Still not raining

Mid 20s F again, with a stiff breeze.  The term "wind-chill" has reentered our vocabulary.

Informal survey

I was contemplating the general castigation current on the auto industry, bemoaning "Detroit's" pig-headed management decision to concentrate on pickup truck and SUV production and letting Japan steal the small car market.  And then, as I walked to fetch the newspaper and back, I counted passing vehicles.

Over half the traffic on State Street consisted of light trucks and SUVs.  Usual carrying one person, the driver, and with no visible cargo.  Folks, "Detroit" was producing those dinosaurs because that was what the American Driver wanted to buy . . .

I'm old enough to remember small cars like the Nash Metropolitan, the Henry J, the Ford Falcon.  "Detroit" has tried to produce small, fuel-efficient cars through the decades.  They've flopped in the market.  Instead, we bought highway battleships like my family's 1957 Oldsmobile, with a big V-8 engine and automatic transmission. 

Or a Ford Expedition.  What percentage of SUVs ever leave the pavement, except in an accident?

And so it begins . . .

Wife and I just went for our customary afternoon walk.  Ice still skins the puddles.

Fimbulwinter

About 10F wind-chill out there, actual temperature 22 F.  Went for a lap around the neighborhood, got ambushed by a cat.  Tiger came charging out of the bushes with his gravelly complaint -- I had gotten past him and he thought his prey was escaping.  Dogged, if I may use that expression, my heels for about five houses down the street . . .

Wry amusement

Noted on the evening news, aerial shots of a few thousand Toyotas and Hondas and BMWs and such, languishing in port authority parking lots.  Unloaded from the ship, but dealers don't have room for them on the lots.  No demand.

Credit crunch hitting there, too.