It seems the gods of kiln and autoclave have backed off of their north american onslaught for the time being, what with daytime temperatures backing off to a mere sweltering and all. Unlike many unfortunate souls out there, i have air conditioning at all 3 of my residences now. Yes, I have 3 places where i commonly dwell: My dungeon in cousindave’s place, heidi’s towering apartment, and our newly purchased home.

Anyway, to beat the heat i spent the past few days outside demolishing my wooden deck on the back of the house. Yes, that’s right. I chose 2 of the hottest days of the year to muck about with chainsaws, sawzalls, sledge hammers and the manual transporting of several hundred pounds of rotting lumber. Oh yes, and there was also digging in the rock garden-eque earth that passes for poughkeepsie top-soil. Mensa-inductee I am not. Then again, 2 Doctorate-holding friends of mine, the latest members of the local ODA (Otter Defilers Anonymous) chapter were right there with us. Wasted student loans or great friends? I’ll let you be the judge.

Unfortunately, my camera containing the recent snapshots is MIA (i suspect it took refuge in heidi’s apartment, as i kept using it in the hellfires known as NY weather recently), you’ll have to wait for the post-deck-removal photos and the totally hot action shots of me with a chainsaw (don’t worry, i’m sure your imagination will fill in the blanks enough to get you through the night, you cad). For now just rest happily in the knowledge that you were most-likely much smarter than I with respect to hot to deal with the heat. I hope so, for your sake. Think of the children.