When my flight left Providence, Rhode Island yesterday, it wasn't all that cold really; must have been in the '60s Fahrenheit. The problem was the wind. After the rainstorms moved out, the wind pushed in. The kind of wind that says, Summer is SO OVER. Dry, cold, biting, withering wind. I needed several layers, including the winter parka with the hood up, to get from my parked car to the airport terminal.

This morning I wake up in Paradise Valley, part of greater Phoenix, Arizona, where they tell me it is no longer so hot as it had been all summer. Now that it is no longer summer here, they actually get through an entire day without breaking 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the nighttime temperatures drop down to almost 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

In my rental car, however, I still pack my winter parka -- to wear indoors, when the refrigerated air is especially, erm, refrigerated. Especially if I am sitting still at a computer.