Local Snowfall Totals...

By local I mean at my house. :P  The snow has shrunk a bit to around 8" of new snow.  However, yesterday morning I would estimate 10-11" of powder had fallen.  Less snow fell down off the hills.

I will write either tonight or tomorrow with some other content that might not be related to snow. :P

-Derek

I need followers...

On the right hand side, a bit down the page, you will find a place to become a follower of my blog. Come on! What do you have to lose? You follow me...I will follow you...if you have a blog. :P

I am going to be riding early tomorrow AM I think. Hit me up if you are in the area. I do not know the sweet spots really...but I would not mind riding with some fellow winter lovers!

-Derek

Winter Storm Warning P3...

Nothing was as bad as it was at the beginning of the storm.  The snow tapered off by 10:30PM or so...and it lightly fell through the night.  We did get around 7-8 inches of new snow.  Not too shabby!  I was hoping for more...but I will take what I can get. ;)

If anyone is riding this weekend...let me know.

Good morning from Northern Michigan!

-Derek

Winter Storm Warning P2...

The snow has started to really fall. The garage is almost invisible 30 feet from the house. Yay for snow! I will try to get the cam up and running for all to see.

-Derek

Winter Storm Warning...

Oh boy!  Here we are...it is February 26th...and we are about to get our worst snow storm of the season.  6+ (estimates range from 9-12" in our area) of snow will fall by tomorrow morning.  On top of that the temperatures tomorrow are going to plummet and the winds are going to go nuts.  Can you say snow day?  I have only had one unexpected day off at work in over four years.  Maybe one more might not hurt? :P  

So looking at the NWS radar the precipitation is starting to work its way into Emmet County.  It looks to be falling pretty good just beyond Traverse City...and heading NE.  That means it is headed right toward us.  It is supposed to continue snowing through early morning.

I will keep posting as things progress. :)

-Derek

Powder, Drifts, Sled...

The title may be misleading...as it could be read in a bad way. :P  Many people have bad experiences with powder, drifts, and their sleds.  My experience was incredible.  I got the sled out this morning to take a spin around the woods.  What I found was nearly a foot of brand new FRESH powder from the snow storms over the last couple days.  It was sweet.

I started off in the woods behind our house.  We have all sorts of roads through the woods...and a nice field to play in.  I spent about an hour blazing new trails, jumping, and carving the new snow.  A foot of snow is not much for carving...but it was close enough for me. ;)  The jump has slowly been created by a plow that runs into the field.  The snow bank has gradually gotten taller and finally got tall enough today to hit and get some air.  Again not much, but close enough for me.  I then took to the trails and met a few people along the way.  I decided that I did not want to trail ride since there were so many people.  I headed home and watched some TV.  Sounds good right?  Well, there is more.

A few minutes after I got home, a buddy from work called.  We decided to meet up at the Pleasantview Township hall and head out from there.  We headed up toward Pellston on trails that were nothing but powder.  I think they groomed the trails...but not late enough in the night last night.  It was awesome riding though.  We got to Pellston and shot North to Mackinaw.  The rail road grade was in EXCELLENT condition.  No bumps, no dirt, just snow.  We stopped for a bite at the Key Hole Bar and continued our journey.  Our next destination was out in Levering.  We jumped off the trail onto the roads.  It was all sorts of fun...the drifts were coming across the road.  Busting through those was a bit tough on the body...but well worth it.  That was pretty much the trip...we took the trails back home from our destination and called it a night.  I went my way and he went his...both of us had about a 10 minute drive home.  

All said and done we had about 4 hours of riding and 110 or so miles in.  Not bad for a last minute ride! :P

The weather looks to cooperate temperature wise this week.  Not much in the way of snowfall....but the temps should stay cool enough to keep the new snow we received.  Good news for those of us who like late season riding. ;)

Enough for now...Goodnight from Northern Michigan!

No pictures by the way...we never stopped long enough to take any. :P  I WILL get some posted though.

-Derek

Winter Storm Warning...

It has been snowing all day long.  We got about 5 inches of snow by around 6:00 PM...and so far we have got nearly that same amount.  Let it keep falling!  I missed out on riding all day...but hopefully tomorrow there will be some good riding to be had.  It should be VERY good in fact. :P  We are supposed to get 5 to 10 inches of snow overnight...with the possibility of LES starting to fall as well.

I will have pictures of the new snowfall tomorrow...and hopefully some riding pictures as well.

Goodnight from Northern Michigan!

-Derek

I Hate Yahoo...

Yahoo has replaced Launch with the pay service Rhapsody. I now hate Yahoo and all that they stand for.

-Derek

Winter Storm Heading Our Way?

From what it sounds like...yes. I predict we will not see anything nearly as bad as what the weather guys are predicting. However, I REALLY hope I am wrong. I would love to get some good snow for riding this weekend. We still have a bunch of it up around the house...but down off the hills there is a LOT of grass.

Our Winter Storm Watch has been lowered to an Advisory already...so it looks like my predictions are already coming true. ;)

We went around and looked at a couple more houses today...just from the outside. My realtor was not with me...but we checked a couple out and liked what we saw at a couple spots. Unfortunately, none of them had much land. There is one that is across from a nature preserve with lots of trails and access to a lake. I dig that one...it looks like it has been completely remodeled inside. Now I just need to figure out how to pay for it. ;) That is in the works though.

I am about done for the night...I have to get a fire going. :(

Goodnight from Northern Michigan!

-Derek

A Suprising Ride!

We did not make it out on Saturday...but we sure did today!  It was a very suprising ride too.  The trails were VERY nice!  They were a bit icy in spots but there was plenty of snow to keep the heat exchanges snowed up.  We rode from Alanson toward Harbor, to Pellston, and then finally wound up in Mackinaw.  We followed the same trail back...only passed three people the entire time.  We ended up in the back woods and I had my first stuck of the year...and on the new sled.  (I chose not to get rid of it after all.)  It was not bad...but it took some work to get it out of the hole.  

We were going to go again tonight but it ended up getting too late.  I was going to try to take some video tonight...but no such luck.  Nor did I take pictures this afternoon.  I could not believe I forgot the camera!

Anyway, there looks to be a pretty good chance of snow throughout the entire week, less Monday.  If that is the case...next weekend will be full of riding.  Let me know if you are up for a ride around here. :)  I am looking to make it over toward Petoskey one more time.  I might have to throw it in the truck...but I will travel a little bit. :P  Temps look to stay at or below freezing.  Mid to high 20s are in the works through next Sunday.  I love it!  I just hope we actually DO get snow on top of the cold.

I apologize for not having much exciting to talk about lately...this house stuff has been bugging the crap out of me.  Finding the "perfect" house is almost impossible...and getting the financing portion of it figured out is even worse.  I spoke with a buddy in the mortgage business...and my situation is slightly off.  The wife is going to finish up school in the next year or so...it is just going to take quite a bit of cash for her to do everything she needs to do.  Hopefully that will not cause issues either.  If you have a newer house for sale...let me know. ;)  Preferably some land too!

Time for me to go to bed...Goodnight from Northern Michigan!

-Derek 

A Ride Today...

It may only be 7:00 AM...but I do plan on riding today.  We did Valentine's Day yesterday...so I should pretty much be in the clear.  I am going to do an early scout of the trails to see if there is any snow left around Alanson.  I want to run down there and fill up before we get rolling through the two tracks today.  By we, I mean my dad and myself.  I always take pictures when I ride with him...so I should have some to share.  There is a LOT of crunchy snow out there...I hate riding through it because of the scratches it inflicts on sleds.  I am hoping that the inch or two of new snow that we have received over the 48 hours will atleast cushion that.  Maybe the sleds will ride on top of the snow?  That is an interesting thought too.  

I have been sick all week long...so it is a good thing the riding has been no good.  I am not sure what I have really...nose congestion and that is about it.  I was thinking sinus infection...but I do not have any of the symptoms except clumping mucus in my nose.  (That is gross...sorry.)  

Man, there is absolutely nothing on TV at this time of the day.  I used to get up early to watch cartoons on Saturday...whatever happened to Saturday morning cartoons?  Thank god for Cartoon Network West I guess...Clerks cartoon is on.  

I feel like I am wasting your time...so I am going to end this post until I have something useful to talk about. :P

Good morning from Northern Michigan!

-Derek

Warm?!?!?

Boy did it get warm out today! The temperatures around 12:45 PM were sitting around 50 degrees in the shade. The snow that was in direct sunlight took a serious beating today. Where there was feet of snow the other day...there is bare ground. Luckily the areas in the woods did not get hit as bad. We stayed dry today which helped save some of the snow. Unfortunately, tomorrow we are going to see some fairly heavy rain. Kiss most of the low elevation snowmobile trails goodbye...possibly for the season. The higher elevations are faring much better...but will still be fairly miserable.

I need to get more active. I have no done anything all winter! I have not walked in the woods...I have not snowshoed...I literally have done nothing outdoors. It has been so dang cold through the end of December through January that it was uncomfortable to do anything that was not in a nice warm house. I guess I should try harder for the rest of the winter to get outside and do stuff.

Not much new right now...I will try to get some additional posts in tomorrow. I will be looking at houses in the afternoon...so look for them later in the night. :)

Goodnight from Northern Michigan!

-Derek

Cam Is Down...

I have been working on PCs lately and the PC that runs the Outdoorsmi cam is offline.  Please stay tuned for updates on its return.  I will keep it running through all four seasons once I get it back up and running reliably...and with a new camera.  Hopefully wireless so I can move it once in a while!

-Derek

So Far We Are Safe...

The rain that everyone was calling for never happened.  It DID get quite mild out though.  Yesterday was supposed to be the big day for rain...we stayed dry but we ended up in the mid-40s.  Too warm for February!  Today we did not make it over freezing at the house and we spared the snow another day.  Unfortunately, things are going to take a turn downhill this week.  Monday through Wednesday looks to be warmer than normal and to top it all off...rainy.  Doh!

I have not been out riding since last weekend.  I have been focused on finding homes to buy. :P  It is not really a top priority for me...but it is important that I take the right steps.  We found one today that was promising...but it would need a lot of work to make it "ours".  It sits on 14 acres though...that is nice.  It is the cheapest we have looked at too.  NO firewood either!  *cackle*  I would really dig that.  

Anyway...my blog is not here to talk about buying homes.  I just like to give everyone updates on what I have been up to since I have not been posting as much.  We have had no new snow for a couple weeks...no exciting rides...and no new pictures.  I still have to get my showshoes out too.  It has been a pretty lazy winter this year!  I have been putting a bit more priority into my work too...I felt that I was getting a bit lazy there...and that is certainly not the place to be lazy.  

I will try a bit harder to get content that is geared toward my topics shortly.

Goodnight from Northern Michigan!

-Derek

Discounts On Products...

I feel that you should get some reward for coming to my blog...aside from getting to read what I talk about. :P  I joined a network that offers you discounts for a couple vendors that I have chosen that offer products that pertain to this blog and my interests.  You will see them slowly popping up.  I try to place anything in the right hand column so that it does not interrupt your reading.  I do have a Google ad box in between my posts just to space my posts apart a little bit so that they are easier to read.

So every once in a while I will be changing the vendors and changing the offers.  I have complete control and will only offer vendors that I feel can offer you a quality product.  We have a local Dunham's store that I frequent.  MC Sports did not approve my blog so I chose Dunham's.  I buy all of my ammo and shoes at Dunham's.  I have not yet purchased anything from MilitaryClothing.com but will soon...I browsed their website and they offer approved military clothing.  Check them out.  If you buy something let me know.  

Please know that I did not put these ads on here to make money.  I wanted to give you another reason to come back! :)  The Google ads do a good job targeting websites that you may be interested in...but these new ads will offer you something for visiting.  I hope you find them worthwhile!

Thanks for visiting,

Derek

Please note...

I just googled "outdoorsmi" and discovered that there is another person using this ID for a couple other websites such as YouTube.  Please know that I am not in any way affiliated with that person or the content on their website, statements made on their social networking sites, etc.  You can always verify that you are at MY blog by ensuring you are at http://outdoorsmi.blogspot.com and you can ensure you are visiting my links by only clicking on them through my blog.  

I just thought I would pass that along in case anyone else has noticed that.

Thanks,

Derek

Rain...

Yup.  February 7th and it is raining.  So far today the snow has compacted down to about 27 inches on the ground.  The snowmobile trails are going to be HORRIBLE after today unless we get some snow.  There was already a number of spots that really needed some help from Mother Nature...and she is having no mercy.  From what it looks like...chances of rain linger throughout the next WEEK or so.  It is not going to be like a couple years ago (yet) where we have 70 degree days in February...but a longer stretch of temps in the high 40s with rain nearly every day does NOT help the chances that this will be a snowmobiling season to remember.   John Dee was a bit optimistic with his forecast graphics...I think he needs to push the thaw line further north and include some rain up into the UP this weekend.  It is only the 7th...so we have plenty of time to get cold again.  The question is, will we get more meaningful snows?  That is a tough question to answer this late in the game.  We have not had one BIG snowstorm this year.  So maybe we are about due?  I will be crossing my fingers.  I am not even going to discuss what the temps look like...it just depresses me.  It is going to suck all week though.  Check out weather.gov if you really want to know.

Today we are going out house hunting again.  The house we had found that we REALLY like...fell off the market a couple days after we saw it.  That bugged me a bit since it was such a perfect house in regards to what we were looking for.  Ahh well.  Another will come along.  I am not really optimistic about today though.  A bunch of the houses I found and sent to our realtor were already pending sales.  Dang!  I must have a talent for picking out what people want.  There are so many good deals out there right now...you are crazy if you do not act on them.  There is a 15,000 dollar tax credit coming your way to boot!  If you buy a house in 2009 you can claim in on your 2008 tax return...or I imagine next year you will be able to claim it on your 09 return.  So you instantly have 15,000 dollars to spend on a home...plus whatever other money you can come up with.  Too bad I did not know about this before...I would have put in an offer on that house a while ago. :P  I am still not sure what motivated us to move into our own house.  We tried that before in a rental and hated it.  I am thinking because we could not truly make it OUR house.  That is probably what we are feeling right now in this house.  We have some stuff here but we cannot paint, change floors, change rooms, etc.  We are bound by the ideals of what someone else wants this house to be.  It has been a VERY good thing that we have been able to stay here...but we have not actually lived here.  We are staying with the intent to leave...and we have lived that way for nearly five years.  

Wish me luck on our ventures today!  If I am your new neighbor...I will surely introduce myself. :P

Goodmorning from Northern Michigan!

-Derek

Gotta Love Disk Recovery...

I am still working on my co-worker's PC.  It threw fits all night last night (until about 12AM) and then all afternoon.  I have been trying a couple different utilities to get the data into a restorable state.  I bought a software that gave me more optimism.  I used a program from Active@ called Partion Recovery.  It was able to see the partition and I was able to see all of the files I need to restore before I wipe the drive and start over.  Yay!  The only problem was I had a demo.  So I had to buy it.  Doh!  Not a bad price...$39.95.  I should make atleast that for fixing the computer.  The utility may also come in very handy in the future...so I was fine with buying it.  It allows you to restore an entire partition to a drive letter and make it bootable.  Wow!  Unfortunately, there are too many partitions on the drive for it to work.  I went back to the old stand by Get Data Back and is finding the files.  I do not know why it did not find them before...but it works now.  I am excited about that.

PC should be delivered this evening I would imagine.  

I am going to get into the data recovery business I think. :P  It easy with these programs!  People pay hundreds if not thousands for data recovery...they could just do it themselves.  Obviously if the disk has physical damage it might be better to send it off...but for rogue partitions, fdisk, and format...this sure seems to be the way to go.

-Derek

A Night Working...

It kind of pains me...but I am working tonight. Not at the office...but at home...on a co-workers computer. I like doing the side work because it keeps me sharp. I do not get the experience at work...so this is not such a bad thing. It is just unfortunate that I cannot work on it AT work.

The PC in question has a big problem. There was malware installed and upon running a (free) anti-virus software (I do not recommend that) and Spybot S&D (I do recommend that). The problem is one of those programs (I am betting the AV software) caused Windows to hose. When I got the computer it would start to load Windows and then blue screen when Windows tried to start. I messed around with it for a few more minutes...and then it would not load at all. I do not know if it was part of the malware turned virus...or if it was just from the restarting improperly a couple times. So now I am running a great software to try to recover the data on the drive from the PC. I snagged an extra drive from work and I am using that to store anything that I can get back. Hopefully I can "Get Data Back" tonight and have the PC back to my co-worker tomorrow afternoon. :)

It sounds like COLD again for the next day or two. Then going into Friday we are going to see some crappy warm weather move in...with potential for some rain on Saturday with a high of 38 degrees!!! That is not February weather! Hopefully this will be our last thaw until spring arrives. I still have a bit of riding to do. We still have a lot of snow to ride on too! We are approaching 36" on the ground finally. Not nearly what we used to get...but altogether I would guess that we are above average as far as snowfall goes. I did not keep a running tally this year. I have been too busy worrying about houses and sleds. :P

If anyone knows of a nice home that needs a good couple to buy it...I would like to see it. I had found our home...and I was working on financing and someone bought it. Doh! I apologize if I have mentioned that before...it just bugs me a bit. I guess I really could not have afforded it right now anyway...but I never expected it to go after only 19 days on the market. Good ol' foreclosures!

If anyone would like to ride...let me know. I might break out the VMAX tomorrow and get some gas run through it. I may also put it in the garage for the rest of the winter. I feel bad letting it sit out in the snow. If I put it in the garage I might try to fix it. ;) If anyone would like to buy it I am asking $800 for it. It overheats after an hour or so of riding...I think it has something to do with it being geared down to a 500...and possibly a bad sensor. I had the coolant system pressure tested and all was good. I just need to get rid of her so she does not sit around and go bad. :(

That is it for me tonight!

Goodnight from Northern Michigan!

-Derek

Are you watching the Super Bowl?

I am not.  Not because I am a rebel...not because I have other things to do...I just do not care to watch it tonight.  Instead we are watching America's Funniest Home Videos.  We will be making nachos and chilling.  I do have a computer project to work on...that might happen tonight or tomorrow night.  

I went for a ride this morning and into the afternoon.  It was a long one.  Just over 100 miles.  It was incredibly windy and the trails were getting drifted over.  The trail specifically from Cheboygan toward Indian River was bad.  I blazed the trail for our group...and I am VERY sore.  I will write more on that in another post...for tonight though...the rest of the night will be spent with my lovely wife. :)

Goodnight from Northern Michigan!

-Derek

The Sled Is Off The Market...

Sled is no longer for sale.