Another Snowpacalypse.

Another day, another major snowstorm. This one was even bigger than the last, about 2.5 feet here in Bethesda, MD. In my mind, this tops the snow of 1979, in part because the quantity is similar and in part because I lost power for 35 hours.

At 5:15am on Saturday morning I was working on the computer and I see a bright flash of light out the windows. With that, the power goes out. There were two more flashes in the next minute or so. The snow kept coming and the power stayed out all day.

Late on Saturday, when the snow stopped I pulled out the generator and wired it into the furnace so we had a little bit of heat. I didn't run it overnight so it was 50 degrees when we woke up. I also had a tree fall across my driveway and I only have an electric chainsaw. Again, the generator came in handy and I cleared it Sunday morning. We finally got plowed and power back on around 4pm Sunday. Some people in the neighborhood have gas fireplace inserts and although they didn't really keep the house warm, they did keep it from getting too cold. People totally without heat woke up Sunday morning to indoor temperatures in the low 40s and it kept cooling down throughout the day.

Monday Morning around 9am Woodmont Avenue and Old Georgetown Road: I took a walk to Caribou Coffee but it wasn't opening until 9:30. The bus on the left was stuck and had been for a while. You can see a brown UPS truck in the distance trying to make a left turn. It took him a couple minutes and lots of wheel spinning to make it.

Streets in Bethesda, MD are a mixed bag. Most of Old Georgetown Road was good except between MD-355 and Arlington Road. That is the snow-covered mess you see here. Wisconsin Ave has snow and slush on it but is drivable. Some sidewalks are cleared but many are not.

I also went to the Safeway to see what they had. It was surprisingly well stocked. Brand selection was limited for some popular items but they didn't seem to be out of much. There was plenty of milk, bread, and meat (but not much chicken). They were busy re-stocking shelves while I was there.

Here's a story that Channel 9 did on one Bethesda neighborhood. They were plowed and had the power back on a few hours later, I don't think it was a coincidence.

The perfect snow?

We got around 4 inches here in Bethesda, MD and I think this might have been a perfect snow. It was right around freezing so it was easy to keep the roads clear, it stuck to the tree branches and made the morning beautiful.

By late morning the sun came out, the sky turned blue and it warmed up.


This weekend we are going to get another storm, and it has the potential to be a big one, perhaps a foot or more. As the week progresses we will know more. Don't wait until Friday to do your grocery shopping, clean out the stores now!

Another incident at Bethesda Metro Station

Metro rail incidents are happening with alarming regularity. This morning something happened at Bethesda Metro station and they closed it and called in the fire department. Their alerts were somewhat unhelpful "Red Line - Disruption at Bethesda in both directions. Trains sharing same track btwn Medical Center & Friendship Hts. Due to a track problem outside Bethesda. Delays in both directions." According to a fireman at the scene, there was some problem on the tracks between Bethesda and one of the other stations. He wasn't sure what the issue was.

Apparently, it wasn't too serious because the equipment has already cleared the scene.

Cordell Ave and Woodmont Ave For Lease

A little over a year ago, there was a bank standing here, they tore it down, dug a new foundation and put up this building. It has retail and office space for lease now, It doesn't look like they have tenants lined up yet though. Originally this was planned to be finished last Fall, they missed that date by a couple of months, but still, they made pretty quick work of the job. This is how the building looks on the Cordell Avenue side, you can see the yellow awning of the "Harp and Fiddle" in the background.


On Woodmont Avenue they have painted an interesting mural along the side. I'd prefer that it were actually at street level instead of raised up 5 feet but I suspect they couldn't have street level entrances on both Woodmont and Cordell.

have posted about this site several times, you can follow along.

A little bit of snow

I wasn't expecting much from this snow, originally, they forecast 1 or 2 inches here in Bethesda, MD, nothing big. On Friday night, they raised the forecast a bit. Saturday was great, it snowed all day. I was out driving in the morning and it was a little bit slick but not too bad. In the end, we got 4 or 5 inches, just the right amount.

Since it was so cold leading up to the snow (and during it) the snow was very dry. On Sunday a bit of sun made it almost packable. I was able to make a very small snowman with sticks for arms, but no matter how much I rolled, the snowballs didn't get any bigger.

Possible Ride-On service reductions and fare increases

To help close a 680 million dollar budget shortfall Montgomery County, MD is considering reducing service on or totally eliminating some bus routes with the fewest riders or where alternative service is available. They also are considering raising fares by up to 20 cents.

There will be a public forum on Monday, February 1st at 6:30pm to get comments from the public on the service reductions only. This meeting will be at the Executive Office Building Cafeteria, Terrace Level, located at 101 Monroe Street, Rockville, MD.

There is also a public hearing on the proposed Ride On bus fare increase on Tuesday, February 4 at 7:30 pm in the 3rd Floor Hearing Room of the Council Office Building, 100 Maryland Avenue, Rockville, MD. You can also email comments on the fare changes to county.council@montgomerycountymd.gov

Pennies and Nickels

Pennies used to be made out of 95% copper and 5% zinc. Until 1982 that is. After that, they were made with 97.5% zinc and a copper coating. Why the change? cost cutting. Inflation made copper too expensive and zinc is much cheaper. Today, a pre-1982 penny has over 2 cents worth of copper in it. It is currently illegal to melt them down so there isn't much you can do with it. Some people do collect them and you can find them for sale on E-Bay as well as other places on the web. There have been times in the past where they have, for short periods, changed the composition, like in WWII when they made them out of steel. Zinc pennies only have about two thirds of a cent worth of metal in them.

There has been off and on talk about either making the penny out of a different, cheaper metal (like steel), or eliminating it altogether. How likely is it? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them change the composition. I expect them to make pennies for a long time to come though. Probably people will stop using them by choice long before the mint stops making them, similar to what happened to the half-dollar. I have been to a number of stores that didn't give pennies as change, they just round up the amount the give back to the nearest nickel.

The U.S. nickel has never been pure nickel, it has always been 75% copper and 25% nickel, an alloy called cupro-nickel. For a few years in WWII there (1942-1945) they made some nickels with 35% silver. They currently have right around five cents worth of metal in them. A nickel weighs 5 grams and been has ever since it was first made in 1866. The introduction of the 5 gram nickel was shortly before the Metric Act of 1866 made the metric system legal in the United States. Canadian nickels used to be pure nickel, then they changed them to cupro-nickel, and now, they are plated steel.

The building is taking shape

There has been a construction project going on Woodmont Ave between Hampden Lane and Elm Street in Bethesda, MD for most of last year. They tore down the old Ritz Camera building (Ritz Camera moved half a block down Woodmont Ave), dug a big hole, and now have put in the steel structure of the new building. I heard it would be four stories but it is three right now and doesn't look like they are adding another, I guess we will know soon enough.


Also of note, they have a long-term lane closure on Woodmont Avenue so they have more space to work on the site.

You can see the full coverage about this construction project.

Why dimes are so small

Ever wonder why dimes are so small and half-dollars are so big? The United States used to be on a silver standard (and some of the time a gold and silver dual metal standard). Most coins were made out of 90% silver (pure silver is too soft and wears down quickly) and dollars were backed by silver. You could turn them in and get silver back. Since a quarter has 2.5 times the value of a dime, it had to contain 2.5 times as much silver. A 50 cent piece had 5 times the silver of a dime and a dollar coin (the old, big ones) had 10 times as much. Pennies and nickels didn't have any silver in them so weren't constrained the same way (well, the nickel did for a few years in WWII) I'll cover them in a later post.

Since money was based on silver and gold, the government couldn't print money whenever it wanted, it first had to get silver or gold to back it. This was both good and bad. It was good in that you didn't have much inflation, the money supply couldn't increase faster than gold and silver were mined. During times of war, the government did go off the gold/silver standard and print extra money and there was inflation then, and a couple of times the government re-valued the dollar to be worth less gold or silver which caused inflation. It was bad in some ways too. As the country grew, more money was needed for day to day transactions. When the need for money was growing faster than gold and silver were being mined, there was a shortage of money which resulted in deflation (the cost of things going down). Also, in times of recession or depression, the government couldn't prop up the economy by printing money like it is doing today (some people see this as a good thing, others think it is a bad thing, time will tell who is right).

Suburban Hospital gets a new logo

If you have gone down Old Georgetown Road recently, you may have looked up as you went by Suburban Hospital. And if you did look up, you may have noticed something was different. And, about the only thing that has changed recently is the logo, so that is probably what you noticed. If, however, you travels in Bethesda, MD don't take you down Old Georgetown Rd, then you probably don't know the logo has changed, or what the new logo looks like. In either case, the old logo is probably growing dim in your mind.

This logo is the same as the logo of Johns Hopkins medicine, which isn't a coincidence, Suburban Hospital is run by Hopkins medicine.


I searched my vast personal archive of photos and the best old-logo shot I had was a somewhat washed out camera phone picture taken in April of last year. Fixing the washed-outed-ness gave the bricks an darker than reality color, but made the logo look nice. As a backup, I searched for suburban hospital in the fickr bethesda pool, but it just said:

We couldn't find anything matching your search. Would you like to try a search about abandoned, baby, decay, asylum or urban instead?

Disturbing, isn't it.