Golden Snowball Has Moved to Goldensnowball.com

I've been moving the site back to the original website for this past week. You can now start going directly to www.goldensnowball.com once again. I didn't like the fact that using blogger, the site had to be hosted on their server and not mine. Sorry for the inconvenience but please update your bookmarks.

The new site is up to date as of last night and the contest has begun thanks to Binghamton. Check it out at goldensnowball.com We won't be posting at the blogger website anymore but we will leave it up for a little while for our visitors to see that we moved. Let the Snow Games Begin!!!

New Design Coming - Back to Goldensnowball.com

Just a heads up that it's getting close to that time love it or hate it. I'm going to be switching over to wordpress if everything goes right and once the new design is ready it will be back to www.goldensnowball.com . Hopefully I don't wipe the entire site and posts out from the last several years while trying to change it over.

I think we can do a little more with the site and snow contest using wordpress rather than blogger. A lot will still be the same like posting comments and so on but hopefully some extras like having you who visit being able to upload some snow pictures and a more visitor friendly site for all of us. Keeping my fingers crossed that even though I have the blogger backed up that I don't lose everything.

Cheers,
Patrick

Halloween Costumes Means Snows Coming

I'm trying to think how last Halloween was here in Central New York. It almost always seems to be a little bit cold with a light drizzle don't it. Of course every now and then we get a decent Halloween night for the kids to do their trick or treating on. Let's hope it's that way this Halloween.

OK, now for another shameless plug of my sites that sell Halloween costumes. I came up with several this year and tried to break them down to individuals. In other words a site for just men's costumes, women's Halloween costumes, costumes for teens, toddlers Halloween costumes, baby costumes, costumes for just boys and costumes for little girls.

What I did was take all of the Halloween costumes from several merchants that I deal with and added them to each site. This way rather than visiting several costume stores you can browse on one site. If there is a coupon for the Halloween merchant you should see it when you click on a costume you like. Just visit any of the sites below and for best results use the search box on the page. No need to type in costume you can just type in whatever you're searching for such as batman, fairy, witch, vampire, etc... Of course any store that you end up with will also have other specials and deals running besides the coupons we have on our sites. Plus all of the merchants will have plenty of costumes for the whole family also.

Mens Halloween Costumes

Womens Costumes

Costumes for Teens and Tweens

Boys Costumes

Girls Halloween Costumes

Toddlers Costumes

Baby Halloween Costumes

Oh, and thanks for shopping for your costumes and Halloween inflatables and yard decorations through our sites. It helps keep golden snowball going believe it or not. Have a great Halloween everyone!

Football, Bowling Balls and Snow

Just a quick hello to anyone that still stops here every now and then. The last couple of days has had me thinking about the contest once again. With SU starting and winning the first football game of the season along with the cool rainy couple of days I think we all know that summer is coming to an end. Hopefully plenty of nice weather is still in the forecast before that naughty S word gets mentioned :). What a comeback game it was too. Way to go Syracuse and let’s keep that never give up spirit going all season long.

I figure I'll spend a little time posting some shameless plugs for my shopping websites that are relevant for this time of the year. Several of my Halloween sites and a bowling site that seems to be starting to pick up now. So if you’re looking for bowling balls, bowling shirts and bowling shoes I have a site that has a few of the best bowling merchants on it. The prices are competitive even after you consider having your ball drilled. All the newest bowling balls for both dry and oily lanes. The bowling shirt merchant has some great prices on shirts for your whole bowling team. They have one of the largest selection of bowling shirts in all sizes. They also have a great selection of bowling shirt styles to choose from. You should also find good prices on new styles of bowling shoes for men, kids and women.

Click here for our bowling ball stores!

Shot In The Dark Forecasts: Winter 2011 Wrap Up

Yes, I know, it's the end of May, not really time to be thinking about snow right now. That's why now is the perfect time to have the SITD Wrap Up!

Up first is the April forecast, which involved rankings for the five GSB cities. Below are the rankings as of the end of April, with the range I had given them in parenthesis.

Albany: 9th (5-9)
Binghamton: 6th (3-6)
Buffalo: 15th (13-19)
Rochester: 12th (8-12)
Syracuse: 4th (3-4)

Bull's Eye: All five GSB cities are within the given ranges.
On Target: Three or four are in the given ranges.
Complete Miss: Two or fewer are in the given ranges.

All five were in range, with 4 of them being just making it. That's a Bull's Eye!

Finally, it's the Season outlook, which was made in the beginning of January. It involved the rankings of the five cities in this contest. Below are the cities' placements with my predicted rank in parenthesis.

1. Syracuse (1)
2. Rochester (2)
3. Binghamton (3)
4. Buffalo (4)
5. Albany (5)

Bull's Eye: The standings at the end of April will be Syracuse, Rochester, Binghamton, Buffalo and Albany.
On Target: Three are in the forecast spots.
Complete Miss: Two or fewer are in the forecast spots.

All five were in the position I had predicted, so that is another Bull's Eye!

Unfortunately, these two Bull's Eye forecasts were not enough to reach my 1.00 goal. The April and Season forecasts over on GSG were Complete Miss outlooks, so my average for the season is 0.90, the same as the Point Blank Range! This time, it was the GSG forecasts that let me down, as only one forecast was a Bull's Eye while three were of the Complete Miss category. On the GSB side, three were Bull's Eyes and two were Complete Misses.

So, the goal for next season will be the same this one, 1.00 or better.

Speaking of next season, I have some changes in mind that I'd like to get for the 2011-12 snow season. First and foremost, I got off to a late start, so I want to get the forecasts started in December and go through March instead of January through April like I did this season. Another idea floating around in my head is to have some sort of video forecast with these, instead of just text. I'll have to play around with that during the off season. If I can get it to work, it'll be here next season, if not, then it won't. I don't want to change it from text to video mid-season. All this been said, I feel like the current forecast structure is a keeper, so I will not be changing it next season.

Enjoy the off season everyone!

It's a Wrap - Syracuse Wins the 2010 - 2011 Golden Snowball Award!

It's May 1st which means one thing, It's time to wrap up the 2010 - 2011 snow season here in CNY!!! It's official, Syracuse with another repeat victory wins the Golden Snowball trophy once again. What's that like 7 - 8 times in a row now. Whose counting huh? December really set the pace and there really was no looking back.

We kept hoping that the GSB contest would get close but everytime Rochester or Binghamton made a move on the snow hill Syracuse would just bounce back with even more snow. As for Buffalo it was all around them just not hitting in the right spot and Binghamton was able to slip past them.

I'll have to see how many times since we restarted the contest that Bingo has beaten Buffalo. Most likely not too many times. Stephen or I will put together a summary of how the 2010 - 2011 snow season went. For now I'm out to enjoy this nice run of weather that we are having. Congrats once again to Syracuse :)

Enjoy the rest of the weekend all!

Shop and Save at Good Online Stores!

I Think It's Time for a NO Snow Dance

Snowflakes were flying around once again in some of the Golden Snowball cities today :( I think we are at that point, make that past that point where it's time to say enough already. Don't get me wrong! I would still love to see some more records broken instead of the cold rain but I don't think it's going to happen this late in the game.

So I think it's time to throw in the beach towel (beach sounds good huh) and do a No Snow Dance to see if we can get the spring weather going. These cold and rainy with snowflakes days are getting old pretty fast. Not to mention my grass is as high as a few of the good snowfalls we've had this season. Nine more days and the 2010 - 2011 snow season will be just a memory. If it ever decides to end that is.

Here is Binghamton's latest season at a glance:

1. 1993-1994 (131.3)
2. 1995-1996 (131.2)
3. 1992-1993 (122.7)
4. 1955-1956 (122.6)
5. 2002-2003 (117.6)
6. 2010-2011 (117.5 so far)
7. 1977-1978 (115.3)
8. 1969-1970 (114.0)
9. 1970-1971 (108.6)
10. 1957-1958 (108.3)



Have a Super Weekend All!