Suddenly 50-degree days are here and it is the first week of February.

I am waiting to see if this turns out to be the warmest February in the history of New York State. The temperature in the state of Washington has hit 60 degrees. This is because the jet stream has moved north.

The apple farmers in the state of Washington may already be on Maalox. I have been bewildered by the amount of rain we got in January. Your heating bill will tell the story. It has been a surprise to see some green in the grass.

Dandelions are still two months away.

People are leaving New York State
People are leaving New York State in big numbers. The destination states are Florida, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, California, Texas, Connecticut, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia.

I view Florida as a state for retirees. That people are leaving for New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut says that they like working here, but cannot afford to live here. IBM at one time had a plant in Somers in Westchester County. It was near the Connecticut state line in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Somers was spending $10,000 more pupil at its school district, than the neighboring school district in Connecticut. There was no rush to move to Somers.

People when looking to buy a house do consider school taxes. Ulster County School Districts as a group rank in the top twenty counties in the United States in terms of per pupil spending. Could this be a reason that people are moving to an adjoining state?

Analysts positive on IBM’s new leadership
On the day that IBM announced that its CEO Ginni Rometty was going to retire and be replaced by Arvind Krishna and James Whitehurst, who came to IBM from Red Hat, where he was its president, to be the president of IBM, IBM’s stock shot up $6. Krishna and Whitehurst are tech people. Ms. Rometty was in sales. Krishna is the head of IBM’s cloud division.

I feel better about IBM’s future because of these changes.

I sent this announcement to a friend of mine from Highland, who had 1500 on his SATs, is a graduate of the College of Nanotechnology in Albany, and is working on his doctorate in the field of computer science at Georgia Tech, and he told me that he would like to work for IBM.

I do not own IBM stock and would not consider buying it until I see if Krishna and Whitehurst can turn around the IBM ship. I am glad IBM has tech people running it.

Trump goes after Medicaid
Trump and Medicaid are often now linked in the same sentence.

Because last year 50.1% of all births in New York State were paid for by Medicaid, I am sure that the soon-to-become mothers learn first hand from their doctors, who will pay the bill.

I think Trump should watch out, as he may be about to walk through a minefield.

The Yankees got robbed
Last fall the New York Yankees and Houston Astros were tied 4-4 in the bottom of the 9th inning of the sixth game of their playoff series, which Houston was leading 3 games to 2.

The Yankees had called on baseball’s top reliever, Aroldis Chapman. He did something very unusual; he served up a home run ball to Jose Altuve. Both the game and series were lost.

Months later we learned that Houston had an illegal system to steal signs. When Altuve hit that home run I was shocked/surprise, heart broken.

Now I feel Houston stole the game and the series. I do not trust any of their hitting statistics.

Florida won’t always be a destination state
The State of Florida has some cost issues which are only shared by one other state.

More than 18 percent of its property owners have to pay flood insurance.
In New York State 2.1% of its property owners have to buy it.

This is not optional. The average now is $660 a year. There will be two reasons it will increase, and both deal with the rising oceans. As they get higher more properties will be in flood zones. And as the oceans rise the floods from the oceans and hurricanes will get more intense causing more damage to properties. In turn the insurance rates will be increased.

When the Atlantic has risen 10 feet, at least 30 percent of the residents will be required to have flood insurance, but instead of paying $6660 a year, pay $5,000 as the flood damage will cause the first floor of homes to rot and have mold.

Yet all of the properties in the state will have a negative future as the Atlantic rises another 10 feet and the cost jumps to $10,000 a year.

Warm water under Antarctic Glacier
Climate Change scientists were surprised after drilling 667 yards (3/8ths of a mile) through a glacier the size of Florida in Antarctica to find semi-warm water in the south Atlantic.

Because of this they feel that the melting of the ice will accelerate and eventually cause the ocean to rise four feet.

As for Global Warming there are always surprises.