30 here this morning with freezing rain, sleet and snow.  Have about a 1/4" of ice, with about a an inch of sleet/snow on top.  Good day to stay in the house.

It was 67 degrees when I got up this morning.  Now it's raining and down to 44.  That Yankee groundhog up north says there will be another six weeks of this crap!

Hey Carl, good to see you check in.

We are set for another week of cold and snow again as well, today  is the nice day at 25,  Thursday maybe above zero.  At least we can say we had a winter finally.

Yeah Carl, nice to see you pop in now and again...While you're here, can I borrow that trailer-bound bar-b-que of yours? I want to park it in the livingroom...

Deep winter up here, and being a pretty resourceful country, some folks decided that if you can't change the weather, take advantage of it.........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i_bsfwPE1s

Yeah, well I just hug my wood stove like a teddy bear myself.

Not being a frozenlander, I could never see the point of ice fishing. But this was pretty cool until the feds got involved:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/04/the-faa-shuts-down-beer-delivery-drone/

Watch the video....

Heheh, that was awesome, the FFA can KMA. I wonder how big of a battery they are using, because when it gets cold the lipos really fall off in reserve power.

Honcho, I've been reading up on the quadcopters, thinking I might like to have some micros to play around with.  Some of the bigger ones can lift 5-10 pounds and are running up to 12 volt lipos. They can be made completely autonomous, but it ain't cheap!  I'm guessing if you keep it inside until you're ready to fly, the cold isn't an issue.

Weather update - sleeted and snowed here this morning.  It was 33 degrees when I got to the airport this morning.  It's 37 now...

The big stuff is largely operated illegally. They fall under drone classification and requiring licensing and permits. Many operators do not have a clue what they are doing......and then there is the invasion of privacy issue......

Last I heard, something like 5 states were proposing anti- drone laws.  One town in Colorado is issuing drone hunting licenses......

The little ones are fun.  The best bang for the buck is the little Proto X by Estes......incredibly stable, and only $40... Next would be the Helimax 1Si..... Four times the size and twice the price....but stable and easy to fly....

I have thought about one for a camera to aerial view fields.  There are times it would be handy to see where you are missing with water.

Drone ops is truly a gray area unless the feds are using them, in which case there are no regulations!

Honcho, some of the smaller drones can carry cameras easily.  The only problem you might run into is flight time, and that all depends on your setup and batteries.  Do you have a Kindle?  I just downloaded a free book on getting started in quadcopters that has a lot of good info in it.  There's a print version as well.  Don't have it with me, but I'll get the title and author for you.

No sleet today, but still cold.

We are what the buffoons now call a "snow-drought". This term is not found in any dictionary source without "quotation marks", and even then it's only used in news stories.

They're at it again.

It continues to be somewhat seasonal, though the night temps are teens below. We haven't had measurable snowfall in some time, but there's a few feet of it on the ground. Problem is the dagnab wind. I've about given up trying to keep the driveway clear. If anyone wants to visit us, harness the dog team. When the snow is driven @ anything over 20 mph the resultant drifts are dense as granite.

Jaime, clear the guest room. I'll bring a shovel for just in case.

Come on down, Stetto!  And could you bring a few ice scrapers with you?  Can't buy them here... 

Our weather guessers here invented this thing called "wintery mix" (also always in quotes) to describe the sleet we've been getting.  I wonder how much they get paid to think that kind of stuff up?

Its the warmest its been in 5 days, its 14 degrees.  It was supposed to be 35 yesterday, we hit 12 for about an hour and it drop to single digits again.  Supposed to be 30 today, but we are to get another 2-3" Who ordered this winter stuff anyway.

Every time I think about the drone, I remember all the planes I have that I don't fly now.