Admiring Mother Nature's Consistency

1. Let’s be positive about the weather. Sure, we’re under a Code Orange air-quality alert again, but at least it’s not Code Red. Yes, the high is going to be about 93 today, but this sunny day will extend our streak to 12 days. We’d be happy if that were a Chipper Jones hitting streak, so why not be happy for the weather as well? Plus, we have a 20 percent chance of a shower or two popping up at some point today before get an overnight low of 66.

2. Just when you thought it was safe to go back to school board meetings, it’s back. The school calendar is back on the Board of Education’s agenda, thanks to East Cobb board member David Banks’ refusal to let the issue go. He proposes starting the 2011-12 school year Aug. 8, a week earlier than the current schedule and a week later than the balanced calendar the board dropped in February. We’ll have a story today on how it happened.

3. If there’s anything even more important to East Cobb than the school calendar, it’s transportation. We’ll have a report today from the tri-county transportation summit held Wednesday at the Cobb Galleria Centre. Was it just a coincidence that a five-vehicle wreck tied up southbound Interstate 75 just below the South Marietta Parkway while the transit-focused summit was happening?

4. The series continues in the Cobb Galleria Gardens, 2 Cobb Galleria Pkwy., tonight at dusk, around 8:30. The feature is the 1986 fantasy Labyrinth, starring David Bowie and a young Jennifer Connelly and directed by Muppet master Jim Henson. The movie and the popcorn are free.   

5. One more East Cobb baseball player was picked in the final day of the Major League Baseball draft Wednesday: The Washington Nationals grabbed outfielder Billy Burns, Class of 2008, in the 32nd round with the 967th pick overall. Burns attends Mercer University.