I like to take a daily walk around the office complex during the summer months. I was just out there. Right now, we�re experiencing the kind of heat and humidity that seems just plain unearthly.

�Are you sure it�s supposed to be like this?�

It�s post-apocalyptic, this heat.

�In Philadelphia?�

Walking between the rows of shiny luxury cars, that I�m sure are all equipped with a powerful A/C unit, I started wondering whether or not this level of luxury will last. Will technology outrace our dependence on fossil fuels? Is this all temporary?

I know that the rich people say so. Even without fossil fuels, they probably think that they�ll just hire some poor people to fan them over a stack of ice cubes. It�s that kind of arrogance that brings most aristocratic societies down in painful and humiliating ways.

Me? I�m nowhere near aristocracy. I�m well-aware of how easily the things that we take for granted can slip away.

Long ago, people had to learn how to sweat. Will we have to do that again?

I learned how to sweat a long time ago.

I�ve been through a few different styles of martial arts and a wide variety of karate instructors. This is why it took me so long to get my black belt and it was entirely by choice.

I had one especially crazy karate teacher that wouldn�t turn on the A/C regardless of the outside temperature. We slid around on the sweat-soaked wooden floors. The pools of perspiration were the worst threat during our matches.

That�s when the women were separated from the boys. The light-haired, fair-skinned ones dropped like flies; vomiting and suffering from spontaneous nose-bleeds. Some people just aren�t made for the heat.

Despite being the most German-looking of all the asian/german hybrids in my family, I was made for the heat. As my brother put it, we�re from the hottest, humidest, typhooniest, earthquakiest place in Japan (and he wished someone had told him before he moved there).

Being in that class was sort of like being trained for an evil army on a remote island owned by super villain, but you know, generally speaking, my life is pretty dull, so it�s something to do.

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