Good news, everyone!

From the UW website:

Relief, in the form of cooler and less humid air, was delivered Wednesday to the 47 campus buildings that went without air conditioning early this week.

As Madison struggles through a stifling heat wave, campus facilities officials were able to restore cooling capacity to the affected buildings and most workers and students returned Wednesday morning to find cooler, more comfortable conditions.

With the exception of a few isolated areas, the added air conditioning was reducing both temperatures and humidity levels. Facilities officials reported that temperatures in most of the affected buildings had dropped to between 72 and 75 degrees Wednesday morning.

OMG.  OMG.  OMG.  It was so hot on Tuesday.  So so so so hot.  My office was 90 degrees, and there was no air circulation.  Anything that was "cool" in comparison (the bathroom, the stairwell) was covered with a layer of condensation.  My building is one of those tall, 70s deals where no windows can be opened, and it was not meant to be inhabited without the HVAC system.  The lawyers got sent home Tuesday morning, and the transportation office got moved.  I lasted until 1:30pm and gave up and went home to lay on the floor in front of the AC.  I had to take a 1/2 day of vacation to do it, but it was totally worth it.  I just pretended like I was on vacation at the Sun and had gone back to my hotel room for the afternoon.     

Yesterday was MUCH better.  I borrowed someone's desk fan to get a little air circulating because I still wasn't getting any actual AC in my room.  However, there was AC coming into the rest of the building so it was cooler and smelled less like asbestos and bathroom.  

Unfortunately because of the heat, the gym is still closed:

IMPORTANT CLOSURE: 

THE SERF AND NIELSEN TENNIS STADIUM WILL BE OPEN THURSDAY, JULY 21. THE SHELL AND NATATORIUM WILL REMAIN CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. GENERAL PUBLIC MEMBERS AT THE SHELL MAY USE THE SERF WHILE THE SHELL IS CLOSED. REC SPORTS REGRETS THE INCONVENIENCE OVER THE PAST SEVERAL DAYS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND PATIENCE.

The SERF weight room is closed for maintenance, but I'm hopeful that because the temperature is a bit cooler the rest of the week, they'll open the Nat again in the next couple days.  

I saved the best news of the entire day for last.  Here's an e-mail from our apartment complex:

Residents of XXX:

Due to the extreme amount of millipedes migrating through your part of the neighborhood, our pest control contrator, Anderson Pest Solutions, will be spraying for millipedes behind your buildings today. They will be spraying the exteriors of the buildings and the stairwells to the basement and some of the vegetation directly behind the buildings.

The product they use does not have an odor and is safe to be used in residential applications. Hopefully this will help control the millipedes so they do not continue to come into the buildings.     

Normally I'm anti-killing, but when they write "extreme amount of millipedes", they aren't joking.  The whole walk to the laundry room through the basement is "crunch, crunch, crunch" because every step crushes at least 20 of them.  Plus they were all over the walls.  And the dead ones smell horrible!  After three trips down doing laundry on Tuesday, I thought I was going to vomit.  So yes, death to millipedes!  I only hope that they've contracted someone to get rid of the dead millipedes.  

Well, I'm off to run while it still "feels like" it's in the 80s.  What's the best news you've heard lately?  

     

H-O-T

I did not sign up for this.

I signed up for this

And this

And this

But did not sign up for highs in the high 90s with a heat index in the 100s.  It's only fair, don't you think?

After a Bikram run yesterday morning and a disgusting sweaty bike ride to work, I thought I had it made, sitting in the AC all day.  But no.  Three chiller plants on campus broke, and all the remaining cold air production capability was diverted to the hospital and to buildings with animals.  Okay, I don't really have an argument with that, but I thought this line of the press release summarized the attitude of university leadership/state government toward university employees perfectly:

This means human comfort will not be a top priority in chilled water distribution until the chillers are back to full capacity.

I work in one of those tall buildings that don't have windows that can open, and our office started to get steamy by the afternoon.  There was a huge rush to get more of our stored samples to a place with AC because trying to keep samples at -80F in a room that is 100F will kill the freezers.  And then there are our servers...

The most recent update from the university says that one of the chiller plants is working again, but they are kind of non-committal about what that will actually mean for the AC situation.  I'm guessing that if it's super warm in our building most people will work from home.  I'm going to try to stick it out, but I'm not above doing that, either.

This is going to make Al Gore cry, but we've been keeping our window unit on at our apartment during the day set to 80 degrees so it's not miserably hot when we get home in the evenings.  In fact, it feels pretty good right now.

Well, I'm off to do some Bikram weight lifting followed by some Bikram SAS programming.

How are you staying cool today?

Theme from A Summer Place

In Madison, you have learn to cram a year's worth of fun in four months.  I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.  So far I've:

• I've attended a 3-way birthday party,

 

• Gone to my first Mallard's game

• Learned there's a reason I've never eaten a mulberry before (Holy stems, Batman.  My hands are still a little purple)

               and that I enjoy my healthy CSA veggies best in gooey pasta form

• Watched the sun set from Observatory Hill

                  and the Rhythm and Booms fireworks from across the lake

• And traveled to Dubuque where I won my weight in catfish at the slot machines.

Thankfully not true on that last one.  We visited crazy 300lb dino-catfish at the Aquarium of the Mississippi.

As a side note, I hadn't gone to see the fireworks in a couple years, and I'm glad that they are still making advances in fancy explosion science and technology.  My favorite was the smileys.

The one thing I haven't managed to do yet is get re-conditioned to running in warm weather.  I ran on Saturday morning when it 77, and I was sure it had to be 107.  After a water stop and a walk for a minute in the shade break (yes, I'm not too proud to admit it) I was happy I wasn't trying to crank out a 20-miler like I would have been last summer.  Yesterday wasn't soooo bad, but man, SWEAT.  Hopefully I'll get a little better conditioned so I don't die when I try to run when I'm back in Florida in another month.

Hope you are having a fun summer so far and had a relaxing 3-day weekend.