Sign of the times.

Well, it certainly was windy in New York yesterday. 

[Audience: HOW WINDY WAS IT?]

It was so windy you could hear the air whistling through our governor's head, playing Billy Preston's immortal "Nothing from Nothing."

As I knock these words out it's a little after six p.m. on Friday. The temperature is dropping to below zero, bringing the ruinous winds, and there are 57 power outrages posted on the local utility company Web site. We've been lucky -- so far. If the electricity goes out our gas furnace can't go on. And we only have one dog to cuddle up to -- everyone knows you need at least three for a bad cold night. 

To show you just how bad the wind was on Friday, here's one of the big signs in our area as I saw it at eleven in the morning:

That sign's been up for over a decade and I don't remember it ever getting whipsawed so badly, not even when hurricanes have crawled up this far north. My wife thought some large projectile must have been flown right through it, but I don't think so. I am not sure if it's appropriate or ironic that the one fix-it store in the shopping plaza, Home Depot, had its sign completely blown out. 

Side view -- I don't know what those signs are made of but they were coming off like shredded cloth.

Mean as this cold snap is, it's not supposed to last. By Sunday we should have a high of 44. That'll feel like a day in Daytona by comparison. 

Stay warm out there, my friends. Human beings are only able to survive this kind of thing because God gave us the brains for it. It's our only natural defense against the elements. Regarding intelligence: I wonder sometimes why half the population of New York doesn't die when the weather gets rough. I've seen how they drive.