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Eight years ago on the Pasty Cam: 02/14/99^{Printed on Recycled Internet}

From the PastyCam archives: this photo of downtown Houghton taken eight years ago. It looks much the same today -- snow on the streets and visibility leaving a little to be desired.

Houghton has seen some changes in the past few years, though, including the removal of the roof over one of the streets. As part of a grant to build a parking deck, the city also received money to cover Huron Street, creating a snow-free passage up the hill. Time, ice and pigeons took their toll, however, and the canopy was removed last year. If I had a business on that street, I'd be celebrating -- it is much brighter now.

Mornin'

moorning

In honor of Valentine's Day, we declare a tie in the Early Bird competition this morning.

Good Morning! Happy Valentine's Day, you all!

Tried to be first and then spelt morning wrong. Lot of snow here in Berkley, had to clear the driveway so Precious could get to work, she woke me up to clean her car so I decided to clean the driveway so she could get out. Good decision it was deep. My fault the snow came here, I finally had the snow blower fixed. Since I normally don't get up this early, is it possible to get the second place award today?

Thanks Dean, I really need this award, Precious made it to work and is by herself. Kenny my sil went by with the snow plow, likes these days, overtime for the snow plowers.

Congratulations, Trollperson & Mikie on your Early Birds on Valentine's Day!

We only got about 3-1/2" of snow here in the Middle of the Mitten, and that was all last evening, thanks to lake effect snow, coming straight down the Saginaw Bay. We don't normally get lake effect here. Our snow last night was night not even predicted--it just happened. My son is unhappy that they did not close our schools, but our schools have never been closed simply for snow with that small amount. It's true that we may get blowing & drifting today, though, but we can handle it.

Happy Valenetine's Day everybody! Congrats Mikie!!!

Happy Valentine's Day from Mishawaka, IN.

Schools are closed again today. We got about 8 inches of snow but the blowing and drifting was going on pretty good last night. Doesn't look to be near as windy this morning.These last two days will be made up at the end of the school year.

A little bird told me somebody turns 50 today. Happy Birthday to her.

I'm sure that somebody will tell the pasty world too. Just wanted to tell her to have a good one before I went off to work.

Happy 50th birthday to the best sister!! If anyone sees her today at St. Joseph's church in Lake Linden, make sure to say "Happy Birthday"!!
Love ya Mick!!

What's up with the two cars on the left? Does the car on the left need a jump? I hope it wasn't a fender bender.

Morning one and all,

Probably not, Cindy. It's just the way the parking is for the Houghton Post Office, with the back car already parked and the front car parking in the space beyond it. In the picture though, it looks like an optical illusion fender-bender....

Good morning and Happy Valentine's Day. I thought I was seeing double when I checked out the "What's UP" page and there were 2 early birds. Congratulations to Mikie and Trollperson.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Another UPish day in Illinois. Love all the snow but can't deal with the frigid temperatures!

Think I'll go out and get hubby a big box of chocolates and since he's on a diet, ha, ha, I guess I'll have to eat them for him. Life is good!

Sorry Trollperson, Didn't mean to exclude you in the congrats on the early bird. I was just so surprised to see Mikie with it that I overlooked you. I'm used to seeing you with it. SORRY!!!!!

Sounds like a good plan Joanie.

Good Morning from a cold very snowy Ohio it looks like the UP weather and I would rather it was up there thank you I know you all like this kind of weather. Happy Valentine's Day

WEll...the sun is shining here on Bay DE NOc this Morning! Happy Valentines Day. the old temperature reading -3 degrees here in Fayette! The old hernia operation is taking a lot longer to heal........more than I expected.....way longer. But i can finally sit in a chair...That makes for a great day!

The annual yooper picnic will be March 15th at the Twin Lakes Park in Sarasoata.Fl. Take exit 205 East {Clark Road} off of I-75 and the park is 6/10 mile on the right.Time 11.00am-3.00pm

Paul Rose--Best Wishes for a speedy recovery! I think that they sometimes only give you a minimum time for recovery from surgery beforehand because they are afraid that you will get scared off & not have the surgery if they gave you a more realistic recuperation time. Hang in there!

Ozzie W. - I'd rather be in Sarasota, FL, with your warm temps than here in our deep freeze in Michigan. I can handle maybe a couple of days of this frigid weather, but this is really cold weather for a very long period of time, at least for us. We got about 4 inches of abnormal lake effect snow last night, that no one even forecast. It was 5 here this morning, with a windchill of -10, so it was pretty much like the weather in Houghton. I guess if we had the money, we should be snow birds, spending the spring, summer, & fall in Copper Country, and winter in a nice, warm place, at least as far south as Tennessee.

We live too far north to get a lot of the snow that the southern part of Mich gets, like Mikie's area, amazingly. Mikie, I'm glad that you cleared your driveway & that you cleaned off Precious' car for her, especially since this is Valentine's Day. That was a great husband! And, you are lucky that you're street was plowed out so soon. I seriously doubt that we would be/will be plowed out on our street anytime soon, especially since it's not Monday, the day before our garbage day. :-(

Love the picture of Houghton!

So, the plot thickens here in our town. As I mentioned earlier today, we got just under 4" of snow overnight. The residential streets are, of course not plowed. We have never had a snow day, that I can think of, with less than 5" snow. I believe that we had blowing snow conditions, though. And, the snow is powedery, so it will blow and drift more.

I just read in our daily paper online version, that one our school district's school buses was involved in a crash early this morning (about 7 am) on a major city street, with high school students on it. Another vehicle supposedly ran into the bus (it sounds like it lost control). Apparently the bus was not damaged enough to keep it from being driven back to the bus garage a couple of miles away. There was no mention whether or not there were any injuries. They must have had to transfer the students to another bus. This collision occured on what would be considered a main street, so one would have thought that it would have been adequately plowed & salted? No more details are available at this time. Also, this is not the first school bus accident in that particular place.

It sounds to me like the school district might need to much better coordinate with the city's Dept Public Works, to insure that the streets will be in good enough condition for the school buses, & parents & kids who drive to school to be able to drive to/from school safely!

Any Yooper get togthers happening in AZ or New Mexico....I am heading that way FRIDAY.....for several weeks.great picture!

Yikes Marianne! You would think that the "middle of the mitten" would be prepared for the "S" word. Even here, in the little towns of Coal City and Morris the streets and salting are very well kept up. There is one little catch though, the taxes are high. But still, we rarely get snowfalls that amount to anything and I can honestly say I'm very proud of Grundy County.

Paul, I'm glad you're slowly getting back to your spunky old self. Hope you have a great time in the Southwest!

Well, our town has the equipment and, at least the last time I heard, more than enough road salt, to last for a bad winter. My only guess is that they did not call out the snow plow drivers overnight because they did not anticipate the amount of lake effect snow that we got? That is just a guess, but..

We had much of the snow by early evening. My youngest son had jazz band practice at the high school last night. It was supposed to be over at 9:00 pm, but he called at 8:30 to ask me to pick him up. They had dismissed early because of the really bad roads. I think most of the snow was over by around 10:00 pm. Anyway, it kind of sounds like somebody was asleep at the wheel, or on the job overnight? (The bus crash was at 7:00 am.)

PS Our taxes here are high. The property taxes on our house here were much higher, per $1,000 of property value, than my brother's were on his house when he lived in Pleasanton, CA (suburban San Francisco, east of the bay). That was as of about 7 years ago. I don't have a current comparison.

But,then, I know Cook county taxes are outrageous. Are yours as bad as Cook County, Joanie?

When we first moved here our taxes were $200.00 a year. There was hardly anyone in the Goose Lake area. Now we are paying a little over $3,000.00 a year and they keep going up. I would say Grundy County taxes are a little less than Cook County but, it depends on where in Cook County you live.

Taxes, taxes, taxes, I'm sick, sick, sick of 'em!

Gonna be a Yooper (Joanie) It's no wonder you want to move to the Upper Peninsula! wow they sure are outrageous, money money is all the govt.'s know anymore!

Joanie, do you have anymore of your great Valentine's Day puns? Those would be fun to read.

I hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day!

Lahelo, ain't dat da truth! There's no way that we can retire in Illinois, yuck, we'd be stuck with monthly tax payments on our, ha, ha, paid for property!

Just another reason why the UP is so inviting! If I'm gonna have to pay taxes, it's gonna be in a place that deserves it! Sure hope we can call Ontonagon our home in a few years!

Oh boy Marianne, you're gonna get me in trouble now!

A guy walks into a post office one day to see a middle-aged, balding man standing at the counter methodically placing "Love" stamps on bright pink envelopes with hearts all over them. He then takes out a perfume bottle and starts spraying scent all over them.

His curiosity getting the better of him, he goes up to the balding man and asks him what he is doing. The man says, "I'm sending out one thousand Valentine cards signed, 'Guess who?'"

"But why?" asks the man.

"I'm a divorce lawyer," the man replies.

Guess what the Frenchman gave his wife for Valentine's Day? A hug and a quiche!

Well, hubby, his name is Pooh, don't ask, it's a long story, just came home, saw the box of candy on the counter and said, "Aww Joanie, for Pete's sake, you know I'm on a diet"! I said, "No problemo Pooh, more for me". Immediately, he ripped open the box and started looking for the cream filled chocolates! So much for the diet!
There goes my Valentine's Day candy, sigh!

Hope everyone has a chocolate-filled Valentine's Day. I know "Pooh" will, sigh!

Hi everyone, looks like we all got some snow. We didn't get much but school was cancelled anyway. They were expecting the snow but didn't see a plow all night and I live on Main Street! It was slick this morning but we have all seen worse.

You know, the cheapest way to get roses or other flowers for Valentine's Day, or whatever, is to buy silk (artificial) flowers, instead of real ones. They are cheaper than real ones to begin with, especially for Valentine's Day, and they don't wilt! Some places to go to buy them might be JoAnn's & Michaels, etc.

If you want to hear a couple of funny stories: I bought some blue silk hyacinth last spring, as an experiment. I arranged them in a pot & put them on our mailbox. Several of the neighborhood girls really liked them, and they thought they were real. One girl (high school age) told her mom how pretty they were, & that she wished they could get some. Her mom told her, "Honey, I think they are fake".

And, then there was the time that my youngest son was out watering our annual flowers in the heat of summer. One of the girls (middle school age) came over & wanted to water my the flowers in the pot on the mailbox. Jonny had to tell her that they don't need water, because they are artificial! (Honestly, I think the kids were more interested in running through the sprinklers, but watering my flowers gave them an excuse not to look too dumb for their age?)

I normally wait until the big sales (at least 50% off) are on to buy artificial flowers. I would not put artificial flowers in all of our beds, but, they would be great for the ones that always seem to dry out sooner or turn brown or the sprinklers don't reach, or whatever. And, they don't require deheading! When we finally get to spring this year, I put my same arrangement on the mailbox. And, I will add an arrangements for the shepherd's hook by our front door and the hanging baskets near our outdoor grill.

My neighbor puts out fake flowers too, you don't have to worry about weeds as much and if you don't like where they are they are easy to move. She still gets really annoyed when the boys run through them so they aren't perfect in all applications. They are sometimes scattered all over the yard.

I didn't get to post anything until now and I'm kind of late, but I want to wish Laurie B. (Ratherberiding)'s sister a happy BIG 5 - 0 Birthday too! She's finally joined us on the other side of the hill!!! Happy Birthday Mickey! :->

Brooke, one of our neighbors is a master gardener. He gets mad if our kids run through or even near his beds of real flowers and other plants. I guess it doesn't matter if the flowers are real or fake, if the neighbors are grumpy about kids playing.

I plan to only put fake flowers in pots (hanging on hooks), on the mail box, in hanging baskets, etc, so the kids shouldn't be a problem with them. I still can't believe that one girl thought the ones on the mailbox needed water & tried to water them. That was pretty funny.

Our plants all might get "decorated", though. My youngest son is a 9th grader. Our house, trees, mailbox, & all, have already been thoroughly decorated (TP'd) once. I won't be surprised to see that happen again, more than once.

I have a huge lot and I let the neighbors kids play here. I am to old to worry about how the grass looks, I think it looks nicer with a few kids on it not just perfect like some of the neighbors yards. No weeds, no brown spots, the kids can't hurt the grass.

Hey Mikie, Congratulations AGAIN. You are a 'star' again. Just wondering from here in AZ how much snow do you have now. Mom is here from R.O. and keeps asking what you have there.