MORE snow on the way later today! Everybody run/race to HY-VEE, we might get snowed in!!.....about 3-5" on the way,, but HY-VEE will be packed! I think the HY-VEE Liquor store right next door (Coralville) also does a land office business when snow is on the horizon. Makes sense I guess... LOTS of things going on around town. NICE to have a lot of the snow piles and windrowa melted so we can SEE the lanes of the streets. They seem so much w i d e r now. I helped the new (1st) Director of the Coralville Center for the Perfoming Arts find a house. Megan and her family will rent for now, and when their home in Chicago area sells, they will look for a house to buy. She is excited about her new job.. That building (5th street and 12th avenue) is really HUGE!!..Lots of new tenants and condo owners will be moving in upon completion..Hmmm, wonder if the RAGBRAI participants can sleep inside?....NO!!! Speaking of the bike tour, we will have approx 20,000 people INVADING our fair city on that day! This is a good deal for lots of merchants, suppliers, vendors, etc, and a big headache for police, security, city Staff etc.......BUT, we will do a great job and will have fun!! The Coralville American Legion will be hosting a BBQ for biking riding Veterans and their friends at the Legion on that date. HOW fitting! .. I plan to get on a good Committee and do my part! YOU should consider this too, I find RAGBRAI to be a jewel in the crown of IOWA activities....I have never been on it, but I think the USA knows about it and likes it!!

I have always kind of liked Mondays...First day of a new week, a little lift in my step as I do what I love, being a Realtor......Sundays CAN be fun, but I gotta tellya, a little sun would help once in awhile!! We need some bright/cheery days!..My cousin, who grew up in Iowa City lived in Seattle for many years, and now lives in rural Washington..(state) I once asked him about 'winter' in Seattle, and he said,,;'well it isn't as cold as Iowa City, but it is cloudy/rainy, dank, damp, and foggy the FIRST 300 DAYS of WINTER'.,,,,,,,,,,....Ha!!..NOT to worry, the sleepy /crabby ground hog did NOT see his shadow this year, so Spring is JUST around the (far) corner!...This melty snow is perfect for snowmen.. Back in the day in Old Coralville, down on 8th street in the old part of town, lived a giant army of SnowBall Experts....The names Seemuth, Kron, Vacik, Shaffer, Teeple, Lenoch, Anderson, etc, were synonymous with snowballs. WE threw 34.94 MILLION snow balls in our day...Honest to God, at the end of a good day with wet snow, my throwing arm would be so sore I could hardly lift it..I always had 2-3 pairs of brown jersey, cotton gloves every Winter. After a big snowball fight I would race into the house and put a pair on top of the water heater and get a new, dry pair, and go back outside. The inner liner of those gloves was died red, so our hands got red too!! For days!! We had snowball 'successes' and snowball 'failures'.... The failures involved windows, cars, kids,, the successes involved street lights, cars, other kids,,............almost the same.............WHAT kid didn't / doesn't throw snowballs, althought I gotta tell ya that you just don't see kids outside making snowmen, snow forts, throwing snowball, sledding, doing snow angels like you used to back in the day. Probably too cold for the little weenies, OR too busy playing on the computer etc.....MOST of these kids have NO CLUE on how to entertain themselves if they were not on the computer....Sign of the times....For me,, every once in awhile I yearn to make a perfect snowball and nail some car!!!

FINALLY!! l. GLOBAL WARMING!!! I think/thought it was a bunch of hooey, (it is) but I LIKE this round of global warming.. Sure beats the global cooling and global freezing and global snowstorm of a couple weeks ago..Man, THIS is living.. Why just a week ago I paid a ton of $ to have snow moved out of a couple of my parking lots. I should have known that global warming would take care it...damn Don't know if your street got plowed.. but, most streets did get attention in a reasonable amount of time.....Most street seem a little skinnier though..I keep lookin UP at the new condo/office/performing arts building. This thing is HUGE.. WHO would believe that the teeny weeny little lot could 'hold' a BIG building like this!! Not me.. WAY more than I envisioned. This will be an icon for Coralville. The City has leased the second floor, several of the condos have been sold, and the Performing Arts Center has hired a new director!! My observation is that I will NEVER be invited onto the stage!! That makes sense!! I have NO outwardly talents that anyone would pay to see/hear...none. Wait,,, I DO have a zillion tidbits of Coralville history rumbling around in my brain.....' An evening with Rex Brandstatter'...never. MY wife Michele wouldn't even show up for that!! That does it.. I will be on that stage someday!

Groundhog Day Snow 2011

..WOW.... GOD really impressed me with his 'winter power'.....We surrender!! Don't make it snow anymore!.....For many years I have had the honor of being the "Unofficial Official Coralville Historian'....SO, here is my Unofficial report: THIS is Coralville's biggest snow storm since approx 1952 or 53'...WE just got an 'unofficial 15" on Groundhog Day, February 2, 2011.. Enough. Back in 1952+-, we got about the SAME....HOWEVER back them we did not have the number of buildings, parking lots, streets, developments etc.. NOT many people in Coralville back in those days......BUT here's more,,,, we did not have much equipment either..Nope, the City of Coralville (town in this days) had an old roadgrader, a small Ford N tractor, and an old dump truck with a plow. THAT was IT..,, and, and, they followed each other around. So if the dump truck went down your street, the little tractor was close behind.....They started at the City Shop, (about where Golfzilla is located today, and worked the 'avenues', 1st , 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc, unitil they got to Hemphill Road, and lower 11th Avenue.. Then the streets, 5th, 6th, 7th etc, until they got to 8th, then they were done.. Any problems here? Nope.. The guys who plowed teh streets were also the 'garbage guys'.., so if it snowed on garbage day, they came the next day for your garbage. Easy and simple. Life can be complicated, but in "old Coralville' it was NOT.
THIS snow storm on Groundhog Day 2011, is probably our biggest and most 'complicated'. LOTS of streets, lots of long streets, (12th ave, 5th street, 10th street, and Coralville is a BIG, spread out town.....Not sure how many plows we have,, never enough in a snow like this.
SO, sit back, let your Florida dreams begin, and remember,, GOD will take this all away,,,,but not soon!! See you in Coralville.