Been a long time since I posted. Would like to start posting photos again (and I'm kind of fed up with facebook), so I've been trying to get UrbanScrawl.com ..actually I've been trying to get the .com domain for years, but someone always seems to beat me to it when it comes available, and then I have to watch as it sits there unused for another year or two.

This time I'm being proactive and emailing the new owner and hoping they will sell it to me since they don't appear to be using it. Long shot, but maybe they'll respond.

If not, maybe I'll wait and try for .com in another year, or see if I can find something else. UrbanScrawl is not a network of sites, so for purely anal reasons I don't want to make this site active again with the .net domain. Stupid maybe, but there ya go.

If the .com domain owner happens to stop by, pleeeeease be nice and sell it to me ..do it for the kitty!

This site will be down for a day or two starting within the next 24 hours while I transfer to a new and less expensive webhost (and upgrade the CMS at the same time). I moved to this shared host a couple of years ago at near double the price of my previous host, primarily because the new hosting was more reliable, particularly with the database services. That database service has gradually degraded over the last year or so, to the point where there is little difference from the host I was at previously for half the price. When I entered a ticket for this issue, the only solution they could offer was a dedicated MySQL db - which would more than double the cost for hosting (or quadruple what my previous host cost me).. since they could not offer any other option, they have lost my custom, and the custom of two others who have sites hosted there. Sorry Media Temple - you were good for a while, but I guess all good things must come to an end, and this is yours, as far as my custom goes.

Wow it is freezing here in NYC tonight - actually it's colder than freezing - much colder. The weather guys (weather.com) have put out a "Severe Weather Alert" because of the high winds combined with sub-freezing temperatures, and the result is about the lowest wind chill temperature I've seen since I've lived in NYC (over 8 years now). Here's the alert weather.com put out earlier this evening :

THE COMBINATION OF SUSTAINED WINDS OF 25 TO 35 MPH AND LOW TEMPERATURES FALLING INTO THE MIDDLE TEENS WILL HAVE WIND CHILLS RUNNING ZERO TO FIVE DEGREES BELOW ZERO THROUGH EARLY SUNDAY MORNING.

To convert that to °C, we're looking at windchill just shy of -21°C ..yup, 21 degrees below freezing ..and it comes complete with snow showers. Certainly don't see that kind of cold back in NZ - at least not in the North Island. Apparently it's nice and warm and hitting mid 20's °C back there (summer in the Southern Hemisphere). Oh, Happy New Year by the way!

**Update Sunday** : Weather.com updated their alert. It's even colder.

A WIND ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM EST THIS EVENING. NORTHWEST WINDS 25 TO 35 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 50 MPH WILL CONTINUE TODAY. WHERE SNOW IS FALLING OR HAS FALLEN, REDUCTIONS IN VISIBILITY CAN BE EXPECTED DUE TO BLOWING SNOW. WIND CHILLS OF ZERO DEGREES TO TEN DEGREES BELOW ZERO CAN ALSO BE EXPECTED THROUGH THIS MORNING.

Ten degrees below zero ..and that's Fahrenheit. -10°F = -23.33°C. Nice.

We were in Manhattan this afternoon and it started to snow pretty heavily for a short while - first snow for this winter! The snowflakes were really big fat ones and I was wearing a black Calvin and Klein wool and cashmere blend coat so it looked like I had been attacked by some strange white spotted fungus. There was no real accumulation on the ground though - still a bit warm for that.

An El Niño in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean is expected to be a dominant climate factor that will influence US weather from now through to February, according to the 2009 winter outlook from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. What struck me as particularly funny is what they had to say for the Northeast (where NYC is) :

Northeast : Equal chances for above-, near-, or below-normal temperatures and precipitation.

Wut? Just a wee bit non-committal isn't it? I mean what else can it be besides above, near, or below normal temperatures and precipitation? Fortunately they went on to clarify this somewhat :

Winter weather in this region is often driven not by El Niño but by weather patterns over the northern Atlantic Ocean and Arctic, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation. These patterns are often more short-term, and are generally predictable only a week or so in advance.

Still, why not just say so right from the word go, instead of this "above, near, or below normal" bollox - it's a little bit redundant, don't ya think? I've seen better from the National Weather Service though (or worse, depending how you look at it) :

Unusually hot weather has entered the region for December as the Earth has left its orbit and is hurtling towards the sun. Unusually hot weather will occur for at least the next several days as the Earth draws ever nearer to the sun. Therefore, an excessive heat watch has been posted.

Apparently a trainee at the National Weather Service wrote the above as a test message, but it somehow managed to get published as an urgent weather advisory warning!

Wow can you believe it - Amber hits 16 today! Well, technically it's tomorrow, December 5th, but it already is December 5th in New Zealand, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMBER from both of us!!!

Amber, I tried calling you a bunch of times and eventually got Angela on her cellphone - she advised you were all down in Nelson with her mother who is seriously ill, and Angela said you've been fantastic with her, so thank you Amber, and I really wish you an awesome year - you deserve it. I'll talk to you in a few days. Miss you, as always.