A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

How 'bout this heat?

Nobody's complaining about two months of rainfall now, I reckon.

"Murderous," "bloody hot," "fiery" and "worse than Dallas" were how some portrayed Sunday's sweltering heat, which reached 102 degrees at George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

The combined humidity and temperature created a feels-like heat index of 112 and led the city to declare a heat emergency, the first this year. Many stayed indoors, leaving pools and parks eerily empty during the hottest part of the day.

Houstonians face dangerous heat again today, with temperatures expected to break the 100-degree mark and no relief in sight until Wednesday, forecasters said.

I chose this last weekend to accompany my friend Sir Not Appearing In This Blog and several of his co-workers to the Houston-Chicago pre-season game on Saturday. Naturally for the guy who built Smogdor, tailgating was involved. Not quite as naturally, he and co-worker BT recently purchased a firetruck for just such occasions.

Big Red, the name under which the non-air conditioned, emissions violating monstrosity travels, is a 1971 Mack. Beyond that, I sort of blurred on the details. Did I mention it was really freaking hot?

Obviously, the truck didn't look originally look like this. They've put a ton of work into it already, and by the start of the regular season, they want to have a couple pits installed. I watched some guys working on this one, which I believe is going up top:

In the meantime, they're "making do" with this number:

It has a big brother lurking somewhere. As there were only going to be eight or ten of us in attendance, the little one seemed sufficient.

After some minor prep, which included securing the flags and - in a rare sign of maturity - purchasing more water than beer, we headed down to Reliant Stadium around 5 PM. The reading on the thermometer at the shop when we left was a crisp 105.

Once we rounded everybody up, it didn't take long to make camp. And those tents would come in handy when a freak storm blew up over us around 6 PM.

The view from the top.

The game, like all pre-season affairs, was essentially pointless. New Texans QB Matt Schaub played two series, while Bears starting goat Rex Grossman lasted one less. The "new" Houston offense looked suspiciously like the old, and we went back to the beer and food at halftime.

One of the few existing pictures of BT (center). I think the last guy to take his photo got stabbed in a port-a-john, so I hope everyone appreciates the risk I'm taking.

I don't know who the dork with the hat is, he just kind of showed up.

We're in the habit of being one of the last vehicles out of the lot. I'm not sure that's the best way to commemorate a 20-19 loss, but I wasn't driving.

I made it home a little after midnight, took the greatest shower of my life (not counting a few during my sexually adventurous college days), and collapsed. I think it's safe to say I'll be joining Big Red and the crew a couple more times this season, but probably not until the temperature dips into the relatively frigid 80s.