Brendan Gates

I just flipped to CNN and Dr. Sanjay Gupta was doing a story on Propofol, the drug reportedly involved in the death of pop star Michael Jackson (not to be confused with pug Michael Jackson). Yes, the same Dr. Sanjay Gupta who was recently a candidate for Surgeon General, on the same network that is the only one “still doing journalism.”

I grabbed my laptop to blog the incident, and by the time I had blogger pulled up the anchor had moved on to a story about Michael Jackson’s mother fighting over his will. Stupid CNN. It’s my own fault, though. I couldn’t remember what channel C-SPAN was, so I engaged in the admittedly risky behavior of flipping through channels one by one.

So why I am at home on a Wednesday afternoon? Eugene is in the middle of a heat wave. 105 was the high yesterday, and today should reach 106. I initially requested the day off to tend to our dog, and keep him cool with ice cubes and cool baths in our toasty non air conditioned home. Pugs are very susceptible to heat related illness, and with the temperature inside and out in the high 90s and low 100s, he was at risk.

However, at about 6:30am on Tuesday morning I caved and bought a window unit AC from Home Depot, one that is keeping our living room at a much-cooler-than-outside 79 degrees. This is the room MJ is restricted to, and the room from which I am currently blogging and enjoying a spirited Senate debate on C-SPAN2. I have vacation days to burn, so I decided to keep my scheduled day off even though MJ was no longer in danger of becoming a hot dog.

Speaking of C-SPAN2, why is Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) the sitting President of the Senate? I thought that was Vice President Joe Biden, and in his absence, President pro tempore Robert Byrd. Maybe they both called in sick?