Stage 1 Emergency!

So today is day two of a heat wave here in the Southland. Last July there was a record stretch of two weeks with temperatures at or above the 100's (that's 38 Celsius for the rest of the world) here at our house in Altadena. Outside my window at my desk, I have a thermometer. And at 10AM yesterday morning, as the sun peaked over the trees and directly onto the thermometer, I watched the needle climb past 120 degrees and keep going.

It's 7:00PM (that's 19:00 to the rest of the world) and the needle is holding steady at 90 degrees. It's hot.

I was driving back this afternoon from the lighting shop that's preparing the equipment for the upcoming Blue Man Group tour that I'm going on, and I watched the thermometer in my car bounce up and down as I moved inland. The shop is in Ventura, just shy of 70 miles from my house. There, near the coast, it was 82 degrees. As I drove through Woodland hills, which is the start of "The Valley" (Think, valley girls, "Like, Fur sure", and pornography) the needle topped out at 110. By the time I got home at 4:30 (Altadena is the start of the San Gabriel valley, think Rose bowl, Angeles Crest Forest and JPL) it was holding steady at 101. It's hot.

The big news of the day on news radio.... The Stage 1 Emergency we barely avoided. Power supply in the Southland is prone to being overloaded on these hot days when everyone kicks on the A/C to try to make their houses habitable. And if reserves dip below 7% we are in a Stage 1 Emergency. Which would prompt rolling blackouts through out Southern California. Not a good thing on hot day.

Which got me to thinking about two things.

Number one, the society of fear and panic we live in now where they have to call it something terrible like "STAGE 1 EMERGENCY" in order for people to do something about it and try and conserve. What happened to the days of just asking politely? "Excuse me sir, our old and slightly outdated power grid is suffering under the load in this heat wave. Do you mind turning up your thermostat to 78 and turning off all these lights to help us out?" Nicole and I did. We have both air conditioners set to power save at 78. I think that means they shut off at 78 degrees, or at least stop blowing cold air.

Number two, was there nothing else going on in the world besides this possible Stage 1 Emergency? I guess everyone is guilty of having to report what the people who listen want to hear. But it was rather strange to hear 5 minutes of news about this power crunch then cut to traffic and weather, where they again, talked about the heat before cutting to sports. And then repeating the process with money and stocks in place of the sports.

Guess the heat is making me grumpy.

Here's me not so grumpy. This is a couple of days before my wedding, I went in for a manicure, pedicure. and a hair cut. Massage chair and foot bath.... niiiiiiiiiice.