The Soberanes fire, which started July 22, is still burning.

Yesterday afternoon, on my way to work, I spotted a smoke plume a bit south of here in the Santa Cruz Mountains.


And I thought, "I hope they get on that fast."
An hour later, the sky looked like this:

The fire expanded rapidly, driven by a stiff breeze.
By sunset, the sky looked like this:


(yeah, that last one's a bit blurry - low-light mode on my phone kinda sucks. Looked a bit like a smoke dragon in the moment, trust me.)

They're calling it the Loma fire as it is burning on Loma Prieta, right around where the 1989 earthquake's epicenter was.

This is ever so thrilling, as everyone in my family has respiratory problems ranging from mild (me) to severe. We've got our HEPA filters cranked up and all the windows shut (which has its own set of problems - did I mention it's been in the 90s the last couple of days?), but I, at least, have a job in whih I am required to work outside. BLEAH. As if I don't already have enough stuff in my pockets at work, now I'll be carrying my inhalers as well.

Fire season sucks.

Happily, the weatherguessers are saying we have a good chance (60%) of rain by Sunday. I devoutly hope that's true. Dampen the forests and wash all the particulates out of the air so we can breathe again.

Instead I'm sitting at home drinking Throat Coat tea by the quart as my sinuses are draining pints of goop in both directions. I think I may be contributing to deforestation with my tissue use as well. Sigh.

For the last two days, I've been wondering if I was having some sort of episode, as it had become increasingly hard to read and I was getting massive headaches.

Today, I realized I was wearing my old glasses, not the updated prescription.

D'OH!

Andrew Jackson, leading a motley band of pirates, militia, and loyal Native Americans, saw off a numerically superior force of British soldiers in the bayous south of New Orleans.

(Unfortunately, the peace treaty with Britain had been signed two weeks earlier, in the Belgian city of Ghent. Darn those slow nineteenth-century communications!)

So the last fallout of 2013's widespread credit card hacking over the holiday season just hit - apparently the card I use for my LJ subscription was one of the ones that got replaced because it was compromised.
All better now...

Slept through two sub calls this morning. Guess I needed the sleep, but I need the work too.

Being exposed to a new germ pool every few days.

So Facebook is increasingly Not The Thing - it's cluttered, it's spammy, it's obnoxious.

I've seen an uptick in LJ postings this last week, as well as people hopping on the Ello bandwagon.

It will be interesting to see how this all pans out. Facebook's ubiquity may be its downfall.

Public Bicycles, a Bay Area company, is giving away a D8i commuter bike, outfitted with a rack and panniers, Brooks saddle and grips, bell, and cup holder (not sure how useful that last accessory is).

The D8i is an eight-speed bike with an internal hub (no big pile of external gears to collect dirt or tangle your clothing)..

Fair disclosure - if you enter through my link, you're giving me bonus entries in the contest.
Enter here: http://is.gd/aiH9g8

Woke up this morning to the sound of rain on the roof. It's a start. We still need more.

If it rained every day in February and March, we *might* be somewhere close to normal.

Santa Cruz County has one of the 17 communities that went on the list published a week ago of places that had an estimated 100 days of water left.