Overall I liked the two winters I spent in Champaign-Urbana. They really weren't all that bad, except for the ice that made driving interesting.

During the winter, the dry air made everyone a walking electric power plant. Simply walking around the building would cause a large buildup of static electricity. You would shock yourself whenever you touched a wall or any metal object. Everyone would be shocking themselves throughout the day. It makes you wonder if all of this gives you brain damage or something...

Usually we tried to ground ourselves before touching anything, especially the computers. Sometimes it worked, but when it didn't,

"OUCH!!"

I had a really good trick to get around this problem. I walked around the building with an aluminum can from one of the various free drinks that Wolfram provided in the break rooms. When I got to my cubicle, I held onto the can while touching it on the metal piece on top of the wall. There would be a very loud spark, which removed the static. A few other people picked up on this trick. Sometimes, you could see a small spark about one inch long.

I had a similar "shock treatment center", better known as my apartment. There, I used my kerosene heater with a tea kettle on top filled with water to get rid of the static electricity problem. It worked very well.