It occurs to me...

I am thoroughly spoiled.  Like all Northern Californians, I feel it appropriate to whine about what may be, year-round, the most temperate and gentle climate in the country.  Except for a few weeks in late summer/early autumn, when the heat can be brutal, it really is quite pleasant here.

There is a reason we can build totally impractical houses with outer walls that are mostly glass.  Those things (and I have one, I should know) are a bear to heat and even worse to attempt to cool.  They are an environmental nightmare, leaking climate control from almost every pore. (This is contrast to the  thick walls of the adobe that Indians and Spanish used in building, which is in fact pretty energy efficient.) Because, as everyone will tell you, this is the Bay Area!! You don't need air conditioning.  Of course, this is usually said ironically on a September day when it is 103 degrees in downtown San Jose.

Now that real estate values have dropped somewhat, and the Giants have won a World Series, the weather is the last thing we have to bitch about.  That and the state of the tech industry.

And the massive unemployment, of course, but everywhere in the country is feeling that particular pinch.