BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE!

ALMOST had to wear long pants to get the newspaper from the driveway this morning as CHI-BERIA approaches -40 with the chill factor.  this is absolutely incredible but we've been spoiled for a couple of years with soft winters. put another log on the fire.

think it's tough this winter?  jump into my time machine and revisit 1979, which was my rookie year as a police officer and the second coldest winter in area history with an daily AVERAGE temperature of 18 degrees. AVERAGE. fifteen degrees BELOW average.  every day. every. day.

 on new year's eve of 78, we got 12 inches of snow, which used to paralyze communities because of little manpower or equipment. les than 2 weeks later, the area got hit with twenty MORE inches of snow and when combined with sub-zero temperatures.....houston, we had a problem.

my first purchase as an active police officer? hot dogs. that's right, hot dogs. i bought them to lure runaway dogs into the back seat of my squad car. why so many loose dogs? well, the above mentioned snow was piled so high and frozen solid which allowed bowser to literally WALK OVER THE BACK YARD FENCE to freedom in an early version of 'shawshank redemption.'

want to feel a little old?  it was 15 years ago last night that "THE SOPRANOS" debuted on HBO.

how about a little older?  it's been 20 years since the NANCY KERRIGAN/TONYA HARDING incident prior to the olympics in 1994. harding, who is truly a white trash, trailer park living, dope smoking,  low life cretin pled guilty for her part in the attack although she says she knew nothing until after kerrigan's shin got whacked. sure.

al-Qaida militants have risen up in IRAQ and are attacking SHITES in an effort to take back the country. the military responded with air strikes and ground fighting. DOES ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR? at least this time, we're staying home......where we belong.  these people have been fighting for thousands of years and nothing we do....or have already done....will ever change anything permanently.

homicides dropped 18% in chicago last year and we still had a body count of 415, mostly in the jungle areas of the south & west sides of the city.  permanent outlook for those areas?  see the last sentence from the above paragraph.

JIMMY FALLON is incredibly talented with both comedy and musical chops and he constantly entertains me. he makes the big jump next month when he takes over for the retiring JAY LENO. the chair on THE TONIGHT SHOW is a huge one to fill and basically, only two men have run that show over the past 50 years, leno & the king, JOHNNY CARSON.
hope he makes it.

ok,one more 'feeling old' tidbit before i get back under the covers.  next year, it will be THIRTY YEARS since the CHICAGO BEARS won the super bowl. thirty.  ouch.

stay warm!