It Is Winter

It is winter.

The joints stiffen as the cold sets in.

The north wind blows ice pellets into your eyes.

You wonder at its brutality and pointlessness.

Then, your mind turns to hockey.

—Red Green

Most of us probably  feel this way this winter. There's been a lot of talk about the excess of snow and the freezing cold. As a friend of mine put it, we've just received "fresh snow to cover the snow that was frozen solid by the subfreezing temperatures." Believe it or not, people feel comfortable when temperatures reach just above zero. From the local coffee shop (actually, it's the only place to get coffee for several miles), this is what the weather looks like:

This is where Santa goes on his vacations.

Believe it or not, I've seen weather worse than this. Actually, I've grown up in weather where everyone would rejoice if there was only this much snow. Because where I grew up, we would get around twenty feet of snow every year.

That's right. Twenty. Feet. Of. Snow. That's over six meters, for those of you who prefer metric (I don't blame you; it's a lot more practical).

First question on your mind is probably "How do you end up getting that much snow?" Well, let me give it to you straight. I grew up in Japan. Granted, winter is not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Japan. Usually, it's cherry blossoms and kimono. Or ninjas and Tom Cruise, if you're a guy. But that's down in southern Japan, where you find dragons and emperors and...unfortunate things like war-torn lands and sumo blubber. I spent most of my growing years in northern Japan, on the island of Hokkaido (see my parents' site here). How far north is Hokkaido? It's about the same latitude as Oregon, Wisconsin, Maine...Quebec City, to you Canadians.
Now I hear you saying "Those places don't get twenty feet of snow!" Well, for Wisconsin and Maine and Quebec City, that's true. But Oregon shares something with Japan that other places don't...mountains. After a little research, I've found that the Cascade Mountains get just as much, if not more, snow than Hokkaido does. And since Japan is mostly mountains, when you go north enough to find a mountain valley for all the snow to collect, it's going to be a winter wonderland.
But hey, snow isn't that bad, is it? I mean, think of what you can do in a winter wonderland...snowball fights, snowmen, snow angels, snow sculptures, ice festivals, hot chocolate, skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, sledding, snow forts, running around in new snowfall and spell words for the birds to read...
...Oh, and shoveling.
It's all fun and games, until you need to clean up the mess that's been made. As illustrated in my brother's YouTube video, "Speed Shoveling":

Snow would fall almost every day in our city, meaning that we'd need to shovel every day to keep pace with twenty feet of snow. Often, it would mean shoveling more than once a day, depending on the severity of the weather. For instance, we have a large ceiling-to-floor window in our living room, as seen in the video above. If too much snow builds up against it, the window will crack and snow will pour into our living room. So every once in a while, we have to dig a trench out of the snow right by the window. That way, the snow will go into the trench and save our window from breaking. One long day after digging this trench, we headed inside, took off our winter gear, and got some hot chocolate ready, just in time to watch the snow fall...off our roof, and right into the trench, filling it to the brim.
Painfully, we bundled up and grabbed our shovels again.
Home wasn't the only place where it was an adventure to shovel snow. If you wanted to move snow, you had to do it in epic proportions...like, the type of proportion equivalent to fighting an army of time-traveling trolls with nothing but a plastic spork. And we happened to regularly clear out snow on this proportion. Every Saturday, we would head down to our church and clear what we could. What was in the parking lot went into an underground snow melter which led straight to the sewers. This was basically a heater in the ground covered by a metal trap door. Open up this door, push some buttons, and hot water would spurt out of some pipes to help melt the snow you throw in there. But this wasn't the adventure, not by a long shot. THIS was the battle to win:

Snow pouring off the roof into this tiny space...what more could you ask for?

To the left, you see a metal fence. To the right, you see our church, with a wall of ice frozen onto the side. In the back is (1) my dad (2) all the snow that we just moved. Before this channel was cleared, snow could be built up as high as that ice wall. How did we move it all? One old snow blower...to those of you who don't know, just look it up on Wikipedia. I'm not gonna try describing it. Now, after you've looked it up and compared the auger to the size of the snow, you're gonna wonder how all the snow fit in the snow blower. Simple answer is that it wouldn't...until someone stood on top of that slippery ice wall and knocked apart all that heavy snow. All the while trying not to fall into the snow blower. And considering that the snow blower had about 426 controls labeled in Japanese, it wasn't the easiest thing to run. But it was the only way we could get that giant pile of snow behind the church. Unfortunately, I have no video of this  path being cleared, because words can't do justice to the madness of the job.
Might I mention that we also had to do this on the other side of the building as well?
So, as you go about your day,when it gets so cold that your sneeze will freeze, just be glad you don't have to move twenty feet of snow...unless this happens to be your job. In which case, I have pity on you.

Ross!

Who would've thought that Ross could almost get us arrested?

Well, I suppose it wasn't Ross' fault. Ross was Scottish. And it was night in Washington DC. And the motorcycle drove by. At least we learned an important lesson for photographers.

I should probably explain what I'm talking about.

First of all, I'll begin with literature class, senior year of high school. Hilarious class, especially since we had Mrs. Neal as a teacher, who is so hard to define that the one word which sums it up is "Cheryl." Possibly "Trevor wake up!" and "Where's Erin?" would work as well, but it's been too long since Mrs. Neal's vocabulary lessons for me to find the right word.

Anyway, back to literature class. We were reading through Macbeth, adding pizzazz to it as we worked our way through (I'll admit, it's one of Shakespeare's best plays, but hey...we were in high school). In Macbeth, there was one character named Ross. Now, when I say Ross, I'm not saying it normally. According to us, the only way to say Ross was in a voice like you were a heavy smoker trying to break his habit by chewing gravel while sitting in a massage chair. Ross. Now you know. Rossss. Rooooss. And so on, repeating this name every time Ross' lines came.

Sorry, Ross, I hope we didn't offend you. We love you at heart. Long live Malcolm.

Jump ahead to the end of the semester. My class, having survived well over a dozen years of formal education, decided to spend our senior trip in Washington, DC. We had a great time, and not only while touring the monuments.

There was the one time I sat on the table in our hotel room and it broke completely in half. The hotel probably eventually found out that they needed stronger tables. I found out that I needed to lose thirty pounds or so...which I have. Can't say if the hotel's changed their tables.

There was the one time where a small Chinese town decided to fly to America and tour DC...and stay in our hotel. They loved the hotel. Especially at breakfast time. They made a game of seeing how many of them could fit in the food hall at once. I had to defend a table for my classmates while they tumbled out of bed and figured out which body part their socks went on. As I defended our table, I could glance to the left and watch a line build up by the waffle maker. Every one of them wanted a waffle—in Asia, waffles must be rare finds. But with no understanding of waffles comes no understanding of waffle makers, so every time a Chinese person tried to make a waffle one of the workers would have to show them how. I can say this from experience: If they were Japanese, they would've invented their own waffle maker right there.

There was the one time where we found the longest escalators this side of Jed Clampett's oil swamp. Two of us raced it up and then down while waiting for the train...fortunately, the race finished just in time that the train didn't leave without our two guys. After the race, they were as exhausted as a truck's tailpipe.

There was the time we conspired to compete with Tiffany & Co. by selling plastic and glass jewelry that looked just like their products.

Hey, if all your jewelry looks glass, you might as well have a rival that sells glass products!

There was the one time Obama cancelled our once-in-a-lifetime White House tour so he could have the Prime Minister of Israel over.

There was the one time the Potomac started flooding over the pathways, leaving dead fish in its wake.

There was the one time where a crazy Jamaican lady talked with the whole train car about pickles and Arnold Schwarzenegger. And the other time involving Matt and about three odd African-American teenage girls. Oh, the people you meet on the subways.

There was the one time we didn't meet Paul Ryan.

There was the one time where Ted and Taylor were asked to pose for a poster by the Washington Monument.

There was the one time I screamed loud enough to wake the dead...in Arlington Cemetery.

There was the one time Ted offered me $12 to catch a pigeon. Mice are one thing, but pigeons...Ew. I'll just stick a used hypodermic needle in my bellybutton instead.

There was the one time we drove a thousand miles on the last tick of the gas meter. Our supervisor, Mrs. Paczocha, was so afraid we might run out of gas that she almost began handing out burritos. Trevor, on the other hand, remained as cool as a bottle of antifreeze as he calculated how many miles our gasoline could take us. "Don't worry, Mrs. P," he would say, "This car holds what, sixteen gallons? And we're on the last tick? We've still got a thousand more miles, at least." I'd have to trust Trevor for that. He builds his own airplanes. However, this fact didn't loosen Mrs. P's grip on either the steering wheel or the paper bag she was breathing into.

By Trevor's calculation, this tank's got enough gas to drive from Chicago to Seattle and back.

There was the one time Ted and Matt stuck their legs out the car windows while riding down the interstate...just because they could.

There was the one time we got lost...wait; that happened a lot.

There was the one time we saw a guy get arrested at the Capitol's tourist center for taking a picture of the entryways, due to national security and the threat that a picture of an incognito doorway could slip into some anti-American hands...which creates a great segue back towards the story of how we were almost arrested.

It was our first day in Washington DC, so most of the above events hadn't happened yet. Busy traffic was on one side; random government buildings were on the other. I looked through a glass door of one of the buildings and took note of a sign inside. Among official-sounding words was planted the name "Ross."

Immediately, I informed my compatriots of the situation. The area echoed with high school boys crowing Ross over and over. Then one of us decided to take a picture, to enshrine this encounter with the famous name. As he raised his camera, though, we very suddenly heard a harsh command to stop. Actually, it wasn't quite like that. It was more like a policeman waddling out of the darkness yelling "STOOOOOOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU DIDN'T HEAR ME THE FIRST TIME, SIR?" Actually, no, Mr. Donuts, we couldn't hear you through the overpowering sound of a Harley. And we backwoods Wisconsinites were unaware of the fact that you can't take pictures of private entrances. So yes, try to come out of your aggressive state as you ask if we need any help. And give back the camera, please; thank you for your work. You might want to relax with some yoga back at home, if you can do any poses besides "The Bloated Bullfrog."

Almost two years later, I have kept my slate clean. That was probably the closest any of us had come to an arrest. I will admit, though, I haven't said Ross in a while. Mostly because the only Ross I know could use me as a toothbrush. I mean, I'm all for clean teeth, but my life comes before dentistry.

Of Mice and Men

It's hard to believe that I'll be back at Northland in just two weeks. Soon, a new semester will begin, and all I can say is...it's going to be nothing like the last one's beginning. I say this because nothing could ever be like last semester's dawning. Aside from in the Deep South, you never get to (or want to) have so many random encounters with critters.

One of my first episodes last semester involved bats. I was taking a walk through the south side of my dorm, reminiscing on the shenanigans that I was involved in last year, when I see this tiny brown bat clinging to the hall wall. Somebody had decided it was a good idea to leave the door open all day, neglecting to think of the critters it could bring in. So I simply fetched a bag, gently snagged it, and let it loose outside...only to find a second bat just a few feet down the hall. This one wasn't as easy to catch, as it was more awake and flew into a room. Which resulted in me climbing over people's beds and possessions while they evacuated for the sake of this self-proclaimed exterminator. But yes, both bats were freed.

The second incident occurred once rumor spread that a rogue squirrel was roaming our own hall. Every student was intent on claiming this prize. "Wanted" posters were hung in the bathrooms with a picture of the squirrel. One student asked the dorm supervisor if there was a bounty for this squirrel. I even had a close encounter with the squirrel, but it escaped from my knife as it fled through the heating duct. Ultimately, the victor was a man named Ivan. Ivan's from the Deep South, so of course he knew how to deal with this rodent—he grabbed his mighty slingshot, took hold of a single penny, timed his breathing, and valiantly slew the beast. He took his mighty trophy to the shower stalls, proceeded to gut it, and then took it to his mead hall and feasted on its flesh while the bards composed ballads in his honor. Ivan later went on to slay more rodents that semester, such as the legendary fire breathing beaver, the venomous mole, ninja rats, zombie gophers, and Alvin and the Chipmunks.

I've had some of his stewed squirrel. Awesome stuff.

The lethal power of United States currency...

But the next animal episode stands out from the rest—mostly because I was directly involved. Another animal had broken into our hall—this doesn't happen often, to those of you concerned for us. This animal was a much more common pest than anything I've said yet—a mouse. No, it didn't breathe fire or have vampire powers or throw cheese at us, but that doesn't mean it was lame. We turned this mouse invasion into something crazy and awesome.

As I've said, a mouse was traversing our halls, and the bounty hunters were out for their prize. But this mouse was crafty and avoided them all as he scrambled through the walls, hungering for popcorn. And he found popcorn—in our room, no less. My roommate, Kenny, was the first to hear it scrambling around in the trash can, trapped by its own effort to feed. If it was up to me, the mouse would have been knifed and buried in a hole three inches wide and six inches deep. Clayton, my other roommate, instead took charge of the situation. He wanted to give that rodent the biggest swirly in history—a trip down the toilet. I still wanted to stab the mouse, though.

"Who would kill this guy?" You say just before he eats and infects your food.

On our way to the community bathroom, however, two things happened. First, we attracted attention. Several guys and rodent bounty hunters came out of their man caves to size up our capture, including the legendary Ivan (who was now known formally as Sir Ivan Pennyslinger Marvelbeard, Squirrel Bane of the North). This attention filled Clayton with glee as he paraded around this trash can with the mouse inside—the mouse he took liberty to name Hans. Ivan was actually so impressed with our capture, he gave us his blessing to dispose of this vermin. One guy volunteered to help us in our endeavor to flush the mouse. We accepted the man, whose name was Tyler, and placed him in our ranks. But, as I've said, attention wasn't the only thing we received. Another student—I believe his name is Micah—gave us a warning that mice had recently been found carrying a horrible disease around our area. I could see Tyler’s face blanch at the thought of infection. I thought that we wouldn't need to worry about disease if we just stabbed it in the trash can and dumped it outside.

Our strategy was simple. Clayton would dump our offering into the porcelain altar. Tyler would start throwing a few strips of toilet paper on top of the mouse. Clayton would quickly flush the toilet, immediately dousing the mouse, and then flush down at least ten yards of paper to make sure the mouse stayed down there. Kenny’s post was to stand at the sidelines and laugh at Hans in his final moments. I was supposed to stay away; Clayton wished the mouse to drown slowly instead of face instant and honorable death, but instead I stood close by, pocketknife in hand.

Our selected method of execution...It's more dangerous than it looks, I assure you.

Almost everything in the plan fell apart. Yes, Hans had plopped straight into the toilet, but Tyler missed as he tossed in toilet paper. Unfortunately for him, he had no time to throw any more. Clayton flushed the toilet, opening a maelstrom to swallow the mouse. Hans began swimming for the edge of the toilet, trying to jump out for the sake of his own teardrop-sized life. Unfortunately, the mouse was swimming straight in Tyler's direction. Thoughts of disease raced through Tyler's mind as the mouse approached. The Jaws theme played in the distance. Tyler squealed, sprung straight upwards, and perched on top of the handicap railing, gripping that metal bar like his life depended on it. Kenny’s laughter turned from the passing pest towards the terrified Tyler.

The current in the toilet picked up speed, whisking Hans downwards. He fought back, swimming in the opposite direction, slowing his spiral. Near the bottom, he reached the point of equilibrium: no matter how hard Hans swam, he stayed in place. There he was for several seconds. I was afraid that the flush would complete, the current would slow, and Hans would jump out and maliciously spread his disease over poor Tyler. But Hans’ strength couldn't hold. The toilet sent out its last pulse of swirling water, generating enough force to weaken the mouse. He slipped down the throat of the whirlpool with a squeak of defeat.

Our victory should have resulted in thunderous roars of achievement, but too much was already going on. Clayton proceeded to flush about one and a half rolls of toilet paper. This mouse proved to be stronger than he had reckoned, and he never wanted to mess with something that strong again. Tyler’s heart rate slowly declined as he pried his fingers and toes off the handicap bar, whispering phrases about not getting his shots and creepy Mickey Mouse cartoons. Kenny’s guffaws devolved into small hiccups of giggles. I reluctantly pocketed my knife as we marched back to our rooms, but I was glad of one thing. We had become rodent slayers. We were among that blessed count of brethren whose ranks were difficult to join. We doused the mouse.

On second thought, it would probably be pretty awesome if next semester was like the last. Who knows? I might just find an evil electricity-shooting rabbit and get to mount its head on the hood of my car.