Talk about Home Court advantage...

[bjornolf]

By the time it reaches the ground, it's just warm air that smells like old people.

Wow, that's just BRUTAL. Kudos for the burn, man. I don't want to laugh, but I just can't help it.

[dukepsy1963]

I used to tell my students when we were studying gerontological issues, that if they are "lucky," they might live to become an old person...

I suspect that most did not hear me though because of 65+ year-old hearing at 18 because of too much sustained 100+ db sounds!

Be careful with sounds...the damage is permanent!!!

[Devil in the Blue Dress]

As my AC guy noted when my AC broke down last summer, the reason it takes so long and so much work to cool a building that is hot is that everything soaks up heat, the furniture, the walls, the people. The AC doesn't just have to cool the air, it has to cool everything before a person notices a temperature drop. Thus, if the day is warmer (I don't know the weather in Durham lately, but it's been pretty warm in DC for January), the building itself is warmer, not just the air in the building. Further, if it WAS cold last night (<50), they might not have wanted to run the AC as that's hard on it. Depending on the type of unit they bought, the refrigerant could liquify, which could destroy the condenser if it's working hard and it's the wrong type. Combine warm day to warm the building with cold night to keep the AC off, stuff a ton of bouncing, screaming people in there, and poof, hot and wet. Not to mention, if it WAS cold yesterday, they could have been running the heat in the offices for anyone that might have been working during the day, thus creating a warmer atmosphere before the game started, assuming there is a heater, of course.

You have listed a number of factors which may contribute to why Cameron feels hotter this season. I learned about dealing with such stuff first hand as a public school principal for many years. I suspect that the controls and systems are sophisticated enough to allow for dealing with the very different conditions in offices as opposed to a large space like the arena itself. Systems age and may gradually lose efficiency and eventually fail. Determining when to start up a system to prepare for use of a large space is a matter of judgment and experience. The past two games the building has felt like the systems weren't started soon enough. (I'm there at least an hour ahead of tip off.) As to whether it's possible to cool a building like Cameron... it was working in recent past seasons. If you've ever attended a game in the Dean Dome you know that large spaces can be cooled quite efficiently!

I'd also note that water pressure seems reduced in the restrooms (a conservation response to drought?) and that last night the light fixtures in the women's restrooms (didn't inspect any men's restrooms) were lit with only two florescent tubes each, rather than the number each could accommodate. Are these conservation measures?

The last thing I'll say about this dead horse is that it's been a while since Cameron was renovated. A renovation project may be on the horizon.

[diesel]

In the mid 1960’s as a foreign student in the Crazies section, I remember wishing I could wear a T shirt and shorts to the games in CIS. The game-time temperature must have been between 90-100F. Just the thought of getting pneumonia going home dressed like this in the depths of an NC winter dissuaded me from this course of action.

More to the point, as someone who has occasionally had leg cramps throughout life, what causes the problem? What is the common factor that causes three visitors to go down-- in obviously more pain than I ever had?