Holiday Day Parade.

The weather - no worries.  It's one and done for this cold snap.  For the foreseeable future there is not

only no snow but temps will be in the thirties or near with 40s in the future.  Remember a few weeks ago when I said (and when I say I I mean NOAA) that the super cold was an anomaly in November and not a foretelling of the winter which is still predicted to be not hideous.

In fact NOAA Climate Prediction has Wisconsin as warmer then normal for the next 30 days with average snow and for three months average temps and below average snow.  In fact the next 2 weeks we have a solid chance for being above average in temps.  

November we had 19 of the possible 29 days below average and from the 14th to 21st we were 15 degrees below average.  This makes November the 15th coldest on record.  

BUT WAIT - Thanksgiving we had 3 inches of snow on the ground.  THE FOURTH MOST EVER IN RECORDED HISTORY. Who knew!  If you are wondering, in 2012 was the 2nd warmest Thanksgiving ever with a high of 62 (I could have gone out disc golfing). 

But the most wonderful thing happened Friday night for the Holiday Parade - Freezing Rain.

Santa Josh with the Princess and Princess of the Parade. 

I want to commend the actions of whoever was in charge for getting salt on the sidewalks and I saw wonderful interaction with the Police Department with holiday goodness* (more on CPD later - in a good . .ish way . . sort of).

P&P of the parade share a moment with Santa

The big concern was when Caydence and Sydney got to meet Santa close up for the first time. 

Not a problem.  

BTW - Caydence was playing with Play Doh and made the #1.  We are all complementing her when Sydney who is 3 in pre-school says  "one  uno"! We all sort of stopped talking and DJ says "two" and Sydney says "deux".  Jenny's mouth opens and Sydney says "three trois four quatro" and counts up to eight!  WHAT????  Where did she learn THAT!!  

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OIL prices continue to tumble.  One report says gas prices should bottom out at $2.50 but a few oil barons are saying oil could get as low as $30 a barrel because of the fraking in North Dakota although I see they don't say fraking.

For every penny gas drops, $1 billion goes into the economy. The thing the fed are having problems with is that inflation is not raising and actually they are worried about deflation.  

But here is the problem with fraking . . well there are many problems but . . all of this money being generated by low fuel prices are not helping "normal" oil production one bit.  Oil drilling is not getting cheaper around the world which is what is needed. 

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The Columbus Police Department on one hand did a great job with the with the first test of the new winter parking rules.  Of COURSE the first snow fall was 2.2 inches which is exactly what no one wanted!!  They gave out warnings which is wonderful. But on the other hand cars were ticketed and towed downtown - BECAUSE OF 2 INCHES of SNOW???  And DPW didn't even plow?  COME ON MAN!!  

The goal is to take away the bad reputation the CPD has and I'm seeing progress but blunders like that!  ARG!!  

OH - I have no problems with CPD giving out actual tickets in winter. Go for it with my blessing IF we are plowing.  But towing when we are not even plowing?. Hopefully it was just a hiccup.  Perhaps DPW and CPD can get in sinc. And a side note the towing problem was taken care of to everybody's satisfaction . . I think.    

I'm calling it a slightly aggressive hiccup which hopefully will not happen again.  BUT AGAIN - I saw officers Friday night being awesome downtown!! Well done department.

NOTE = Upon further review there are lots of fingers not pointing at anybody for the towing FUBR.   So it's a work in progress and will be corrected.  A little more communication - or correct  communication is needed.  No Worries!  Growing pains!   

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Coopers Hawk outside my window

 Funny true story.

This Coopers Hawk was sitting on a branch just outside my window.  He likes to have a little pigeon breakfast by our buffet feeder.  But I think this time he was looking for rodents. 

   

Anyway - He's sitting there for about an hour and birds are coming back to the feeder when a pigeon flies in and stops on a branch about 4 feet away. 

Pigeon is just sitting there bobbing his head like an idiot and hawk slowly swivels his head and stares at pigeon with a look of disgust on his beak. Like he is saying "what an idiot".

At this point I am wishing I had my phone handy to record what happens next. 

Pigeon, sitting there bobbing his head looking at the feeder going yummy yummy yummy looks to his right and spots hawk and freezes.   

Slowly, pigeon turns his head back and looks straight ahead . . . and very slowly, like a cartoon character, starts to side step, one step at a time, very slowly, step . . . by . . .step . . his way to the end of the branch . . . and flies off!  

It was so funny!!! 

Hawk finally saw no rodents and flew off.  

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NBA system 24-14   63.2%

Have a great Monday