To the Beach / Bring Back the Air!

To the Beach

I’m not sure why, but I always enjoy the walkways over the dunes that lead to the beach at Lori Wilson Park at Cocoa Beach, Florida. Maybe it is the long walkway into the sand from the wooden boardwalk, with the side rails extending on out into the sand. Maybe it is all the native brush on either side. Or maybe it is just the excitement of walking out onto the beach.

Whatever the reason is, I always take several pictures. Here is just one of them. Don’t be surprised if you see more later on.

Photo location: Lori Wilson Park, Cocoa Beach, Florida
A three-exposure (-2, 0, +2) HDR tonemapped in Photomatix, edited in GIMP

Bring Back the Air!

Yesterday morning when I arrived at the office it was already rather warm. And I’m not even talking about outside. It was rather warm inside our office. Which is unusual, because it is typically on the cool side inside. In fact, we usually keep our thermostat pushed up pretty high in our part of the office to keep it from getting too cold. 

Because one air conditioning unit serves three four offices, several of us were in the same boat. Or we were all in hot water, so to speak. But that meant that by the time I got there, someone had already made the call to have someone come out and look at our unit to see what was wrong.

Fortunately, I had brought a small electric fan to the office a few years ago when we had some other a/c problems, and it was quickly put into service to make things a little more bearable. It’s interesting how much of a difference there is between 82 degrees with still air and 82 degrees with moving air. One little fan can make a difference. At least where I was sitting. And we had all of the lights turned off, as well as most anything else that might generate heat, besides the necessities such as our computers.

By 9:00, several weather folks on Twitter were talking about how high the humidity was, and how it was already making the heat index soar. And I’m sure they were saying that from the comfort of their air conditioned offices. By 9:30, we heard someone walking on the roof, which is always a good sign of some sort of progress in these situations, or at least a sign that something was being looked at.

And then by 10:00, we began to feel cool air coming out of the vents. It was glorious. And we all rejoiced.

I really don’t mind sweating or being hot. Except that I would rather be hot when I am expecting to be hot. If I had thought about it (I did hear on Sunday afternoon that our air might be out in the office), I would have dressed a little differently. But I was expecting it to be cool like it always is. Oh well, at least everything is back to normal now.

Incidentally, on Sunday night, the guest speaker for our worship service was the missionary that our church sponsors in China.  One thing he mentioned was that most of the buildings in their area, including the dorms at the university where they work, don’t have air conditioning. After the service, several were talking about how hard that would be, while I was thinking that it probably wouldn’t be entirely bad.

Evidently, yesterday was a reminder that if you are used to cool air inside, it wouldn’t be quite as easy as I might think.

Words from the Bible

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. – James 4:7-10