Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Hotter. We're typically around 105-107, not bloody 120. And while that sounds horrible to those who don't live here, 105 is surprisingly livable, GIVEN that we're in the desert and yes, it's nearly unbearable in the summer.
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Years back, my then employer sent me to Alamogordo, NM. as part of a team to bring on line a facility they were building out. The trip was in mid-July. My response was "You want me to go to a place where it's 95F-100F during the period when it
is that hot?" They did.
And it
was that hot, but it was a dry heat and more or less bearable. I called the SO back in NYC, and it was 90F and 100% humidity and she was dying. I said "I can't believe this, but I might have a better deal!"
It would have been nice if food was more than just Tex-Mex, and the hotel I was booked into didn't have a
heated pool. (The Front Desk Manager didn't understand it either, but it was what the owner specified, so...) At one point a woman came to the front desk to complain about it, with her young son in tow. He's just gone for a dip and emerged looking like a freshly boiled lobster.
I did get to see the legendary White Sands, and visit the local Air and Space museum which had things like the rocket sled AF Col. Andy Stapp used to set a record on the amount of G force a human could handle. (I was the only one in my party who understood the significance of the device and was tickled to sit in it.) Col. Stapp had lifelong vision problems as a result, because the ride caused detached retinas back when the technology to deal with them wasn't as developed as we have now.
One of my co-workers was a self-described polar bear. He'd sleep back home in NJ with the windows open and on top of the covers in the dead of winter, while his wife huddled under the covers and electric blanket. He said "People don't think I feel the cold. That's not true. I do! But when it's cold enough that your fingers turn blue and hurt, I
like that!" But the same chap spent a couple of weeks of his vacation every year in the dead of summer in Mexico where you were lucky if the temperature dropped
below 100F, with his church group working with really poor Mexicans.
Alamogordo was a nice little town literally a hundred miles from anywhere. I enjoyed the visit, but was grateful to get back to NYC. On my return, there were joking comments about transferring me to Alamogordo. I said "First, you double my salary. Next, you pay my relocation expenses. Third, you pay for my local housing. Fourth, you pay for my T1 line to the Internet. Fifth, you pay for my charge account at the local book and record store. And last, you pay for my supply of really good drugs, because I'll go screaming up the wall in about two weeks flat without them!" They chose not to call my bluff, which was good because I
wasn't bluffing.
It's hot in NYC at the moment, too, but we're behind air conditioning and have no need to spend a lot of time out in it. (My SO shopped at the farmer's market, but she goes first thing in the morning when the other shoppers tend to be local chefs buying fresh produce for their restaurants, and the heat has not reached mid-day intensity.)
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Dennis