The weather forecast called for snow today...and they were spot on the mark this time. There probably was about 2cm of fresh snow on the ground when I left home to head to work. When I arrived in Kaminoyama there was hardly any fresh snow but once I got going after having lunch the snow was coming down heavier...and the wind had started to blow. In Tendo, a similar situation. When I started walking to work after parking my car there was hardly any snow coming down. About 15 minutes after getting to work, there was plenty coming down. Luckily the temperature was hovering above 0ºC so it didn't stick. But around 5pm the wind was howling.
When I got back to my car after work, there was ice all around it on the ground. So I was well aware that Route 13 probably would be very icy, too. So I proceeded home at a pace a bit slower than usual.
The one eye popping incident on the road happened in Akayu. I was about four of five car lengths behind a truck. There was light snowfall and relatively strong wind coming from the west. At one point the truck started up a banking curve leading onto a low overpass. Then I saw the truck slip sideways by about a metre or so. The driver quickly corrected his vehicle's heading and continued on. Luckily there hadn't been another vehicle in the northbound lane.
My immediate reaction was that the truck had slipped on a patch of ice. I eased up on the gas as I went over the same section of road. Nothing happened to my car.
Afterwards I noticed that the wind was strong enough to have an effect on my driving, too. While it generally was coming from the west, it was changing direction sometimes. I supposed the truck in front of me had been hit by a swirling gust....
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Today, I was in the midst of a class with a 10 year-old boy when some reason or another he started going on about "Jaws!". I promptly did an impression of a shark fin moving to the theme music from the movie "Jaws". He wasn't going to have any of that. So I fished out my iPhone and had him listen to a short bit of the theme from "Jaws". I doubt he heard of note of the music. What had caught his attention was the background image. He promptly ran up to the board and enthusiastically drew his version....
I did point out to him that he had initially neglected to draw a row of top teeth. That was very quickly remedied....
