset my caffeine consumption. I'm avoiding the headache by having one black tea about mid-day. My consumption had been creeping up and I wasn't feeling as good as I could. The reset is a thing I do periodically because if I don't I just keep increasing my dosage.

But just because I'm doing without caffeine doesn't mean you should: Have some Koffee. She came up when I did a search on dancehall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8HoEvDh70Y Or if you like it Euro, try Seed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYg9omPYx_M