We have underground power and our last outage was in 2011 in the great ice storm of New England. We have a second residence in Boston that we can use if we need to but it's also another property to maintain though it requires much less maintenance than our primary.

Just back in and about 4 inches but it was annoying as there was sleet, ice and moderately heavy snow. I'm inside for a cup of coffee and to do some chores and then back outside. I am going to clear a roof that we have that has been prone to leaks in the past.

I went out to shovel last night and there were about 2 inches but it was moderately heavy though not super-wet. Apple Weather says we got 3.7 inches so far withanother 4+ to go and I'm about to head out to do some shoveling just to see what it's like. This doesn't seem very bad so far in southern NH. I haven't seen any WMUR clips yet but they should have them up within the next hour.

I often carry an iPad on long trips and my copilot manages the device. GPS usually doesn't give you the big picture so that you can't verify that your route is reasonable while driving while an iPad will give you a good view of your trip and allow you to easily zoom in. We use Google Maps in offline mode of course.

I wish that Apple Maps had similar functionality.

It's always nice to have a second opinion on routes as well.

I drove my daughter to Logan many years ago and used voice commands on my Garmin Nuvi to get me there. When we got to 495 (from Rt 3), I noticed that it said that I should drive 80 miles on the highway. Of course that would put me in the Atlantic Ocean. I had her reboot the Nuvi and re-entered the route and it gave us the correct routing. In general, I will map out a long route on Google Maps to estimate time and to take a look at the expected level of traffic and then put in the destination in the car for the Nuvi.

I'm in southern NH and so I guess I can manage 1-2 inches.

I've lived in New England since the early 1960s so I should be able to handle anything that comes this week.

Yes. I'm paying $49.99 for 200 MBPS internet. They will entertain lower prices if you have viable competition at your address.

The ads are promotional and for a limited time. I also have service in MA at my mother's place and it's $40/month for 400 MBPS but it goes to $108 after two years.

I have been doing the negotiations thing since around 2015. It wasn't all that pleasant back then but the last few times, they just said "OK". They are losing paid TV customers and probably growing broadband customers and it costs them a small fortune to get a customer back once they leave for another service. Because such services are sticky because of equipment costs.

60 degrees outside right now. Going to go running in shorts in a little while.

Snow? It's already been unusually warm for winter and it's 2/3rds over. One-third with some snow would be fine. No biggie.

I was going to post this today. Market Basket and Aldi had a dozen at $2.99.

We bought our place in 1988 and paid off the mortgage in 2000 and socked the mortgage payments away to pay for kid's college and retirement. Yes, prices are way up an I am concerned and we've made adjustments to spending but there's not much that the average person can do.

I've lived in the Boston area and have visited Toronto and I prefer Boston but it may be due to familiarity and family in the area. One other major factor is the world-class healthcare in Boston. Important for older folks.

I went to Market Basket and CVS and both places were far busier than usual selling flowers, and chocolates. So dinner out and checking for a little too much alcohol.

I was out for a walk Saturday evening in the dark and I use a flashlight when I'm walking in the dark. I swung the flashlight over to a front yard and saw a rabbit scurrying into some brush and it stayed there for a while. I see rabbits in Southern NH once or twice a week when I'm out for a walk or running around the neighborhood.

We have a partial ownership of a place in a Boston suburb and there are rabbits there too. So many that someone's WiFi router name is rabbits. I'd guess the reason why you have or don't have rabbits is the number of natural predators.

Back in the 1980s, we used these classified magazines. They cost about a buck and came out every week or two. It was like Craigslist, paper version. I found roommates by word of mouth but that was in Boston and Metrowest.

There are new apartments at Merrimack Premium Outlets and in the southern part of town opposite Harris Pond. There are new apartments behind the 360 Mall near exit 11 - I'm not sure if they are renting yet. I do not know what these are renting, or will be renting for, but you could give them a try.

Housing is very tight as Merrimack is a very convenient location.

On things to do: Merrimack is convenient to Boston, Metrowest, Hampton (for beaches), Southern Maine seacoast, and mountains. If you provide a list of things that you like to do, then people can reply specifically. It's not the best of places for singles - the Boston area is a lot better for that.

It's hard to get in to see the good doctors as they're usually booked out months to longer, if they're even taking new patients. In good hospitals, you usually take whoever you can get.

What the doctor can and can't do is generally dictated by your insurance company.

Something that Warren Buffett said about 15 years ago in his annual report. He described, in detail, why insurance is a great busines to be in.

My son's workplace got flooded from the cold weather. Frozen pipe. It's a 35 story tower but I don't know which floor the problem was in. Plumbers are crazy busy in MA and NH dealing with this stuff.

$410 last month for January for natural gas and electricity. This is the peak of the year though. It is difficult to say as rates doubled last summer as to what the average will be like for 2023. We have a 1,200 sq foot place.

He had to replace them but with 6 foot trees instead of 100 foot trees. He also had to remove a freshly paved area and regrade as he was dumping water onto our property from his parking lot resulting in flooding in our neighborhood. This was a strip mall and they had to agree to a number of concessions to get approval for any further changes.

He bought the property and it appears that the previous owner told him the property boundaries that weren't accurate. He also didn't know about some of the requirements put in place when the strip mall was originally built. He hired an architect to straighten out the mess. I made a 25-page presentation and printed 15 copies as that was the requirement and his architect already had a proposal at the meeting after my presentation.

I went running today with just a sweatshirt and thin, long pants. No fleece jacket, balaclava or ski mask. It was very nice.

This is a good point. In many cases, the contractor will employ an architect to do the presentation and they will have everything on a laptop connected to the projector with diagrams of what they want to do. They should also make handouts available to the board making the decision. Sometimes what they present may address your concerns and sometimes they aren't aware of your concerns. But it's worthwhile knowing things like property boundaries.

I gave a presentation at one of our planning board meetings for about 15 minutes over an abutter cutting down a bunch of our trees.

Our town has the meetings and the other town meetings on YouTube so that anyone can watch them. They have a staff of 3 to do the video work and the room where most town meetings are held has a lot of special AV equipment to do records. School Board meetings are done in classrooms or gyms so the quality of the video isn't as good but it is available.