I want my Air Conditioning

It's another hot day here in Paris. Today's temperature is 32 degrees celcius or roughly 90F with blazingly hot sunshine. I guess I can take comfort in knowing that it's almost as hot in Chicago right now, but with a whole lot more humidity.

I hate to be a baby about this, but I WANT MY AIR CONDITIONER. Dire Straits said it best with "I want my MTV," but you get the picture. I know someone out there is rolling their eyes to the high heavens. It's true because if you've had one your entire life, it's pretty darn hard to get adjusted to living here without one. France isn't an exception. Most countries throughout Europe don't have air conditioning so the people just take it all in stride.

More than that, the heat is hard on your computer equipment. Today, I had a project due for one of my clients back in Chicago, and I couldn't complete it because of the heat. I was converting some training manuals to PDF and just as I was about the save the first one to my jump drive, I could have sworned I heard my computer groan out the word, "Noooooooo!" Then my jump drive fell silent. I went out and bought another one, but it still delayed my project deliverable by one day, which sucks! Thank goodness for extremely understanding clients. When I called Kelly to explain the delay, she said, "Well don't kill yourself! Get it to me when you can because I can wait!"

If there is any comfort in all of this, it has to be the fact that it is not nearly as hot as it was two summers ago. That was the year when almost 500 people died (mostly the elderly) from heat exhaustion. The temperature must have stayed above 90 degrees for most of that August, and I was just distraught. If one more person had walked up to me and said, "The weather is really unusual this year. It's never this warm!" I think I would have slugged them! But I guess if you stay anywhere long enough, you follow the old saying "Do as the Romans do!" Before long I was giving the kids quick showers every hour, keeping the shades drawn, and putting ice cubes in the water bowls for the pets. Eventually the hot air gave way to cooler temperatures.

I'm a quick learner but I don't care, I still want my air conditioning!