Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 3:00 a.m. in "The City."

Although it pains me, I'll start with some sports news. The NIU Huskies were thoroughly drubbed by the Broncos of Boise State in the Poinsettia Bowl. The final stats? Score 7 - 55. Total yardage? Broncos 654 yards, the Huskies 33 yards. Yes my friends, you read that right, 33 total yards. About all there is to say is OUCH!

In a more pleasant vein, the earliest reporting date for the 2016 MLB season belongs to the Cleveland Indians on February 22, 2016. They will be followed by the Reds, the Astros, the Royals and the Phillies the next day. No news yet from the Cubs, my beloved Red Sox, nor the Tigers. For me, spring is just around the corner.

Trainspotting is probably over for this week. With Christmas on Friday, the train workers are likely to have the day off that day.

Yesterday, the southbound train rumbled through at 10:12 a.m. EMD GP 38 locomotives 2057 and 2019 were in the lead of two BCs, one CHC, and two DWTCs, along with one DWTC with a red stripe around it's mid section, which denotes the carriage of cyanide. The northbound train passed through at 1:58 p.m. The locomotives had reversed position, and they were towing one CHC, five DBTCs, two DWTCs, which carry hydrochloric acid, and another of those DWTCs with the red stripe.

It was and still is very windy, both here and around the nation. There were 27 tornadoes reported over the past 48 hours. In addition, the number of wind related reports was very large. December is normally tornado active, and so the severity for one 48 hour period is not unusual. I guess that unusual depends on whether you are a victim, as were many people in the southern U.S.

Today I'm going to try to do what I attempted to do yesterday, as little as possible. I have to assist with some editing duties and walk with STWD, but that is the extent of my activities. I may do more highlighting, but that's up to me.

The temperature outside the WW is 44.4° as we drop towards the overnight low of 38°. Later today our high temperature is expected to be 45° under partly sunny skies. Yesterday, we got into the low 60s. It was balmy by any standards, not just Michigan. So far the Grand River nor the "Big Lake" have frozen over. In fact, there was a report of two people using jet skis in the channel yesterday. Snow mobiles are not in evidence.

The sun will rise at 8:14 a.m. ans set at 5:14 p.m. Ciao.