It's Five Degrees (F) Out There

     Or three degrees.  Or one.  Or even less.  And there's a good stiff breeze, too, 15 mph, more or less.  The TV news is full of advice on how to dress (from a man standing outdoors, hatless and ungloved!), how to wait for the bus (in your car, with your parents, none of this, "Mom, Billy left the Audi running at the end of the driveway again," stuff, at least not until Billy is in the fifth grade) and how to avoid accidents (mostly in the form of reports about people who did not.)

     Me, I'm layering up and taking it slow.  After an adulthood with a great many cars that tended to leave me afoot, I try to dress for the weather even when I am pretty sure I'll only have to endure it while dashing between buildings and vehicles: after the engine (and heater) quits, it's too late to revise one's wardrobe.

     Worst video of the morning is from a few days ago: a cable TV line tech was working in a bucket truck along a two-lane county road and had set out the regulation number of orange cones at the regulation distance -- which was too few and too close for the slick, slushy road.  Cars were speeding (literally speeding, too fast for conditions and several over the posted limit) towards the truck, trying to swerve too late and sliding off the road, into ditches and yards, occasionally colliding with one another.  It is a measure of human decency -- and plain luck -- that the cable TV truck, with a man in the elevated bucket over the cable and phone wires,* was never hit.  There aren't any seat belts in there; he's supposed to be on a lanyard but that's a fall restraint, not a "flipped out of the bucket like a shot from a trebuchet" restraint.  Be careful out there -- put your phone away!

     "Do as I say, not as I do?"  Nope. This (phone camera) shot was grabbed in stopped traffic -- there's an accident about a block head, a spun and stuck van closing down one lane, no cones, no flashers and the police were busy with far worse accidents elsewhere.  Naturally, no one was merging until the last minute and the "let 'em in" rate was less than one-to-one.
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* The higher you go on the pole, the higher the voltage.  Cable TV and telephone are the lowest levels, often close enough to get in one another's way.  They're usually not best pals and that's part of why.