Lesser of two evils

Me and Kim went to a DBacks game on friday. And to be honest I had to read that review to figure out exactly what happened. It wasn’t the most exciting game I’ve ever been too, what with me wanting both teams to lose. But irregardless it was fun. There were maybe 50 people there total so we walked up 10 minute before game time and got field level bleacher seats in right (I didn’t get to really use them because Jason Lane was in right, and the only insult I could think of was calling him Lois (Lois Lane, get it?) but I can’t use Lois as an insult so it kind of fizzled).

At one point we were talking about catching a home run ball, and I was saying how I wanted to throw it back if the other team hit it because I’ve always wanted to do that. And kim suggested I should throw it back if the DBacks hit it. While that would be cool, I’m not sure I would be ready for 24,510 people to boo me, I’m a fairly self confident person but I’m not made of stone.

I had a great time (and I got a great Nascar hat for free) but downtown phoenix is so lame it hurts. All I wanted to do was get a pint of Guinness before the game but none of the bars around (and there aren’t that many) had anything on tap beyond bud/miller products and the bar closest to the stadium didn’t have any taps at all. Then after the game we wanted to go to Oregano’s for some pizzookie, but downtown phoenix couldn’t support an oregano’s. It closed down. Downtown flagstaff can has an Oregano’s, Mesa Community College can keep an Oregano’s pumping out hot pizza and cookie dough, but the heart of phoenix arizona couldn’t quite make it. And there is nothing else in downtown phoenix. Friday night and the only thing even remotly interesting happening was the doorman at a bar spinning a revolving door around while a kid on healy’s held on inside.

And lastly: Drinking Miller at a baseball game feels like sacralidge. It’s not right.

Rain: Check

A few days ago I mentioned how it hadn’t rained in a while, so of course I woke up Saturday morning and it was raining. And two hours later it was still raining and at that point I stopped worrying if it was going to rain long enough to really soak everything. 12 hours later when it was still raining that fear seemed a little silly.

A rainy saturday is pretty cool, and would have been noteworthy on it’s own but what we saw today makes it a mere sidenote:

From our street if you look to the east you can see a mountain range (I don’t know what it’s called I’m sure my dad can drop in the comments what it is). And today, covering that mountain range was snow. Look to the north and there are more mountains, also covered with snow. From my street today I could see 3 snow covered mountains. Not a couple flakes landed and forgot to melt, but actually fully covered with snow. I can’t ever remember being able to see snow from my house anywhere I’ve lived (Except St. Louis, but I always lived there in the summer so I never saw snow).

You can see snow from my house.

Please Rain

It hasn’t rained in 142 days in phoenix

The record number of days in Phoenix with nothing more than trace amounts of rain (defined as less than 1/100th of an inch, but more than a drop on the forehead) is 160.

Whether that record will be broken in 19 days is unclear. Forecasters are calling for a relatively high chance — 50 percent — of rain this weekend.

Kim noticed that rain has been forcast for every weekend for the last 3. It’s always forcast for next weekend.

Tie Flashbacks

I’m wearing a long sleave button up shirt today (need to do some laundry tonight) and three seperate times I’ve found myself checking to make sure that my tie is straight.

It’s been a year since I had to wear a tie to work but it’s still burned into my mind on some very deep instinctual level. A little scary.

Observant readers will realize that this means we’ve lived in Phoenix for a year now. We should get a cake or something. Or a bottle of wine. Cheap wine. Jug of cheap wine. Couple of jugs.

Thank you for not ramming me!

To: The guy driving the old red civic on 101 north today

The truck in front of me decided at the last minute to come to a complete stop on the freeway, which necessitated me coming to a complete stop as well. Because of the abruptness of this manuever and your high speed you were unable to come to a stop but you did manage a fantastic swerve which gave us a full 2 inches of clearence between our cars. I appreciate your valiant efforts (I have some indication of how hard it was because you didn’t even have time to flip me (or more correctly the person in front of me who started the whole mess) off as you whipped past).

Anyway, thanks for not smashing my car up it would have been a real headache,

josh

101,phoenix traffic,commuting

Hot enough to melt cheese

Kim, Kyra, and I went to lunch today. It took us a while to figure out where we were going to go, so I started feeding Kyra cheese while we drove. When we got there I put the lid on, but put it on wrong… cheese everywhere. So we took all the cheese out of the car and dumped it onto the asphalt next to the car.

We went in to lunch, came back 45 minutes later and the cheese was fried. Melted into bright yellow puddles with bubbles all over it (like you see on a cheese crisp after you cook it too long).

It is currently 110 degrees here. It’s just hot.

While I’m whining: Our pool motor is fixed so I went swimming yesterday and the pool water was 86 degrees.

Are you serious?

Right now there is a spectacular storm going on here. The head of the storm is a gnarly giant black cloud sticking a couple thousand feet straight into the air, a real thunderhead. The wind is blowing like crazy and lightning is flashing all around. It’s not raining here yet, but it’s coming.

And some moron is flying a kite.

I went out in the back yard to look at the approaching storm and to the south of me (the direction the storm is coming from) I could see a kite reaching into the sky. It was really high, maybe twice as high as the powerlines next to it.

Wait for it.

Flying a kite in a thunderstorm next to powerlines.

It’s so stupid there has to be an explanation. I kind of want to go find the guy and ask him whats up because no one is that stupid. Right?

Wow

I got home today and Kim told me it was 80 degrees in the house.

I checked to make sure the cooler wasn’t broken, and it wasn’t, it’s fine. But when it’s 111 outside there’s only so much the thing can do.

111…. that’s just brutal.

Go Cardinals!

On July 4th 2005 the Cardinals play the Diamondbacks at 3:10pm. I’ll be there, Kim will be there, and Kyra will be there. We’ve held off for a long time on taking Kyra to a baseball game so this would be her first one. If you can read this your invited, Noah and Jennifer have already sworn they’re in, so email me or comment here if you’re going.

It's a dry heat

It hit 108 today. I know because me and kim have been watching weather.com closely. Like you watch crash reports. It’s the same sick fascination except instead of shame when you talk about it you just feel embarresed and weak. Everybody talks about it and we all get the same masochistic thrill.

But for me and kim it’s also trying to get used to something that’s not really new, but we can’t quite remember. Everytime it gets hotter we try to imagine adding another 10 degrees to it and what that will feel like (answer: hot). 108 though is pretty much the top of our ability to differentiate degrees. It’s just hot. Thank God we have a pool. In fact our house is well suited for these insane temperatures. We only have one window that has direct sunlight and thats our bedroom in the morning. The rest of the day the sun can’t get to our windows, and our windows are all doublepaned so the normal radiator affect the glass has is stunted. Plus our Evap Cooler seems to work well (although we realized today that it was struggling to keep the temperature at 77, but 30 degrees off the top is a lot to ask) and if that should lag we have an air conditioner the size of a refrigerator to turn too. The thing is enormous and seemed to really impress the inspector when he looked at our house.

We also have fans in every room and tile floors that stay cool. Throw in the pool and we’re well equipped to handle even the roughest heat. But it’s not pretty and we’re going to complain about it, pretty much any time we do anything, ever. Go to the store: Damn its hot out. Go to the mailbox: Damn its hot out. Get a drink of water from the fridge: Damn it’s so hot outside we’re going through water like crazy.

It’ll get old once we get used to it, but for now it’s too incredible not to talk about: We chose to live here, along with a few million of our closest friends.