off to Ireland in a few days; new word for snow

Until today, as a former-North-Dakotan Minnesotan, I thought that I had experienced almost every kind of snow.

I left to go on my training run-walk this evening (if you, addressing ,of course, the legions of souls who patronize this here site have not noticed, I'm raising money to cure leukemia and lymphoma, see sidebar at right). I didn't believe the forecasts for snow. It was warmish (34 degrees fahrenheit) and dry (my hands were really dry at least). I started my 4th run time (12 minutes left of the run-walk) and I noticed tiny snow flake. They got bigger. I started inhaling them. It was a good kind of inhale, fresh and clean. After my last run period, I was walking down 25th Street and I heard the snow fall. I had never heard it before. The snow was icy-ish and frequent. It made a sound like paper being rippled. A few people commented on my lack of winter clothing and pitied me for getting caught in the snow fall, until they saw from my expression how much I was enjoying it. I can only explain my recent acquaintance with this sound with a) avoiding the snow fall by watching Star Trek episodes one after the other. b) being in a car or on a bike during this kind of snowfall c) global warming introduced me to the paper crackle snow.

I recently became fascinated with the idea of reintroducing the classical education to the young people in K-12. Not in the home schooled christian sorta way though. It just seems sensible to incite debate during junior high, instead of continuing to force students to memorize shit. If you let the younger kids know that the memorization part of their lives will be over at some point, they might get into more it. They might find songs to memorize stuff. I'm all for the trivium. I might even make a t-shirt that says trivium on it.

"You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older, and now you're even older. You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older, and now you're older still."
--They Might Be Giants