I used to live next to a place where they dumped snow in winter, coming from a big part of town I think, so there really was a lot of snow. The pile didn’t melt all summer, but of course it was black by then, because of all the dirt mixed in. 🙁
This strip was probably written in February or March, and judging by the tense the alt-text probably was as well. I wonder how long that snow mound actually lasted.
Back in 2015, when we had back-to-back-to-back blizzards for half the winter, Boston had a snow farm like that in a big parking lot in the seaport. It took until July 14th to completely melt away..
Back when ‘Mighty Machines‘ was being produced, Montreal had a snow dumping area which was undercut by rushing water (presumably from the St. Lawrence) that would flush the snow away. The snow would be collected up by truck and brought to the dumping sluice.
There was a rather ridiculous amount of snow one year in the prior decade; I’m forgetting which. My employer had excellent work-from-home capability for administrative staff even before SARS2/Covid, and the building I worked out of when I actually went into work was 99% administrative staff, with the 1% being janitorial and cafeteria staff. The building had three parking lots. One small lot for visitors, two large lots for employees.
We rented the employee lots to the city. They made piles like this in them, and then made most of us work from home until they melted enough. It *seemed* like that would take years, but everyone who typically went into the office was back to going into the office by June and they finished melting in late July.
You can’t fool us with all this talk of this mythical snow substance. If it was frozen water, it would be like ice-cubes, and then how would it get up in the sky?
Wouldn’t packing tape have a lower friction coefficient? But if the hill is steep enough probably it wouldn’t matter. And of course the most important metric would be the coefficient of fun had, especially since as Cfh goes to infinity all other terms disappear.
Oh, trust me, it’s for real all right. All those street-level parking lots, walkways, access roads, and what-have-you, they’ve got to be cleared — and what Mother Nature dumped has got to be taken somewhere.
I was little in Ottawa, Canada, and the snowplow would come down our street and none of the adults liked having the resulting snow ridges blocking them into their driveways, but all that snow did have to go somewhere. My dad talked to the snowplow guy, and every year, instead of blocking all the driveways, we got to have ALL the snow just on our blank front yard, it was the BEST.
My brothers and I named it Mt. Tanenbaum, and we weren’t supposed to dig tunnels through it or play on the streetwards side of the snow-mountain, but we totally did anyway. ❄
I agree! My mom was anxious that the tunnel would collapse and bury us. Or that we’d tunnel right into the street and a car would hit us, since they probably weren’t looking for tiny snowsuited children popping out of a mountain. But it turned out OK.
They spelled it neighbour, but yes. 🇨🇦
In the spring, he and I also helped spread the lovely red poppies that grew in a field nearby. Each year we’d feel so happy as the poppies got more numerous. We didn’t learn until years later that we were both doing it — plus everyone who specifically mowed around the poppies so they could keep growing. We were all working together, and never even knew.
Yep, snow piles are a very real thing and there’s always college students, teenagers or children (depending on location) climbing them. They mostly live in parking lots or the yards of non-residential areas like schools.
The dog is fine. Crazy Ted deposited the family in Cancun and headed back. Personally I would have been fine if he had stayed there. Preferably permanently.
As it happens, neither my electricity nor water was cut off, but if it had been and I had the option of transferring to Cancun for the duration, I would have been all over it. Of all the things I blame Crazy Ted for, Cancun doesn’t even make the bottom of the list.
My sympathy to you all, not that it’ll take up a lot of space in the truckloads of thoughts and prayers. We’re in no position to throw stones here in Canuck-land.
Has there been an easier background? (or at least easier on the same scale?) Wouldn’t there’ve been plenty of blank wall panels behind various close-ups?
It’s not unusual, at least on our local campus, to see people with metal detectors in the spring of the year going over the area where the snow was dumped to see what else (rings, bracelets, coins, etc) also got scooped up and hauled off.
It’s still in the top 10 greatest things when you are.18-21 at university. It’s the time of life where you get to rediscover being a kid since most people won’t judge you and your parents can’t tell you no.
OK, I went to college for a year in Potsdam, NY, where they held the Winter Olympics one year. I never saw one of these huge snow piles. Now I’m feeling like I really, really got cheated.
Perhaps it was a different way of handling snow – haul it away rather than just push it up in little mini-ridges everywhere. Things may have changed since 1986. Even though Billy Joel says nothing can be new since then (and yes, I’m dating myself again).
I think it was a Zenith. Basically a clone of the IBM PC XT. Two floppy drives, no hard drive, 8 (or 10?) MHz CPU.
I was in the Clarkson School, in one of those houses across the bridge from the main campus. The house was so old you could go into the basement and see the tree trunks (with bark still on) holding up the first floor.
And so poorly insulated and poorly heated that you could leave a glass of water on your windowsill and it would freeze overnight. A couple of days it was so cold first thing in the morning that the floppy drives didn’t work right. Good times.
I heard they tore down that house just a year or two after I went there.
Now I feel like I should have taken a picture of the snow mountain my town created last weeks where for several weeks they dumped 700 trucks of snow a day. Well, I do have a picture of it from two weeks ago but it looks less impressive now.
I live 63° north, we didn’t used to get glaciers here. . .
When I was a kid, they plowed giant snow piles like that in the parking lot near where my dad worked, and we used to climb them and play in them for fun on weekends during the winter.
Huh, now I’m wondering if the UK just doesn’t get that much snow, even up here in the Highlands, so our ploughs can get away with just shoving it to the side of the road, or if I just don’t know where our snow mountain is.
Given the current climate, we really just don’t get enough that it’s much of a problem outside of a coupla cold snaps a year. Scotland probably gets some more, but Wales is DEFINITELY running dry for proper snow.
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and it won’t melt until June
–of some year in the 2030s.
Wonder how many crazy things will happen before then….
Lots of them, and you can take that to the bank. At least until the bank melts.
I used to live next to a place where they dumped snow in winter, coming from a big part of town I think, so there really was a lot of snow. The pile didn’t melt all summer, but of course it was black by then, because of all the dirt mixed in. 🙁
This strip was probably written in February or March, and judging by the tense the alt-text probably was as well. I wonder how long that snow mound actually lasted.
Back in 2015, when we had back-to-back-to-back blizzards for half the winter, Boston had a snow farm like that in a big parking lot in the seaport. It took until July 14th to completely melt away..
Back when ‘Mighty Machines‘ was being produced, Montreal had a snow dumping area which was undercut by rushing water (presumably from the St. Lawrence) that would flush the snow away. The snow would be collected up by truck and brought to the dumping sluice.
i remember finding dirt encrusted snow/ice on the 4th of July after big snowy winters.
There was a rather ridiculous amount of snow one year in the prior decade; I’m forgetting which. My employer had excellent work-from-home capability for administrative staff even before SARS2/Covid, and the building I worked out of when I actually went into work was 99% administrative staff, with the 1% being janitorial and cafeteria staff. The building had three parking lots. One small lot for visitors, two large lots for employees.
We rented the employee lots to the city. They made piles like this in them, and then made most of us work from home until they melted enough. It *seemed* like that would take years, but everyone who typically went into the office was back to going into the office by June and they finished melting in late July.
Been There done that, anywhere North of Indy
Same, except in upstate New York.
You can’t fool us with all this talk of this mythical snow substance. If it was frozen water, it would be like ice-cubes, and then how would it get up in the sky?
The IU Engineering school has been building trebuchets for charity. ’nuff said.
Snowball fight!
Which reminds me, my local college built a watermelon cannon.
If they froze them first, you could have had flurries of snowmelons.
I do believe they are called Winter Melons, unless I’m mistaken. From what I’ve heard, they make for excellent zombie defense.
Same except Northwest Ohio. Go Falcons!
Ahhhhh, the giant snow piles. The only thing missing is people climbing it.
Next to a college campus and no-one climbing it. Sounds pretty sus to me.
They need to steal lunch trays from the cafeteria to use as sleds.
I covered the bottom of a pizza box in duct tape one year. It worked surprisingly well until the cardboard got soggy.
Wouldn’t packing tape have a lower friction coefficient? But if the hill is steep enough probably it wouldn’t matter. And of course the most important metric would be the coefficient of fun had, especially since as Cfh goes to infinity all other terms disappear.
It was kind of like sledding on a shovel or an inner tube. You went where the snow took you. (And some of the ruts weaved around a lot!)
Or tunneling through it.
Nah, Sal’s just reached the edge of the world where the Other Mother ran out of ideas.
Thanks to you, I’ll have to watch and read Coraline again.
You’re very welcome.
*plays “Frozen City Theme” by Jukio Kallio on Voxola PR-76*
Wait, is that a real thing?
(Southern, not familiar with this “snow” of which you speak).
Oh, trust me, it’s for real all right. All those street-level parking lots, walkways, access roads, and what-have-you, they’ve got to be cleared — and what Mother Nature dumped has got to be taken somewhere.
You get some very large, temporary mountains here and there.
I was little in Ottawa, Canada, and the snowplow would come down our street and none of the adults liked having the resulting snow ridges blocking them into their driveways, but all that snow did have to go somewhere. My dad talked to the snowplow guy, and every year, instead of blocking all the driveways, we got to have ALL the snow just on our blank front yard, it was the BEST.
My brothers and I named it Mt. Tanenbaum, and we weren’t supposed to dig tunnels through it or play on the streetwards side of the snow-mountain, but we totally did anyway. ❄
Tunneling is the whole point! 🙂
I agree! My mom was anxious that the tunnel would collapse and bury us. Or that we’d tunnel right into the street and a car would hit us, since they probably weren’t looking for tiny snowsuited children popping out of a mountain. But it turned out OK.
Your dad is a good neighbor
They spelled it neighbour, but yes. 🇨🇦
In the spring, he and I also helped spread the lovely red poppies that grew in a field nearby. Each year we’d feel so happy as the poppies got more numerous. We didn’t learn until years later that we were both doing it — plus everyone who specifically mowed around the poppies so they could keep growing. We were all working together, and never even knew.
From the midwest. Yeah.
Also from the Midwest, can confirm we have giant piles of snow in parking lots during the winter.
Also from the Midwest but must point out that DoA Bloomington has gotten way more snow than IRL Bloomington gets in an average decade.
Yep, snow piles are a very real thing and there’s always college students, teenagers or children (depending on location) climbing them. They mostly live in parking lots or the yards of non-residential areas like schools.
Cue:
Bicycle race by Queen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GugsCdLHm-Q
Ahh, a clever ploy to avoid drawing more background. I respect it.
So THAT’S what he’s up to. He had me fooled. What a clever snow job.
Slow (envious) clap. Well done.
Clapping is too much effort but I’m right there with the envy.
She’s going to pass John Oliver in his endless blank void soon. (Or maybe find her way to Muncie and the blank dimension Garfield inhabits.)
Ah yes, the endless void of existence without meaning that is the truth behind Garfield minus Garfield
I was just thinking that last panel must have been EASY to draw…
That blank panel is wandering dangerously close to 9CL territory.
Ah, yes, Frappe Snowland.
I think you mean Everfrost Peak.
Right next to Snowball Valley.
Oh, I love that. Of course, being in Texas, I can admire snow from pretty afar, most of the time.
Most of the time…
hope ya had fun in fuckin’ cancun, ted
Still can’t believe the fucker LEFT THE DOG BEHIND!
I can. Rafael Cruz is a dick.
I am unafamiliar with this. Is the dog OK?
The dog is fine. Crazy Ted deposited the family in Cancun and headed back. Personally I would have been fine if he had stayed there. Preferably permanently.
As it happens, neither my electricity nor water was cut off, but if it had been and I had the option of transferring to Cancun for the duration, I would have been all over it. Of all the things I blame Crazy Ted for, Cancun doesn’t even make the bottom of the list.
My sympathy to you all, not that it’ll take up a lot of space in the truckloads of thoughts and prayers. We’re in no position to throw stones here in Canuck-land.
Looks like somebody called Klondike5-3226 for “Mr. Plow”!
ah, yeah, it’ll still be around come graduation
The Indiana University campus is a nice place to get plowed.
If she had waited just a couple more feet before saying it, that third panel would have been her cartoonist’s easiest background yet
Has there been an easier background? (or at least easier on the same scale?) Wouldn’t there’ve been plenty of blank wall panels behind various close-ups?
Sal will now spend the rest of the day here, with other cast members coming and going, so that Willis no longer has to draw backgrounds.
She passes a bus stop, where a grumpy blonde and her huge dog are waiting for their ride.
Hmmm, seems like the perfect place to stash a body. Who are we missing?
Mike.
I miss Mike. But opinions vary.
It’s not unusual, at least on our local campus, to see people with metal detectors in the spring of the year going over the area where the snow was dumped to see what else (rings, bracelets, coins, etc) also got scooped up and hauled off.
Giant piles of plowed snow are the second best thing on earth.
The first bit is when it’s a naturally formed snow drift against a building or the like.
playing on these is the absolute greatest thing when you’re 8
It’s still in the top 10 greatest things when you are.18-21 at university. It’s the time of life where you get to rediscover being a kid since most people won’t judge you and your parents can’t tell you no.
I loved playing on the giant snow piles when I was a kid.
Real talk; they did this at my job.
We had a hill of snow that lasted until it was like 75 degrees outside
It really helps you understand how they got ice all year long back in the days before refrigeration.
Once spring hits it will get smaller and dirtier until you’re left with a strange black pile in the parking lot just big enough to get in the way.
Counter-prediction: It will all vanish on April 1st, wholly-coincidental and not-at-all-related to various Greek prank wars.
Beware the Sootis …
https://tinyl.io/4QeR
I can’t believe that no one posted the RIGHT soundtrack to this strip: https://youtu.be/gexTc0YbYx8
That’s good for the bike riding part. Perhaps this for the giant snow pile:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYxlqTpZ-24
Why not this?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jSQkFYziGNU
OK, I went to college for a year in Potsdam, NY, where they held the Winter Olympics one year. I never saw one of these huge snow piles. Now I’m feeling like I really, really got cheated.
Perhaps it was a different way of handling snow – haul it away rather than just push it up in little mini-ridges everywhere. Things may have changed since 1986. Even though Billy Joel says nothing can be new since then (and yes, I’m dating myself again).
Was that one of the years when you (if a freshman) were issued a Zenith computer?
I think it was a Zenith. Basically a clone of the IBM PC XT. Two floppy drives, no hard drive, 8 (or 10?) MHz CPU.
I was in the Clarkson School, in one of those houses across the bridge from the main campus. The house was so old you could go into the basement and see the tree trunks (with bark still on) holding up the first floor.
And so poorly insulated and poorly heated that you could leave a glass of water on your windowsill and it would freeze overnight. A couple of days it was so cold first thing in the morning that the floppy drives didn’t work right. Good times.
I heard they tore down that house just a year or two after I went there.
Now I feel like I should have taken a picture of the snow mountain my town created last weeks where for several weeks they dumped 700 trucks of snow a day. Well, I do have a picture of it from two weeks ago but it looks less impressive now.
I live 63° north, we didn’t used to get glaciers here. . .
Cousin! My paternal grandparents were Norwegian. (yah I’m guessing here, but ’tis fun)
Last winter, not weeks. Ugh.
And I’m in Sweden. Close enough right.
Time for Climb it! GO Sal! But maybe do it with someone, like all your friend (or just with Danny). That would be great!
“Just for once, I want one or two panels without over-complex background taking up most of my time!” — David M Willis.
“Let’s all hang out in this giant pile of snow for three months worth of strips so the author doesn’t have to draw backgrounds”
Welcome to the Snow Zone
When I was a kid, they plowed giant snow piles like that in the parking lot near where my dad worked, and we used to climb them and play in them for fun on weekends during the winter.
Sal just has entered a l i m i n a l s p a c e.
Is that… a Bob and George reference?
I really don’t know, I’ll search this comic.
hahaha wow
Huh, now I’m wondering if the UK just doesn’t get that much snow, even up here in the Highlands, so our ploughs can get away with just shoving it to the side of the road, or if I just don’t know where our snow mountain is.
Given the current climate, we really just don’t get enough that it’s much of a problem outside of a coupla cold snaps a year. Scotland probably gets some more, but Wales is DEFINITELY running dry for proper snow.
I thought your 4 seasons were Rain, Fog, Rain and Fog, and Rain, rain, rain, spam, sausage and rain.
A pile that big normally means something buried underneath it. What is this school trying to cover up?
It’s the women’s studies department. Leslie has the most well insulated place in the school now.
After a huge snow storm, my town was basically locked down for a day while the snow was cleared.
Afterwards my mom took my sibling and I on errands and we stumbled onto the huge pile where they dumped all the snow.
We took pictures.
It was a lot of snow.
Mount Never-rest
Is that a Shark Boy and Lava Girl reference?