So, summer has arrived. And where I am, it has arrived ever so gently. It started with a couple of days of rain showers, and somehow morphed into a new Syfy special: When the Earth Went Nuclear!
How we go from rain to 110 degrees is beyond my comprehension. We have always had warm (read: hot) summers here, and a running joke is that we have two seasons; rain and blistering heat. But this week goes beyond sanity. How insane?
We are expecting at least 5 more days over 100 degrees and nearing 111 degrees before we gently cool to 99.
Death Valley, which in anyone's book translates into "Valley where things die" is near 130 degrees. 130! The news reports say that people's tennis shoes are melting as they walk on the pavement!
Las Vegas, NV hit 117 degrees! People actually had to go inside and watch lounge singers to avoid the heat. Ten minutes later they decided that they preferred heat stroke.
Even Seattle, Washington hit the 90s which, as you might guess, is just a bit unusual for them.
So, to all you who deny that humans are having an effect on the weather, I would like to invite you on a tour of Death Valley in a station wagon with no air conditioning.
On a more serious note, I think it appropriate to mention that 19 firefighters died while working a serious blaze in Arizona. My wife and I discussed it this morning, and a thought occurred to me: what defines a 'hero'? I'm sure that there are many different definitions of the word: someone who rescues helpless animals, someone who donates time at a women's shelter, someone who flies to other countries to provide medical care to the impoverished. I would like to throw another definition out there. A hero is someone who runs into danger while others run away; someone who works in catastrophic conditions to save someone else's property; someone who would willingly sacrifice his or her life for the benefit of others.
In this case: firefighters.
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