February 2010

Snow, damn snow

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As you might have heard it has snowed a little bit in the south of Finland this year. And this has caused us and others a few problems.

Firstly we were running out of places to put all the snow.

     

But now the temperature has risen above zero C for the first time in about 60 days. That and predictions of more sleet and snow are giving rise to warnings about snow loadings on roofs. There has already been one sports hall roof collapse and although we have no idea of the actual loading of the house it is better to be safe than sorry. As it turns out the snow was up to 1m deep on our roof in places, although a bit less on average. That gives about 100kg per square metre (depending on snow density) and then with the size of the roof (about 185 sq.m) that is about 18 tonnes loading on the roof… Sooo, maybe a good idea to take some of it off.

Luckily our roof isn’t so steep and the snow was pretty deep. So not much slippage which was good for me. The snow layers separated pretty well, which in the mountains would be good for avalanches… But for me it meant it was a bit easier to remove the snow. Although it took several hours to clear the whole roof over the weekend and quite many aches and pains.

  

Unfortunately we thought we had a snow problem before.

Now we really have a snow problem…

So much that it is a bit difficult to get out of the house now!

 

Moving to HTML5

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Since this site is partly to give me practice with web development I have updated the entire site to HTML5.

HTML5 is still a draft specification, but most browsers work with what I need and those that don’t (i.e. IE) can be fooled into doing so. That trickery does depend on JavaScript though, so if you have the combination of IE and disabled JavaScript you are probably screwed.

Anyway, some of the improvements to HTML5, apart from the most famous video and audio tags, are the semantic tags that give structure to a document. This structure allows computers in particular to identify parts of the page with greater precision and determine the relationships of content. If you want to learn more about this you should read the excellent Dive into HTML by Mark Pilgrim. In particular the chapter on the semantic changes was very useful.

There are probably a few broken styles here and there, but now that the structural conversion is done I will probably start modifying the look of the site. So don’t be surprised if it looks totally different next time.

Depths of winter

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Our girl is well past her second birthday.

And of course birthdays are a time for contemplation.

Or watching some TV.

Maybe with a few snacks.

Now the seasons have changed. The long walks in the summer sun have gone and in their place have come quick excursions in -15C temperatures and blowing snow. In Lilli’s opinion these aren’t so much fun, especially when you have lumps of ice and snow stuck to your belly!

On the sunny days it is nice to be out, although this year there isn’t much to hunt and the snow is so deep that even that isn’t as much fun as last year. Even four leg drive doesn’t help so much.

It is a little easier in the back yard now that there is a fence and Lilli can run free. Although this winter it sort of limits the possibilities for running.

So it is usually easier just to keep an eye on the neighbours.