NEWS BLOG (WSAU) Yesterday and today I’ve had two out-of-town guests who’ve been visiting Central Wisconsin. They don’t really know much about the area. They’ve here on the hottest day of the year.

“It really isn’t like this here during the summer,” I say as we walk past the 400-block.

This is more typical of the New York City summers I remember as a kid, where you could literally see the heat rising from the pavement. You’d hope someone opened a fire hydrant to keep cool.

This weather may help acclimate me to my parent’s home in Connecticut, where the last few summers I’ve been uncomfortably hot – unable to get used to the heavy ocean-air humidity that just isn’t a part of Wisconsin summers.

I had a friend from college who became a trader on the New York Stock Exchange. I’d laugh at him in July and August, with the NYSE dress code that required a collar-shirt and tie regardless of how hot it got. He eventually transferred to the Chicago Board of Trade – joking that the more-relaxed shirt sleeves rule was more to his liking.

In case you're wondering, an unairconditioned apartment on a hot day like this feels like a weight on your chest. It's an uncomfortable heat that you can't escape. Sympathze for people without electiricity and without a/c.

Here in town all of time time-and-temp signs are wrong. It was not 99, as the bank said. And it was not 101, despite what the read-out at the mall showed. (Today’s high was 94.) You should be skeptical about ‘unofficial’ temperatures. Yet I suspect my guests were skeptical. “The weather is never like this here,” I told them as we entered the air conditioned lobby at the radio station.

Chris Conley
7.2.12