15 AUG 08: YOU CALL THIS SUMMER?

Unbelievable - simply unbelievable. Thursday marked five days in a row with no home air conditioning. By that, I mean it was kept turned off -- as opposed to someone loading it in a pickup truck, and hauling it to a metal recycling center.

Nope, the air conditioner has NOT come on since last Saturday night. Yup, in mid-August in the South. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was with Mister Food all week on vacation in Edmonton.

This week has featured a day with gentle rain, and a day when the temperature didn't top 85 degrees F. For this part of the South in mid-summer, it's almost unheard of -- well, unless the hurricane comes ashore 150 miles away.

Please don't misunderstand -- I'm not complaining. Compared with last summer's all-out heat and drought, the weather in recent days has been a wonderful change. And considering I'm due to pay a record-high electric bill today, it gives me hope for my checking account.

(Home is one thing, but the car is another. In another sign that I've hit age 50, it was so hot one recent weekend that I did something I haven't done in decades. I turned the car air conditioning up to three on the one-to-four scale - beyond the moderation point.)

Columbus already has more than two inches of rain for August, continuing a rainy trend which has lasted for several weeks. That's good for the water supply -- and even for some local businesses. After all, summer should be the "off season" for tanning salons....

Yet despite the summer rain, a check of this week's government map shows Columbus is still considered in a "severe drought." What does our city need to do? Reroute all those storm drains which are marked "flows to river," so the rain empties into Lakebottom Park?

The weather isn't the only thing which has made this summer seem unusual. I finally opened a new ice cream carton Thursday night, for the first time in several weeks. It's not because my tastes are changing. And no, it's not a protest of all those ice cream companies shrinking their cartons to 1.75 pints....

It took me about a month to finish my latest carton of ice cream (a full half-gallon, mind you) because the box was defective. Once I hauled it home, I found something had happened which left sticky ice cream all over the outside. It was enough to cause a mess, but not enough to lick the box and solve the problem.

This ice cream carton was so sticky that I had to wrap it in a paper towel. Otherwise, everything it touched became stuck to it and sticky on its own. It was like this carton either had been cursed by the inventor of the Post-It note - or was created by the bodyguard of a rap star.

When reaching into the freezer for a scoop of ice cream becomes more of a cautious adventure than a cool treat, the consumption tends to decline. So my last half-gallon took a long time to eat. It was NOT a health problem. I try to fight intolerance of all kinds - even lactose.

But one summer tradition which started in my college days has continued with success this year. It's officially summer for me when I purchase orange soda. It's admittedly diet orange these days - although with the slower ice cream eating rate, I suppose this year could have been an exception.

The weekend forecast calls for temperatures to hit the low 90's. That might be enough to bring the air conditioner back on -- but it's still below the upper 90's of June. It still has me puzzled, though. With people driving less because of high gas prices, shouldn't sunshine from cleaner air put us above 100 degrees every day?

E-MAIL UPDATE: The pictures we posted Thursday of sprinklers on Whittlesey Road brought a couple of responses. First we have a clarifying statement, from the person who submitted the photos....

Richard, The sprinklers on Whittlesey produced all of that water. There was no rain until late evening. The sprinklers showered the streets all afternoon. They were aimed at the cars and you had to use wipers to drive through them. All of that water is from the sprinklers- it ran 1/4 mile from where they were and they had more water pressure than a normal home would. They are right in front of Glenn Davis' hotel.

Oh no - is someone trying to blame Councilor Glenn Davis for this? The way some people have come after Davis in recent months, it's no wonder he was absent from this week's vote on the Kenneth Walker settlement.

But then we have this comment....

Richard,

I find it ironic that someone driving a Mercedes is sending a picture about sprinklers being on while it is raining. Talk about wastefulness, why not trade the Mercedes in for a Prius or better. Then you can say you are helping the environment, even if the median is getting rain and city water. Or maybe we should just remember they are on timers? Yes I admit it is funny to see sprinklers on in the rain, but seriously?!

Ohhhh - you noticed that car emblem, too?! We trimmed the pictures a bit, to make them fit well on the screen. But we have to admit - we were impressed by the fact that a Mercedes owner is reading a little blog like ours.

(Don't worry - we did NOT remove any other important parts of the pictures. For instance, the Mercedes had NO dangling fuzzy dice.)

TODAY'S BLOG OLYMPIC MOMENT: A co-worker watched a news report Thursday on the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit at Fort Benning, and couldn't resist commenting. "If these military guys are so good, if they don't win a gold medal, they should be sent directly from China over to Iraq. We need snipers there."

With those uplifting words of encouragement, we move on to some highlights from Thursday's news....

+ WRBL reported the Riverchase exit ramps are now open in Phenix City, from U.S. 80 to Hughston Memorial Hospital. Mayor Jeff Hardin says an official ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned in a few weeks - which is another clear sign he's not running for re-election in 11 days.

+ State House candidate Zephaniah Baker called an evening news conference to announce he'll be the only independent on the legislative ballot in Georgia this fall. Is that all he had to announce?! Couldn't he bring independent Presidential candidate Ralph Nader to town, for a big endorsement?

+ Executives at Tom's Foods noted the Columbus plant has added staff since the merger with Lance's three years ago. I'm simply happy that Tom's didn't do a follow-up to the old commercials which said, "Put some Lance in your pants." It would have been even worse to say, "Put some Tom's between your gums."

+ Forbes magazine put Alabama football coach Nick Saban on its cover, and declared he's the "most powerful coach" in all of sports. Considering Forbes put Saddam Hussein and Michael Milken on its cover in years gone by, this magazine may have a worse "cover jinx" than Sports Illustrated.

(Am I the only person who thinks this title by Forbes magazine is a bit out of line? After all, the "most powerful coach" in sports should NOT have his team playing bowl games in Shreveport, Louisiana.)

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