The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: Timothy on May 03, 2018, 04:54:08 PM
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Hot...
Earliest AC install in years!
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I just had mine serviced a few weeks ago. It's all ready for triple digits.
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I started running mine yesterday when it got up to 83 degrees for the second day in a row. That was only 3 and 2 degrees below the record highs for those 2 days. Today isn't even close. The record lows for the first 3 days of the month were 26, 27, and 26 again. I only have 2 window air conditioners and have left them installed the last few years. I got tired of taking the bedroom windows and screen out to crawl out on the awning and unscrew the outer part of the unit to pull it into the house.
Without A/C, when we have high temps several consecutive days without cool nights, it gets much hotter inside than outside. Like 95 inside if it's in the 80-85 outside. The first summer in my house I had long tapered candles in a pair of sconces I made, and it got so hot that the candles went limp and bent into a J shape. Not even Viagra would have helped. That's when I knew I really needed air conditioning. Box fans in the windows just weren't cutting it.
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My previously straight as an arrow candles were shaped just like this.
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nine days without power during the 2004 hurricane season makes you work on a way to power your ceiling fans at least.... high 80s until after midnight, and up for school at 6am made for miserable couple of days
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How many of you guys hose off your outside units? I'm told they work much more efficiently if you hose out the dirt and dust that accumulates in the radiator vanes of the condenser at least once a year. I get a LOT of dirt when I do it. It's amazing how much dust there is out here that gets drawn into the unit.
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It helps,
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If you live in dusty areas (we get a lot of seasonal dust from farming) it helps to do it a few times a year.
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Here in South Texas yesterday it reached 90 in San Antonio. It was about a month late getting here. A very mild spring but have been running the A/C for several weeks .
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How many of you guys hose off your outside units? I'm told they work much more efficiently if you hose out the dirt and dust that accumulates in the radiator vanes of the condenser at least once a year. I get a LOT of dirt when I do it. It's amazing how much dust there is out here that gets drawn into the unit.
Window units, once after the spring pollen and at least once during the summer and before I store for the winter.
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We have a heat advisory in effect from 10:00 am today until midnight. I used the A/C in the bedroom for all but a little bit in the morning, and ran the downstairs one constantly. The thermostat said it was only 71 degrees when I got up, but it felt higher than that. It was 72 degrees within seconds of turning the lights on, and is now 74 in the coldest room downstairs. If I sit near the thermometer it goes up pretty fast too. The bedroom should be cool enough.
It was supposed to get up to 95 or so with a heat index of 105-110 degrees today but AFAIK it only got up to 93 degrees and felt like 98 a few minutes ago. If it got as hot as they predicted yesterday, and the relative humidity didn't drop as the temperature rose, the heat index would have been 152 degrees today. You can calculate the heat index by air temperature and dew point, or air temperature and humidity at this NOAA website.
http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/heatindex.shtml
The hottest I worked in for GM that I know of was 130+ degrees. Not fun times to be tossing frame rails into welding fixtures all day. They had people come around and give us a paper cup full of Kool-Aid while we took a 5 minute break twice a day. But 130 degrees is nothing compared to the heat index at Fort Polk, LA in the summer. You know it's hot when the post commander orders the whole division to take off their fatigue shirts and work in T-shirts for the day. If the air temperature is 95 degrees but the humidity is 99% that makes the heat index an even 160 degrees, and it was very humid there all year. We had a couple of big parades in the summer and people passed out at both of them. We were told repeatedly not to lock our knees, and if you thought you were going to faint you were supposed to move to the rear of the formation and the person behind you would take your place. Every once in awhile I could hear the crash of a steel pot hitting the ground. Of course it was still strapped on to the person's head at the time.
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Clark AFB, Philippines. It was definitely not a dry heat. We stripped to shorts immediately upon landing. Wrenches became slippery from all the sweat.
I loved it though. Given I can dress for the occasion, I'll take hear/humidity over cold weather any day.
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I'll take the cold over extreme heat any day. When I go outdoors, I can always add more layers of clothes, or just wear warmer clothes if I'm too cold, but when I'm down to my undies and still too hot I can't take anything else off without getting arrested. Don't ask me how I know that. :-[ When I'm indoors, it's very easy and relatively fast and cheap to heat my house, but cooling it down to a comfortable level is impossible and very slow and expensive to try doing. The good news is I got the humidity down to barely above 60% in here, but only because it's 15% lower than that outside.
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I'm with you Alf. After years of working on offshore platforms I'm adverse to the cold. in the summer it was always over 100 on the topside steel decks. Nothing quite like picking up tools with rags to keep from burning your hands....better than cold.
Though I gotta say after a couple of decades out of Tulsa with the low humidity up here I do suffer a few days getting reacclimated to high humidity.
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How many of you guys hose off your outside units? I'm told they work much more efficiently if you hose out the dirt and dust that accumulates in the radiator vanes of the condenser at least once a year. I get a LOT of dirt when I do it. It's amazing how much dust there is out here that gets drawn into the unit.
Yeah, I wash mine out. We don't have the issues you do with dust but we do get leaves and debris. Usually when it get's to be 100+ and I dribble water on them help out with cooling the house.
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I was at Clark AFB, Philippines from Mar 72 to Aug 73...90+ and raining the day I got there and 90+ and raining the day if left... 110" of rain in 40 days during the monsoon
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I was at Clark AFB, Philippines from Mar 72 to Aug 73...90+ and raining the day I got there and 90+ and raining the day if left... 110" of rain in 40 days during the monsoon
That would really suck for me. My city averages less than 32 inches of rain per year. That's 7.55 inches less than the national average, but it's enough to keep my lawn watered most of the time. It keeps my roses alive year after year. We have 1/3 less days per year with precipitation than the national average too, only 1.3 days per week on average. If I get a decent amount of sleep but just can't seem to get going, when I look out my window it's probably raining. And if I've been up for hours and suddenly get drowsy for no apparent reason, it's probably raining. Someone once told me it had something to do with the change in barometric pressure. I don't know if it goes up or down, and if the pressure change is in my ears, or what's going on. I just know it happens way too often to be coincidence. It doesn't seem to make the arthritis I have nearly everywhere any worse, and neither does cold weather, so that's good.
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October 76 - Key West, 80-90 degrees.
November 76 - Keflavik, Iceland, NOT 80 degrees...
After a year in Key Waste, it was quite a shock to the system. They turned the sun back on in mid March in Iceland...
Still prefer cool over hot any day!
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The heat advisory that was supposed to end at midnight got extended to 6:00 p.m. today. The heat index was only supposed to be 95-100 degrees, 10 degrees cooler than what they predicted for yesterday. I checked a couple of times and it was 97 this afternoon. I don't know if that was the was the high, or if it was already cooling down. I only went outside once today, in the evening, and did everything I had to in a couple of minutes. That makes 2 days in a row that it was too hot to mow my too long grass. We'll probably have thunderstorms tonight and/or tomorrow but it shouldn't take long to dry so I can mow after that.
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I've done 38 years in Chicago, and 28 years in Arizona. I wouldn't do another Midwestern Winter if you bought me a 7 digit home there, and paid the taxes and utilities for the rest of my life. I hated the winters and never got used to them. Your vehicles all turn into a rusty POS in 5 years or less, from all of the corrosive road salt they dump all Winter long. Exhaust or shock absorber work is done with air chisels, not wrenches.
Every year I managed to get the flu. As soon as the first cold snap hit, people would come into work, all snotting, sniffling, and sneezing. Within a week I caught it. My knees would ache from the cold, damp weather constantly. I lived on Tylenol from November to May.
You had 90 day Summers, (June, July, and August), half of which it was either raining, or else threatening to. I never knew how short a Midwestern Summer was until I bought a boat. I only saw it 3 months out of the year. The rest of the time I was paying monthly fees while it was sitting in storage.
As soon as the Sun dipped below the horizon, you had to go inside, or else get eaten alive by Mosquitos. In the Winter below zero temperatures were common after January. Praying your car would start, so you could get to work. And if it did, you froze your ass off scraping ice and snow off the windows, and while driving it until it warmed up.
Since we moved to Arizona I have never had to concern myself with any of that. I feel great. The Sun shines over 300 days a year. My house is cool, comfortable, and DRY. I never have had to pull guns out of my safes to wipe them down. (In Illinois I had to do it every month or risk rust). I can change 10 year old shock absorbers with a Crescent wrench. (I say that because I've done it.) And I have NEVER gotten the flu, or a Mosquito bite in the last 28 years we've been out here.
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It sounds like Chicago sucks even worse than I thought it did. I'm glad it's not that bad here. There's a small pile of rust in my driveway right under the edge of the driver's side door. I never had that happen before with any vehicle, not even this one, but 18 winters can do that, especially if you don't wash the salt off.
I haven't had the flu in so many years I couldn't even tell you what decade it was. My immune system seems to be functioning. When I was married there were a few weeks straight that my wife and I keep giving each other a cold or possibly a mild case of flu. When you're on each other as much as we were it's hard to avoid germs. I was sick, but I wasn't too sick, if you know what I mean. That was sometime in the early '90s. I may have gotten the flu sometime in the last 25 years, but I couldn't say when. Certainly no time since I started getting annual flu shots. I coughed some last winter and may have had a bit of a cold. I had to throw away all my expired cold medicine and didn't buy anything to replace it, just 2 bags of cough drops. My knees have been screwed up since I was a kid but the cold never makes it any worse. Better maybe, but not worse. Ice packs would feel good on them right now.
Some people here put their boats away after Labor Day weekend and don't use them again until Memorial Day weekend. Other people get more use out of them. It's the same for ATVs too. There are only 91 days of summer but spring and fall generally aren't too bad. We have 4 seasons in a year here, not just 1 or 2, and I don't need to run the air conditioner or the furnace a lot of days. That heat advisory we just had was the first one in almost 2 years. I bet there were some days during the last 2 years that it was too hot outside in Arizona.
A couple of days ago I saw something I thought was a mosquito at first, but it was small. If it was a mosquito it's the first one I've seen since last year.
Don't ask me what year it was the last time I took any of my guns out and wiped them down. :-[ Sometimes I look at them to see if they're still okay, but that's about it.
We get 32 inches of rain per year here. The U.S. average is 39. The number of days with any measurable precipitation is 68. The U.S. average is 102. Better than average here on both counts. On average, there are 169 sunny days per year, and the July high is around 82 degrees. I can tolerate a few 82 degree days as long as it cools off at night. The January low is 15 degrees at night, when I'm sleeping and don't give a bleep what the temperature is. I live in a house with a furnace, not on the street, so it doesn't matter.
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I got my June gas and electric bill Saturday. My electric use went up over 80% in a single month. :'( Every bit of that extra use was air conditioning. Global warming or not, that's already higher than any month last year, including August, which was the highest month by far. It's actually worse than that, since I haven't used my porch light in months, and I did most nights last year. Since we have summer rates, anything over 600 kWh per month is charged at a higher rate, and mine was 934. It was less than 700 last June. No doubt about it, Summer is here, and it looks like it's going to be a hot one.
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spent Sunday plumbing in a tee in the fuel line of my inverter gen set so I can run it from a squeeze bulb/siphon system like I use on my larger Honda... during Irma it allowed me to furnish power to three homes to keep the refrigerators up, using gas from the home owners bulk cans... the inverter was contained in a case, so had to remove the case to get access to the feed line between the shut off and the fuel pump, so it took about 2 hours... nothing strenuous physically, but the temp around noon was around 93F...I was really exhausted from just being outside working in the shade of a tree.
test ran the inverter gen set today....with a 2gal external fuel can and spout adapted to hold the line more secure and waterproof with a couple of PVC elbows, it should give me all night ceiling fan, TV, computer, and refrigerator... considerably quieter than the older 240v system... if not, the 5 gal cans are available... I don't like to hot fuel
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Temps in the upper 90's here in south GA, and high humidity makes outside functions miserable. The heat index the last few days has been hovering near 110° F. It's supposed to "cool off" toward the weekend, meaning low 90's.
At least we have shade on the house, from large pecan trees, for 3/4 of the day which helps considerably.
Every 4 to 5 years the month of June is our hottest average month instead of August.
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AFAIK it only got up to 80 today and it's on the way down for the evening. It felt like 80-82 because of the humidity which isn't bad. Thunderstorms are in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow with lows in the 60s 3 nights in a row. That's going feel a lot better, but Saturday is going to suck. It's supposed to be 96 degrees with 62% humidity. That will make the heat index 118, then the humidity is supposed to go up to 77% at night. If it didn't cool off that would make the heat index 135 degrees instead of 76 at night.
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I turned the heat on in my car this am...
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4:10 PM and it's 112 as I type this. Humidity is 9%.
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4:10 PM and it's 112 as I type this. Humidity is 9%.
Bill, I'd take humidity in the 50% range and be happy here on the other side of the river.
I know heat is heat, and 112° is hot, but does humidity that low make it easier to breathe?
The humidity levels here, once above about 80% on a 90° day, makes breathing seem like you're sucking air through a drinking straw.
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I know heat is heat, and 112° is hot, but does humidity that low make it easier to breathe?
Yes, much easier. Plus you don't sweat unless you really exert yourself. That is a two edged sword, because while you don't get all sticky and wet, you can very easily dehydrate because you don't feel that "hot". So it's very important to consume a lot of fluids and water.
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Right now ,1230 it's 74, only suppose too be 82.
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Yes, much easier. Plus you don't sweat unless you really exert yourself. That is a two edged sword, because while you don't get all sticky and wet, you can very easily dehydrate because you don't feel that "hot". So it's very important to consume a lot of fluids and water.
Same thing I had to remember when riding motorcycles during high heat season. Even though a person sweats, the air flow dries it rapidly and it is easy to dehydrate on long rides.
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The forecast changed yesterday and changed again today. No surprise there. Now it looks like it will hit 98 degrees Saturday to tie the record high. 61% humidity will bring the heat index up to 124 degrees. 97 degrees would still be a heat index of 120 with that humidity. It would be a good day to stay indoors all day but I know I won't. Today I mowed my back yard during the hottest part of the day. I had to get it done when I could. It's 86 degrees but feels like 88 right now and it wasn't much worse than that.
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Speaking of AC, I just replace the blower motor in my truck. It's nice to have AC again. Funny thing the owner of the company drives the oldest truck, 20 years older than our next oldest. I really love the old square body Fords. Then all made it deep into the 400000 + for me
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USPSA match yesterday, luckily we had some overcast and light breeze around noon, but it was still a scorcher... ordered a beach umbrella for the gun cart.... still have August and September
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Les you'll have to post a picture of that....
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USPSA match yesterday, luckily we had some overcast and light breeze around noon, but it was still a scorcher... ordered a beach umbrella for the gun cart.... still have August and September
Something like this?
https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/cb-outdoor-40-camo-umbrella?hvarAID=shopping_googleproductextensions
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Rastus, I haven't tried a new hosting service since Photobucket held my pics for ransom... it is an adjustable beach umbrella, 7' diameter... will hook it to the gun cart (modified baby stroller with ATV gun brackets) with a piece of PVC for it to slide into... my gun bag is snap linked to the cart, the ATV rubber brackets hold 2 long guns, soft sided cooler, and most importantly a folding stool...you can just roll off the stool without using your knees, which is extremely helpful as my left knee moves around a bit... most of our matches run about 3 hours, and the Sun can get brutal if the stage is downrange at a distance from the shade trees
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It's not like we've never had heat waves before. I can't help but wonder how much of this is because the bulk of the population is far more out of shape and too heavy today, than they were 50 years ago? If you look at the stats, the United States has turned into a diabetes factory. It's at epidemic levels. You can't turn on the TV without seeing a commercial featuring some drug company pedaling a drug to control it. Most of it has been caused by bad diet, obesity, and a lack of proper exercise.
People are eating garbage 3 meals a day, don't exercise enough, then complain when it gets hot. Because they're carrying around 50 extra pounds. Slim kids playing Little League and riding their bicycles to and from school, have been replaced by big fat slobs who waddle off the school bus, then sit around playing X-Box 360, and yelling, "Get the door, it's Domino's!" Half of these kids are going to end up on Dialysis by the time they're 30.
And it's not just the kids. I have 2 neighbors that retired about the same time I did, (3-1/2 years ago). Both of them have put on at least 30 pounds in that time. They were both out working in their yards, sweating like 2 thoroughbreds that just finished 6 furlongs, when I walked by getting my mail yesterday. Both said the same thing to me.... "Man is it HOT!". (It was morning, humid, and in the upper 80's). They've been my neighbors for 20 years, and I never once ever heard them complain about the heat before they strapped on the feed bag. It's Summer in the desert for God's sake. What do they expect, Parka's and mittens?
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Breaking News: This Summer's Record Setting Heat Was Caused By Fat People!
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In all seriousness, we've had several days here this summer that have matched or broken old records. And some of those records were set during the Dust Bowl years of the mid 1930s. One of the worst heat waves in North American history was in 1936, and killed thousands of people. But there were days this summer that were even hotter than the same date in 1936. When you have days hot enough to kill even healthy people, the fatties may suffer more, but they're not wrong when they say it's too hot.
More info about the 1936 heat wave here. -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave
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One of the worst heat waves in North American history was in 1936, and killed thousands of people. But there were days this summer that were even hotter than the same date in 1936. When you have days hot enough to kill even healthy people, the fatties may suffer more, but they're not wrong when they say it's too hot.
How many homes had A/C in 1936? So deaths from heat waves back then are irrelevant when compared to today. Of course more died. Especially the sick and elderly.
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The other side of that people in 36 were tougher then they are now. People bitch at 90. I spent all day on a roof when air temps were 103 on the ground, 140 on the roof....
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They were more at risk back then for sure....
Life expectancy in 1936 56.6 60.6
Life expectancy in 1998 73.8 79.5
http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/~andrew/1918/figure2.html
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I’m fat, well... not real fat...
But I fart a lot...climate changes around my ass frequently..
I do know that 90% humidity just plain sucks...I hate hot!
Give me spring, fall and winter.
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How many homes had A/C in 1936? So deaths from heat waves back then are irrelevant when compared to today. Of course more died. Especially the sick and elderly.
I don't know Bill. How many?
I didn't say more people died then. I said we had some days this summer that were even hotter than 1936, "days hot enough to kill even healthy people". I didn't have A/C for almost half my life, and as recently as the 1990s went without it. Heat waves in other years do seem relevant to me, especially when we have days hotter than one of the historically worst heat waves to hit the continent.
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I don't know Bill. How many?
" 1952....... Less than 1 % of U.S. homes have a room air conditioner."
So in 1936? How about NONE.
https://www.ashrae.org/File%20Library/About/Mission%20and%20Vision/ASHRAE%20and%20Industry%20History/Air-Conditioning-and-Refrigeration-Chronology.pdf
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Sorry everybody, the fat boy likes a/c.
When I was working offshore Gulf of Mexico in the 70's and 80's it was 100% humidity most of the time. In July and August we had to pick up our tools from the steel decks with rags to keep from burning our hands. I wasn't fat back then...and I liked the a/c a lot during that time!!!! Every now and then we'd have an issue with generators being down or the a/c being out...I've slept on steel grating to stay cool. It's not as bad as it sounds.
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Some of this is relative.
Weren't the Brits complaining about the brutal heat wave gripping London just a few weeks ago. Record high temp I think. Got up to 23c.
That's just under 74f.
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Some of this is relative.
Weren't the Brits complaining about the brutal heat wave gripping London just a few weeks ago. Record high temp I think. Got up to 23c.
That's just under 74f.
;D ;D ;D
When I was in HS I remember reading a blurb in the local newspaper copied from a Fairbanks paper, I think it was. It went something like "Fairbanks roasts in heat wave as temps skyrocket to 38 below."
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Another bot.
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This whole Summer has been total BS.
May was in the 90's, We set records, low humidity though so it was great. ;D
But since Memorial Weekend it's been either 90 with high humidity, or 60 and raining, no in between.
To the point that it's near record high on Monday, and around record low on Tuesday. >:(
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The heat index the last few days has been hovering near 110° F. It's supposed to "cool off" toward the weekend, meaning low 90's.
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And where would that be Sammy?
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And where would that be Sammy?
According to her profile, the Ukraine.
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According to her profile, the Ukraine.
This place ?
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Ukrainian+Military+Woman&form=RESTAB&first=1&tsc=ImageBasicHover
Cool. ;D
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You wish.....
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;D
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8 weeks after cataract surgery... I sit in the shade of my garage and read for several hours each day... the number of butterflies I now see is amazing...
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8 weeks after cataract surgery... I sit in the shade of my garage and read for several hours each day...
Is that "Physical Therapy", or making up for lost time ? ;D