Jonas Musings

Snowbound and nothing to do,  Well, not quite as Snowbound as you would be led to believe watching the news, but enough to go off-topic


Some things to ponder:

So here we are the day after Winter Storm Jonas and one can't chuckle at the National Weather Service forecaster who on Friday in the forecast discussion mentioned "...accumulation forecasts are likely to change (most likely downward)".  Bet you they wish they could have taken that one back as the six to ten inches they had in their forecast during Friday turned into twenty-one inches.

Isn't it amazing that civilization has survived after the big storm.  Despite the fact we had twenty one inches of snow, we were only trapped till daybreak.  Wonder if those people who bought enough food for two months are going to donate their excess food to their local food pantry,

Isn't it ironic that one of the most popular food purchases for winter storms turns out to be ice cream?  Really, ice cream when it is in the twenties?  If you really needed a cold treat, all you needed to do was go outside and grab some of the frozen stuff and dig in..

It turns out the blizzard of 2016 was the second highest all-time storms in terms of inches of snow in Central Park, New York.  It missed the all record by one tenth of an inch.  You would have thought the person measuring the snow for the Central Park Conservancy would have fudged the figure to get the all-time record, after all what is one tenth of an inch?  Who would know?  Clearly this person would get eaten alive were they a race horse trainer.

To show you how bad a storm it was consider Yonkers Raceway.  Yonkers is known to cancel racing if there was a threat of a snowflake falling, but for them to shut the casino part of the facility, it must have been bad.

Don't you wish it was the good old days when racetracks had stables on the backstretch?  Then, they could have run the races for their off-track audience and the three hardy people who would have traveled to the track.  Sure, there may have been a few scratches from the shippers, but considering 90% of the money is wagered off-track, what would have been the big deal?


Things to Do:

So if you are like me and you love your harness racing, what are you supposed to do today to play some races in the afternoon?  There is a dearth of tracks which race in the afternoon to begin with and on a Sunday, it is even harder.  Well, it looks like a Fraser Downs day as they start racing at 3:45 in the afternoon (they are in the Pacific time zone) and offer a free program on their website.  Of course, it would be nice if our ADWs would be taking wagering on French and Swedish racing so there would be earlier signals to play today.

Or for kicks, you can place a wager on your friend's horse racing this evening; after all I didn't get the nickname of 'Kiss of Death' for nothing.  Despite her pleadings, I won't wager on all the other horses in the race so hers can get its maiden win (have to hope she doesn't see this).

You can read today's edition of the revived Harness Racing Update and read a Gural hate letter.  Now it seems like old times.

Reading the weekly fines and suspension list is always entertaining when you see someone you know listed on it.  Nothing more fun than asking your friend about the penalty.  Their response often reads like you just saw them come out of a store with an adult movie in their hand.  I advise only kidding them for something minor  When they are suspended for more than ten days, it is probably best to pretend you never saw it.

If you are an American, you can take this lack of daytime harness racing and ponder a Trump Presidency.  Then you can start looking at other countries' immigration policies.  I myself am leaning towards Wales (of course it has to be a country with harness racing of some form).  Of course, being a big harness racing fan you may be surprised I didn't chose a Scandinavian country like Sweden, Norway, or Finland.  In my younger days perhaps, but it's a little too cold for me now.  To my Canadian friends, please take no offense, it's just us Yanks keep forgetting Canada isn't our 51st state (ouch!),  Have to remember the leader of Canada is named Trudeau.  Yep, just like many of the harness horsemen whose last name has a suffix of 'Jr.'.  It is the family business.   I am not taking a public stance in the election, it is just if Sanders became President, there is no need to move to a socialist country.

Lastly, if really bored and haven't already done so, you can upgrade your laptop or PC to Windows 10© only to find out your 'so called' Windows 10© compatible laptop isn't quite so compatible.  Then you get to roll back to your earlier operating system.  This is also a good way to see how good the technical support is for your computer manufacturer.