Revenge of the Heat

Last month, Chicagoans rooted against the Heat as loud as they could. Now, it looks like a heat of a different sort will have its revenge.

Today's temperature, according to NBC5 News, is the highest we have seen in 6 years. People rushing to air conditioning, pools, lakes and hoses as fast as they possibly can. If you are without AC and a pool, your life is probably a little more unbearable right now than most dealing with the heat.

Me? Oh - just working from home in an air-conditioned house, with access to a pool after the work shift is done. Granted, at this point, the pool resembles more of a hot bath right now. It's just nice to know that it's there. (Ahhh, feels good to be an a-hole sometimes with some of these statements.)

If you have air conditioning at home and your work allows you to work from home, then do it. There's no reason not to take advantage of working from home from time to time (or even permanently). If you don't feel like you'd be able to motivate yourself to work by yourself, you could always commute and then take the 20 minute walk to the office in this weather. That may motivate you enough to stay home for a few days and work remotely. Who needs human interaction anyways?

If you can't work from home, then just tough it out or use some PTO. We deal with extreme weather of all kinds in this area, so what's a little heat? I'd suggest a summer home in Canada and a winter home in Florida or Arizona if these extremes are too much for you. Or a Mediterranean climate like San Francisco.

Good luck rooting against this heat, because unlike LeBron in the Finals, this heat seems to be closing strong.

Four Seasons, One Summer Shandy

Awesome signs of the summer ahead in the past 6 hours:

-Walking dog around the block: This may not sound like much, especially to those of you who walk your dog for a mile or more. But getting to walk the old dog for at least one more season, one more time, made my day worthwhile. It took about 6 minutes to walk around the block, since Buddy wanted to sniff every tree and urinate on about half of them.

-Summer Shandy commercial: arguably my favorite seasonal beer. I'll need to remember to store up on this when they phase it out in September. I think I'm gonna buy a couple of 12-ers and watch some sports and movies tonight. I hope to find a good bar for the summer that serves this on tap and calling that place my home.

-Donning the shorts: This is always a landmark day of any year- the first day of wearing shorts. This wouldn't mean much to my brother and Tim Wolf, who wear shorts all year round. While the shorts phase is by no means a staple throughout the year, its introduction into the wardrobe makes the pants prepare for their nearing hibernation.

-Softball/baseball/betting: While my mom was misinformed about my pre-teen cousin's softball game being today (it is tomorrow), the sign of games being played is a true sign of summer. Also watching the annually hyped Red Sox/Yanks game on the annually over-rated Joe Buck and Tim McCarver broadcasting network and betting on it (I bet the over, it came in with 4 1/2 innings to spare- first baseball bet won of 3 bets placed this year). And currently, watching the Sox winning with the slimmest of margins through 5.5 innings. Maybe this is the year I get back into baseball, because it's been slowly waning in my consciousness ever since I started watching/betting on NFL. I think going to 10-15 games (my goal) will help with that. If you are reading this, you are encouraged to get me off my ass to go to a game.

Feel free to share your own personal signs of summer.

I can't wait till the above scenarios are all in alignment with each other like an eclipse: a Summer Shandy on an 80 degree day, getting the 15 year old dog to sip the Fountain of Youth for a 5 minute walk, and ending the day at the ball park with a White Sox winner.

Time to buy the beer and get the Summer (Shandy) unofficially started.