Oh, yeah, and to pass on an age-old tradition, my mother called me this morning to report that Punxatawney Phil, the Groundhog of Note, did not see his shadow, and therefore... whatever that means. My mom seemed excited about it, so I think that means an early spring.

I remember in college feeling like my mother was calling me at the veritable butt-crack of dawn to report on the movements of some random rat and its irrelevancy to the actual weather patterns. Now I still have no faith in the rodent's ability to predict when it will next pass gas, much less forecast the vagaries of the Jet Stream, but 8:00 phone calls don't seem so unreasonable.