Here is what the moon looked like at 3:45 this morning:
Too early to tell I suppose, but it seems like an improvement. What with the Great Upheaval at work and all (click topic to the right for past posts), this is the time of morning where I would be heading out the door to work. I think I will stick around this morning. Throw back a pot of coffee with the wife before seeing each other off to work around 7:30 or so - assuming we both end up going to work today.
I also felt like I really ought to do some posting this morning which brings me to our cultural observations of the day.
I phoned a friend yesterday to check in and he assured me that all was fine with him and his. I remarked that my wife had talked to his wife and that my wife had told me that they had an eventful morning. "Well, I'm going to blog about it" was his reply.
I knew what he meant. What he meant was, "Nothing of any real importance happened and I want to tell you the story via the blog so that I can get my thoughts together and add the photos etc." Which is perfectly fine and no big deal. But I couldn't help dishing him some good-natured righteous indignation, "LOOK PAL. When I call and ask you if you are all right I don't want to hear, 'Well, I'm going to blog about it'. I want to hear what the H.E. double hockey-sticks is going on!"
We both had a good laugh.
Which brings me to the other side of that cultural coin - a number of friends have e-mailed me expressing concern because I have not been blogging the fire very much and they want to make sure we are okay. Which I find interesting.
The only thing keeping me from blogging is THE MAN. And the 70-hour work weeks I have been putting in the last 3 weeks. The wife asked me if I ever have trouble coming up with something to blog about. Sadly, no. Rest assured that I always have something to say and the only thing keeping me from blogging about it is my present work situation. (note: I did not say "something interesting" or "something important". I just said I always have "something" to say)
Well back to the topic at hand.
The best sources for information on the fires that I have found are these:
http://www.10news.com/ - They have a live video feed that I have been running in a corner of my desktop at work. It is exactly what the folks watching TV are seeing.
www.sdcountyemergency.com/ - This is the San Diego County Government emergency website. They have a pdf map of the fires as well as evacuation areas and possible future evacuation areas. They also have a ticker-tape of sorts with very relevant and up-to-date information
Google Maps - This is a map of the fires, evacuation areas and aid centers of all stripes
So how close did we come to never having to finish the family room re-model? Judging by all the sources I have seen on TV, the web and in person yesterday morning - we were 4 miles from the flames and 2 1/2 miles from being evacuated. That may seem uncomfortably close to some but I am learning that 4 miles is not necessarily 4 miles when it comes to fire.
Our home is not in the woods. We do not live on the edge of a tinder-box prairie. We are surrounded by city blocks of residential homes. Between us and the flames sits four miles of densely populated neighborhoods and an 8-lane freeway. It would have to be some fire to ravage four miles of city blocks and jump a freeway without being beaten back by the fire-fighting powers that be. Add to the mix that the Harris fire is butted up against the Sweetwater reservoir. The aircraft have been filling their tanks in the reservoir and not so much having to travel to the fire to drop so much as just having to gain enough altitude to make their drops.
The real concern for us is not that the fire might travel house-to-house. The issue at hand for us is that air-borne embers could rain down upon us and cause damage.
That seems a lot less likely this morning than it did yesterday morning.
But like I said, it's still early and I am just taking a "stab in the dark".
More to come, I am sure . . .
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