The Heat Index

What is hot in Phoenix? Find out right here at The Heat Index, written by me, Heather.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Rain: A Review



Just in case you forgot what the wet stuff looks like, here it is! I took this at Bell and the 51 the last time it rained around here...that would have been May 16. It was a great storm; I just hope more are on the way. I do have hope, especially since it looks like our monsoon will begin at the beginning of July rather than the end. How often does that happen? I'm getting pretty excited. This will be my sixteenth monsoon season spent in the Valley and the last six seasons since I moved back here from the San Francisco Bay Area in 2000 have been pretty pathetic.

White fluffy clouds, how you tease me!



I took these photos yesterday afternoon (6/28) while driving north on the 51 around Northern Avenue. How I love to see these white, fluffy thunderheads forming. Too bad not much has come of them yet. I'm hoping for a good gullywasher of a storm. I want to see another Hummer get stuck in a wash when I turn on the local news. That would be great!

Blah! Screw The Heat Index today!



Who cares about heat? It's hot here every day! I check AZCentral.com and I'm thinking "103 degrees my sweet, sweaty ass." What is the dewpoint today? That's what I want to know. I'm not sure if Certain Dri can stop the kind of sweat this kind of weather makes! The dewpoint is stuck at 54 degrees. Monsoon season, here we come! Come on 55! Let's go!

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Is this monsoon season?

No. Not yet. Yes, it’s cloudy and windy and we’ve had a couple dust storms here and there. But this still does not constitute monsoon season. Yes, I too have heard the locusts buzzing in the afternoon but that does not mean it is monsoon season yet. It does mean monsoon season is close. Aside from all these symptoms, there is a scientific aspect to monsoon that officiates when it really begins. That scientific aspect is called the dewpoint and ours is set at 46 degrees right now, according to my sister station KTAR. In order for this weather thing we have going to really be considered a monsoon, the dewpoint has to remain at 55 degrees or higher for three days in a row. So we have a ways to go before we can really enjoy some sky-splitting storms in the evenings as well as some haboobs. Carry on.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

4 Peaks



Here's the view from Four Peaks on Memorial Day 2006. The boyfriend and I drove up there and back to town via the Apache Trail. It was a nice, relaxing way to spend Memorial Day. And yes, it takes me this long to download pictures from the camera. I've been a little busy!

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Searching for that next apartment in Phoenix



So it's not the greatest photo ever, and I apologize for that but I was driving at the time. It's a photo of The Mirage on Camelback, an apartment complex at 40th St. and Camelback the boyfriend and I were considering moving into together. We're looking for a place to move into when my lease is up in October. Since I'm in an absolute dump right now, I'm overly cautious of getting locked into another lease at yet another dump. I'll spare you the drama of my current apartment for now, but it wasn't this bad when I moved in. I've been gifted with some questionable neighbors the management doesn't care about, so it's time to move on and move out.

So I check into the Mirage on ApartmentRatings.com. Whoa! There are some bad ratings on this place! Given that the ratings at this website about my current home are spot-on, I tell the boyfriend I'm having second thoughts about the Mirage. So he drives there at night and finds a couple to talk to. They say they are happy there but that there is a certain contingent of riff-raff around the management is still trying to get rid of. But the couple says those people are pretty much confined to the first and second floors so if we rent up higher (which costs more) we won't have to put up with any drama. There's a lot of young couples (read=more drama) and "young professionals," which in this city could mean anything.

The other odd thing about the Mirage is the free heating and cooling. What's the catch, you ask? Especially in a place like Phoenix with 115-degree summers? The complex has control of the heating and cooling. You cannot control your own environment. So for those first 3-4 hot days of the season, you have to suffer and wait for the AC to come one. The boyfriend and I decided we can't deal with that, so we're still looking for a new place to live.

My nomination for official state anti-perspirant



If you're new to town or just don't understand what goes into proper grooming when you live in a hot climate, let me steer you in the right direction. Trust me when I say that coworkers, friends, family or anyone who shares your immediate vicinity will thank you for wearing this anti-perspirant. Go to Target and buy Certain Dri today because the temperature right now is 104 degrees and humid. Wearing Certain Dri eliminates those wet underarm circles that are a side effect of living in the Valley in June, July and August. It's strong stuff with 72-hour protection. I'll tell you right now to not put it on every day or you will itch like an heir after sleeping with Paris Hilton. If everyone wore this stuff, our city would never have a problem with smelly, wet people running around in public. This is why it's my official nomination for Arizona State Anti-Perspirant. You know, if there were such an honor.

Seen on the wall at Jillian's at Desert Ridge


Has Jillian's lost its luster to the point that the staff will now allow this to be written on the bathroom wall? I go to the ladies room (I had a beer at Rock Bottom Brewery prior to going to Jillian's with the boyfriend), and this is waiting on the stall wall. Now, I really was hoping this was someone's idea of a joke done in chocolate frosting but believe me, I didn't get close enough to find out. It was disgusting!

Sunday, June 11, 2006

The Mets Dimension

I have to vent about what happens to me at Chase Field when certain teams are in town, and this means our fans are depolorable as much as Mets and Cubs fans are annoying. Friday night, we entered the Mets Dimension, otherwise known as Chase Field. We sat amongst all Mets fans. It was horrible. Diamondbacks fans, where were you? You were silent. These are my complaints about D-backs fans. Number one, they never show up on time to a game. It's the second inning and fans are still trickling in. I worked for KNBR San Francisco one summer and let me tell you, Giants fans get to the stadium on time.

Another thing that annoys me about D-backs fans is that they make no noise. They are chaste in showing their support for the team. D-backs fans (self included) are always silenced by the opposing team's fans which somehow seem to usually outnumber us. I hate that! You know what's worse worse than the Mets fans Friday night? Last year, 2005, Opening Day. The D-backs played the Cubs. I think my friends and I were the only three Diamondbacks fans in the house. It was windy, too -- how creepy is that? We stepped into Chicago when we walked into the BOB. (It was still The BOB then).

Look, I grew up here in the 80's and I've been back here six years now. I understand everyone here is from somewhere else. But it's so annoying to go watch the D-backs and feel like I'm in Chicago or New York. I'm a D-backs fan. I'm in Phoenix. I go to the game in my D-backs shirt and try to make some noise, but I can't compete as a fan!

Heather Larson on Go Vegan Texas Monday June 12

I'll be LIVE on Go Vegan Texas from 8-8:30 am PST in Houston. You can listen live here:

http://www.govegantexas.org/index.php

Just click on the cow's ears (bottom left corner of the page).

I'll be plugging the current issues of Veg News Magazine because I'm on Page 96 (back page) talking about "How I Went Veg."

I'll also be plugging the blog: http://www.cjdtalk.blogspot.com.

I'll be talking about two issues close to my heart -- the danger of mad cow disease in America and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, which killed my mother at age 56 in 2004.

Variant CJD can be contracted by eating contaminated meat and the US only tests one tenth of one percent of the cows meant for human consumption in this country. Please understand the risk Americans face each day just to eat a piece of beef.

And that, among other reasons, is why I'm VEGAN!

Viva la Veg News: http://www.myspace.com/vegnews

heatlarson@yahoo.com

Sunday, June 04, 2006

109 degrees right now! Feels like 129... ;)