Summer to winter

when i left buenos aires in mid-april, it was hot, sticky and there was a mini-plague of mosquitoes... arriving back today, i am in the middle of a southern hemisphere winter, no leaves on the trees, a breeze that requires a fleece jacket, and a house that's taken most of the day to take the chill off... meanwhile, back in the high desert of the u.s. great basin, the temp spiked again today in the high 90s... my landlady is still in semi-shock over the first-in-90-years snowfall of a few weeks ago, and i guess i'm going to have to start eating starchier food to get my blood thickened up a bit... < sigh >

speaking of heat, my friends in the balkans are having to deal with some of what we were dealing with a few weeks ago - extremely high temps and wildfires... i couldn't believe the temp in skopje, macedonia*, on monday - 109F/48C... i've been there when the temp hit the low 100s, and, believe me, it was PLENTY hot...

on the bright side, i got my new wireless router up and running with no problem, except for the guy down the street who's using the same make and model... once we stopped trying to configure each other's router, things worked just fine...

*In Macedonia, one person died and 20 were evacuated from burning houses near Bitola, the country's second-largest city, as temperatures reached 42 C amid a declared national emergency.

Thousands of firefighters and local residents battled into Tuesday to contain the huge blaze, while President Branko Crvenkovski ordered army units mobilized to help with the effort. Firefighting airplanes and helicopters were expected to arrive Tuesday from Croatia, Turkey and Austria.

"We managed to defend the city and now have the fire under control. There is no threat to Bitola any more," Ivica Bocevski, a government spokesman, told The Associated Press.

it's such a small world... i happen to know ivica... he's a heckuva nice guy, so is his wife, and their 1 1/2 year-old baby girl is a sweetie...

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