Happy Groundhog Day!

I hope that everyone managed to have a great Groundhog Day last saturday. Unfortunately for all of us, good old Phil up in Punxsutawney, PA did see his shadow. Here's the official report:

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

On Gobbler's Knob on this fabulous Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2008
Punxsutawney Phil, the Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators,
Rose to the call of President Bill Cooper and greeted his handlers, Ben Hughes and John Griffiths.

After casting a weather eye toward thousands of his faithful followers,
Phil consulted with President Cooper and directed him to the appropriate scroll, which proclaimed:

"As I look around me, a bright sky I see, and a shadow beside me.
Six more weeks of winter it will be!"

Who knew that a groundhog would speak in rhyme? Regardless, things aren't looking so hot for the globally warming country of ours. As most people in the midwest are now discovering, winter is here with a vengeance... and it's all because of a groundhog named Phil.

We here at the Gruetzmacher compound had a great Groundhog Day. Shawn came over in the morning and helped us install the stairs for our attic. Then in the evening, we grilled some hog on the grill and watched the movie Groundhog Day. If there's one thing that I've learned from watching the movie umpteen times, it's that there are two basic ways to celebrate this wonderful holiday. One is to over indulge in the pleasures of life as though it were your only day to live. Eat sweets. Have a drink or two. Have fun. The other way to celebrate the day is to do something that betters yourself. Read a book. Learn something new. Play the piano.

People always ask why I have such an affinity toward this obscure holiday. The movie was good, but was it really that good? The beginning goes back to high school. My first job was working at a Blockbuster video, and the manager I would constantly work with loved the movie. Every shift, he would play it non-stop. That would be three times a shift, three times a week... and you so you could say that I became very familiar with the movie. The thing is, the more I watched it, the more I enjoyed it. I really liked how it touched on the concept of enjoying the here and now as opposed to always thinking about where you're going to be.

The groundhog is famous for being able to predict the future of winter. While he's doing that, maybe the rest of us should just enjoy the weather we have now. And in North Carolina, that weather is spectacular!