Thursday, August 1, 2013

It's August in Florida

There are many places in this nation where folks look forward to summer; it's time to go outside - maybe for the first time in months, enjoy warm, glorious days; garden, bike, picnic; maybe enjoy a book while lounging on the beach.  Songs like Nat King Cole's classic "Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer" come to mind.

That's not here.  Here, summer is something to be a bit more reserved about.  If you live here, you can keep up with your regular life.  If you were from a moderate place, not used to our heat and humidity, running or other outdoors activity could conceivably kill you.  August marks the Dog Days of Summer; everything outdoors slows.  Fishing slows - sure the fish have to eat, but they become more active after dark.  Animals are more sluggish.  Ordinarily, it can be nasty here from about mid-July to almost the middle of September.  The worst of it is August. 

When we first got an HDTV a few years ago, Mrs. Graybeard and I naturally spent most of our TV time searching out HD programming.  One of the first movies we watched was "The Chronicles of Riddick".  You have to understand this is not even particularly good scifi.  It's a fun movie to watch, it's a visual treat, it's a fantastic display of special effects perfect for HD, but don't pay too much attention to the story.  To quote a review, "Furyans, Necromongers, Elementals, The Underverse, the Threshold...it so clearly wants to be epic that it forgets to tie all of these disparate worlds, universes and civilizations into a coherent story. (Director) Twohy clearly makes the mistake of not realizing that there is a huge difference between being grand and being simply confusing and the more ideas that are introduced, the more lumbering it becomes…"  

A large portion of the movie, and one of the longest action sequences, takes place on the planet Crematoria (yes, all the names in the movie are that cheesy) .  Crematoria is a planet that has a tremendous temperature variation (probably an impossible amount) with daytime temperatures of 700C and night time temperatures far below zero.  When the sunrise terminator sweeps through, the force of the heat gales that come with it is literally enough to blow you apart, disintegrating flesh and blowing pieces off until you die.  There's a scene where a character (Purifier) destroys himself by walking into the sunrise terminator and self-immolating.  That's him trying to stand up to the gales while being set afire and having pieces of burning flesh blown off him.

The first time I saw that scene, I said, "I've been out on days like that".  Mrs. Graybeard said, "Oh, yeah.  We've been out on our bikes when it's like that". 
NWS danger of heat disorders - I added a box around typical August conditions.  It's usually about 80 at daybreak, maybe a bit cooler, but higher humidity.  Late in the day, mid-90s and 75-80% humidity is pretty typical.  Couldn't tell you how many times I've been cycling when it was in the orange. 

And that's what life here in Central Florida is like in the summer, for August plus or minus a week or two.  Stay out of the sun.  Do your outdoor activities near sunrise or sunset.  Don't expose bare skin to the sun any longer than necessary - and even then, use sunscreen if you need to be out when the sun is intense, say from 9 AM to 5 PM.  SPF 3 million is adequate.  Without air conditioning and mosquito control, a technological civilization could not exist here.


15 comments:

  1. As I'm fond of saying, "Chronicles of Riddick was the best damn Warhammer 40,000 movie I've ever seen."

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    1. You know, in all the times I've watched Riddick, that never occurred to me once! Good analogy. Warhammer 40,000 with a multimillion dollar SFX budget.

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  2. Cool! Two more people who liked that movie! It was visually rather amazing.

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  3. summertime with big brother & jj;

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A24JZkgvNv4

    itor

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    1. I remember when that album came out... Good stuff!

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    2. yes, for me the quintessential summertime tune, and the R Crumb album cover is not to be missed for er what's the german word for spirit of the times iconography...

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  4. "Without air conditioning and mosquito control, a technological civilization could not exist here."

    I beg to differ; without air conditioning, and the automatic mosquito control A/C's closed windows bring, any civilization would not be possible in most of Florida, especially inland Central Florida. In states north of Florida neighbors don't see each other much during the winters because everyone's inside where it's warm. In Florida it's reversed. I keep waiting for some wag who emigrated from Punxsutawney to put on a top hat August 1st, hold up a freshly road-killed armadillo and proclaim "8 more weeks of #$*&@ summer."

    After 20 years I'd had enough, and staged my escape.

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    1. Well said. I've told many friends that we are completely opposite the rest of the country in most ways.

      How far did you escape? Rough details on From/To are fine. I have thought of it many times.

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  5. I have to admit I liked Chronicles as well, though I'd be hard pressed to say why. Now that you mention HD, I think it had to do with the colors and the visual elements and the voices of the actors. It was totally sensory with very little thought required. Kind of relaxing.

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  6. The Chronicles was the first we'd seen of the Riddick character, and it just plays well on several levels. The visuals, the over-the-top badassery. Vin Diesel's voice is perfect for it (Mrs. Graybeard wants to put his voice in the GPS. Imagine Riddick saying, "Recalculating"). After seeing Chronicles, I saw the other two, and they just don't work as well - at least IMO.

    Y'all do know there's another Riddick movie coming in September, right?

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  7. I saw it in theaters back when I had disposable income and my lasting impression was that there had to be a whole mess of supporting books that they drew the movie from - it had the scope and the gaps in coverage of a typical book-to-film work. The best I could tell with some research is that the only connected works are a prior movie ("Pitch Black," which was a decent thriller/horror flick) and a coming movie ("Riddick"), with all related books being spin-offs of the movie. That struck me as odd.

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  8. Now I'll hear Riddick in my head all day saying,

    "Ya shoulda turned left, Toombs."

    or

    "Merge left, or I'll kill you with my tea cup."

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  9. I would imagine a lot of seniors and babies would die without A/C in quite a few places. We have a lot of cities in the US that I think would suffer a dramatic population drop without power. Even if you have your own alt power setup, A/C is pretty much out of the question for most off grid systems. Add to that the challenges of a city like Phoenix Arizona .... 122 in the summer and not much access to water supply. Recipe for big casualties.

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    1. Remember when a heat spell killed like 20 or 30,000 people in France a few years ago? Seems any hot spell kills folks in Chicago.

      It's kind of amazing, really. People obviously lived in Phoenix before A/C, and they lived here, too. The pictures show folks wearing suit coats and long sleeves! Made of sterner stuff than most folks today, I guess - those suits sure weren't made of modern miracle fabrics.

      Today, people add A/C to houses anywhere in the US. Don't want to be hot for a few weeks in Vermont! Not to pick on Vermont...

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