The invasion of Attu Island

Did you know the Japanese invaded Attu Island (part of the Aleutian Islands)? Neither did I. So, here's a story about it. And here's a trailer for a movie called "Red, White, Black and Blue" about it.

Fire, take 2

First, a couple of pics from a buddy who lives near the Harris fire area.

before
Oh well!
after

At 7pm, there were still roughly 45,000 people under evacuation orders.

The fires burned roughly 540 square miles here in San Diego County. That's roughly the same as: 23 Manhattan Islands , 80% of Singapore Island, or 1/10th of the land mass of Northern Ireland. It's crazy to think of the amount of land burned compared to a couple of well known land masses!

The death toll is remarkably under 10 and injuries are limited to a few dozen.

Pics from a buddy

These 2 pics are from a buddy that lives in Santee.

Pics Part 2

Taken with my Nikon D50 camera.

Sunset, again

 

This is a bit of burned up debris (that looks like pipe insulation?) that wasn't there when I took my pics at 1720 (10 min prior)

 

Smoke & haze in the sky

 

Pics

Pic of smoke taken facing SE around 1pm Tuesday. You can sort of see some blue sky on the top left of the pic.

 

Pic of the sun thru the smoke, taken around 1720 Tuesday. There's a little bit of blue sky...

 

Another pic of the sun. Sorry they both have a blob around the sun, that's some wacky artifact from taking the picture.

 

The fire

We're basically fine here.
On Sunday around noon, I went sailing with a friend's dad. The (now called) "Harris" fire was under way for a couple of hours and we could see the smoke column, it was probably 5000ft tall and the smoke was drifting all the way to the coast, approx 25 mi. The (now called) Witch Creek fire had just started.

The fire obviously progressed during the day on Sunday and on Monday, we both went to work. Evacuations were well underway at the time and basically no one except operations guys were in the office. I bailed out around noon and came home because I'd heard that Noreen's command was activated for firefighting & other stuff - turned out it was just the base firefighters. I stayed home and was "available" for work. Noreen came home around 1600 and tried to snooze because she had to go back in at 2300. Noreen went to work and then asked me to get some Claritin because her allergies were going crazy (surprise!). On the way back from the base, around 0030, I saw a real FIRE southeast of the intersection of the 94/805. I called everyone and said I was bailing out. When I got home, I called the fire dept and they said they had it and not to worry, it was a small vegetation fire and I didn't need to evacuate. About the same time, a new fire, the Mount Miguel (Mt San Miguel?) flared up. I packed the car with some stuff and have other stuff ready to go. With the exception of the cats in their carriers, I'm almost ready to bail.

Noreen got home from work around 0330, we slept until 0800. We got our newspaper and water delivery, surprisingly! The smoke here is pretty thick, but it's not too bad with our super-airtight and expensive windows. We still have power & water, too.

I have one co-worker who had (has??) a house in Ramona, one of the towns that was almost wiped out by the Witch fire. I have no idea on his status. A friend had (has?) a house that was .5 mi from the west/leading edge of the Harris fire (and he said he could see it) bailed out, not sure on his status. Other than that, people I know seem to be doing mostly OK.

Here is a Map of everything.

A couple of points of interest: There's a link to the "KPBS Broadcast Tower" - that's where Mt San Miguel is. Our house is about 3 mi away from the yellow evacuation area in Spring Valley/Sweetwater Reservoir.

News blog by the Union-Trib.
Noreen is working, I'm watching the news. All seems to be well right now.

Love Letter to Detroit

A bitter-sweet love letter to Detroit and the cars by Jeremy Clarkson, host of BBC's kick-ass car show, Top Gear. It's a bit old (Dennis Archer is mayor of Detroit), but a great watch (almost 25 min long).

Playing hooky from work today

I'm playing hooky from work today. Blade Runner: The Final Cut is in VERY LIMITED release in the theater, only in NYC & L.A. I'm headed up to LA today to see it!

Great Ridley Scott interview about the movie.

The adventures of Pvt Battlehard Bear

A stuffed bear goes on adventures with the 101st Airborne. The bear was a gift from an elementary school class to one of their own now serving in Iraq.

One more reason not to have kids

They'll rat you out to pediatricians about the parent's guns, smoking and drinking habits.