Weather, The Graduate Stylee

Continuing on with my weather historical, after graduating from UB with a degree in electrical and computer engineering, I decided to go on to graduate school. In fact, I decided I wanted a PhD. However, I couldn't really be moved to collect all the information necessary to apply to graduate schools, since I didn't actually want a PhD for any reason other than that my oldest brother had one, and my older brother was in a PhD program at the time, and thus I figured it was a sign of mental weakness not to also get one.

I had always suspected that I was the dumb one. I'm still pretty sure that I am, but I've managed to do alright for myself nonetheless. Not as well as The Mrs. has, but I can't really complain. Plus, I make up for any perceived deficiencies by being a card-carrying member of the NRA.

Anyways, I was pretty much on autopilot for the first 38 or so years of my life.

Luckily, my loving girlfriend at the time (aka The Mrs.) saw that my lack of motivation to collect applications to graduate schools was a threat to her longtime financial well-being, so despite her being in Sillydelphia and me being in Barfalo, she managed to collect all the material for me and help me write my stupid-ass essays about why I would be an ass-et to the PhD program at this school or that. Thanks to her great help, I got rejected from nearly every decent school I applied to. MIT rejected me within 10 days of me mailing the application. UI Urbana rejected me twice, though I applied only once. However, the wonderful University of Rochester not only accepted me, but they gave me a fancy fellowship. Graduate school would be free at last. Free at last.

Cha-ching.

So I packed up all my worldly possessions and headed east. A whole 73 miles. I figured, hey, how different could the weather be in Rottenchester compared to Barfalo?

Well, it was a lot different. It had all the horrible cloudiness and wind and the unpredictable rains, only it was colder in the winter but didn't snow very much. The summers were about the same - chaotic and humid. Actually, I guess you could say it wasn't all that different - it had all the aspects of Barfalo weather, except with everything remotely enjoyable removed. It was the most miserable, dreary, godawful weather I had ever experienced. It still may be, though the weather in Connecticut has been impressively awful whenever we've visited The Mrs.'s The Brother.

Besides the unbearable terribility, I remember three weather experiences most vividly. The first was The Great Ice Storm.

Ice storms really suck. If you're living in the middle of the old part of a city that has nothing but above-ground electric wires with 80-year-old trees surrounding them, ice storms really, really suck.

We were living on a little street called Hobart St. that was in a slum. It's all a poor graduate student could afford on his $1200/mo fellowship. We were in an apartment that had been fashioned out of the second floor and attic of a house build around 1912. Back in 1912, they didn't put insulation in walls. Landlords in slums generally do not retrofit insulation into the walls, either.

Then the ice storm hit. It took down the electric for most of the city and surrounding suburbs. We lost power. I remember quite distinctly explaining to the lady that lived in the first floor apartment how, even though we had gas heat, the furnace wouldn't run without electricity. She was surprised by that.

12 days we went without electricity or heat in the dead of winter. Twelve very long days. No hotel rooms could be had for 50 miles, and we couldn't have afforded one anyways. We tried hanging out there the first few nights, but it just ended up too cold. So we commuted to my parents' house in Barfalo a few nights, but it was too much of a pain. So, we got our tent and sleeping bags and camped out in the center of my lab at the university. Nobody cared. It was warm.

Ice storms really, really suck. Unless you're just watching them happen to someone else on TV. Then, they are cool as hell. The resulting coating of ice on everything is remarkably beautiful and makes for great photographs.

So I guess I really love ice storms.

I dunno.