I've had my fair share of field days during the dog days of summer. I think the hot days of NJ are far worse than the hot days of CA. At least in CA, it wasn't as humid. Granted it was like 100+ degrees, but you could hop from tree to tree. In NJ, when it's hot and you are working hard, it's just brutal. Just as soon as you wipe the sweat from your face, it's starting dripping immediately. Your face turns beet red and you become real stupid and irritable. Then cue the dehydration headache that comes when you get home.
The past couple years I've managed to avoid the real hot days. Like 2 years ago, when our company was working on Staten Italy. The site was huge and there were no trees for shade. There were out a bunch of days in a row during a heat wave of 95+ F. I wouldn't have survived and they knew it because I was never out there. There were four guys and the pairs took 30 minutes shifts. The off 30 minutes was spent in the air conditioned truck. They were sweating so bad that they got poison ivy everywhere since it bled through their clothes.
As anyone who's lived in Brumfus can tell you, the days of summer there are unreal. I lived in a house where the candles in the 3rd floor melted during the day. You know it's bad when as a sleep obsessed college student you wake up at 8 am because it's too hot. Or you take a shower at night and don't dry off but just jump into bed hoping to cool down enough to fall asleep.
I'm really looking forward to the break in this heat wave. The ozone is starting to get to me. If you have that random tickle in your chest that makes you want to cough, it's the ozone. I just love that thunderstorm that comes through and cools everything down. The steam rises from the pavement and all is well again.
I hurt the ozone layer yesterday. One of the hoses on my VW Golf's A/C went kaputt. Each time I turned on the A/C it looked like I had a smoke machine under the hood. The fumes were horrible and it gave me such a headache. I managed to get home and even when shut off, you could hear the freon escaping like crazy. Pretty scary. Thank goodness it wasn't the compressor because that would have cost me way too much to fix it. Mind you I was just in the shop to get an oil change on monday. I hope next week is better.
