2016 Winter March 19 Saturday

35 degrees (feels like 27 degrees) this morning, no walk

Hard to realize this is the last day of Winter 2016 (at least until next December) when it is 35 degrees outside!  Hopefully this is Winter’s last gasp.

The typical “seven days” of this cold will be up Sunday, so I am hoping I can get back to my life!  I have rarely had coughing and sore throats before and I had both this winter.

“March Madness”, the NCAA basketball tournament has truly lived up to it’s name this year.  I think the intensity of the play (probably due to the “lose one and you’re out” format) is amazing.  It would be interesting to analyze why so many “favorite” teams lose by a large margin or even lose at all, although in some games it almost looks like they just misjudged the strength of a team.  

I am sure people have analyzed in extreme detail, with all kinds of explanations, probably most of them with conflicting explanations!  

What is amazing for me is that the players are all probably mostly 18-22 years of age, and that they could play under such pressure, especially the teams that “normally” aren’t even in the spotlight or play a lot of tv games etc.

What always disturbs me is that, as an example, yesterday the newspaper had an entire section on the mens tournament and I finally found one small story on when the LOCAL women’s team was playing!  

I realize the men’s tournament has a lot more interest, but surely they could at least provide the schedule of the women’s tournament!

Glad to have a weekend, may give me the chance to get rid of this cold and catch up on some things I simply haven’t done because I haven’t felt that great.  Some of it I simply blame on the climate of this area, I am allegoric to a lot more things around here.  

I don’t know how much of it is related to working “in the field” two or three days per week and possibly the number of contacts I have on “field days” and the related opportunity to pick up germs I’m not used too, so I may not have as high an immunity.   

I wash my hands a lot more than I used too, and am acquiring the habit of disinfecting my hands each time I get into the car while out on a “field day”.  

We are enjoying our house, although we are still setting it up and are a little delayed due to the colds etc.  The layout is just more to our liking, although we miss some features of our previous house.  

That is good, since I don’t think I can face another move for awhile, plus it is very expensive to sell/buy a house.  

While this addition is “older” that the last housing addition we lived in, it is much better planned and a very “livable” residential area.  

What really surprises us is the number of people in the area who are walking, running, bicycling, walking their dogs etc.  We almost never go out that we don’t see people exercising.  

Part of that is probably the fact that the area provides wider sidewalks, walking trails etc.  and traffic controls that encourage it.

I have to wonder, are people walking because of the better environment for walking, or would they walk anyway and move here because of the walking opportunities?

i have to look at us.  A primary reason we targeted this neighborhood and simply decided we were going to buy a house only in this war  was because of the walking opportunities, the much better planning in this city and the attitude of the city that protection of residential areas is a priority, not kowtowing to commercial developers  .  

That may answer the question. 

That’s it for now, Saturday, March 19, 2016.