All of the schools in our district have AC so they went the full days this past week. But the schools in the surrounding areas that do not have AC all let school out early. Most between 1:00-2-00 pm. The heat and humidity here in Illinois has been awful too. The kids can't learn in this heat so what is the point? Our kids were kept in from recess one of the worst days this week. We should see some relief about Monday.

Oh, I figure they have their reasons. We found out school is closed on Thursday, only a few mins ago. Wind has been blowing super hard, snow blowing everywhere too. Dh left with the tractor to pull my nephew out of the snow along with a friend that nephew was trying to pull out first. This is our 3rd snow storm in less than a month and not much has thawed. We have hills in the middle of our farm that didn't exist in November. Kids have only missed 2 1/2 days of school because of snow/ice. Of course we have a pretty decent snow plow plan. The worst part for us tonight is the wind chill factor. It's about -14 and going down fast. brrrrr!!! It's hard to breath out there.

Nodakgal, our schools had Zero Period, starting at 6:30 am and two of my kids took classes then as upper classmen. They liked the Zero Period classes because they always knew who their teacher would be and because they wanted to take an extra class. At registration for classes, Period 1 through 6 classes did not indicate who the teacher would be, so for some classes they really liked avoiding a particular teacher or being assured they would be getting someone they really liked. The other kid had surf class at dawn. The rule was that as the sun was just starting to come up, their feet had to be on the water line at the beach. They surfed through zero and first periods, rushed home during 2nd period to shower and change and be at school by 3rd period. This son lettered in surf.

Skimming here there are some things to think about The eye sore part: -You can barely see the towers now so there must be some current trees between the house and the towers --but what if something happens to the trees? Disease, more development, the power people feeling the need to cut them down *I would definately try to get a handle on whether there is going to be more development between the house and the power lines -Will winter affect being able to see the towers? -Someone mentioned upgrading - you might want to call the electric company and get an idea of whether they will be upgrading - although it will be hard to find any office or employee that has a clue, you will have to have patience and persistance The risk thing - hard to know. When I was younger I used to worship at sciences feet. As I've gotten older I find scientists tend to be arrogant and absolute. When new findings throw out previous findings which is the nature of science, they don't even blink. They just tout the new findings as the now absolute last word with the same arrogance. I try to do research with information from all sides and apply some common sense and gut feeling. You have to do what feels right for you and don't let anyone make you feel bad for it. Resale - Given a choice I would prefer not to be near power lines. That is of course getting harder to do. You need to really evaluate the bigger picture of the areas people "like you" are looking at. Sounds like schools etc. are important. How many "good" neighborhoods in your price range are affected by a negative (hwy, power lines etc.) Do people have choices? Lkplatow comments: madmartian - I'm in surburban Philadelphia -- close enough to NJ to have the same problems I guess. Too much development, not enough land.... Really the elephant in the room everyone is ignorning is population growth. Although of course I realize a lot of people with chime in with population moving around - growth (whereever it happens) still is a bottom line problem.