You might think someone who uses the term "Extreme" would live in California or something. "Extreme" to me is challenging nature. I climbed up a waterfall, scaled mountains, jumped rocks along the ocean, etc. But here in Minnesota, Extreme is simply stepping outside the door on a cold February morning. The topic of Weather here is as popular as Prince. When a big storm or a cold snap is coming, TV stations break into regular programming as if ICBM missiles are about to hit. Colourful graphics and hour-by-hour accounts of how low the temperature will get are urgently displayed. The excitement stirs everyone up as if it's the 4th of July.
Today (February 3, 2007), the morning temperature here is -13º degrees. The wind-chill is 36 below zero. What does the general populous do? Stay indoors? Cancel your normal plans? No. Everyone is so excited about the extreme conditions - they go out! Last night, there was the Winter Carnival parade in St Paul with a windchill of -7º degrees. When the pilot announces the temperature outside when landing at the Mpls-St Paul airport, there are a bunch of groans from people coming to visit. Then there is a wave of chuckles by Minnesotans returning home. If you're making small talk with someone in an elevator about how cold it is outside, the reaction is more of fascination than disdain.
"I hear the high today is only going to be 3 below today"
"Wow, that's amazing!"
I used to work at Video Rental store, and everytime there was a huge snow storm or extreme cold system coming, people would flock to the video store. The idea in their heads were "let's stay in and watch some movies". In reality, they go outside in the nasty weather to the video store (and back) to rent movies so they can stay indoors. Huh? Similarly, I will go out to a movie on a bone-chilling cold night, and find a parking lot half full of other diehard movie-goers.
Personally I enjoy the idea that merely going outside can be a life threatening experience.
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