"Cuz I'm free...

...to do what I want, any old time."

The weather has been gray, cold, windy, wet, and generally miserable.

I'm totally digging it this year.

It's been something I've just suffered through our first three years here.

Didn't used to be that way though and I'm getting back to that.

I grew up in one of the hotter corners of the desert... and embraced it.

It was a test of wills for me.

Any given 128 degree day, you could find me on one city park volleyball court or another, coaxing friends out from under shade-trees and into the dangerous direct sunlight for endless games until the sun relinquished and retreated beyond the horizon.

I went away to college in the coldest part of the state, with the highest altitude, over 7000 feet.

Again, I embraced the elements and any given blizzard would find me coaxing friends from out of the warm apartment, dorm, or bar to get out in the snow and go sledding or snowball fight, or just tramp through the stuff to get more liquor from the store when the roads were impassable.

After college, I got married and the wife and I moved to Seattle.  One of the consistently wetter larger cities.
While there for 4 1/2 years, we put a grand total of less than a thousand miles on our truck.  We took mass transit buses, alot, walking to and standing at exposed bus-stops.  We walked or took the bus everywhere, regardless of light or heavy rain (the Seattle-based equivalent of "rain or shine".)  She played in an outdoor soccer league.  We were  always out somewhere, and the elements didn't bother us.  It only snowed a significant amount twice in the city while we were there, and both times caught us out walking around and we trudged through it.  We coaxed our friends to come out with us and ignore the precipitation.

Seems I might finally be getting back to that here.

I will dictate my life to the weather; not the other way around.