Winter has officially arrived in the Twin Saults, and it arrived with a vengeance.

The running joke is that the city was misnamed, and should be called Sault Sainte Siberia. This is, I think, true. For the last few days, it has been Serious Cold, and the wind chill has gotten right close to 30 below during the day.

The end result of all of this winter and snow and cold and ice (you get a cookie if you can place that reference) was campus being closed today, resulting in me showing up at the Compass office around noon and staying all afternoon, rather than being in off and on until 6ish and then getting to work.

Over Christmas, we order and received a brand new Cannon Digital Rebel XTi for the paper. I hadn't spent too much time playing with it, so as soon as I realized we were going to need another front page photo for this week's issue, I grabbed the Rebel and headed out into the elements in search of photographic gold. The end result was cold hands, a cold face, a collection of funny looks, and a bunch of worthwhile photos.

When I got home, I passed five of the best through Photoshop to tweak their color a bit, and put the in my gallery. Be sure to Download the images if you want high res. All five of them are at least 8 inches by 10 at 300dpi.

The moral of the story: playing with toys is great fun, but remember to bring your scarf!