07/07/2010 archive

As many here in the Northeast already know, it’s hot. Temperature in many places are in triple digits, coupled with high humidity and stagnant air. It can be life threatening. The entire region is under a heat alert and many cities have poor air quality alerts.

Most people know to wear cool, loose clothing, drink plenty of non-alcoholic, decaffeinated beverages and stay in the shade, air conditioning or a room with windows open and fans. Take cool showers. You should also limit exercise to very early morning hours. Although in this heat with temperatures already pushing 90 at 7 AM, it might be a good idea to forgo exercise altogether, especially for those on medication for hypertension, cardiac disease or diabetes. Many cities have cooling centers for those without air conditioning and places, like NYC, are extending the hours of municipal pools and beaches keeping lifeguards on duty until dusk.

If you have pets, keep their water bowls full with clean fresh water, keep them indoors or provide an airy, shaded place. Limit their exercise, as well, to early morning and after sundown.

Relief is expected on Friday when a cold front pushes through bringing thunder showers and cooler temperatures for the weekend. Meanwhile stay cool and wet, inside and out.

As with Formula One, small time margins at the begining can magnify throughout the race into insurmountable advantages.  Lance Armstrong is hoping that is not the final story of yesterday’s Cobblestone Carnage.

It’s not that he fell, there were a lot on equipment failures among the leaders.  It’s that he was involved in a fall that split the lead pack at the end of the stage and gave his major competitors a significant opening.

The fall was Frank Schleck’s (the less famous one, not the one in 6th place) and took him out of the Tour with a broken collar bone.  Matter of time really, he was badly beat up in Stage 2 the day before.

From Armstrong’s standpoint what happened is that he was all of a sudden a minute and a half behind about 6 contenders including Contador.  He drove real hard over the finish to cut that to about 50 seconds, but this is definitely a result after 2 scoreless draws.

Today’s stage is an unremarkable 96 miles from Cambrai to Reims.

Your morning Open Thread

On this day in 1930, construction of the Hoover Dam begins. Over the next five years, a total of 21,000 men would work ceaselessly to produce what would be the largest dam of its time, as well as one of the largest manmade structures in the world.

Although the dam would take only five years to build, its construction was nearly 30 years in the making. Arthur Powell Davis, an engineer from the Bureau of Reclamation, originally had his vision for the Hoover Dam back in 1902, and his engineering report on the topic became the guiding document when plans were finally made to begin the dam in 1922.

Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States and a committed conservationist, played a crucial role in making Davis’ vision a reality. As secretary of commerce in 1921, Hoover devoted himself to the erection of a high dam in Boulder Canyon, Colorado. The dam would provide essential flood control, which would prevent damage to downstream farming communities that suffered each year when snow from the Rocky Mountains melted and joined the Colorado River. Further, the dam would allow the expansion of irrigated farming in the desert, and would provide a dependable supply of water for Los Angeles and other southern California communities.

Happy Birthday, Ringo.

Ringo Starr is turning 70 on Wednesday. It feels as though youth itself is now 70 years old.

I wasn’t yet 6 when the Beatles played their last live performance atop the Apple Corps building on Savile Row in London, January 1969. They split four years before I got my first Beatles album. Still, I can keep track of my teenage years by Beatles songs I happened to be enthralled with at the time. Forty years after they broke up, my 6-year-old son is learning to play “Eleanor Rigby” on the piano.

Ever since Ringo Starr  vowed, on a well-known cover of Buck Owens’s hit “Act Naturally,” that he’d become “the biggest fool to ever hit the big time,” the renowned rock ‘n’ roll drummer has done all right for himself. As a member of the Beatles and as a solo artist, Mr. Starr has sold more than a few records, won some Grammy Awards and even had a minor planet named for him. But on Wednesday Mr. Starr will reach a very special milestone: he turns 70 years old.

As you’d expect, he plans to mark the occasion with a little help from his friends, and anyone else he can round up. Finding himself in New York on the big day, he is celebrating with a private event in the morning at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square; Hard Rock International is honoring the day at locations around the world. (Details are at ringostarr.com.)

In the evening he will perform a concert at Radio City Music Hall with his All Starr Band, which includes Edgar Winter, Gary Wright and Rick Derringer.

Tougher than usual tonight.  I will actually be watching Warehouse 13.

Keith AND Rachel.  Letterman repeats, Leno has new content.

• Turner Classics– It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
• FX– AVPR: Aliens vs Predator—Requiem.
• ESPN– World Cup Primetime.

There should be Mets Baseball for me and Le Tour repeats if you haven’t already beaten your eyeballs bloody.

Later-

Jon has Julianne Moore pitching The Kids Are All Right, Stephen- Garret Keizer.  The always reliable Alton is covering mayonnaise (Miracle Whip guy myself).

Repeat of a new Chopped @ 1, might be worth watching at 10 pm.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Oil comes ashore in Texas as BP dismisses money worries

AFP

Tue Jul 6, 12:52 pm ET