Hopefully this isn’t too much information, but personally I’m sick of sweating.

If I ride my bike to work, I expect to sweat this time of year. Same with shooting hoops outside. And Sunday morning I trimmed up my mesquite tree before the rains came – of course I was drenched in sweat.

The past couple of weeks have been difficult, however, in the air conditioning department. Problems at the office AND at home.

This was not good.

We’re still not sure if the thermostat in our upstairs office is capable of displaying triple digits, but the temperature one afternoon reached 99 degrees.

This was not good.

Some of us bailed for home, others of us congregated downstairs and tried to steal a spare computer when we could.

It was around the same time that my air conditioner at home decided to act up.

And in both instances, the systems did not fully cooperate and did not take to the initial repairs.

So you wouldn’t think that sitting down in front of a computer can actually make one sweat, but I shot that theory all to heck. It wasn’t quite like getting in your car and touching that burning hot steering wheel, but let’s just say that steam was coming out of my keyboard one afternoon.

We’re obviously in the thick of the monsoon, so hopefully these “non cool” problems are behind me.

* * *

For me, July is always the worst of the summer season here in the Sonoran Desert, because it seems like pretty much everything shuts down, similar to the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Even though July has such national holidays as Independence Day and my birthday, it’s also a popular time for family vacations, high humidity and stormy weather – perfect conditions for getting out of Dodge and Fountain Hills.

August might still be miserable weather wise, but at least school starts and preseason football gets under way. It’s a harbinger of things to come this fall, even though for us the cool weather might not arrive until after Halloween.

* * *

As I write this, it’s Sunday afternoon and I was channel surfing trying to come up with column topics…

Royal Baby Watch?

Yikes.

I suppose a lot of hard-core newspaper folks have to laugh once in a while at some of the “news” that makes The Fountain Hills Times, but hey, I guess I’m more interested in who won last week’s Wednesday afternoon bridge game at the Community Center than when the Royal Baby will be born and what he or she will be called.

One lady from England defended the anticipation, saying this future monarch could one day be the royal figurehead for up to a third of the world’s population.

Huh.

Thank goodness more and more for July 4th here in the good ol’ USofA.. Those Founding Fathers would really be shaking their heads today if they knew about the Royal Baby Watch.