It's not bad weather, it's the clothes you choose

When I wake up in the morning, I always review my iGoogle RSS feed for the weather in my area - I think most geeks do that. Yesterday was forecast as 48 degrees to start and going down to 40 as the high. Seemingly still not cold enough (sounding) for an undershirt and sweater, given that on the previous day with the same number of layers on a colder day, I was fairly warm. I ignored the humidity aspect. It was rainy and damp. The cold seaped into my jacket, through my thin shirt, and clamped onto my skin. As I stood outside for 15 minutes, waiting for the bus after watching in desparation the earlier rush by my building, I felt colder and colder.

Throughout the day, I was still cold. The bus was cold, the subway platform was cold, the street to the office was cold, to and from work. The bus home was, however, nice and toasty, which was very welcoming indeed.

This morning, I reacted to my lessons learned. Even though it's not as humid and 30 degrees feels like 30 degrees, I have three layers on. There's still a chill in the air - even in the office - but it's more bearable.

A friend at work last year went on a week-long yoga/wholistic healing retreat in Vermont. On one of their hikes through wet woods in January, her guide said to the group that when people complain of bad weather, she always says, "It's not bad weather, it's the clothes you choose to wear.". Meaning that style and fashion and looking pretty don't often provide what you need on your body for the efects of the weather to be assuaged.

Creaky Meetings

Yesterday was an especially windy day. In fact the last two days have been windier than normal in the Canyon of Heroes and in the many burroughs and environs of New York City. It was so windy that up here on the 37th floor, you could feel and almost see the building swaying. It seemed that the bathroom was the creakiest room, but alas, no: The corner conference room I used for a meeting was creakier. This conference room looks out over the top of the Deutsche Bank building to the left and the WTC construction site to the right. The room was so loud I had to apologize for the extra noise to the people on the conference call!

The guy with me on the call in the noticed that the drafts we were feeling during the call and whipping about the room were due to spaces between the windows and the rubber. Scary thought that during our meeting, we could possibly be facing breaking glass while discussing code for a database!