It will probably be a warm day when...

It will probably be a warm day when you wake up at 5:45am and it is 82 degrees out. Yesterday it got to 110 and today it only made it to 108. In fact, as I type this at 8:30pm, it is still 100 out. The funny thing is that they are calling for a high of 81 on Thursday and Friday it supposed to only get to 70.

Today I did ride my bike into work. It felt great. It is dry out and you really have to keep drinking water when biking home in 107 degree weather that is breezy. But I have plenty of water bottles on the bike.

The real problem is that they have just applied a micro seal to several of the roads I bike on. This stuff seems to grip my tires and makes pedaling harder. The good news is that it seems to stop gripping after a week or two. I did some looking around the internet and apparently the micro seal is a thin asphalt overlay and sealer made of emulsified asphalt, water, and stone dust. It gives the road a uniform color and texture, but more importantly it seals the street, thus preventing the infiltration of water. This means that the chances of the road cracking and forming potholes is greatly reduced and therefore lasts longer. The only problem is, I am told that it can cause the roads to be slick in the rain and cause cars to slide a bit. Since there are no storm drains here, I have seen a half inch of rain flood this place and turn traffic into a nightmare.

I did not bike to work yesterday because I had a presentation to give at the ASU Downtown campus in central Phoenix. It was great to see the new campus and it looks great. They even have dorms for this campus here and the campus is the home of the College of Nursing and the Walter Conkrite School of Journalism is located. When I was here for the Alpha Phi Omega National Convention in 1996, I stayed a few blocks over from this new campus. We had an overflow hotel for the conference, that is the hotel is the current dormitory for the campus.

BTW, the bus system had no problem getting me to and from the Downtown campus. Gotta love that free ride bus pass from ASU.