Unfortunately for people who want to keep moving while on crowded sidewalks it’s been ruled that even if you and your friends are blocking peoples paths through bustling Times Square it’s not a crime.

Matthew Jones had been charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in June of 2004, but the New York Court of Appeals decided on Tuesday to overturn his conviction. At the time police has said that people had to walk around him and that he wouldn’t moved when asked and he flailed his arms.

Jones pleaded guilty in 2004 after spending a night in jail, but he later appealed.

To be convicted of disorderly conduct in New York, a person must be acting “with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof” and obstructing vehicular or pedestrian traffic, according to the unanimous opinion.

The court found that Jones’ behavior - standing in the middle of the sidewalk at 2:01 a.m. with friends - did not meet the definition.

“Otherwise, any person who happens to stop on a sidewalk - whether to greet another, to seek directions or simply to regain one’s bearings - would be subject to prosecution under this statute,” the opinion said.

Maybe this isn’t illegal, but it sure is rude when I encounter it on the streets of Toronto. Move to the side people!

Now this one’s a strange story …

Little 10 year old Huang Li was watched by her father as she saw in the chilly southern China river, Xiang River, for three hours on October 2nd with her hands and feet bound! Her father believes the task will help his daughter achieve her dream of swimming across the English channel.

Huang Li managed to swim more than a mile in the river in early October. She traveled with the current as she swam moving like a dolphin through the water.

“Her swimming skills are perfect and she insisted on doing this,” Huang Daosheng said in a telephone interview. The girl, who lives in the city of Zhangjiajie in Hunan province, got the idea after seeing something similar on a local television program, he said.

With the Beijing Olympics less than a year away, sports is grabbing greater attention in an already sports-crazed country. Huang Li’s swim is at least the second time in recent months that a child athlete has drawn media attention.

Huang swam in a skirted swimsuit with her hands tied with string and her feet bound with a strip of cloth. Her face had a blue tinge due to the cold.

“It’s not dangerous because, first, her swimming skills are really good and second, I was swimming with her, staying close to her,” the father said. “I had her when I was 35, so she is my heart. I would never play around with her life.”

The father, a teacher who enjoys swimming, coaches his daughter and said the family does not have enough money for her to have a better coach. The girl started the sport when she was six and her father said her goal is to one day swim across the English Channel.

“She asks me every day, ‘Can I achieve this? Is the English Channel wide? Are the waves really big?’” Huang Daosheng said.

Beverly and Ernie Fischer of Morton County gathered up a little more than their cattle when they did their round up this fall. They got a moose! Beverly says “He thinks he is a cow,” said his wife.

Ernie Fischer said it was difficult to get the young bull moose away from the cattle, and workers put it in a separate corral until it could be released.

The moose also broke fences on the ranch 20 miles south of Mandan.

It’s not the only such incident in south central North Dakota this year. Emmons County rancher Sam Gross recently reported a lone bull moose in his cattle herd, and a moose also was spotted in a cattle herd in McIntosh County.

It sounds like Dallas is moving up in the world just like our great city of Toronto. By moving up I mean instead of spreading out they are building up as there has been a huge boom in the Dallas Condos marketplace.

I don’t know the city of Dallas well. I only know what I’ve learned about it through books, television programs and the internet but it sounds like a great place to live. There’s a lot to do there and since I love the big city I’m sure I’d be happy if I lived there. I’d probably purchase one of the Downtown Dallas Condos if I was thinking of moving to the city, or if I ever had enough money to have a second home or out of Country vacation home. Actually that’s what I like about Condos. Since they are maintained by the buildings property managers you don’t have to be there day in and day out to maintain them. You could easily purchase a condo in a good area and rent it out to business people or vacationers most of the year and use it yourself when you go on vacations. That’s one thing that I’d like to do if I ever got a condo.

Have you ever thought of the potential and versatility of owning a Condo?