Friendsgiving, black raspberry cobbler, helicopters, night runs

First off, Happy Thanksgiving!  I got out for an early morning run today.  Totally overdressed, but with the winds 20-30 mph this morning I figured I would have felt colder.  I have been battling a cold and I feel fantastic, but my voice has sounded not so fantastic.  So I went for a run to hopefully break things up some and power through it. 

We had a Friendsgiving with some of Summer's preschool friends and I made a black raspberry cobbler.  I have just a couple bags of the berries left from the family farm.  Little known fact: we had a sizeable black raspberry farm as kids.  Lots of the work was done as a family and we used the money for family vacation.  

Still needed a little more time... But MAN was it delicious! 

We also put up our Christmas tree.  I told Summer that we could put it up if the living room was clean.  Every year it is the fastest cleaning job you can watch.  Amazing! 

So when I was in college I worked at the Holiday Inn on Lane Avenue.  Some of you may remember it for Hineygate.  It was the HUGE tailgate that the hotel would throw for the home Buckeye football games.  One of our security guards is now the Lieutenant and Unit Commander for the Columbus Police helicopters.  I had not seen Jack since my time at the hotel until we had a 10 year reunion of when the hotel closed and was sold to Ohio State for dorms. We currently live in the flight path of the helicopters  Jack invited me out to the helipad to show the kids helicopters.  We live in the flight path of the helicopters and when they turn around and head back into the city Summer always runs to the window to watch them. We got an awesome tour.  Summer was very shy and nervous at first.  She got to sit in the cockpit of one in the hanger to see how they fly them.  Here is Jack showing here all what all the instruments show for the pilots.

We got to watch them change shifts in the air so one would take off and the next one would land so they are always in the air.  If there was an emergency then they would not be able to get to the scene fast enough if they tried to power up and go, so they are always up when conditions allow them to fly.

Evan went too and he liked watching them fly, but he didn't get quite as excited as Summer.  When we were driving home she said "Oh My Gosh, that was so cool. Day of fun!" HUGE thanks to Jack for inviting us out to check out the eyes in the sky.

Since we are in Thanksgiving it gives a great excuse to have some fun with augmented reality on Good Day Columbus.  Love the turkey dressed up accordingly to the conditions. Get it?

Much quieter weather for your traveling and shopping for Thanksgiving today and Black Friday tomorrow.  Clouds will be hard to part during the next couple of days, so the sunglasses may be needed from time to time, but mostly cloudy skies will dominate the sky.  Winds will be a little breezy early today and then become lighter through the day.  Highs in the mid-lower 40s today and mid 40s tomorrow with light winds for Friday.  Rain returns for Saturday.  Rain will be on and off through the day, but the majority of the day will be wet with a light breeze and highs in the mid 40s.  Rain will continue Saturday night and wrap up early Sunday.  The clouds will break a little midday Sunday then more wintry mix showers possible late Sunday and into Monday.  We will warm up a little midday Sunday, lower 50s, before the colder air pushes in quick for the evening Sunday.  Cooler next week.  Highs near 40 for most of next week with a slight chance of a light wintry mix Monday, dry Tuesday, and a few showers possible Wednesday.  Safe travels and have a good one!

Best,
Andrew Buck Michael

Fuzzy Fandango 50k, holiday fun, & Thanksgiving forecast

Finished my first ultra marathon!!! I only took one photo during the event, this one. The race organizers added an extra optional hill. It was called the Cherry on Top. If you ran up the steep hill then you got a free trucker hat. When running up Mike and I noticed a friend, so we conquered the hill with her. We didn’t HAVE to run the hill, but we all did and a nice prize for doing the extra effort.

Fuzzy Fandango 50k, with 5500 feet of vertical gain. My New Year’s resolution was to run an ultra and I finally did it!

Sunday morning I helped emcee the Let Me Run FallFest 5k. So much fun watching these kids run their first 5k.

I love whipping up breakfast in the morning.  I told Dawn that I was going to take a full week off of running so that meant I had time in the morning for a top notch breakfast for the fam.  

Summer and I decorated the house and did a grand illumination to test them out.  The kids loved it!

We had a holiday shoot at work for some commercials this week.  Team photo!

And I took the kids out for some of the fun stuff this time of the year. Yesterday we went to the main library and checked out the trains and read some books.  Then we went out to the airport to watch the planes take off and land, but it was windy and chilly and it started raining so we went home for nap time.

I got a call in the afternoon and came back in to fill in for the dinner time shows.  Fun getting to see the night-side people.  We rarely cross paths.

A little damp to start your Friday, but sunshine breaking through later, so grab the sunglasses.  The early light rain will mainly be for the southern half of Ohio and will continue moving south through the morning hours and clouds doing the same.  So sunshine will try breaking through the clouds through the afternoon with temps staying in the mid 40s all day long with a light northerly breeze. Dry and chilly for Friday night football for the high school playoff games.

We start Saturday dry with even a little sun then clouds start moving in from the south.  Our morning temps will be in the upper 20s, so frost possible in the morning then we warm into the low-mid 40s.  Rain will move in around midday and we will have on and off light rain tomorrow.  The bulk of this rain will be riding up through Eastern Kentucky into West Virginia and Pennsylvania and we will be on the far western edge of the system.  So some scattered rain showers for the afternoon and areas to the north and west that are colder will see a little snow mixing in at times.  A light breeze out of the north as well will make it feel cooler.  So a damp, chilly, and breezy Saturday afternoon. The whole system moves out by Saturday night and then some dry weather will move into the area.

 We then will be dry and chilly on Sunday with highs in the mid 40s and partly cloudy skies.  More sun Monday and warming to 50.  Back into the mid 50s on Tuesday with increasing clouds and rain sneaking in here later Tuesday.  Some scattered showers  possible Wednesday, mainly early.  It will also be windy late Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thanksgiving looks dry with partly cloudy skies and highs in the mid 40s. Great travel weather around the region for a few hundred miles on Thanksgiving. Have a good one!

Best,
Andrew Buck Michael

So long Halloween... Hello November snow!

Thursday could be an interesting day for Central Ohio!  More on this shortly...

Halloween went pretty smoothly for us.  Well... if you like heavy rain all morning then wind chills in the 20s and 40-50 mph wind gusts.  Thankfully it was dry by trick or treat, but boy was it soggy and nasty.  We did do as much trick or treating as we could in the neighborhood before the cold air finally caused Summer to toss in the towel.  We got rid of most of our candy then brought the rest into work to share. 

We dressed up the kids in skeleton pajamas.  Trying to get a good photo of two energetic kids proved to be next to impossible.  This was about as good as we got.  Perhaps we let them eat too much candy. HAHA!

Saturday morning I took part in the second annual GRRR 50k.  A few people ran the whole thing, but since it is the Glade Road Run Relay, we had most people run it as a relay.  

My team was Team BAM: Bridgett, Andrew, and Morgan.  There was no actual baton, but that didn't stop me from finding a stick...

For our team to do a hand-off.  It's a great run.  It is all for fun for our group.  Kinda like an end of the year hoorah.  No medals, no prizes for how fast you go.  We did get some hats though to remember our fun day. 

Remember, remember a wet start to the fifth of November. The morning rain today will be light and move out by lunch. With the leaves on the ground, be careful coming to a stop today because wet leaves will give you less grip on the pavement. The clouds break up this afternoon for some sun and we only warm a few degrees up to 50. Tonight we stay clear and low temps dipping to around 30. We could have some patchy frost and fog forming overnight. Mix of sun & clouds for Wednesday with highs in mid 50s. Wednesday will be the warmest day on the extended forecast. A strong cold front on Thursday passing over Ohio early will result in falling temps and we start with rain in the morning and then transition to snow throughout the day. It will start transitioning to snow in Northern Ohio first and then Central and Southern Ohio through the afternoon and evening. We are still more than 48 hours out, but right now it looks like Northern Ohio could see up to a couple inches of snow. Central Ohio would be mostly rain then switching to some light snow with up to an inch of accumulation. If temps fall faster then it would mean more snow, but if we stay warmer then less snow. Stay tuned and we will update more as we get closer. Much colder for Friday and the weekend. Highs in the upper 30s on then lower 40s for the weekend. Low temps in the 20s for Friday and Saturday morning and then lower 30s for Sunday morning. Another light rain/snow mix possible later Sunday into early Monday. Have a good one!

Best,
Andrew Buck Michael