Time for little jackoff next door to sit on his snow mobile in the driveway and just rev the engine for a few hours. [:D]

All it took me was reading Jack London's books and I knew that I would never live in Alaska or anywhere else that had much snow at all!

I read one of his stories when I was in grade school and it has stuck with me for almost 40 years now.

A man and his dog were hiking across the Yukon somewhere, and they were, IIRC, something like 17 miles from the warmth of their cabin, where friends and hot food and coffee awaited them.

It was early morning and the man expected to reach his cabin by nightfall.

As required, he stopped to build a small fire to warm his hands and feet.

He carefully withdrew some tender from his pack, gathered up some nearby branches and set to work.

He removed his gloves to strike the match to light the fire, and soon it started!

As he was putting the matches away, a clump of snow fell off some overhanging branches and fell onto the fire, smothering it.

At this point in the story, Jack London had his character think this: 'The man knew that this mistake was going to cost him some fingers and toes'!

Now, pardon me, but I don't want to live [u]anywhere[/u] a simple mistake is going to cost me 'some fingers and toes', thank you!

Well, anyway, the man got his matches out and desperately tried to relight the fire, but his fingers had become too numb with the cold, and, though the matches were dry, his fingers could simply not strike the matches!

What to do?

Ah, yes. The man looked at his dog and knew the answer, and it was a particularly bloody one.

Kill the dog, thrust your hands into its still warm interior, and recover enough feeling in your fingers to resume the fire-lighting routine.

[i]An old trapper's trick.[/i]

Well, it appears that his faithful dog had heard of this trick before, as well.

For try as he might, the man could not get close to the dog, at all. The dog simply moved away from the desperately acting man.

The story closes with the men in the cabin hearing the scratching dog and allowing it into the warmth of the cabin.

'Where's Joe, big feller?'

The answer would await the spring thaw!

Eric The(Literary)Hun[>]:)]

Jack London needed a pocket warmer.

48° and light rain in ohio.