Only 122 Days Until This Fucking Winter Dies

I love a lot of things about Cleveland, but winter is not one of them. Not by a long, long, very long shot.

Indeed, winter may be my least favorite thing in the entire world. Basically, if you created a continuum of my likes and dislikes, buffalo wings would be at one end, winter at the other.

Even though we still have another 10 days or so until the winter solstice and the official start of the evil season, I think that with howling winds and a wind chill factor with a negative sign in front, I'm on safe ground when I say that winter has officially initiated its annual assault on us.

And so, since the time of year is upon us, I'm bringing back the second annual "until this fucking winter dies" countdown. I inaugurated it last year, after barely surviving the previous winter, and I think it brought us good luck. Other than a week in the single digits and a couple medium-sized snowstorms, we had it pretty easy. Hell, no snow after February is pretty awesome in my book. Was the relative decency of last year's winter the sole doing of my blog? Probably not. But just in case, I'm going to brush of the e-cobwebs and do this countdown thing again. Why tempt fate, right?

So, anyhow, let's get on with this winter thing. The sooner it starts, the sooner it finishes, right? Well, not really, but regardless, my official end date for winter is April 12, 2010. Incidentally, that's also the Tribe's home opener.

Actually, that coincidence isn't so "incidental" after all - I planned it that way. To quote myself this time last year, "Yes, I recall that winter travesty in 2007 when the Indians had to play in Milwaukee for the first part of the season because the then-Jake was a snow mound. That isn't the point. This decision is all about symbol. I mean, I could go with my birthday in June as the end of winter, but that's a little bit of overkill, isn't it."

Well, here we go. 3-2-1 Liftoff on this cold and barren next few months. I'll be checking in with you on the winter countdown tip here and there, hopefully celebrating another weak of seasonably warm temperatures but, if not, definitely whining about the presence of the kind of weather we know is coming.

I guess I'll leave this one the way I left the last one:

So anyway, here we are, post #1 out of an uncertain number of posts. So far, no cars stuck in ditches, no blizzards trapping me in unwelcome places, no breaking up with people because the weather has me depressed, no nothing. Yet. But it will come.

And, hopefully, so will spring.