Mamma Wants A New Pair of Shoes
I repeatedly hit redial, praying that my call would get through. Busy signal after busy signal, I wondered what I could do if the line did not open. Start my car? Sure, that would be fine. But shower? Probably not.
Finally, it was ringing. "Good morning! At 6 am the..."
I hung up.
I didn't need to know what it was at 6am. Like the rest of Fairbanks, I held my breath to hear what it was at 7am. Seven is the magic number, the number that decided our daily fate.
I sat in my kitchen wondering how many minutes I should let pass before trying again. Two? Five? Ten?
I dialed again, chanting my number, my precious 45, like I was sitting at a craps table.
"At 7am, the temperature at the airport is negative 41 degrees and..."
Blasted.
And so, with the rest of Fairbanks, I headed to work grumbling that the temperature was not cold enough to close the office (even though others have to work in even colder temperatures). Maybe there will be some nice ice fog around lunch to save the day.
2006
8 Love Notes
Oh my flippin God -41 are you kidding me? I'd not survive in that kind of weather. We'd have hazard warnings every 2 minutes on the tv here in NY if the temp dipped to -10 Brrrrr
Gees, -45. I have to wait until -50.
BTW, we use this site as well as the "official weather" phone number:
http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/current/PAFA.html
Saves the dialing/redialing process. However, I did notice that it said it was only -38 (not -41). Of course, I live out in the boonies and it's usually 5 degrees colder here than at the airport.
Whoops, I forgot that it's posted in EST lingo - so look at the 11am reading for 7am.
FWIW, it might also help to get management to recognize this as an official telltale as well.
Stay warm!
whiners shouldn't live in squarebanks...
How cold does it need to get before you can stay home and hibernate?
It has to be -45° or colder for the office to be closed. But then we are a non-profit and have our volunteers to think of while Joat works from the government who doesn't care about their employees' extremeties getting frostbite.
Everyone has to be using the same temperature information source (calling the airport) so that we don't get half of the staff thinking it's -46 and half of the staff thinking it's -44. And not all of the staff has internet at home (which I don't understand at all).
Can boss-person change the outgoing message on the voice-jail service to say "we are closed today". Then everyone just calls the office after say 7:10 to find out the status?
Just another thought, no need to reply.
wow thats real cold...I dont think I could motivate my butt to even open the door let alone go to work. sometimes I wonder why people are so dumb...if the bears can sleep away a good portion of the year why dont we...tell me who is smarter here.
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