HERE’S A PICTURE FROM LAKESHORE PARK, taken as I went for a run this morning. And, to the right, [LATER: Moved here to keep from slowing the page too much for dialup users] a picture of the Sterchi building downtown as I headed home from the Downtown Grill and Brewery this afternoon. It’s definitely trying to become spring.

One of my friends in Alaska once told me that there was an Inuit word that translated, roughly, as “being really mad because it’s freakin’ April and it’s still freakin’ winter!” February in Knoxville isn’t the best time of year here, but it was 65 and sunny again today, and while there weren’t leaves on the trees or flowers (well, not many of them, anyway) it at least feels like spring is on the way. And it’ll be here in a week or two.

Back when I was in Elementary School I used to resent the lame “signs of spring” and “signs of fall” type assignments I’d get. (Remember ironing leaves between sheets of waxed paper?) Now I look for that sort of thing on my own.

Luckily, the signs of spring are everywhere now.

UPDATE: Reader Aleta Jackson sends this picture taken from her office window — it’s snowing in Mojave. And a reader asked that I post an enlarged version of the Lakeshore picture. You can find it here if you like.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Several people email to ask what camera I used to take those pictures. It was the Toshiba. The Sterchi photo was on the maximum quality setting; the Lakeshore photo is on “medium.” It’s not one of the high-end cameras that I’ve been writing about, but it’s surprisingly good. My only real criticism is the lack of an optical viewfinder — there’s an LCD display on the back, and another one behind an eyepiece, but I’m enough of a traditionalist that I find it vaguely disquieting, although it works fine this way.