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Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a Japanese businessman, more or less unremarkable in almost every way. He worked for a shipbuilding company during the Second World War. There is really only one thing that makes him special. He was on a business trip to Hiroshima in August 1945, when the United States dropped a nuclear weapon there. He survived the attack with severe burns, then decided to go home to recover.
To Nagasaki, just in time to be bombed again.
He was the only recognised survivor of both bombings, and he died on Monday from stomach cancer at age 93. He has, apparently, written several books and songs about his experiences. Another piece of history crystallises, hopefully not to be forgotten.
In other news, it's snowing out again. I think we've got about an inch settled now, and it's starting to compact into ice on the footpaths. The roads are mostly clear, thanks to gritters and snowploughs, but I've already seen one Council truck jack-knifed in its parking area, so that may not continue. Conditions treacherous. I decided the footpath outside ours needed some attention this time (it's on a ~20 degree slope, so ice is a bad thing), so went to B&Q to buy a shovel. They very tolerantly didn't laugh at me, and ended up selling me a dutch hoe (with a sharp stainless steel blade) and a stiff broom instead, which are making a decent account of themselves, much though the job is taking ages. I'll just burn off a lot of energy doing it, I guess, which is probably good for me.
Oops.
So, I went over to Dom Flannelcat's house to do some planning for the New Year's Eve Thing. We did some costume design, laid out some backstory, figured out how to build some props and so on with a bunch of other people from Firecat Masquerade. It was fun, and a great break from the dry, technical writing that is most of what I'm doing at the moment.
We were in the sitting room, planning everything out, with the curtains drawn. When we eventually got done, and some of us decided to head for home, it turned out that it had snowed while we weren't watching. Two or more inches of snow on the ground, light and fluffy: cars were in trouble, trains were barely moving (we watched one inch across the nearby rail bridge over about ten minutes), and the world as a whole was coming to a halt. So I'm stuck here tonight, where there is tea and sofa and cat. Woe, woe, etc :)
This weather wasn't due until tomorrow, hence lack of preparedness. Oh well. Snow Day!
So, two snowball fights later, I return. The world has gone white, with the roads kind of grey: we've got between four and six inches of snow banked up on all surfaces and a fair number of inclines, but the ground is surprisingly non-treacherous. That said, I did discover that it's possible to "skate" on said hard-packed snow and slush in army boots (6ft+ sliding strides are fun) while I was on the prom.
Given the opportunity to throw snowballs at my labmates, who wouldn't attend, at least for a bit? By the time I got there, they'd built a snowman, with seaweed hair and everything. Still, we threw snowballs for a bit, wore snow-hats (no really, it was that light and fluffy that it would stay put), then wandered back toward the town. On the way, we came across the Brighton University Ski and Snowboard Club, of whom photos are by now surely on the web. They basically packed snow on to one of the staircases 'twixt promenade and beach, built up a jump at the bottom of it, and snowboarded down the stairs, pulling little tricks in what airtime they could get to entertain the gathering crowd. Very awesome to watch.
After all that, I met spook in Red Roaster for a coffee (seriously busy today, of course), then caught a lift home with him, getting into an impromptu snowball fight with the local youth. I still maintain they started it, even if they seem to think otherwise :D
Well, the campus is closed today due to snow. I suppose I can understand it, given that there's about six inches of the stuff on almost every flat surface.
Normally, weather like this would mean I'd be diligently trying to work from home, and sort of succeeding: while a lot of my toolchain depends on Windows, and thus local access, enough of my reading and testing can be done remotely or on local copies that it's inconvenient, not impossible. I can't get anywhere near a workday's productivity, but I can get things done.
However, today, I have been invited to a snowball fight with / against the rest of my lab. I really can't say no to that. I just have to resist the urge to build the snowballs homing on certain members around stones...