Thursday, February 3, 2011

Is -40 degrees cold enough for you?

Although the weather is supposed to be a germane topic that you should never talk about unless you have nothing else to say... I want to talk to about the weather. Here it has been brutal! Paul and I recently experienced our first ice storm. Had the camera been able to do its job, I would have gotten pictures of the thousands of individual blades of grass covered in a thick French-fry-looking layer of ice. The ground, the trees, the cars were all covered with a layer of shiny clear ice. Walking around outside was more akin to ice skating.

That was exciting.

More recently just this week, the temperature dropped really low and the wind was howling so cold. With the wind chill, the temperature outside was -40 degrees! I got up to go to my morning class, and I seriously considered staying home that day. I went anyway, but only about half the students did. Turns out that every other college and university in the state was closed that day, but the president of our school refused to close FHSU.

The cold weather really makes you aware of your mortality. Stay out in that too long and you die. Hands down, you die. It's crazy how fast you lose the feeling in your hands. Suddenly you just can't grab things, and you can't even move your fingers! I'm so glad that my parents gave me a good coat for Christmas so that I didn't have to be too cold.

I am happy to report that the sun was out this morning when I came to school and that the temperature was above zero! Looks like it's going to be a beautiful day.