Watching the corks pop

In general, I'd say buildings in Berkeley are unprepared for genuinely hot weather. Realistically, it doesn't happen very often: the winds just blow off the ocean and keep things cool. However, on days like today, that wind stops--and things get noticeably less comfortable.


The thermostat in the lab at work is usually set to 72F, moderate. As the outside temps climbed to 98F today, though, the indoor temperatures (in our one-story, thin-walled building) also started to rise. 74, 76, 78...I work in a chemistry lab. Ether boils at, oh, 87F. 80, 81, 82...OK, so we topped out at 83F or so, so nothing started overpressurizing or boiling over when we didn't expect it to, but try putting on neoprene gloves and standing over a bath of rubbing alcohol for any length of time when it's 83F. Arms sweating until it runs and fumes, fumes, fumes...

I wonder how many batches of ginger beer in Berkeley garages blew up today?

The other aspect of this hot, dry weather (18% humidity, woo-hoo!) is that it released a hellish cloud of god-knows-what dust and pollen this morning. It was Bike to Work Day, so I rode past a couple of the "energizer stations" checking for schwag (at 9am, good luck). Every 10 seconds it felt like a piece of broken glass had blown into my eye. I didn't see my face until I got to work (25? minutes of riding), by which point my eyes looked like ripe tomatoes.

(not actually my eye)

I can only wonder what the volunteers at the BTWD stations thought of my Hellboy look, yeesh. (I'm a normal...er, relatively normal person! Really!)