A heat wave for open source routers

The past few days here in Northern California have been unseasonably hot - downright brutal to us fair-weathered folks who take for granted a yearly climate between 50-80F. The temperatures have reached over 90F here and that has made the weather the main topic of conversation for nearly everyone I know. Make that the only topic of conversation....

I spent my youth in a locale where winters get this white stuff called snow that makes you cold, mucks up the roads and ruins a few pairs of shoes annually. No-one here in San Francisco has ever seen the steam rise from their frozen socks as they've laid them out by the fire after coming home from work. No-one out here has ever needed to plug their car into the wall to power the heater that keeps the radiator fluid from freezing. Ever have to get up in the morning, bundle up, go outside and start your car, turn on the heater, go back inside and shower (car still running), get dressed, bundle up again, go outside and find your car plowed in, shovel the car out (still running) and then have to go to work? I kind of doubt it if you live out here. I'm fond of saying, "You never have to shovel the rain..."

On the converse, we don't have the kind of summers that folks closer to the Equator have where humidity makes everything sticky and you spend you day running from your air-conditioned home to your air-conditioned car to the air-conditioned shopping mall, and so forth. Gum does not melt when left in our cars in the summer. Ice cream does not completely melt in the trunk between the supermarket and home. Our clothes don't glue themselves to our bodies when we walk a block. Not a lot of homes even have air-conditioning.

It's amazing to me that I often hear a refrain from folks that have migrated to this area about how they "miss the seasons and variety of weather." Yet, every time it rains or gets hot, folks complain about the weather and how it's not normal. If the daily weather varies by 5 degrees from the expected weather pattern, it's the lead news story. Well, Northern California, this heat wave sure has given us something to talk about - don't stress too much as things will be back to normal tomorrow according to the forecasts. Whew - that was a tough spell, glad we all pulled through together! :)

What does this have to do with Vyatta and open source routers? Not much - it's hot and I wanted to talk to someone about it :)