<p>Sally, do you understand humor? That is what post 533 was–an attempt at humor. I don’t comprehend the concept of being snarky about something value-neutral like geography or weather. Can a city or its thermometers be offended? Is “cold” a bad or disrespectful word? Why does quoting a passage from an encyclopedia that states the weather is “extreme” and “arctic” insult you? And are you really going to argue that Minnesota isn’t relatively cold compared to many other places in the US? Why in your mind does that equate to saying CA or NJ is perfect? Frankly, being defensive about what you perceive a stranger thinks about the weather of a particular state is bizarre, and even more crazy when it’s a state you don’t even live in.</p>
<p>So, OP, you are free to like the schools you like for the reasons you like them, and regardless, most adults would agree that the University of Michigan is a good school.</p>
<p>"
One observation my kids had (and I know there are plenty of exceptions to this), is that people who grow up in bad weather can be content staying indoors all day, while my kids, who are used to being active outside nearly 365 days per year, find having to do this depressing."</p>
<p>I think the problem is that you arbitrarily defined “4 distinct seasons, of which one is winter with snow on the ground” as “bad weather.” That’s really odd to think of mere winter / snow as “bad weather.” Unless you’re 85 and your bones creak. Bad weather means things like blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, perennially overcast and gloomy skies. Not “winter.”</p>
<p>TheGFG, I do understand humor (and appreciate it when it’s funny.) :)</p>
<p>Of course I am not going to argue that MN doesn’t have extreme weather. Of course it does. I, and others, have simply tried to dispel some of the misconceptions about the lifestyles of those who live in the frigid north–one being that parks and lakes and running shoes sit idle for months on end while people huddle around the fireplace waiting for the spring thaw. </p>
<p>I actually don’t know how we got on the subject of weather in the first place!</p>
<p>The only bad weather I described, (and not even in conjunction with that particular post), was raining, sleeting, snowstorming and freezing cold.</p>
<p>For the love of God, Bay. “Attacked”? I won’t ask you to substantiate that, because I (and many others, I’m sure) would love to put this thread–or at least our part in it–out of its misery. But, yes, posters did suggest that few people used parks and lakes in the winter in MN. Can we please be done with this?</p>
<p>bclintonk wrote: “Did it ever occur to you that these are mostly different groups of people?”</p>
<p>Not necessarily true. My neighbor is proud that he goes to the gym everyday. He exercises more often than I do. He is also morbidly obese. So the fact that he exercise, even though he is obese, makes him “fit” according to this “methodology”.</p>
<p>A self reported “exercise rate” really means nothing since what constitutes exercise is in the mind of the beholder. </p>
<p>Claiming people in a city are healthier because there are more bike trails and parks is a silly - especially when they have a higher incidents of obesity.
It would be like saying that people in NY are healthier since they have so many tall buildings and if you used stairs instead of elevators, everyone there would be healthy.</p>
<p>California is not perfect, either. The air quality is awful at times. It would depress the heck out of me to look toward the ocean or the mountains and see that disgusting layer of pollution-caused smog, not to mention have a hard time breathing because of all the crap in the air. @Sally
I think your describing Southern California. Where I live 50 minutes from Napa Valley and 75 minutes from Lake Tahoe the air quality is some of the best in the nation and I can run 365 days a year and do any activity I choose year round. My nephew just left the twin cities after living there 25 yrs, he loved the place but hated the weather. No place in the nation beats Northern California weather hands down. I lived near the mistake on the lake for 10 yrs. Baton Rouge, 5yrs, Denver,2yrs. I repeat Northern California hands down!</p>