Recent Cold Snap (1 of 2): Fingers.

During the recent cold snap, I put on my big puffy winter coat and my nice gloves and walked up to the grocery store like three-and-a-half blocks up.

By the time I got there, though my fingers were freezing, esp. my pinkies.

Even after shopping and I was at the check-out, too my fingers were still a bit cold, even after being in the store all that time.

I was talking with the (young) (Mexican-American) cashier woman about that, and she was like, “Usually after I get off shift I want to go home, but not today, I don’t want to go outside!”.

Morning subway ride: Many high school kids.

I think for the first time ever since I've lived in the city that I've been on the subway at 7:30am (I've been on earlier and I've been on later, but never right around 7:30am).

The bus and subway were both *flooded* with high school students going off to wherever they go to high school.

As they poured onto the bus and then off the bus and then up the escalators to the subway and then onto the subway car, I couldn't help but think what a different experience growing up that must be, and all morning on the ride in I kept thinking about what your perspective on the world would be if you grew up in the neighborhood where I live now and took the bus and subway to your high school every morning during the schoolyear.

I think you'd really relate to the city differently.

2 People Being Nice in 1 Day:

1) Walking to my bike with a letter to mail in my back pocket, I pass by a (skinny) (early 40s) (black) (female) postperson delivering mail, and ask her if I can just give the letter to her.

"Yes, if it's got a stamp," she was like, and I took it out of my back pocket and gave it to her cheerfully.

2) After getting off the subway and standing at a busstop for a bit, I look up and see a (young) (black) mom with 2 young kids pushing a stroller across a snow-covered path and having a hard time doing all of that at once.

Just as I notice that, a (late 40s) (black) guy detaches himself from the crowd I'm in waiting for the bus, and goes walks across the street to help her out and takes the stroller for her and accompanies her back to the busstop.

Reflection of a friend from high school on the "Darkweb".

He had emailed me about the Silk Road case and we were talking about it, and then he said this:

[1st name of his wife] and I have talked about how this darkweb stuff is like conjuring demons. Every device is a potential portal to evil.

Damn.

Like a kid again: Class cancellation.

That same day at the meeting at the art school, someone suddenly came in and said that if you had anything in one of the other main buildings on campus you should go there *now* since a water main had broken and no-one would be let in after 6:30pm until who knows when.

Night classes in that building were cancelled, and then that evening an all-school email went out cancelling that building's classes the next day, which included my freshman writing class.

With my 3 9am classes every week, I was stoked, and stayed out for beers.

It really was like I was a kid again and it was a snow day!

And it's funny to think that I ride my students' asses to have everything down to a T, when just like them I'm excited when classes don't happen.

Met an ex-army sergeant in a bar.

The other week I had a late afternoon/early evening meeting at the art school, so I stuck around to hit up a couple (new) restaurant bars and do work there.

At the 2nd - it had only been open a week, that's how close I'm getting to finally getting to every bar in the city! - there was one other patron, a younger done-up (white) woman in a funky black fluffy coat, who was very, very talkative with me and the bartender.

The woman was a self-confessed "Jack" Mormon, and had been a sergeant in the army.

She said she entered the army to challenge herself, but it took her a while to realize how fucked up it was.

She said the moment for her was when she had to teach a class, and her and all the other sergeants had to draw lots, and she got the "testing for chemical weapons" unit to teach.

For that unit, you had to train team members what to do if they were on a mission and suspected that chemical weapons had been used, but had nothing with which to test the air.

According to the unit, the person in charge had to determine who was the team's 'weakest link', instruct them to hold their breath and take off their gas mask for a minute, and then have them put it back on and observe them for another minute to see if they had skin reactions from exposure to the air.

Then, if they didn't, the next step was for the team's 'weakest link' to take off their gas mask for a minute and actually breathe the air the entire time, and then have them put the mask back on and observe them to see if anything in the air affected their breathing.

I asked her if they couldn't just all stay in gas masks the entire time, but she said that the gear was heavy and would dehydrate you quickly, so if you were on a tight mission that was the only way to go.

After detailing all of that, she said some people are in the army and decide to stay there forever, and the other half are people like her who at some moment are like "What the fuck am I doing in here?" and then leave without ever looking back.

A colleague not only saw "Gravity", he saw it twice.

The other day on campus at my main university I ran into a colleague who I hadn't seen in like 7-8 months.

Every once in a while I'd run into him and his wife, and they were fun people to talk with, esp. after I found out that they were both into film and had had minors in that area in college.

Anyhow, at that time, I was obsessing over "Gravity" and had invited him and his wife along to see it with me on my 3rd time going to see it, but they couldn't make it, so I strongly recommended that they somehow find time to see it before it leaves theaters, since it was really a movie to prioritize seeing on the big screen in 3D.

Anyhow, a few weeks ago, I ran into my colleague on campus (hadn't seen him since last winter!), and he told me that he did indeed see "Gravity", and that not only did he see it once, but he went back to see it again a 2nd time. and he mentioned that it really spoke to him at a low point in his life, besides being just a beautiful movie.

Wow.