SIGNAL LOST. CHECK FREQUENCY.

Static in the Atmosphere

Look, I’ve seen a lot of winters. A lot. Back when monitors glowed green and you needed a phone line to connect to anyone, winters were… different. They felt bigger, somehow. Maybe it's just nostalgia filtering through the decades of accumulated digital dust, but this one feels…thin. Not the cold, mind you. It’s a proper Michigan freeze, alright.

Detroit’s clocking in at a brisk 9 degrees Celsius, or 20 Fahrenheit for those of you still clinging to the old system. Cloudy, they say. That's putting it mildly. It’s the kind of grey that bleeds into your screen, makes the neon of the few remaining arcades look faded. Nine percent chance of precipitation? That’s practically a guarantee of slush, which means another layer of grit on everything.

Grand Rapids is holding steady around 25F, similar story – overcast, minimal precipitation. Forecast is calling for clearer skies tonight, down to 11F. Good. Clear skies are good for signal. Always have been. Back in the day, you needed a clear path for those BBS pings. Though now? Everything's satellites and fiber. Still, old habits…

It’s quiet, though. That’s the odd part. Usually, a day like this, you can hear the city shivering. The groan of the infrastructure, the whine of the wind whipping around the buildings. Today? It's muted, like someone turned down the volume on reality.

Could just be me. I spend too much time listening for patterns, for the hum beneath the surface. Years of digging through code, sniffing packets… you start to expect a response from everything. Even the weather.

Sunrise was at 7:46 in Detroit, 7:56 up in Grand Rapids. Sunset’s coming early, as always. Not much daylight to work with. Plenty of darkness though. And darkness, well, darkness is where things happen. Always has been. Just gotta listen for the static.