According to the esteemed University of North Dakota (and who am I to argue with such academic giants?) the light and fluffy snow that we like to make snow angels in and make home movies of our dogs plowing through can mass around 7 US pounds per cubic foot. More average, denser snow, can come in at 15 pounds per foot, while drifted snow is denser still, since it is compacted (think snowman) and can come in at 20 pounds per cubic foot or more. I’m going to take 17 pounds per cubic foot as my base for this calculation, since it involves both drifted snow and snow which had been compacted by that most fearsome of the mechanized beasts of Winter, a municipal snow plow. We love them.

From the rear of my car to the road on this particular day was only about 50 feet. My driveway is a ballpark average of 10 feet wide. 500 square feet. The sidewalk, which one must clear by law in case some otherwise intelligent passerby slips and sues you, is 40 feet across the front of the house by 3 feet in width, adding another 120 square feet. The car itself had a foot of snow on the roof and packed under the wheels too, but let’s not quibble over details and just go with what we have: 620 square feet of snow to clear.

At the rear of my car, the snow was a foot deep. Now, we’re talking cubic. Car to road is 50 feet by 10 feet by 1 foot, total 500 cubic feet. Sidewalk, 120 square feet. If we say it was a foot deep at all points that’s another 120 cubic feet of snow. Close enough.

There’s more. At the roadside, the snow was nearer 2.5 feet deep (probably more, I’m rounding down) due to the plow (blessed be those that driveth them).

The snow sloped evenly between the rear of the car and the road due to drifting, and of course the entire road frontage was one solid block where the plow had passed. This is where that algebra you learned in school kicks in (ha! The joke is on you if you thought you would never need it, kids!) and we calculate the slope. Easy enough. See diagram. 🙂

We take the volume of an imaginary rectangle and divide by two, to get the volume of the slope area separately. (50 x 10 x 1.5) / 2, gives us an extra 375 cubic feet.

Now we add. 375 cubic feet of slope, plus 500 cubic feet on the driveway, and 120 cubic feet on the sidewalk. Ignore the car! That gives a total amount of snow on the sidewalk, and between car and road, of 995 cubic feet of wet white stuff. Are you with me so far?

The last calculation is simple. At a conservatively estimated 17 pounds of snow per soggy wet cubic foot, I shoveled 995 cubic feet of snow. A total of 16,915 US pounds. There are 2,000 pounds in a US ton. The math says that I shoveled over eight tons of water yesterday. That seems impossible, right?

Please, check my math. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I checked it a few times because I didn’t believe it myself. I think you’ll find it accurate. No wonder snow clearance is a leading cause of heart attack and sudden death in Canada. That’s a lot of water to move.

I definitely learned something today. I learned that I will park closer to the road next time.

January 29 marks the release of a David Bowie tribute issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Following Bowie’s death on January 10, a great many artists spoke of the influence this controversial musician had made on their lives, their musical choices and their careers. That in itself is inspirational.

But it goes much deeper. Beyond the musical influence, beyond the stardom and the Fame (I had to get at least one Bowie song reference in somewhere), Bowie himself has a well-documented history of drug abuse and was well along the path to self-destruction as far back as the Ziggy Stardust days of the seventies.

There are many stories of wild excesses and behaviour that follow the traditional rock star pattern. But unlike many others that were chewed up and spit out by the intensity of living their lives in the media spotlight, Bowie somehow turned it around and came out the other side, stronger than ever.

A quick Google search for ‘Bowie saved my life’ returns page after page after page of stories of fans attributing their current happiness to this much missed musician and the meaning they perceived from his body of work. But that is fairly common to any number of deceased rock stars.

What is uncommon is that Bowie used what he had learned along his personal journey to help others in his sphere of influence to get clean, mentoring them and helping them get through to the other side, too. Iggy Pop, for one, attributes his continued presence on this earthly plane directly to Bowie. And he’s not alone.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails (NiN) speaks eloquently in the Rolling Stone tribute issue about his own struggle with drugs and says that without the support and belief in him which Bowie showed, he would not be here today. While touring together, Reznor recalls that despite being at the height of their career as NiN, he was at his personal lowest point. He also recalls something Bowie said to him, quietly and without reproach, during this time. “You know, there is a better way here, and it doesn’t have to end in despair or in death, in the bottom.”

Bowie was at that time clean, happily married, and enjoying life to the full as a father and husband, with a future and a family he could now embrace in peace. Having been that Low (sorry, couldn’t resist) himself, Bowie knew exactly how hard it could be to get clean. With simple grace and without judgement or lecture, he was for Reznor and many others simply an example of what life could offer when you walked away from drugs forever. Reznor focussed on that, and he did indeed come out the other side, with a little help from his friend.

Let’s let Reznor say it his way. This is a quote direct from the Rolling Stone article: “A few years later, Bowie came through L.A. I’d been sober for a fair amount of time. I wanted to thank him in the way that he helped me. And I reluctantly went backstage, feeling weird and ashamed, like, “Hey, I’m the guy that puked on the rug.” And again, I was met with warmth, and grace, and love. And I started to say, “Hey listen, I’ve been clean for …” I don’t even think I finished the sentence; I got a big hug. And he said, “I knew. I knew you’d do that. I knew you’d come out of that.” I have goosebumps right now just thinking about it. It was another very important moment in my life.

The power of faith in people, and belief in their own inner strength, cannot be underestimated. For those people that can no longer believe in themselves, the faith of others is often the only light they can see in their personal darkness. Be the light.

Today, the world is a darker place.

Today, the light which was David Robert Jones, AKA David Bowie, was forever extinguished. At the age of 69 he succumbed to an 18 month battle against cancer, and as his star finally went out, the night has turned black.

I am still processing this. Bowie has been my hero for forty years. I was psyched to buy the new album, Blackstar, which was released on his birthday just 48 hours ago. And then he died. And I, along with the rest of the world, got the real meaning  behind this album.

It was his epitaph. He is the Blackstar. Knowing for 18 months that he was dying, he went into the studio to record this parting gift, and say farewell. On his terms, right to the end. Good on ya.

The entire album has only one voice: His. I would not be surprised to discover that he also played all the instruments. This was his final work, his Magnum Opus. Back to relying on only himself to come up with the goods, it is almost as though he went back to that bedroom this all started in, in Brixton, London, recording the Space Oddity demo. This music shows how far he came, yet returns to his roots at the same time. And of course, he nailed it, yet again.

I like to think that he knew his final journey was one he had to take alone, and he built that into the album. You can hear it in the voice as well as in the heartbreaking lyrics. No other voices. He planned, prepared and executed this project,  knowing he had months left to live. It was his ‘Going out in style’ project, and one of his best works, the music really is fantastic. An amazing showman right to the end. Can you imagine the strength of character that must take? Respect.

I watched the video for the title track with new eyes. Here’s my take.

Bowie’s career took flight in 1969 with Space Oddity, and Major Tom was catapulted into existence. Ashes to Ashes came much later, and showed the ch-ch-changes Major Tom (and Mr. Bowie) had gone through along the way.

The Blackstar video neatly bookends the career and completes the journey of Major Tom as we see the skeletal astronaut lying dead on a barren planet under a black star. Major Tom found his final resting place, on the other side of the event horizon.  He is taken to the ‘Villa of Amen’ (House of God, of course) where a solitary candle burns to mark the passing of this great being, with the diamond encrusted skull and eyes. His journey complete, he can be at rest. The celebrants dance as they mourn. As will we. Not a smile to be seen.

Bowie wears buttons on his eyes during the video. Placing buttons or pennies on the eyes of the dead is an ancient practice.

The middle eight? Soul searing. It’s as if he rolled back the Bowie voice to the 70’s. Simple, melodic, haunting. And it made me cry.

He knew he was dying. And yet he passes the torch to whoever fate and the whims of the music industry will make into the next star.

Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried
(I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar)

The song and video both trail into a discordant instrumental mix which seems at first unnecessary, almost filler, until it dawns on you… we are hearing  this amazing man’s failing heartbeat, and we are there as he takes his last breath. If you have ever sat by a deathbed, you will know what I mean, And you will hear it in this song. It slides into. Silence. And you will sit there waiting for one more breath that you know deep inside will never come. Just another minute, please…

David is famously quoted as saying “I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.” Wherever you are now, David, it won’t be boring. For you. For us? This world is a darker place.

Man, I’m going to miss you.

As regular readers will know, the edible Nikki and I recently purchased a house, and we moved in in August. This will be our first Christmas in the new domicile, and to mark it Nikki purchased a live tree (a first for both of us), some decorations, and every available string of festive lights in a 25 mile radius. She festooned the house with them. We now have lights on the tree, shining snowmen in the windows, and battery driven candles on the tables.

Outside on the porch we have lights enough to land a plane by. Thanks to David for that. While I’m messing around with a ladder, he’s just reaching up and clipping them to the porch. I just let him get on with it, he was going much faster than I was with that ladder! Oh, the perks of being that young. And freakishly tall.

We even have a spinning mechanical Santa that runs around the hardwood floors singing and scaring the cats. And that’s fine.

As this is a year of firsts, we also thought it a great time to reboot our annual Christmas Card! This tradition will carry on from this point until I eventually croak, hopefully sometime around the next millennium. This year, the theme is simply us having fun in the new house. With my own special twist, of course.

I posted it on Facebook first, and it was the single most liked photo of the year. I’ve had several people ask me how this card was done. I’m going to post a separate blog about that, since it was fun to do and not at all difficult once you know how. As with most things creative, a little imagination is all that is required. Of course, it helps to be immensely skilled and available for hire please call now for details…

Sorry. Back to the point: Merry Christmas, from the Greens!