BookExpo Canada is finally over and I am now back at home. Fully reachable, back on the grid. There was no ring toss at our booth, but I did suggest a bean bag toss and feats of strength for next year.
Yesterday was a record clobbering day and this morning when I left my hotel at 7:30 it was already 33 C. The electricity strike didn’t seem to affect me, Hydro One does have people on strike, but the actual use of electricity, or lack of, did affected me. Yesterday the show closed and the exhibitors stayed to tear down the booths and pack up books. As soon as the fair was officially closed, the convention centre turned off the lights and the air conditioning. What you need to picture here is a bunch of publishing folks in their trade show outfits doing manual labour–actual lifting of boxes, not just the cushy standing around stuff–without air conditioning. When I returned to my hotel, I could barely strip my clothes off. My pants stuck to me in ways that are truly unmentionable.
I suppose for the sake of the environment I should feel proud of my non-air-conditioning moments. Monday Ontario folks set a record for air conditioner use, driving electricity demand to 26,157 megawatts per hour at the peak, according to the Globe and Mail. Apparently if the use isn’t curbed, Hydro One may be forced to reduce demand by causing short blackouts. The greater concern is likely that the increased demand forces them to import expensive hydro from neighbouring provinces and sates.
So it was a triple threat kind of day Saturday: heat alert, smog alert, thunderstorm alert. The rest of the time it was just the smog and heat. Did you know that smog is SMoke and OxyGen? I did not know this.