It’s that time when the temperatures hit about 116 degrees or so, which is a wonderful excuse for a Dopefest, isn’t it? 
Therefore, I propose the following:
Location – somewhere with very good air conditioning
Time & Date – Saturday, July 26, 2003, 6 p.m. or thereabouts.
Anyone else up for getting out of the heat with some Dopers?
I would love to join but unfortunately I work until midnights on Sunday. 
But I will still pay attention to when and where because you never know. 
DdDHellspawn – but what about Saturday? Do you work late on Saturday also?
I don’t mean to hijack, so please forgive me. But after seeing the Phoenix forecast, I just have to ask, how do you cope? Do businesses close? People stay inside? Is there like a civic emergency? Or are you just used to that?
Forgive the off-topic post, but that temperature just seems staggering.
You do like I do and move 2000 miles away
OpalCat, who still remembers delivering lunch rush pizzas the day in 1990 when it hit 122…
It’s just like winter anywhere else - we wonder how people up north cope with temps in the teens. Except that you can drive in the sunshine and not worry about skidding on the puddles of light. We stay inside until evening - it’s usually quite nice in the evenings.
lel, as of right now, that sounds like a fine time and date as far as I’m concerned.
Hey now, I was raised in AZ and I always got so jealous of those people who had snowy winters when the temps stayed in the teens! So watch who you include in that ‘we’ 
I went to Phoenix two years ago when it was about 110 degrees, boy did i feel ill.
Erm, thats all. I’m from england so i won’t be joining you for the Dopefest. Carry on.
Oh lel… I wish I was out there this month. As you know from the past I have tried to coordinate dopefests in Phoenix.
For those who asked about the heat, when we say it’s a dry heat it is. And basically speaking anything over 105 is just plain hot. I have a home in Phoenix and in CT. CT is home base, but we travel to Phoenix quite often. I love it out there. Sorry can’t make it lel. I wish I could, the house of tricks in tempe, is a great place. Bandersnatch is good too.
Sounds good to me, but unfortunately I will be in CA that weekend. Let me know if you reschedule.
Someone gave me this little poem when I first moved to AZ in 1986.
ARIZONA
The devil wanted a place on earth
Sort of a summer home.
A place to spend his vacation
Whenever he wanted to roam.
So he picked out Arizona
A place both wretched and rough.
Where the climate was to his liking
And the cowboys hardened and tough.
He dried up the streams in the canyons
And ordered no rain to fall.
He dried up the lakes in the valleys,
Than baked and scorched it all.
Then over his barren desert
He transplanted shrubs from hell.
The cactus, thistle and prickly pear,
The climate suited them well.
Now, the home was much to his liking,
But animal life, he had none.
So he created crawling creatures,
That all mankind would shun.
First he made the Rattlesnake
With poison fangs and forked tongue;
Taught it to strike and rattle
And how to swallow its young.
Then he made Scorpions and Lizards
And the ugly old Horned Toad.
He placed spiders of every description
Under rocks by the side of the road.
Then he ordered the sun to shine hotter,
Hotter and hotter still.
Until even the cactus wilted,
And the old Horned Toad looked ill.
Then he gazed on his earthly kingdom
As any creator would.
He chuckled a little up his sleeve
And admitted that it was good.
Twas summer now and Satan lay,
By a prickly pear to rest.
The sweat rolled off his swarthy brow,
So he took off his coat and vest.
“By Golly,” he finally panted,
“I did my job too well, I’m going
Back where I came from,
Arizona is hotter than Hell.”
-Anonymous
I was just referring to Mr Winnie and me…
Except those of us that have to work outside…
As to the evenings, just looked up my friendly weather.com hourly forecast:
6pm: 107
7pm: 106
8pm: 105
9pm: 103
10pm: 100
11pm: 98
12am: 96
1am: 95
That’s with at least 20% humidity, to up over 30% in the late night.
It’s already 94 degrees out, and only a quarter after 9…
And I will be partying and moving that weekend. Getting the hell out of this city, and going all the way to…Tucson! It’s like the worst consolation prize ever.
I am new to all of this but would LOVE to go but I am going to be in Dallas that weekend visiting my new hubby. How about sometime around Aug 16th. I think Lordjim will be here that weekend and we can both go.
Any and all weekends in August are pretty much out for me. August is a busy month.
I love the poem! I added it to my page about Tucson: http://fathom.org/opalcat/tucson/
Opal, just looked at the site about Tucson. You are my new hero. I know a lot of people who like it here, and I’m definitely not one of them.
I love explaining to people what a “jumping cactus” is, and why it is absolutely NOT embellishment to call it a “jumping cactus”. I have, honest to god, seen these things leave their home plants with zero provocation, and become deeply embedded with the lightest of touches. I had a classmate from North Carolina who was in the field with me once and got one of the pads stuck pretty deeply into her calf. The damn thing climbed up her leg from the shoe (get picked up on the inside of one shoe, transfers over to the other shoe, slightly higher up, on the stride, transfers to the pantleg, slightly higher up, on the next stride, and so on until BAM! you run into it somehow and imbed it into your skin). We had to use pliers to get it out of her leg. Poor girl.
So if you go through Arizona and somebody points out a jumping cactus, don’t feel the dumbass non-zonie need to prove that it really does jump.
Evil. Pure evil.
I think Jim will be coming out about every two weeks if you plan it out far enough we can try to arrange his schedule around it. I am sure he would like to go.
Okay, scrap that idea. Sorry! How about, oh, late September?
Yeah, DdDHellspawn also works late on Saturdays. Can’t make it m’self, either, due to a friend from out of town visiting that weekend. Next time.