How Cold Was It?

My it was brisk outside this morning, 15 degrees with a 30 mile per hour wind out of the northwest.  Walking to the car made my face and hands hurt.  How cold was it, I drove to the office in DC traffic rather than face standing on the subway platform for 10-15 minutes waiting for the next train.  If I drive to the office, I can park in the building, in a nice warm garage.  If not for the traffic, and the cost of parking ($16 a day) I would drive to work more often.

I spent much of today trying to navigate office bureaucracy.  The boss asked me to figure out how to submit comments to a federal agency.  The how to do it is easy, go the website and drone on, any idiot can do that, and many will.  The hard part is getting permission to do so without placing yourself at risk of being fired.  There is a handbook on this, a handbook that intertwines two related but distinct processes for approval.  There is a long check list of required elements in the request for permission, but no example of what this things should look like, and they expect it to look like all the others, Someone warned me that if it looked different, someone might actually read it instead of ignoring it.  If everyone ignores it, it is approved. This is a process of trying to blend in and hoping that everyone ignores what you are requesting.  Legal logic at it's best.  I am glad I don't work for the most complex bureaucracy in town, not by a long shot.