Hot, Hot, Hot

It is too bloody darn hot! At 9:23 p.m. is is 84F for us in the US and 29C for the rest of the the world. The high was 101F/38C.

Days like this I wanna hide out in a cool shady place. I really do. I think "grotto". Something a bit below grade, with cool rocks. Maybe a cascading water fall dropping into a limestone pool like the cenotes in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. (I haven't been there, but I've read about them in National Geographic.) They look real pretty to me. And cool. That's important.

Alas, I'm nowhere near a grotto. Our home really picks up the afternoon heat so even our evaporative cooler (aka "swamper") doesn't drop the temp that much. At least, not when the humidity is at 29-31%, it doesn't. On top of that, I've been having those feminine power spikes lately. I finally said the hell with it, stripped off my t-shirt and just sprayed myself down with a mist of water. That felt good for about 10 minutes. But I'm a smart cookie, so I took my t-shirt, soaked the top 3rd and then put it back on. That did the trick! I achieved cool.

Thinking about it, an Australian style verandah would be a real nice thing given our climate here . It would help with energy efficiency too.

Yesterday after work, I worked out for 45 minutes. Did 2.25 miles on the treadmill followed by 30 leg curls with 30 lb weights, and 15 leg presses with 100 lb weights. The day before I did mostly stretching stuff while using a new 5lb weight ball for extra resistance. I'm trying to make sure I do something every day.

Today, I was lazy. Well, I got in a quick 20 lateral pulldowns with 60lbs weight and 15 biceps curls with 50 lbs weights during my break. After work I met my lifelong chum Windy, who is from out of town, for a light lunch. After that I snuck in a walk with him, meandering around and through some nearby shops and an art gallery.

I spent some time this evening getting caught up on the news. MSNBC today had a commentary by Arthur Caplan, Ph.D about the media ignoring the downside of what he calls "megamultiples." The name of the article was "Media’s cooing over sextuplets is a disservice; News outlets go gaga and forget to report the downside of megamultiples." His point of view is similar to mine, but he says things a lot nicer. But, like me, Dr. Caplan states that the costs which are largely passed on to the public through insurance premiums and taxes is not chump change. He wrote, "Infants born in big numbers also need to spend a lot of time in neonatal intensive care units to allow vital organs to develop, which means they require expensive, high quality medical care. Those costs are almost always borne by either insurance plans or state Medicaid funds, meaning you and I pay their bills. And obviously, if there are complications that affect the children as they grow, helping the kids — and the parents — with their health problems through special education, multiple surgeries and rehabilitative care can run into the millions of dollars." That's good. He's got his Ph.D and I have only a bachelor's. But we're on the same page and I've never read him before today either.

I resented the Shrub King again today when he vetoed the embryonic stem cell bill. (An interesting sidenote regarding this bill and tied to the fertility industry, is that a lot of would be parents are apparently quite interested in donating their unused embryos for this kind of stem cell research.) One of my sisters has MS and we've both understand that there are potential therapies that can derive from this research that could help manage the MS better for tens of thousands. For others, research could lead to a cure for Alzheimers or Huntingdon's or any number of cancers. And this man, the President says "I made it clear to Congress and to the American people that I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line."

Whose moral line are we talking about here, Shrub? Who are you to say what you will allow your countrymen & women to do or not? We are not a dictatorship!

I think it's immoral that productive people have to endure debilitating diseases and get cut out of the social milieu and isolated the way they do. I believe it is immoral to bar this research. I stand with the 60% of American's who do support stem cell research. I sure wish Molly Ivins was still alive. I betcha she could've written a good op-ed on this today.

That's my story today. I'm stickin' to it.