<p>Adios…</p>
<p>This takes bickering to new heights…</p>
<p>But its entertaining ;)</p>
<p>sally305 wrote;</p>
<p>collegedad, have you ever heard of ice skating? </p>
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<p>Do you know how many lakes there are in Minnesota (I’ll give you a hint: it’s on the license plate)? </p>
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<p>Do you know how popular ice hockey is for kids and adults?</p>
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<p>In Depth: America’s 10 Fittest Cities - Forbes</p>
<p>This study ranks Minneapolis as the third fittest city in the US. It has a higher exercise rate (84.3%) than any of the other cities on the list. If you want to believe Minneapolis residents are incredibly active 2/3 of the year and sit on their butts eating Swedish pancakes the other 1/3–and yet still maintain a higher fitness level than people in climates where they can be outside all year long–go ahead.</p>
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<p>I think it is odd to list a place with above average obesity as more fit because they also do more exercise. The exercise they are doing is either not enough or the wrong type.</p>
<p>The obesity rate in my office just climbed since I popped a pile of Orville Redenbacher (with butter) and stuck a cheese danish on top to accompany my reading and enjoyment of this thread.</p>
<p>Continue.</p>
<p>Are you sharing, blossom??</p>
<p>I was gone for the day, and am surprised that weather is still the topic hours later! I also see I was accused by Sally of “bashing” the Twin Cities. Seriously? That is a tremendous level of sensitivity to describe a direct quote from Wikipedia about the weather as “bashing”, or to describe as “bashing” a simple comment that having lots of biking and walking trails does not mean anything without data about how many people use these facilities and how often.</p>
<p>Secondly, I see no reason why the decision to attend one elite school over another equally elite one for whatever reason the student wants, even if that reason is weather or the public/private status of the school, should be labeled as stupid.</p>
<p>Oh wait, blossom. In light of the conversation, perhaps there should be Aebelskivers in addition to popcorn. Yum! <a href=“Culinate Apps”>Culinate Apps; I actually own one of these pans. Will be HAPPY to contribute it to the cause [Nordic</a> Ware Ebelskiver Filled-Pancake Pan | Williams-Sonoma](<a href=“http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/ebelskiver-filled-pancake-pan/?pkey=cbreakfast-pans&cm_src=breakfast-pans||NoFacet-_-NoFacet-_--_-]Nordic”>http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/ebelskiver-filled-pancake-pan/?pkey=cbreakfast-pans&cm_src=breakfast-pans||NoFacet-_-NoFacet-_--_-) , unless it went out in a garage sale. Will have to look…</p>
<p>I’ll bring the akvavit! I think it’s the only way I’ll get through any more of this thread.</p>
<p>Good point. Though, in fairness, at least we aren’t hearing about some roommate’s cousin’s former bosses associate whose kid went to junior high school in Minnesota. It could be worse.</p>
<p>I have a friend and a cousin. The cousins moved to Minnesota about 15 years ago and have lived there without any issues.</p>
<p>My friend on the other hand has kept moving from place to place all over US and spent 10 of the coldest months of his life in Minnesota as he claimed. This guy has been living in NJ for the past 3 years.</p>
<p>We must be related, texaspg! I have a friend and a cousin too!! And my DH has cousins in MN! And they have lived there without issues (well actually no-- one’s partner was shot and killed by a disturbed employee, but I digress). </p>
<p>Now if you start talking about huns or goths, or post some irrelevant youtube video, I am gonna ask Sue 22 to pass the akvavit, pronto.</p>
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<p>Did it ever occur to you that these are mostly different groups of people? With an 84.3% exercise rate, Minneapolis ranks #1 in the country. It’s a fair bet that a large fraction of the 23.9% who are obese don’t exercise regularly, and it’s a certainty that the largest fraction of the 84.3% who do exercise regularly aren’t obese. That’s really a nonsensical argument you’re making there, collegedad. </p>
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<p>Not sure anyone’s ever bothered to count, but one local media outlet estimates that “a solid majority of born-and-bred Minnesotans strap on the skates and play hockey” on a regular basis. A lot of this is just pick-up games at the local outdoor rink or pond, but there are also huge organized adult leagues in every part of the state. The Twin Cities-based Adult Hockey Association has 88 teams signed up for its winter league. A rival Metro Adult Hockey League fields 50 teams. The Minnesota Wild professional team sponsors its own adult hockey league with well over 100 teams, including special divisions for players aged 40+, 50+, and 60+. Women’s Hockey Association of Minnesota (WHAM) sponsors a women’s league with dozens of teams aligned in divisions at various skill levels. There’s an adult league sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Many park districts and municipal rinks in the Twin Cities metro have their own adult hockey leagues, as do many smaller cities and towns throughout the state (Rochester, Duluth, St. Cloud, Brainerd, Bemidji, Grand Rapids, every town on the Iron Range and in northwestern Minnesota); others offer “adult open hockey,” essentially semi-organized pick-up games at dedicated ice times offered on a first-com, first-served basis. So I’d guess the number runs easily to the tens or hundreds of thousands. </p>
<p>Heck, we’re probably the only state that has featured an adult hockey game as part of the governor’s inauguration celebration. In 2003, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R), who describes himself as an “avid recreational player,” led a team that squared off against a rival team led by former Governor Wendell Anderson (DFL), a star hockey player at the University of Minnesota who played on the 1956 U.S. Olympic team. Our current Governor Mark Dayton (DFL) was also a, All-State hockey star in high school and played Division 1 varsity hockey at Yale before an injury ended his career. </p>
<p>The thing about Minnesota is, there are a lot of hardy Nordic types here. People really enjoy things like skating and cross-country skiing; it’s in their blood. The runners run all winter, and many of the bikers bike all winter; Biking magazine was so impressed by this phenomenon that it named Minneapolis the #1 biking city in America, noting that Minneapolis has the second-highest rate of bicycle commuters per capita after Portland, OR, but that the Minnesotans did it under much more challenging conditions. Things like ice fishing and snowmobiling are also enormously popular, and while they don’t involve as much physical activity as skating, skiing, running, biking, or ice hockey, they’re evidence that Minnesotans don’t just spend all winter indoors, huddled around a fireplace.</p>
<p>Funny how we got onto Minnesota, when the OP was about Michigan. Minnesota, Michigan, Maine…what difference does it make where a student goes to freeze, as long as he does it in a very active, healthy way just like the locals?</p>
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<p>This is exactly what I was going to say, bclintonk. And I would also point out that Portland, #5 on the “fittest” list, had exactly the same obesity level as Minneapolis. collegedad didn’t seem to notice that.</p>
<p>TheGFG, I still do not understand your snark or negativity about the Midwest (or Maine, for that matter). If I recall correctly, aren’t you in New Jersey? Hardly a place people move to “for the weather.”</p>
<p>We got onto Minnesota because of Bay’s daughter’s observation that people who live in “bad weather places” are content with being indoors and inactive a good part of the year.</p>
<p>It’s funny that this thread got so angry at the weather generalizations but not the racist ones.</p>
<p>For those who are denying that the prejudice exists, of course it does. Otherwise that stupid joke in the Internship movie would have made no sense. I think it would have been funnier if after smug guy walks away, the girl continues with “… Cambridge.”</p>
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<p>Omg, here we go again. Sally, give it up. Stop putting your lying words in my and my D’s mouths (they taste like the bs that they are). Neither she nor I claimed that people who live in bad weather places are “content to be inactive a good part of the year.” Once again, that is what you WISH I wrote to justify your pointless arguments, not what I did write. This is becoming unbelievably pathetic on your part.</p>
<p>This is your direct quote, Bay. (You later attributed it to your daughter specifically, not your kids generally.)</p>
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<p>So, where did I say they are indoors BEING INACTIVE? I didn’t. My D’s went to the INDOOR gym in the winter with their East Coast friends all the time.</p>
<p>Hey, I played ice hockey even when the temperature reached in the 100s. As far as correlation with obesity and fitness, let it be known that the (indoors) ice ring was built in the middle of the … food court. Talk about your priorities straight in Texas … the reward for a bit of skating? A trip to Sbarro’s, Corner Bakery, or whatever fine food they were serving at the Galleria. </p>
<p>What is the weather like in your neck of the woods? We can’t let this thread digress back to the reputation of public school, and why they are so poorly appreciated on CC. For the record, if there is one subject that has been beaten to death and debated ad nauseam, it IS that precise one. Every time the pseudo-scientists and the goofballs at THES release their ranking, there are a couple of spirited debates igniting. And it will NEVER cease! </p>
<p>By the way, what did Mark Twain say about San Francisco’s summers again? Perhaps, he had a similar one about the icy states in the winter. :)</p>
<p>Not Twain, but Melville – “Let them talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals.”</p>