First off, big props to the U.S. Airways pilot who ditched his plane in the Hudson River this afternoon. It is insanely difficult to do that and not have the plane break apart and start to sink. He did a textbook job in it, which is incredible given that he had all of two minutes to figure out what was going wrong, what to do, and how to execute it. Just an incredible job.
(Though this is just another example of the animal kingdom uniting against us. After years of destroying their habitat this was bound to happen. Just wait until the bears arm themselves and dolphins evolve opposable thumbs. Then you could measure our time as the dominant species on this planet with a stopwatch.)
Given the cold weather that is gripping the nation I figure that I should tell my favorite cold weather story. Now for those wondering the weather here in lovely Delaware isn’t nearly as bad as in other parts of the country. We’ll have below zero windchills tomorrow but for the most part the lows have been in the teens this week. To me that is not bad at all. I went all of December wearing a leather jacket and only now have broken out my winter coat. I’ve never even been forced to wear my ugly stocking cap that exists only to keep my ears warm. So it’s not like I’m in Minnesota or anything.
However, back when I was in college at Illinois we were caught in one of these winter weather disasters. Air temperature below zero and something like thirty below windchills. Just about as brutally cold as you can get. Now being a Chicagoan I pride myself on being able to withstand any type of weather. This has resulted in my now having my fingertips ache whenever it gets cold out (something that is true of anyone who ever played high school baseball in the Chicagoland area) but it means that I can handle pretty much anything. So, in order to make it to my engineering class I bundled up in about four layers of clothing, walked through as many buildings as possible, and made it through my classes in my usual stupor. (Seriously, how would you like to have to sit through three hours of engineering lectures every day when you were 20? Just because I make a living at it doesn’t mean I enjoyed it.)
All of us in class commented on how silly it was that we had to go to class. It was just brutally cold outside. Every part of you ached as you walked and it was physically painful to move from one spot to another. You would not take off your coat even while indoors as you just wanted to hold on to as much warmth as possible. It was suffering, pure and simple.
However that physical pain didn’t match the torment of the next day. That is when we found out that Illinois had cancelled classes the previous day because of the cold weather without, you know, informing anyone. This was in the wonderful days before email or text messaging so the official notice was placed in the campus newspaper, which no one ever read. They basically said “well, if you didn’t make it to class yesterday it is considered an excused absence.” That made all of us who braved hypothermia happy. That is a good explanation of being an engineer at Illinois. You go to classes that are entirely male, be taught a subject that is going over your head so fast it is making a whizzing sound, and on the one day you could have stayed in bed you end up volunteering for the suffering. In the end it is still worth it. Don’t know how or why but it is.
Another tale from the KC dating scene this weekend along with a bit of national news included. I’ll explain it as I get to it.
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