Parts of the US was hit by a rather unfortunate heat wave that saw the maximum temperature rising to around 37--40°C, with minimum temperatures staying mostly above the 30°C mark. If it were only the heat, I couldn't really care less, since cooling off is as easy as drinking more water and letter perspiration/peeing do their work. But the humidity was relatively high too, which meant that the perspiration just clung on to the skin like a thin sticky film, which made doing anything rather uncomfortable. I opted to work from my apartment instead of hunkering down to the office where air conditioning was available, under the belief that the 2-mile cycle out in the ridiculous heat was not worth as much as being mostly naked at home and having access to my stock of food/refreshments and shower.
Surprisingly, my skin didn't flare up as badly as one would expect. Yes, there was some mild inflammation, but it wasn't as bad as the ``heat rash'' that I sustained when I got back home. I ran two experiments: involved just cleaning up the perspiration with a soaked towel, and the other involving showering every four to five hours with soap and water. It turns out that the soap and water combination was much more useful than the cleaning with the soaked towel. For one, the soap actually did much in removing the film of perspiration, which I think is the cause of the inflammation due to the ample growth medium for the bacteria. For two, a shower is generally better at removing extraneous thermal energy from the body, if one calibrates the temperature of the water properly.
I survived well throughout the week until Thursday night, where the still air made sleep almost impossible. I woke up at 0300hrs (Friday), finding myself drenched in perspiration. I ended up having to transfer my tiny table fan into the bedroom to blow myself just to get a couple more hours of sleep.
Independence Day was just as hot and humid as any of the other days in the week. I found my will to concentrate falling under the dual influence of the heat and the general holiday spirit, and when John IM-ed me suggesting to go geocaching as a way of escaping the heat via the air-conditioning in his car, I readily agreed. We had arranged earlier to attend the fireworks display held at Parkland College (north-west of Champaign-Urbana), but we ended up extending the plan to include an afternoon of geocaching. That ended well as we drove out around 15 miles westwards and proceeded to hunt down those pesky ``park-n-grab'' caches located along the intersections of the country roads. All in all, the cache haul for the day was 27, a new record, and one that helped push my total cache find beyond 400.
The evening was spent at one of John's dancing friend's Independence Day grill event, where we hung out with different people who were there for the [free] food, before capping the day with the viewing of the fireworks display.
The one thing that I can say about the fireworks was: wow. I know, it's not doing it much justice, but you just had to be there to see what I had seen. Unlike most of the fireworks display that I had attended, for this one, I was literally ``in front of'' the launch platform, having the front seats of the show, so to speak. This meant that the grandeur of the display was just magnificent.
Anyway, I ended up camping out in the office on Saturday evening and today to avoid more of the heat and to actually get some work done through the use of the large screen that I have available in the office. Oh, that and the printer and large table where I can just place strew all my material about.
I know I owe a trip description for my home trip---patience, young grasshopper. It will come up soon.
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