Chilly!

It was worth a chuckle to see in the newspaper a local meteorologist say, "The current cold spell in the Detroit area is not unusual."  Is he from another planet?  The past three weeks keep getting low temperatures I've never seen in 66 years.

Last Sun and Mon, I ran in temps of at least 11 below zero, actual temps, not wind chills.  Not quite my record-cold run, but close.  Relating that to some folks, the responses were what I expected.  "You are crazy" or "nut" or "stupid......"  I guess I've been called worse.  Folks still don't accept that I'm never cold when I run.  I bundle well, with four or five layers.  I have a mask, well, last week two masks, as well as my hat and two pairs of insulated gloves.  There's a slit for my eyes.  I guess I see their point, if they have never been out there like that.

Fri AM temps here were 24 below.  In Highland, a buddy sent a photo of the thermometer outside his house--30 degrees below zero!  OK, yep, I ran.  I had to run.  Karen knew that.  I admit that I ran shorter than usual, about five miles on Fri.  But the brevity was due to two factors other than the direct cold.  I wasn't at all cold, ever.  But my eyelashes kept freezing together, impairing my vision a bit.  That complicated the second factor, the footing.  Traffic packed down the fallen snow and, with the brutally cold temperatures, that had the streets like ice rinks in places.  (The shoulders of the main roads are either packed snow or filled with frozen ruts.  Ouch!)  Yep, 24 below zero is my new personal low record.

"Innocent until proven guilty?"  I thought only the IRS violated that basic principle of American jurisprudence.  Nope, silly me.  Apparently a man was served with a court summons to answer charges he fathered a woman's child.  He didn't answer the summons.  I don't know why, perhaps because he knew he wasn't the father.  After 30 days, the courts issued a default judgment against the man and he was ordered to pay $30,000 (back pay?).  Subsequently, a DNA test proved the man wasn't the father and, with that, the mother provided a sworn affidavit attesting to the man's innocence.  Those weren't good enough for the court and the gov't agency.  He's still on the ropes for $30,000 and, as of the end of last week, he faces jail time to pay for something he didn't do, something tests and testimony prove he didn't do.

"First they came after the communists, but I wasn't a communist so I said nothing.  Then they came after the Jews, but I wasn't a Jew so I said nothing......"

I received a newsletter from my Congressman, Dave Trott.  In it he states he's interested in "reducing the size of government," in "getting Washington out of the way [since] the top-down, Washington-first approach has hurt families in Michigan."  Now, if he only follows through on his words......