Sunday, February 15, 2015

Beauty and Peril

The Northeastern U.S. is gripped in a deep freeze this weekend, with brutal wind-chills. This afternoon has been gorgeous, the sun is shining brightly and a blanket of pure white snow lays over the ground away from the roadways, which are bordered by sooty gray piles of crap. The high temperature this afternoon was 18F (-2C), but the wind chill factor made it feel like -10 or so. Tonight, it's supposed to get to 0F (-32C), with the wind chill factor making it feel arctic.

I arrived at work this afternoon to see a juvenile bald eagle wrestling with the wind over my workplace. The wind was whipping up crystalline clouds of snow, which were dancing over the ground like the ghosts of summer memories, or like a cold elemental from an unpublished novel in Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East series. It was really quite beautiful out, but the cold is unpleasant, and potentially dangerous. Typically, when I get to work on a Saturday or Sunday, there are a couple of cars parked in the lot, and a handful of people taking pictures of our lovely site. Today, nobody lingered- there were a couple of cars, as usual, but people were quick to hightail it to warmer environs after a brief look.

My initial act of the workday, once I grab the company cell phone out of our department lockbox, is to conduct an inspection tour of the property to make sure that everything is in good order. The typical initial walkthrough takes about forty minutes. I bundled up, wearing five layers (thermal undershirt, T-shirt, fleece, flannel shirt, and hooded sweatshirt), with an initial two layers to put on when it gets really cold. By the time I was done with my tour, the cold was starting to creep through my flannel-lined dungarees. It's gorgeous out, but not necessarily pleasant, and there are reminders that today's winds are no joke, azure sky or no:




It's so cold that even the small, brackish estuary of the Hudson adjacent to the property has frozen over:




This area typically teems with waterfowl as sunset approaches, but the one patch of open water is about as big as a typical kitchen table fit for four diners:




On nights like this I limit my exposure to the elements. I typically do an twenty-to-thirty minute inspection tour every hour and a half, but I typically only do two or three of them on a night like this. Nobody's going to be trespassing on such a dangerous night, and there are all sorts of alarms to warn of any "environmental" emergencies. For long-time readers who are familiar with my feline co-workers, Fred and Ginger are currently guesting with one of our managers for the duration of this wickedly cold spell.


The original post title I was toying with was "Pulchritude and Peril", but I've never heard of "pulchritude" being applied to a non-human object or vista.

UPDATE: It's quarter-to-one in the morning, and the wind chill is -20. NOT FUN!

6 comments:

Chickpea said...

I can't even imagine being that cold. Glad Fred and Ginger are vacationing in warmer digs.

M. Bouffant said...

Whoa. Damn. ...

A winterwear tip from SoCal: When I lived in Walla Walla Wash. 99362 I'd sport about as many layers, merely when it snowed & hit maybe 29°F. However, I added an extra layer for traveling that's easy to doff on arrival, a snappy (-looking; it had a zipper) Sears Roebuck herringbone boiler suit. (Coveralls, to Yanks.)

P.S.: The instincts of an innumerate here, but check your conversions.

mikey said...

That is cool looking. It looks like it would feel brisk and smell good, like Tahoe after a storm, but my brain is telling me I'd whine like a little boy who dropped his ice cream cone if I had to be out in it. As someone who spent some significant time as an opportunistic criminal, I'd say your judgement that no one of bad intent will be out there tonight is true. I'd consider inclement weather and advantage, but at some point it becomes self-defeating.

As a side note, when I got in the car at Trader Joes in Millbrae today the temperature read 82F. The living in NorCal is easier than in many places, it's true, but far less dramatic, or ever, if I may say it here, less interesting...

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

I can't even imagine being that cold. Glad Fred and Ginger are vacationing in warmer digs.

It's all about layering clothes and making sure that there is little exposed skin, and moisturize, MOISTURIZE, MOISTURIZE. I'm glad that I don't have to worry about Fred and Ginger freezing, but they're not housecats. My friend told me that Ginger was literally climbing the walls.

A winterwear tip from SoCal: When I lived in Walla Walla Wash. 99362 I'd sport about as many layers, merely when it snowed & hit maybe 29°F. However, I added an extra layer for traveling that's easy to doff on arrival, a snappy (-looking; it had a zipper) Sears Roebuck herringbone boiler suit. (Coveralls, to Yanks.)

The key is, as you said, to layer. The Carhartt coverall suit is the industry standard, but I prefer the traditional pants/top(s) combo.

That is cool looking. It looks like it would feel brisk and smell good, like Tahoe after a storm, but my brain is telling me I'd whine like a little boy who dropped his ice cream cone if I had to be out in it. As someone who spent some significant time as an opportunistic criminal, I'd say your judgement that no one of bad intent will be out there tonight is true. I'd consider inclement weather and advantage, but at some point it becomes self-defeating.

I keep a scarf wrapped around my lower face in this weather, so everything smelled like detergent. As far as opportunistic crime goes, I look at criminals as self-employed "entrepreneurs". On a night like this, nobody is going to suffer this much discomfort for the prospect of small gain. I'm paid to be out there, and I don't want to be there, so I can't imagine someone who has no prospect of a big payout taking the chance of slipping on ice or having their getaway car poop out because of the cold.

mikey said...

Yeah, you want a small tactical advantage, but at some point it devolves to being a level playing field, where everybody fails. Then you stay home...

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Yeah, you want a small tactical advantage, but at some point it devolves to being a level playing field, where everybody fails. Then you stay home...

My take on it is that career criminals are people who don't have the skills or inclination to work a steady job, so anything that involves too much "work" is unattractive. They can make their own hours, so working when it's frigid and the ground is slippery underfoot is not something they'd choose.