Saturday
- well, the barbecue is officially canceled, so just hanging about the house.
Somebody gave me a kitten. A neighbor came to my door and said "This
kitten was starving under a trailer in our back yard. We're leaving for
Missouri and if you don't want it we'll drop it at the pound". Being a
sucker I took it.
It was super friendly, obviously people acclimated. Orange & white,
and silly and lovable as only a kitten can be. It ate and ate, then
slept and slept, in between climbing on me.
Riley is beside himself, of course, hissing and spitting. Phoebe is
less upset, but keeping his distance. The kitten just wants to play, of
course!
I've enjoyed the company, but put up signs on the mailboxes in the
neighborhood, hopefully somebody will come claim him before Tuesday!
Friday
- worked about a half day, then headed up to Lancaster. In theory
there is to be a barbecue at my brother's place in Palmdale, in
practice it looks as though he is coming down with the flu and that
others can't make it. Well, let us hope for the best. Ventura has been
hot and humid, Lancaster looks to be just hot this weekend.
The forest fires continue, though they seem to be making ground on containment.
The other Scalzi book is The Sagan Diary,
and is indeed a book with Jane Sagan as the protagonist, but is really
just a novelette, 100pp. I'll see if the local library has it, or
another of his books, Agent to the Stars.
Here is Phoebe, eating a french fry. I threw him one as a lark,
then used the cell phone to take a picture of him eating a second.
I stopped there, suspecting that french fries are not good for cats!
Thursday 3 September
2009
Thursday
- Mt. Wilson has been spared, it seems Good news. There are neat
animations, or rather, time-lapse shots, of the Station Fire posted at
YouTube:
There are more, but you get the idea. They call the smoke bursting
upwards pyro-cumulus.
And the sense of scale, particularly in full screen, is amazing - those
clouds of smoke dwarf the mountains!
Book #51 is Zoe's
Tale, by John Scalzi. This is essentially last years The Last Colony,
but retold from the perspective of a teenage girl. Interesting, though
I find the whole evil Colonial Union thing an unlikely future history.
Apparently there is a book, The Sagan Diaries, that I haven't seen yet.
Zoe, the protagonist of Zoe's Tale here, is the adopted son of John Perry of Old Mans War and The Last Colony, and Jane Sagan would be her adopted mother.
There is a recent interview with John Scalzi, over at Instapundit. It's here - warning, annoying intrusive leadins.
Wednesday 2
September
2009
Wednesday
- In other fire news, it seems that the JRM Mars water
bombers are not all retired, and some are in Southern
California as we speak! Awesome. I wonder where they are based out of?
I'd love to get a picture!
Update: Inciweb also states there are DC-10 and 747 water bombers in play...
It's a bit smoky in Ventura/Camarillo, but not horrible. The waxing
moon was an interesting copper shade in the evening.
Tuesday 1 September 2009
Tuesday
- working. Warm in Camarillo, but not horrible.
The fires are threatening Mt. Wilson Observatory, and a lot of the
antenna farms up on the ridge. That is a beautiful ridge to hike along
- big old pines shading a trail right along the top, with a spectacular
view to the south. Hopefully some of the tree's - along with the
observatory - will survive.
JPL
released the picture at the bottom of the page
- spectacular. The smoke plume apparently makes it way all the way to
Las Vegas, and you can clearly see it covering the east end of the dry
lake at Edwards AFB (where I used to work), well to the north of the
San Gabriels and San Angeles.
Monday 31 August 2009
Monday
- back to work.
It is pretty smoky, the fires in the San Gabriels are
getting worse it seems.
Sunday 30 August_2009
Sunday
- headed back to Ventura, mid-day. It was hot in socal according to the
car thermometer, 109F in Reseda!
Apparently there are sailing excursions in San Diego. None on Sunday,
but apparently both the Californian
and the America
have little sails
one can go on. That would be neat, though they appear somewhat crowded
on deck. Still, it would be neat to watch the operation of a
full sized bark and schooner - I wonder if they do tacks and jibes or
just put the sails up for show?
