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30 December 2008

The "Filly's Finale" was coded this evening and has been sent to the various authors for their web sites. The complete A Little Nothing is now live here at The Range. ... sort of. See, it needs a "wrap-up," an epilogue of sorts, and I think our young feline friend Aramis is just the fur to put a bow on the complete package. So while ALN may appear to be complete, don't bet on it.

As 2009 looms large in the windshield, the crew here at The Range wants to wish you all a Happy New Year, and share with you our prayer that '09 manages to be better for us all than '08 was. We end our year seemingly immersed in things to grumble and growl about, but there are so many more things we can be thankful for.

Mike graduated from Biola this month and is now planning a future that enfolds music and ministry. We had a grand conversation this evening on those very subjects, and I came away from that with a great big smile on my muzzle. His future is so bright ...

There's 251 years of wisdom and experience in the front row you see above. My father has made documented progress in his battles, and the moms continue to be an ever present, guiding force in all our lives. They continue to be part of the plotting of new adventures, so will continue to be seen here on occasion.

My Fox and I, despite our state and federal government's best efforts to the contrary, continue to remain employed, and continue to be challenged by new and different things to do. We still find joy in our work, although sometimes it is heavily filtered by corporate effluvia. Given the uncertainties of the global economy we are cautiously optimistic about continuing in that state of affairs, neither of our jobs is immediately threatened.

Of course, my Fox and I still have each other. I continue to be mystified by whatever it is she sees / saw in me, and am eternally thankful that whatever it is, she still sees it. Or perhaps she's just content to listen to the old dog growl and grumble because she is still amused by the silly things I do when I'm not growling and grumbling ... Whatever, our love is as strong as it's ever been, and that's saying something after twenty years, three pups, and all the knocks life throws at all of us.

And the beast still runs! In fact, we turned over 191,000 miles on it somewhere in the mud and the slush of the high desert of northeastern Arizona. Sure, it guzzles a little more oil than I'd like, and gets fussy more and more often, and seems to have a particular bent towards calcified recalcitrance at the most inopportune times, but it gets us down the trail when we need to get gone, and I guess that's what counts. Scruffy of finish, more odorous than we'd like, less refined and noisier than ever, I fear a certain kinship with our beloved beast. Sometimes I think my Fox thinks we're related in some aberrant way ...

And we are ever thankful for the friends we've made in this furry community, those we've had the pleasure of meeting and those we look forward to seeing "mano a mano" some day soon. Whatever the pundits, talking heads, and flame-throwers may tell you about the furry fandom, my experience with it has been very positive. Some of the folks I'm closest to these days I made the acquaintance of in this medium, in this genre. Some of them are right there on my wing when I need them. Thanks ...

So ...

Now that ALN is drawing to a close, I hope to devote my meager portions of linguistic creativity to my own stories again. I'm working on a chapter for The B Team, which ought to arch an eyebrow over at The Raccoon's Bookshelf as Mike probably hasn't had a good editing giggle or two in quite a while. Hopefully I can crank something out before spring!

Be safe this holiday season, my friends. I want you all around in 2009 ....

24 December 2008

Merry Christmas, my friends.

My Fox and I returned safely from our week-long road trip in Arizona. We departed in what may turn out to be the "storm of the season" on the 15th, when the snow was falling in Cajon Pass, blocking our egress via Interstate 15. So we instead headed east through the heavy rain on Interstate 10 via Banning Pass, and didn't break out to scattered showers until near Indio. It didn't stop raining until we were almost to the Arizona line. It took us two days to get started, but we eventually visited my family homeland in the southeast part of the state, making stops at Casa Grande, Florence, Willcox, Pearce, and Tombstone. After learning a bit more about some nefarious members of my family who held up trains about 110 years ago, we headed north for the Grand Canyon and the four corners area, encountering a lot of snow and some really cold air. The image above was taken by my Fox with her Canon DS950 at sundown just north of Tombstone, Arizona on the 17th of December, between storms, the night before we headed north.

The Filly has penned the final chapter of A Little Nothing. It has been proofread by the amigos and coding is completed pending testing and approval. Hopefully the "Filly's Finale" will take a bow before the end of the year.

Tonight my folks will join us to celebrate my father's 83rd birthday. It's been a tough year for him, for all of us, and we're looking forward to putting it behind us and moving on with our lives. The challenges that face he and my mom, and therefore the rest of us here at The Range, are not inconsiderable, but we will face them as a family and do the best that we can. We have the support of good friends, and for that we are grateful.

The next winter storm is bearing down upon us. Ticker tapes running across the bottom of the TV The Fox is watching are warning of four to seven feet of snow above 4000 feet over the next couple of days, and the flash flood watches will go up here in Orange County at 1800 local time. And I'm on standby. So this may be a busy Christmas for me.

Even so, we're happy to be in the season, thankful we have each other, thankful that we are all safe, reasonably healthy, and happy in the moment. Our prayer for you is that life visits the same conditions upon you now, and for the coming year.

¡Felíz Año Nuevo, Amigos!

12 December 2008

Tomorrow is the big family Christmas Party here on The Range. Well, what's left of my family, anyway. A good chunk of it now lives up in the southwestern corner of the state of Oregon, and one of them is still in Utah freezing his tail off. They were all invited, but only what's left of my mom's family here in soCal will be in my home tomorrow for a bit of food, a bit of fun, and some reconnecting. It's become a tradition amongst the coyotes, their spouses, and their pups.

My father's family doesn't do that. Or, perhaps to be more accurate, I should say that they don't seem to include my father and his family in their activities any more. I've never understood why. As a kid his family used to gather quite often and we were all part of that, but as the years went by my father's corner of "the family" seemed to get lost in the dust. <shrugs> A mistake I won't make with my own family, I assure you.

After the party my Fox and I should be taking a few days break on the road for some unwinding and reconnecting on a more personal level. I don't know where we're going exactly, or what we're going to be doing, but she's expressed an interest in seeing the ancestral homeland of my father's family, so we're off to southern Arizona to see what we can see. Probably visit the town of Willcox, where my great great great uncle held up a train back in 1900 (which by implication suggests a visit to the Yuma Territorial Prison, where he wound up later to pay for the deed), and maybe Florence where my grandparents were married, and probably down to Casa Grande to see my grandfather's name carved in the wall of that famous old adobe.

We'll be back by Friday for my son Mike's graduation from Biola University. Its a culmination of his life's ambition, and we want to celebrate with him. Christmas may seem anti-climatic by comparison.

And yeah, the Ducks lost to the Sharks. This time. Wait 'til the playoffs, Kel. There's a lot of skating left to do, a lot of hits (and a few fights) to get past, and a lot of goals left to be put on net before the Cup is claimed.

6 December 2008

I have a few moments to catch up as the sun rises. It seems as the Christmas holidays approach I get busier than usual, and I don't mean with Christmas shopping.

The rain came and went, and we were all quite surprised that mountains didn't move. In fact, across the southland, things stayed pretty stable and rational. A couple of homes in Yorba Linda were red-tagged, their owners and families forbidden entry due to the danger of destabilized slopes above them, but they are still there. The "big storm" was kind of the proverbial tempest in the coffee mug ... no big deal. Still, our unit manager has added rain and runoff control to the list of things I can be called out for, so now every time it clouds over I start waiting for the telephone to ring or the pager to beep.

But now Santa Ana returns, and the warm dry winds blow across damp earth. The fire danger is still quite high as the humidity heads for the basement, but according to the forecast the winds won't sustain long enough to bring the fuel moisture content low enough to be "extreme." Still, we could see what the NWS calls "summertime temperatures" this weekend. I'm assuming that means we'll approach triple digits. Overnight it was in the low forties. No wind here on The Range, but that's not unusual on the leading edge of Santa Ana conditions. It is blowing up in northern Los Angeles County and in Ventura County right now.

My dearest Fox had a physical the other day, and a couple of interesting things came of that which will modify the way we live and recreate as we get older. Nothing life threatening, thank God, but more changes are coming. She has asked me to keep that close to the vest, and I will, but I share this bit with you by way of explaining yet another excuse for my sometimes protracted absences.

Meanwhile my father is doing well, at least according to his doctors. My mom might argue the assessment, but his docs say his mental acuity has actually improved slightly in the past six months. Small victory, but any victory is gratefully accepted. We are harassing his doctors about a new drug that offer promise: Dimebon. My dad has always been a believer in technology and supports the idea of being part of a case study for this new drug, which offers promise in mitigation and perhaps reversal of symptoms. It's a lot of work convincing doctors, but we're trying. A big part of the problem is that much research is still going on, and not all doctors are convinced that original tests, conducted in Russia, are all that meaningful. In the meantime my dad plugs along as best he can, and we all pitch in to do what we can for the quality of life he and my mom share.

The political scene is changing at work, a new boss will be enthroned over my control systems crew before the first of the year. This could be a good thing or a bad thing, as I know nothing about the managerial skills of the individual. On the plus side, as I continue my exploits in telecommunications, this guy could fill in for me in my emergency management role, as he and I are peers in that arena and he has some experience under his belt already. On the minus side, with the support of my unit manager, this same individual could blow me out of the water in my telecommunications work, and that, as they say, would be that. So the next three or four weeks will be very interesting for me as I try and provide what guidance and direction I am capable of to the situation, and hope for the best.

I don't know how they're doing it, but the Ducks are 11th in the League and second in the Division, fourteen points back from the high flying San Jose Sharks. And the Kings are doing quite well, all things considered, as the young team struggles to learn to play as a team. They're getting it, and some of their recent games have been real battles, but they're still twenty third in the League and fourth in the Division, 21 points back from San Jose. And the Coyotes are stuck right in between the Ducks and the Kings, 19 points back from San Jose and sixteenth overall.

An interesting thing going on this year, where several experienced goalies are being out-shined by their younger, former "number two" or "backup" goalies. In some cases it is a battle between two capable players, in others it is because of injuries.

I watched Jason come in last night after Eric allowed three goals in twenty minutes play during the first period when the Edmonton Oilers visited the Staples Center. By the end of the second period the Kings had the go-ahead goal and the score was 4-3, and the fans were going nuts. LaBarbera shone, making some great stops and saves. And then something happened in the third, and the teams battled back and forth, and with half the period gone Edmonton tipped in the tying goal, forcing sudden death overtime and a shootout.

The Kings lost in the shootout, and Jason took it to heart. His frustration was evident to all as he took his goal stick to the pipes of the goal like a baseball bat, and then proceeded to break it completely on the ice as he stormed into the bench and down below. I felt sorry for him. I know that the competition between he and Ehrsberg, while friendly, is fierce, and each knows that a career with the Kings hangs in the balance. The same situation is on the horizon with JS Giguere and Jonas Hiller in Anaheim, and over in the desert Mikael Tellqvist just can't seem to do anything wrong. It's fun to watch these new guys storm in and take the ice and goal for their very own, but also sort of sad watching these guys who flew high in previous seasons struggle to stay in formation. But ... that's hockey.

And speaking of hockey being hockey, I see that Sean Avery, suspended since his embarrassing and disgusting public remarks in Calgary last Tuesday, has drawn a six-game suspension and a tour of anger management counseling as a precursor to his return to play in the NHL. But even if NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is satisfied, the Dallas Stars organization may not be. Stars coach Dave Tippett said earlier this week that he didn't envision Avery being able to return to the team. "I've stated my case. I think it would be hard for Sean to be able to come back in our locker room," he said. "But that's not for me to decide. That's for ownership and management to decide. I think they'll probably talk this week and come to me with their recommendation, and we'll go from there." Co-GM Brett Hull added that a large part of the Stars' decision to keep Avery would be based on how the team received him upon his return. "It’s a decision that no matter what it is, it’s going to be what’s best for the Dallas Stars and the players and ownership group."

Hey Sean ... grow up, shut your mouth, and do you job. If you can't do that, go home to North York and sell used cars or something. The National Hockey League doesn't need what you're giving right now.

23 November 2008

Seen this?

This caused some pleasant excitement on The Range, especially for my daughter and I. This is the new "third jersey" for the Phoenix Coyotes NHL team. It debuted last night during their game in Philadelphia against the Flyers (the desert dogs lost 4-3 in a shootout, they are now 24th in the league at 8-9-2). Here's some detail of the shoulder patches:

Meanwhile, the Anaheim Ducks managed to win one, but they too went to a shootout to get it done against the Dallas Stars last night. The game started off predictably, with three fights in the first period, George Parros, Chris Kunitz, and Bret Hedican throwing down the gloves on Krystopher Barch, Sean Avery, and Steve Ott, respectively. Jonas Hiller was in goal again for the Ducks, turning away 31 of 32 shots on his net. Hiller's stats for the season are not bad: a save percentage of 0.919 and a goals against average of 2.40 in eight appearances. (He got his first NHL shutout against the Kings on the 16th.) Sean Avery was his predictable self, running his mouth and making a nuisance of himself at every opportunity. My Fox detests him, and makes no excuses for doing so.

Anaheim is 10th in the league at 11-8-3, Dallas is 29th at 7-11-1. And Kellan probably already knows that number one is his San Jose Sharks, 17-3-1.

Two days of overtime in the fire zone. As I mentioned in my last post, we have lost a lot of infrastructure in the northeastern corner of the county, and that loss and the after-effects of the fire continue to plague us. We had an RTU go nuts Saturday, running a valve away all by itself. The area controller got a handle on things quickly enough, but it was an adrenaline-pumping situation for a few moments. After two days and 15 hours on site we decided to shut the faulty RTU off altogether and go to a backup plan for controlling the pipelines. It causes us some difficulty, but at least things are controllable, so for the moment we are content.

But change is coming. Rain is in the forecast. And that means mudslides. And that means that I'll probably be out on the lines some more, cleaning up messes in the fire zone and getting stuff back in service again. I fear for the homes that survived the fires, for the folks who have nothing growing on the steep slopes below their residences. Many will slide. Years ago we had a similar situation in Laguna Hills, more homes were lost to mudslides than the fires that preceded them. So we're catching up on our sleep while we can, while preparing for more calls and long days and nights.

I'm off to my folks house now, to catch up on all the things I haven't done because I haven't been around to do them.

20 November 2008

Wow ... what a week. Here's the numbers on the fires, now that they are more or less contained:

Freeway (Triangle Complex) Fire
(Riverside, Orange, and Los Angeles Counties)
30,305 acres, 100% contained.
Damaged structures include 127 residences, 2 commercial properties, and 32 outbuildings
Destroyed structures include 187 residences, 2 commercial properties, and 11 outbuildings
2,765 firefighters on 344 engines including 73 crews and using 8 dozers, 9 water tenders, and 1 helicopter
Agencies deployed include CAL FIRE, Orange County Fire Authority, Corona Fire, Anaheim City Fire, Chino Valley Fire, and Riverside County Fire.
14 injuries to firefighters.

Sayre Fire
(Los Angeles County)
11,234 acres, 85% contained
Damaged structures include 148 residences, 4 commercial properties, and 12 outbuildings
Destroyed structures include 479 residences, 1 commercial property, and 142 outbuildings
1,360 firefighters on 116 engines including 36 crews and using 22 dozers, 8 water tenders, and 6 helicopters
Agencies deployed include Los Angeles City Fire Department, Los Angeles County Fire Department, and fire crews of the USFS Angeles Nation Forest
2 injuries reported to firefighters

Tea Incident
(Santa Barbara County)
1,940 acres, 100% contained
Damaged buildings include 9 residences
Destroyed structures include 210 residences
756 firefighters on 62 engines including 23 crews and using 1 dozer and 3 water tenders.
Agencies deployed include CAL FIRE, Montecito City Fire, Santa Barbara County Fire, Santa Barbara City Fire, Los Padres National Forest
10 firefighter injuries reported
Shelters remain open, and evacuations are still in force in parts of the fire zone.

876 homes destroyed, another 284 damaged, just shy of 43,500 acres consumed. At the height of the fires, tens of thousands of residents were displaced. Many have no home to return to. Law enforcement continues to investigate the source of the Sayer fire, and continues to scour the mobile home park where hundreds of residences were lost. If deceased victims are discovered in the rubble, the crime escalates from arson to murder. Remember Raymond Lee Oyler? He may have some company in prison ...

Looking east into the upper end of Telegraph Canyon, north of the city of Yorba Linda. The Freeway Fire swept through this area Saturday evening, a couple hours before over-running our plant. This canyon used to be chock full of growing stuff so thick I had never been certain of the roadway's presence in the bottom. The upper extent of Hidden Canyon Estates is in the upper right of the image, many fine homes were reduced to rubble in this neighborhood. The firefighters here were stymied Saturday by lack of water, thanks to a pumping station power loss. It was an eerie allusion to a portion of the emergency preparedness exercise we had done two days earlier. Up by those homes is one of our control structures, my reason for being in the area Monday morning. Image © Paul J. Lorona.

The stench of smoke and ash still hangs in the air, even though both are gone. Their residue coats everything, and will for weeks to come. Swimming pools all over soCal, including that belonging to my folks, look like they're full of sand or mud, a coat of ash lining the bottom.

In the emergency preparedness exercise we did last Thursday, part of our scenario involved the loss of a control structure due to loss of SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) control. In the scenario, the structure could only be operated by on-site personnel, not by remote control as is usually the case. In a stunning example of life emulating fantasy, the Freeway Fire took out our SCADA connection to this very structure Saturday afternoon and evening. So Monday morning I was in the area to "scope out" a method of quickly getting SCADA control back in service, after learning that the telephone company that provided our frame relay circuit for the purpose would not be able to re-provision the circuit for at least a week. Seems Edison lost about 100 poles (five miles) of aerial line in Carbon Canyon, just to the north, and AT&T needed that pole line to get us back in service.

We managed to move our SCADA circuit over to company microwave, which had survived the fire unscathed.

Looking southwest from the ridgeline west of Hidden Canyon Estates, on the south side of Telegraph Canyon. One of my peers is working below, surveying fire damage at one of our facilities. The ridge immediately behind him has several burned out homes on it. Anaheim Hills is in the distance, greater Orange County is on the horizon at the far right. Formerly at this particular location the brush and growth was tall enough to completely block the view of our little structure below. Image © Paul J. Lorona.

I spent quite a bit of time last Monday working on the SCADA issues spawned by the fires, and have since been deep in communications issues and the follow-up meetings and discussions post Golden Guardian. The fires sort of blew that exercise out of everyone's heads. Funny how a real response sort of blanks your recent memories of training.

On another front, the Ducks continue to disappoint. They do well on the road, but struggle on home ice. The Fox and Katie accompanied me last night to watch them yield to the Washington Capitals. The Ducks turned the puck over 42 times, took 10 minor penalties and were embarrassed repeatedly on defense, falling 6-4 to the visiting Caps. Poor Jonas Hiller, lately the darling of the fans, yielded the net three times in the first seven and a half minutes of the first period. Bring in JS Giguere, his first appearance in several games, who fared better but also over the course of the rest of the game himself yielded three goals.

On the bright side, the fans were cheering rookie Bobby Ryan on after he scored two goals in his second NHL appearance since being called up from the Iowa Chops. Four minutes after his second goal, Bobby got into it with Alex Ovechkin after Ovechkin had held Bobby back while Caps teammate John Erskine took a few pokes at him. Bobby lit in to Alex, and the rest of the Ducks and Caps descended on the melee. The result was a two minute minor for Bobby, he strolled to the sin bin amid roaring chants from the fans of "Bob-BY! Bob-BY!" But it wasn't enough, the Ducks are 10-8-2 with 22 points, second in the division but eleventh in the league.

Tomorrow I'll be most of the day with the folks. Hopefully I can catch up on my sleep this weekend, because I have a lot of work to do. Not the least of which is assisting in the de-bugging of Tigermark's ALN page at his website ...

16 November 2008

Three days ago we conducted the largest regional emergency preparedness exercise ever.

Now southern California is on fire. Again. Here's the numbers at this hour:

Triangle Complex Fire
(Riverside, Orange, and Los Angeles Counties)
10,475 acres, 0% contained.
3,500 structures threatened, fire is currently most active in the hills east of Diamond Bar
Yorba Linda - 70 residences destroyed
Anaheim - 10 residences, 10 apartment buildings (50 units total) destroyed
Corona - 16 residences destroyed
1,260 firefighters on 75 engines including 1 crew and using 1 dozer, 4 water tenders, 18 helicopters, and 12 air tankers. Tanker 910 made an appearance on the fire in mid-afternoon yesterday, making several runs, the last one of which I witnessed up close and personal. More on that in a minute. Agencies deployed include CAL FIRE, Orange County Fire Authority, Corona Fire, Anaheim City Fire, Chino Valley Fire, and Riverside County Fire.
Six minor injuries to firefighters.
At the height of the fire yesterday afternoon over 25,000 people had been evacuated from their homes in northeastern Orange County, and many neighborhoods continue to be evacuated.

Tanker 910 on a flyover approach. 910 made several drops on the Yorba Linda Fire that afternoon, this was his approach to the last one of the day. Taken from the roof of our headhouse about 45 minutes before sunset.
Image copyright © Warren Nesbihal 2008. Do not reproduce or replicate this image without the express written permission of the owner.

Sayre Fire
(Los Angeles County)
9,497 acres, 30% contained
613 residences and 10 commercial buildings destroyed
15 residences and 1 commercial building damaged
7,500 residences remain threatened this morning
1,761 firefighters are on this fire on 145 engines including 19 crews and using 12 helicopters
Agencies deployed include Los Angeles City Fire Department, Los Angeles County Fire Department, and fire crews of the USFS Angeles Nation Forest
No injuries reported to firefighters
10,000 residents remain evacuated

Tanker 910 on his downwind approach to his final drop.
Image copyright © Warren Nesbihal 2008. Do not reproduce or replicate this image without the express written permission of the owner.

Tea Incident
(Santa Barbara County)
1,940 acres, 75% contained
No structures threatened
210 residences destroyed, 9 damaged
1,957 firefighters on 184 engines including 53 crews and using 13 dozers and 14 water tenders.
Agencies deployed include CAL FIRE, Montecito City Fire, Santa Barbara County Fire, Santa Barbara City Fire, Los Padres National Forest
11 firefighter injuries reported
1,500 residents remain evacuated

Tanker 910 making his final drop of the day, about two miles east of our plant.
Image copyright © Warren Nesbihal 2008. Do not reproduce or replicate this image without the express written permission of the owner.

I responded to our plant in Yorba Linda early yesterday afternoon. Driving towards the plant I was able to watch the Yorba Linda fire cranking up in my windshield, looking for all the world like a small volcanic eruption. Meanwhile, out my left window to the north, the Brea Fire was advancing just north of my friend's house near the 57 freeway at Lambert Avenue.

Image copyright © Warren Nesbihal 2008. Do not reproduce or replicate this image without the express written permission of the owner.

Arriving, we set up shop and waited for the arrival of the fire crews. They showed up in late afternoon as the fire roared towards us from Yorba Linda, feeding on homes and the wind. They had come from Montecito and Sylmar, and on as little as one hour sleep jumped back into action, establishing a perimeter on the east end of our facility. Their turnouts had logos from Riverside County, Los Angeles County, Cal Fire, and Los Angeles City Fire. They all looked alike, sooty, weary, and calm in their determination to do their job. Every one of them had a glint in their eye, though, that quality of the wolf that is always watching, waiting patiently for an opportunity to strike. The foe was fire, and they set up shop with their trucks and crews and waited.

Image copyright © Warren Nesbihal 2008. Do not reproduce or replicate this image without the express written permission of the owner.

We didn't have to wait long. Santa Ana drove the Yorba Linda Fire across several ridges and canyons, and by 2100 the fire itself was on final approach.

Image copyright © Warren Nesbihal 2008. Do not reproduce or replicate this image without the express written permission of the owner.

The open roof structure seen above is a good reference for the height of the flames, as that roof structure is about thirty feet above the ground. The view looks northeast. The fire burned around the plant, burning up to our perimeter on the east, north, and west sides. For about half an hour it looked like Hell outside, and we sheltered in place in the headhouse with the air conditioning system shut down. Even so, a fine haze of brush smoke filled the building, and by midnight we were all rubbing our eyes and some of us were coughing quite a bit.

Image copyright © Warren Nesbihal 2008. Do not reproduce or replicate this image without the express written permission of the owner.

This view looks northwest as the main front of the fire passes our facility westbound. Shortly after this, the fire was past us and burning into another part of the city of Yorba Linda. The crews spent a lot of time mopping up hot spots and patrolling, and were eventually relieved by crews from the Orange County Fire Authority. They were still on site in mopup and patrol status when we de-activated our ICC a little bit past midnight.

I had an opportunity to chat with a few of them while I was making perimeter patrols. Some of them had been fighting fires for several days, starting in Montecito on the 13th. Many of them had been working ever since, with little sleep between shifts as they worked south to Sylmar, and then into Orange County. I'm sure they are still out there this morning in Diamond Bar or Placerita Canyon, working the active fronts of the Triangle Complex (the Yorba Linda / Brea / Diamond Bar fires) or the Sayer Fire.

God dammit I'm proud of these crews! This is a truly horrific weekend, and without the presence of those heroes on the ground and in the air, whole cities would be laid waste this morning. As Governor Schwarzenegger said earlier this morning, we owe these men and women a debt of gratitude that money and words will never repay. As I write this I'm watching live video of Aero Union 27, Tanker 910, and several CDF ST-2 tankers making treetop level pinpoint drops on homes in the Diamond Bar area in advance of the fire moving westward in Tonner Canyon. As they fly the ground crews are establishing defensive positions in the city on the interface between the wildland and suburbia, much like soldiers digging in to repel an attack. And that's exactly what's coming, the next battle of the war. And as our Governor also said, there is no more "fire season," we are ready to burst into flame any time the hot Santa Ana winds blow, and those come any month of the year now.

Bring your best game, General. We're ready for you.

15 November 2008 / 1200 hours

A day that would do Surt proud, I'm sure.

The Sayer fire has taken well over 600 homes in Sylmar and continues to burn west uncontained and out of control. At least three thousand acres in size, it continues to threaten communities, and the winds are forecast to continue at least through tomorrow morning. 10,000 residents have been evacuated, many have no homes to return to. Every broadcast station in the Los Angeles basin is running live feeds from the northern San Fernando Valley and, more recently, from the far northeastern corner of Orange County, where a fire in the Santa Ana River canyon ignited about an hour and a half ago and has already taken more than a dozen homes in Yorba Linda, the city my base of operations is located in.

Winds here at The Range are currently from 080 degrees at ten knots, gusting to eighteen. The temperature is 33 degrees centigrade with a dewpoint of minus 11 degrees centigrade, humidity less than 5%. Ash is falling out of orange, leaden skies, and everyone is closing up their homes against the acrid smoke. Up in Fremont Canyon on the west slope of the Santa Ana Mountains the wind is steady at 30 miles per hour, gusting to 49, from 073 degrees. Humidity up there is below 7% with an air temperature of 80 degrees.

Several freeways in the basin are shut down, and will continue to be so.

I'll post more later. Right this minute I'm on hot standby, and I'm pretty sure I'll be called, I just don't know for what or where.

Stay tuned, it's gonna get worse before it gets better.

# # #

0130 hours

It's on again. Santa Ana is here.

Fires above Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley and above Montecito northeast of Santa Barbara are the focus of all-night news broadcasts in soCal tonight. Late yesterday evening OES reported that the fires above Santa Barbara had destroyed 70 homes. 500 firefighters are in Sylmar right now, and more on the way. Things are happening very fast right now, I have no numbers for size or percent containment. Freeways are being shut down in the San Fernando Valley, the fire has just been reported jumping over the 210 freeway. The winds are howling out of the northeast right now, in Little Tujunga Canyon (just east of the Sylmar fire) winds are steady at 17 miles per hour, gusting to 45, out of the north. Here in the OC, up in Fremont Canyon, winds are steady at 36 Miles per hour out of the northeast, gusting to 70. Yet by virtue of the lay of the land, there is naught but a gentle breeze out of the north here at The Range, and the skies are clear. And it's warm outside. And dry, very dry. The humidity is below 10% now.

Air crews from Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County are flying helicopters in that murderous wind right this minute, making runs on the Sylmar / Sayre fire. As I told Babs a few moments ago on IM, there's some brave bastards at work right there.

This is gonna be a long night, and a long weekend.

13 November 2008

It's done. The Great Southern California Shakeout is finished.

Purported to be the largest earthquake drill in United States history, Shakeout was this year's implementation of the statewide Golden Guardian emergency preparedness exercise, a massive undertaking involving agencies of state, county, and local governments, fire suppression and law enforcement agencies, public utilities, CalTrans, air, sea, and rail transport industry, the military services, hospitals, school districts, broadcast television and radio stations, scientists, engineers, seismologists, and five million members of the general population.

A year in the making, it has been on the front burner of my professional agenda for weeks, and occupied several months of my limited attention span before that. It is one of the primary reasons I have been so hard to find for the past few months. I was tasked with designing a functional exercise for my unit in Orange County, and despite the machinations of the bushy-tailed nut-munchers at Galactic Hindquarters and elsewhere, despite failing resources, empty promises, excessive oversight and an enormous amount of unsolicited advice and guidance, initial reaction to my efforts have been very positive. In fact, I drove home tonight through the darkened streets of the OC, amongst the crush of humanity that I share the greater Los Angeles basin with, feeling pretty good about myself. That's the first time that's happened in quite a while.

And while I sit at my desk here on The Range, staring at a foot-high mountain of paperwork that I must digest and document before sunrise Monday, listening to the cooling fans of dueling laptops whine and warble out of sync with each other, and knowing that I have interminable meetings and debriefings to suffer through for the next week or two, there is a small smile on my muzzle, for the crushing weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and there is a light at the end of this particular tunnel.

I'm going home. Back to the mountains. Back to rock and steel, old trucks with hot engines and soft tires, familiar tools and the camaraderie of furs who toil together to create and build deliverables in the heat and the dry air, high above polite society and their shiny cars and green lawns. I can almost taste the dust ...

... and I can hardly wait.

But I need some sleep. I'm exhausted. I shared a bottle of some of California's finest (a 2005 Pinot Noir from Alexander & Wayne of Los Olivos fame) with the rock & roll Fox who even now waits upstairs for me, and watched the Los Angeles Kings win their fourth straight game, the second in as many nights against the Dallas Stars, with her. But before she has her way with me and ensures that I wouldn't notice that M7.8 earthquake that's been occupying everyone's attention were it to occur underneath our home, before my reserves are completely gone, I had to touch base with my friends.

Apologies to Tigermark and all his fans for the apparent problem we have with the markup for the latest iteration of ALN. Yes, I use Dreamweaver, a WYSIWYG application for creating and maintaining web sites. I don't code by paw much any more. I used to use TextPad to code by paw, in fact used that for the first year or more of the work done here at The Range, but found Dreamweaver easier to work with because it allows me to do both. I still code by paw when weird things happen, and will no doubt have to do that to clean up the markup Tigermark has. I have no idea how that markup got jacked up, but ... I'll make it right.

Meanwhile, tomorrow I'm over the road with the folks, another run up to the valley I was born in to see familiar doctors on a routine six month checkup for the both of them. When you achieve the vaunted status of octogenarian, these visits become the norm, it seems. And now that my dad is without his driver's license and my mom isn't comfortable with freeways (hell, who is, around here?), the transport detail falls to the old coyote and his big green beast. Thankfully the beast is up to the task, and I'm up before the sun anyway, so it's all good. I should be home by noon, and should be well fed up with after action reports and the mountain of paperwork I mentioned earlier by the time the Ducks face off against the Predators at 1900. Just another weekend in the arid OC ...

Be at peace, my friends. Game on!

7 November 2008

This will be a very short post, as I have to get my day going quickly here. Last night the latest part of A Little Nothing went live here at The Range, and this morning the updated file was distributed to the other authors for their web sites upon final approval of Tigermark, the latest contribution's author. You can go directly to the story here, or directly to Tigermark's newest part here.

The Ducks are coming back from their horrible start this season. Tonight Adam and Kris and Jake and I will be cheering them on against Dallas at the Honda Center. It's going to be a very physical game, I'm sure. Tomorrow we may all be hoarse, and will probably sleep in late. At least until sunrise ...

26 October 2008

Well, Super Saturday came and went, and it was more of a bust than not. Fifteen games, all thirty NHL teams were engaged at some point during the day, a hockey fan's delight. The Anaheim Ducks won three in a row in Canada, starting with a shootout victory in Toronto and moving along through a "barely made it" win in Ottawa to Montreal, where they finally got down to playing some real hockey for a change. Behind the masterful net-minding of JS Giguere the Ducks front line finally seemed to get their collective stuff in order and goals were finally put on the boards by Chris Kunitz and Corey Perry, to get on board with Ryan Getzlaf on the first line. Number 35 allowed 4 goals on an incredible 50 shots, it was Jean Sebastien's third win of the season, going up with his 38 shot shutout against the San Jose Sharks in Anaheim (the game my pups went to see) and his 38 shot, 2 goals allowed victory over Toronto.

Jonas Hiller looked strong indeed in his game against Ottawa, saving 27 of 30 shots against him. He carried a shutout into the third period of the game, but the final score of 4 - 3 demonstrated that his defensemen underestimated the Senators, and perhaps that his own staying power is not the equal of JS Giguere, at least not yet. Still, I think Hiller has a bright future with the Ducks, and believe that he and JS make a powerful pair to contend with on the ice. Randy Carlyle should have no headaches over his net minders.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Kings struggled to a 5 - 4 defeat in Nashville, and the Phoenix Coyotes likewise missed the mark on home ice against Calgary, falling 4 - 1. I was annoyed with the King's new coach, Terry Murray, when he pulled Jason LaBarbera from goal after the Predators scored a power play goal against him, the third goal in fifteen shots. Jason's a good, hard-working goalie, and I thought Murray should have left him in goal to finish the game. Erik Ersberg, who I also think is a good up - and - coming goalie, finished the game for Jason, allowing two goals on twelve more shots against. And while Mikael Tellqvist looked awesome against the Flames, saving 32 of 35 shots against him, the Coyotes offense wasn't up to the game, left wing Todd Fedoruk scoring his first and the Coyotes only goal against Calgary.

So while we were cheered by the Ducks final commencement of performance worthy of a recent Stanley Cup winning team, our other teams gave us cause to stop and wonder a bit as the evening spun down. Today it's quiet around The Range, if you ignore the Fire Authority's Huey's beating the air now and then. No teams are playing today. Anaheim will be in Columbus against the Blue Jackets tomorrow (do you think Zig Zag and James Sheppard are hockey fans?), and then come back home to battle the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Detroit Red Wings, this Wednesday night at the Honda Center.

In spite of the heavy fog we had this morning in the coastal plain, the Santa Ana conditions persist in the mountains and inland. Up in Fremont Canyon right now its 88 degrees and 15 percent humidity, winds out of the east at 9 miles per hour, gusting to 15. So of course everyone is on alert looking for smoke, and there have been many small grass and brush fires breaking out, but so far none of them have grown to anything of significance, largely due to the crews on hot standby that jump on these small fires from the moment of their ignition.

Late last night I was in Hollywood. <grins> No, I wasn't out there with The Fox taking in the sites, rather I was on a solo mission getting my son's Jeep running. Somehow his battery managed to discharge, and I went out there to Sunset and Gower to get him going again. What a zoo that part of town is near midnight on a Saturday night. It seemed like half of population of the city of Los Angeles drove or walked by while I was out there.More limos than you could shake a claw at. Lots of money in that part of town ... The battery is a relatively new Optima, it's now in the backup slot on the beast's electrical system. We'll see if it's bad, or maybe I need to worry about the alternator in Mike's red rocket.

Golden Guardian 2008 looms on my horizon. I can't wait to get that behind me and get my attentions focused back on my RF work. The past few days at work I feel like I've been spinning my wheels, dividing my attentions and energies between two mistresses, as it were. I don't feel like I'm making much progress with either, and as many of you know, patience is not a coyote's strong point. So I console myself with the knowledge that it should all be over but the pundits back-slapping by the time my birthday rolls around in late November.

49 ... damn. I really am becoming an old dog ...

17 October 2008

Today is Adam's 18th birthday, so The Fox and I treated he and the crew to an Anaheim Ducks game. They (the Ducks, not our pups) should be facing off against the San Jose Sharks in about an hour. The Fox and I will watch from home (Center Ice ... yay!) while our pups (Katie, Adam, our Mike, and our other Mike D.) take in the game live at the Pond ... er, I mean Honda Center. In the intervening short period of time I will take a brief moment to catch up.

Santa Ana was here. The smoke and stench of burning brush was heavy in the air before dawn starting late last week. Then the general was upon us, we had winds gusting near 90 miles per hour in Fremont Canyon last Monday, and they scoured the rest of soCal as well. The battle lines were drawn, the crews stepped up and into the fight, and once again the brave prevailed over the devastating. But not without a price.

Chalk, Juliet, Sesnon, and Marek. Together they raged into the week, accounting for the loss of 35,000 acres, 56 residences, 28 firefighter injuries, and two civilian fatalities. Tonight approximately 2,600 firefighters are still on the lines in soCal, mostly in mopup as all fires are now at least 90% contained. Of the lot of them, the Marek was the most destructive, but Sesnon grabbed the headlines as it stormed across Oat Mountain above Chatsworth and laid siege to Porter Ranch. It had the hallmarks of being a record-setter, Sesnon was poised to sweep into the suburban sprawl of the north-western San Fernando Valley, but crews were able to beat it back to the west using the 118 freeway as a firebreak. One of the fatalities occurred on that freeway when a motorist, blinded by smoke, turned around in traffic lanes to escape the smoke and flame, and was involved in a head-on collision with a tow truck.

There was even a small brush fire just northwest of Sierra Peak here in the Santa Ana mountains. The proximity of the Prado staging ground, where crews and equipment from multiple agencies were on standby against additional fire events, saved the day. Airborne assets clobbered what could have quickly become a major firestorm by virtue of the fact that they witnessed it break out and were on scene making drops in less than half an hour. The fire was too small to even be named, referred to only as the "Santa Ana Fire" in the brief news accounts. Breaking out at approximately 1500 hours, it didn't survive to see the sun set.

Meanwhile, my job ...

Well, suffice to say I'm busting my tail, and lets let it go at that. I've been working all day, and will be working all weekend, in preparation for Golden Guardian 2008. Between my emergency management responsibilities and my RF commitment, I'm pretty well booked up. E-mail has been largely ignored for the past week or so, as have been forums and other forms of happy diversion like Sonic's Time Machine Show on KWKAT. It's just go - go - go 'til I drop, then I get up the next day, choke down a pot of coffee, and get back in the game.

After mid-November it should slow down a little bit. By 1 January it should slow down a great deal.

No writing, I'm sorry to say. That may not resume until after I put another notch on my own birthday belt in a few weeks. And I know I still have a photo album to complete, but that'll have to wait a while as well.

Warm greetings to all my furry friends, and any passers by who happen to stop here for a moment or two.

Go Ducks!

7 October 2008

I keep missing connections.

Tigermark called me the other day, and I'm just now getting around to realizing that he left me a message. Sorry Tiger, and everyone else. Lots of road time and way too much work are keeping me busy. By the time my daughter gets done with me in the evening, exhausting my knowledge of chemistry or geometry or English, I can't even pronounce my own name, I'm so tired.

So here, T. This one's for you. Try not to drool ...

Can't you just see the twin smiles of Joe Latrans and Tim Riggins behind the glass on the flight deck? This was taken 13 September at the General Aviation (that's the name of the FBO) hangar at Fullerton Airport. I just couldn't resist such a clean B200, and it's motivated me to get back to The B Team.

It's damn hot again in the OC, after a weekend of fall-like weather that even included what passes for a brief bit of rain. I mean, we probably got an 1/8 inch if that in total. And now it's pushing the triple digits again, and the weather-guessers are already getting out their Red Flags, because Santa Ana is coming, due by Friday. Yay us. Bet that bastard Surt comes with him this time ...

Meanwhile, the work goes on. Gotta get back to it ...

5 October 2008

It's been a busy weekend so far, but I managed to finish assembling and upload a small album to the Albums page this morning. A Fox on the Foxen Trail is a few scenes from our recent trip to the California central coast wine country.

I have quite a few additional images from my trip to the desert a few weeks back. I am working on that album now. I don't think I'll have it ready to go by this evening, but perhaps before the end of the week I can upload it for you.

We had the big family party here last night to welcome home my cousin, a recent retiree from the United States diplomatic service. (Who'd have thought? Me ... related to a diplomat!) He and his wife have raised their two sons in the many foreign countries he has been assigned to, and they are kind of feeling their way back into the OC lifestyle. We helped them out quite a bit last night, we had a wonderful time gathering all of what's left of the family here in soCal to bring them back into the fold. I'll bet there's a couple of hangovers working this morning ...

2 October 2008

Tomorrow night, as an early birthday gift, my Fox and I are taking our two younger pups to the last pre-season Anaheim Ducks game ... against the Phoenix Coyotes. Katie is beside herself, the Coyotes are her favorite team. Neither she nor Adam have been to a pro hockey game before, Katie has never been to any pro sporting event. We are all very much looking forward to it.

Katie will be 15, and Adam 18, within the next week or two.

Last night my Fox and I cheered them on as the Ducks took the Los Angeles Kings 3 - 2 in overtime. It was payback for the Kings victory over them the night before at Staples Center in a shootout. Looks like it's going to be a much better season for LA. I think Terry Murray, their new head coach, may be exactly what they need to get them out of the basement. And the Ducks, of course, look very strong as well. Randy Carlyle has a good team under his command, and we're already hoping for the 08/09 return of Lord Stanley to Anaheim.

Not that the above is in any way related, but tonight I coded my section of ALN and uploaded it to this site. I have also sent the updated code to my fellow authors Tigermark and Aslaug, for inclusion at their respective sites. I ask, without knowing that a problem actually exists, that you be patient with me if the code looks strange in your browser. There are known issues with some forms of punctuation in our markup, so bear with us as we identify and correct them. And while I'm blessed with a couple of awesome proofreaders, I'm not so confident as to believe that we got all the bugs out of my latest effort, so you can be sure there will be some minor tweaking going on for the next few weeks. But as it sits, ALN now has twenty two sections, the latest posted tonight.

Feel free to comment on ALN at any of our forums, by the way. I know Tiger and the Filly have been chomping at the bit ... 'scuse the bad allegory, my dear ... to get ALN jump-started again. I dare say that Tigermark will take much less time than I did to produce section 23.

Enjoy ...

25 September 2008

Game On!

Last night my Fox and I went to see the pre-season opener of the Anaheim Ducks, starting the 08/09 hockey season. In regulation time they beat the Pacific Division rival San Jose Sharks six to four. As my friend Jason, who was also there, said about the game: "We went to the fights, and a hockey game broke out!" The Ducks web site reports six fights, including two involving Brad May, but Jason and I counted at least eight fights over the course of the game. Brad, by the way, was victorious in both.

Tomorrow The Fox and I take a break. The two of us will take a long weekend to play in the central coast area, the only break we've taken since Easter. We've both been burning the candles at both ends and in the middle too, and we owe this to each other and ourselves. So I will be away from the keyboard until Sunday.

So ... tonight I sent my latest part of ALN to the other three (the Filly, Tigermark, and Aramis) for proofreading. I'll take a look at whatever they find for me that needs correcting when I get back, so hopefully before I make my next desert run in two weeks I'll have that on line for all of you to see.

21 September 2008

My next contribution to ALN is done. I am waiting for a bit of translation assistance from the Filly, but the story is complete. I need to do a couple more cold read-throughs (which will involve many corrections, I'm sure) and then pass it on to my proof-readers, but it shouldn't be long now before we can post this pup and pass the baton on to whoever is next. As I've been helping pups all day with homework, I don't even know who the next victim ... uh, I meant author ... is.

The train wreck fell off the media radar for the most part. There were four fellow employees on Metrolink 111 that day. Two sustained slight injuries, one moderate, and one is still in critical condition.

What little media attention that is left has focused on the sordid private life of the engineer. It has nothing to do with the wreck, at least not directly, but that hasn't stopped the canary-colored journalists from flocking. Bottom line: it has been proven that he was texting some teen-aged railfans in the hour leading up to the wreck, and it is known that his last message was sent a single minute before the wreck occurred. It is also now known that, contrary to custom and regulations, the engineer did not call the aspect (indication) of the two signals preceding the wreck. The conductor was aware of this but did not call the engineer on it. Bad mistake, as it turns out.

Work has been keeping me hopping in many different directions. New complications on the horizon with that, things that make me a little uneasy about things, but what can a fur do? As my friend Pat always used to say, "I was lookin' for a job when I found this one ..."

Hopefully my next post will be to announce that my next section of ALN is on line.

14 September 2008

It turns out I did know a couple of the folks on ill-fated Metrolink 111. While not "friends" in the sense that we socialized outside of work, I had worked with both these folks. One, and engineer, is one of the critically injured. The other, a member of our IT staff, was also injured but reportedly left the scene under her own power. There was at least one more company employee known to be on the train, and possibly two others who have yet to be accounted for.

Meanwhile, KTLA-TV released this report today:

As federal investigators combed the wreckage of a Metrolink commuter train in Chatsworth Sunday, new details emerged about what happened in the moments before the two trains collided head-on, killing at least 25 people and injuring 135 others. A Metrolink dispatcher reportedly tried too late to warn the engineer that he was about to collide with a freight train during Friday's rush-hour. The dispatcher said the engineer's failure to heed a trackside red light tripped an alarm at the commuter line's dispatch center in Pomona, according to the Los Angeles Times. A Metrolink spokesperson said the dispatcher called the train and reached the conductor, but by then the crash had already occurred, killing the engineer, the Times reported. Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca said that officials were investigating what triggered the alarm.

There has been speculation, possibly based in fact, that the engineer of the Metrolink train was text messaging with someone moments before the crash, and was thus distracted from his job of operating the train safely. KTLA went on to say:

Investigators said they could not yet confirm reports that the engineer was text messaging, but added they would consider that as a possibility.  "We're going to look into that, anything that can help us find the cause of this accident," said NTSB agency spokesman Terry Williams. The engineer is said to have been exchanging messages with 15-year-old train enthusiast Nick Williams in the hour and minutes leading up to the accident.  The messages were apparently mundane in character -- mostly about where the engineer was and where he was going. The engineer supposedly sent a third and final text message to Williams with a time stamp of 4:22 p.m. The accident happened just one minute later, at 4:23 p.m. It remains unclear whether the message was sent right at 4:22 p.m. as the time stamp indicates, or if it was sent some time before then. Though the coroner has not yet identified the engineer, Williams says he is 46-year-old Robert Sanchez. Sanchez regularly messaged with a group [of] young train fans, said Williams. The group has put [together] a video tribute to Sanchez, who investigators say is among those who died in the crash. A Metrolink spokeswoman expressed disbelief that the engineer might have been distracted by a cell phone. "That would be to me unbelievable," Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said. "I cannot imagine a scenario where a Metrolink engineer would be texting someone while driving a train." Tyrrell said the engineer had driven the agency's trains since 1996 and worked for a subcontractor, Veolia, since 1998. She said she didn't know if the engineer ever had any previous problems operating trains or had any disciplinary issues.

In the image above we see the aftermath of the collision at the point of impact. The yellow locomotive is Union Pacific 8485, an SD70ACe built by Electro Motive Division (EMD) of General Motors. Weighing 408,000 pounds dry, the locomotive is capable of 70 miles per hour top speed using it's 4,300 horsepower 16 cylinder diesel engine. 74 feet long and 16 feet high, they are a recent product, the first example being produced in 2005.

The other locomotive (the white one) is Metrolink 855, an EMD F59PH built in June 1992. Weighing 260,000 pounds dry, 58 feet long and 16 feet high, the F59PH produces 3,000 horsepower out of it's 12 cylinder engine and is capable of top speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour.

Note the short yellow "nose" forward of the side windows on the 8485. Metrolink 855 had a similar sized nose, the force of the collision compacted and pushed this nose back to and past the windshield, crushing the engineer, killing him instantly. I have heard a report that the engineer and conductor of the Union Pacific train survived the crash, no word as yet on the fate of the other two crewmen of that train. There were two locomotives arranged back-to-back on the UP train, and the cab of the following locomotive ( # 8491, another SD70ACe) was damaged by jack-knifing freight cars behind it. If the rest of the crew was on the deck of the second locomotive they could have been significantly injured.

With all the excitement I haven't had much time to finish my little ditty for ALN. I'm working on it as I'm able. Right this minute I'm helping my daughter with her chemistry homework. She asks me a question, I read the text to remind myself of what she's talking about, then I help her understand. <sighs> I have forgotten a lot of stuff in thirty years! Tomorrow it's back downtown with the suits. Hopefully I'll be able to carry a little bit of the desert in my soul when I go there, so I can maintain my dignity, or at least my sanity.

13 September 2008 / 1500

"We are deeply sorry and we are totally at a loss, this is a new situation for Metrolink," said tearful Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrell at a news conference at 1130 today. "At this moment we must acknowledge that it was a Metrolink engineer that made the error that caused yesterday's accident."

So came the admission today that apparently the locomotive engineer of the Metrolink train, a contract employee, appears to have not seen, misinterpreted, or disregarded a stop aspect (indication) on a signal at the siding he and his train were in minutes before the collision. Apparently, as dispatch recordings have indicated, the Metrolink train was supposed to have waited for the Union Pacific local to pass before leaving Chatsworth station. Federal safety investigators said today they have recovered two data recorders from the Metrolink train, and a data and video recorder from the Union Pacific locomotive, and are analyzing the data.

The death toll has increased to 24, and will doubtless go higher now that crews and heavy equipment have removed the Metrolink locomotive from within the first passenger car in the train, exposing the lower level of that car. Although officials noted the chance of finding additional survivors was diminishing, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said that "as of this moment, the emphasis is still on the rescue effort." But the mayor also said the job has become very grim, now that rescuers are getting their first look at the lower floor of the double-deck coach. "There are more bodies in the wreckage, but at this point there is no way to tell how many," Villaraigosa said at an afternoon news conference, flanked by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, after the governor was briefed on the event.

Approximately 47 people remain in critical condition in hospitals scattered across soCal, and about 40 others are hospitalized in serious condition. Three of my co-workers, unknown to me personally, were on that train, one of them is amongst the critically injured. Two more of my coworkers, who normally ride Metrolink trains on that line, are still unaccounted for, according to a company news release.

0800

An update to yesterday's rail collision: 17 known dead, including one LAPD officer. 135 survivors with major injuries including 80 in critical condition. Responders are still on scene trying to extricate victims at 0700 today. Metrolink reports that there were 222 riders on # 111 as it left Chatsworth Station, not all passengers have yet been accounted for.

Los Angeles Police Department officer Spree Desha, a seven year veteran, was recovered late last night from the wreckage. Wrapped in an American flag borrowed from a nearby resident, her body was prayed over by fellow officers on national television before being carried to a rescue ambulance. In spite of the carnage around them, firefighters and law enforcement officers from all responding services paused to salute her on her final trip home.

The Union Pacific freight train was probably the Leesdale Local, working industries on the old Southern Pacific Coast Line between Oxnard and Van Nuys. Rumors say that the crew of the UP train survived, but there has been no official confirmation of that. The UP has said that there were four crewmembers on their train, which I recall as being a standard number for a local switch job, probably consisting of a conductor, engineer, and two switchmen. If they did survive, my guess is that the crew has been sequestered somewhere away from the media, and have gone through a barrage of drug and alcohol tests, preliminary interrogations by their employers, the FRA, and the NTSB, and more than likely have had some psychological / grief counseling as well. No railroader, regardless of cause or fault, walks away from an event like this with a clear head. Many crewmembers, most notably locomotive engineers, have later taken their own lives after incidents like this, unable to cope with their grief.

Track speed limit in the area is 40 miles per hour. If both trains were operating near that speed limit, a likely supposition given that each engineer probably thought he had the right of way, collision speed was probably around eighty miles an hour. Survivors said the collision "felt like hitting a brick wall at sixty miles an hour."

Locomotives involved in the collision weigh approximately 450 tons each, the Bombardier BiLevel coaches employed by Metrolink weigh approximately 119 tons each. With three locomotives involved and an unknown number of freight cars on the Union Pacific train, that's anywhere above 2,000 tons of steel and momentum suddenly stopping, moving from track speed to zero in a handful of seconds. And I was wrong in my statement of last night, the locomotive of the Metrolink train was almost completely enveloped by the lead coach, only the rear portion of that coach was still intact. It looks like at least three quarters of the coach was compressed and ripped open.

Meanwhile Ike has roared across Galveston Bay and Houston, leaving a wide swath of death and destruction in his wake. Well onshore now, Ike is still a category one hurricane. Three million people are without power, multiple fires have been reported in the city of Houston, and thousands of homes and business have been flooded, completely submerged, or totally washed away. Tens of thousands of people had defied orders to flee and would need to be rescued from those submerged homes and neighborhoods.

"The unfortunate truth is we're going to have to go in ... and put our people in the tough situation to save people who did not choose wisely. We'll probably do the largest search and rescue operation that's ever been conducted in the state of Texas," said Andrew Barlow, spokesman for Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Ike's eye came ashore at 3:10 a.m. EDT at Galveston with 110 mph winds, just shy of a category three storm. Because Ike was so huge, nearly as big as Texas itself, hurricane winds pounded the coast for hours before landfall and would continue through much of the morning, with the worst winds and rain after the center came ashore, forecasters said. Ike's eye was northeast of Houston's Intercontinental Airport at 0700 EDT, still a category two, with winds in excess of 100 miles per hour. The storm will weaken as it turns northeast towards Arkansas, Missouri, and the Mississippi River valley, but will likely still be a tropical depression as it crosses into the Ohio Valley tomorrow. Remnants will be in New York by Monday morning, the forecasters say.

It's too early to measure the damage and loss Ike has inflicted, and will continue to inflict as he makes the big turn northeast. It will take days, perhaps weeks to account for the lost and to get a realistic idea of what kind of rebuilding will be required.

My Fox and I have good friends, former workmates, who live in the Houston area. They supposedly evacuated, but we've heard no word from them since Ike's arrival.

12 September 2008

Evening post -

A bad day for Metrolink. At a bit past 1620 this afternoon a horrific head-on collision occurred between a three-car Metrolink passenger train and a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth, north of Los Angeles. A fire followed the impact, involving mostly the two locomotives that met at track speed. Collision speeds could have been anywhere from around twenty miles per hour to over one hundred. The Metrolink train had just left the Chatsworth station and was headed uphill towards Moorpark, the Union Pacific train was downgrade and had just exited a short tunnel. The crews probably had very little if any time to understand what was happening and react, the collision occurred on a curve just east of the tunnel portal.

Los Angeles City Fire and LAPD personnel were on scene almost immediately, and their response has been nothing short of amazing. LAPD is on tactical alert, staff on duty have not been allowed to go home at end of shift. Air support from all over the Los Angeles basin has been deployed, there is a haze of helicopters over the scene, medical evacuation helicopters far outnumbering the news service choppers. This is truly a mass casualty event, and responding agencies are making their city and county proud.

For a brief period of time I was terrified that my friend had been on that train, # 111 is the train she normally takes home to Chatsworth from downtown Los Angeles. The Lord smiled on her this day, she was still downtown when this wreck occurred.

It's not clear in the images above, but the first passenger car of the three-car Metrolink train telescoped over the locomotive that had been pulling it, about 30% of the forward end of the car slid over the locomotive in the collision. In the lefthand image it seems that the lead car is butt up against the yellow nose of the lead Union Pacific locomotive, but that is not the case. The Metrolink locomotive is beneath the passenger car, the cab crushed, truly nose-to-nose with the UP lead power. There has been no official word from either Metrolink or the Union Pacific Railroad, but I know that the engineer of the Metrolink train did not survive. The conductor of the Metrolink train did survive with two broken legs.

At 2000 hours they are reporting that # 111 may have carried as many as 350 to 400 passengers. 70 injuries reported, many critical. Nine deaths confirmed, the mayor reports "10 to 15 likely fatalities." At this hour trauma surgeons are side by side with firefighters and law enforcement personnel, trying to extricate those still trapped in the wreckage.

Apparently the Fox's family got a pass on this one, they are all home in the New Orleans area. To be sure they will get rain and wind, but "only" tropical storm conditions, not hurricane force. Ike is bringing to the Texas coast a twenty foot storm surge with twenty five foot waves riding on it, and as much as fifteen inches of rain along with that. Water water everywhere ...

Per the National Weather Service (apologies for the all caps):

AT 700 AM CDT THE CENTER OF HURRICANE IKE WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 26.9 NORTH, LONGITUDE 92.2 WEST, OR ABOUT 365 MILES EAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI TEXAS AND ABOUT 230 MILES SOUTHEAST OF GALVESTON TEXAS. IKE IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 13 MPH. THE CENTER OF IKE WILL BE VERY NEAR THE UPPER TEXAS COAST BY LATE TODAY OR EARLY SATURDAY.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS REMAIN NEAR 105 MPH WITH HIGHER GUSTS. IKE IS A CATEGORY TWO HURRICANE. SOME ADDITIONAL STRENGTHENING IS POSSIBLE DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS, AND IKE IS FORECAST TO BECOME A MAJOR HURRICANE BEFORE THE CENTER REACHES THE COAST. HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 120 MILES FROM THE CENTER AND
TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 275 MILES. AN OIL PLATFORM IN THE NORTHWESTERN GULF OF MEXICO RECENTLY REPORTED SUSTAINED WINDS OF 109 MPH AT AN ELEVATION OF 400 FEET.

THE ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 956 MB...28.23 INCHES.

Polar opposites, my experience in the desert and the nation's preparations for Ike. While those poor folks on the Gulf coast are preparing for another uber-drenching, it's high and dry in far south-eastern California. We had a cooling trend in the desert this week, by Wednesday high temperatures had fallen to just shy of the century mark, and monsoonal moisture was aloft. Thunderstorms were the norm in the afternoon, and the humidity was higher than I had expected. Not uncomfortably so, but high enough. We went about our business, visiting amongst other things all five pump plants and four mountain top sites. Damn challenging four-wheeling at one of them, the grade of the trail must have been 20 to 25 degrees in some places, certainly sustained above 15 degrees for much of the trail. The fact that it was also precipitous (being carved out of the face of a nearly vertical volcanic formation) and unstable (talus and scree filled the trail for most of the ascent) made for an interesting trip. And, of course ...

There was the ubiquitous equipment failure. This is a Cooper Discoverer STT, which is a damn good tire for these conditions. Unfortunately, the tires on my companion's truck had many tens of thousands of miles on them, and were way too thin for this kind of terrain. Fortunately, however, he found that one too-sharp stone on flat terrain while turning around on the top of Iron Mountain, so changing it was not a difficult task. The ground was dry, flat, and stable, the weather fine, and my friend happened to have a battery powered impact wrench and appropriate sockets with him, so the entire change took less than thirty minutes! Last time I changed a tire, high in the Alabama Hills on the east face of the Sierra, it took considerably longer.

We accomplished most of our tasks, but were foiled in one by the absence of half of the utility's power provision. Apparently the step-down transformer that changed the (I'm guessing) 12 kilovolt distribution voltage to 240 volts for our site lost one phase of it's input from the pole, and the transformer cooked trying to drive the load with the remaining phase. When we got to it most stuff in the vault was inoperative, and the transformer on the pole was making audible gurgling noises. We decided to move on, as there was nothing we could do anyway.

I was very busy, and even though I had my "ALN-on-a-stick" (the latest update on a thumb drive), I never had time to work on it. I worked into the evenings quite late at times, well past sundown. As we started our days at 0530, working past 2000 makes for a long day and a short night's rest. Not that I was sleeping well anyway, mostly the fault of a recalcitrant A/C unit in my dorm room that would either stop working all together in the middle of the night (prompting repeated awakenings, drenched in sweat, to re-start the machine) or, as was the case Wednesday night, shivering awake at 0200 to find the room temperature somewhere around fifty degrees.

But I was home! I love the hills of the OC, don't get me wrong, but I'd almost forgotten how beautiful the desert can be. Vast, hauntingly empty, yet teeming with life.

As fate would have it, we discovered more things that needed to be done than we actually fixed on this mission, so we're already arranging more trips to the home of the CRA, and I am happily looking forward to them.

In my absence my daughter came down with a case of the stomach flu, but is back to school today and seems to be feeling better. I got some encouraging e-mails from a couple of folks that I owe replies to, and also received an e-treat from a friend that many of you will see soon enough. Time permitting I may put together a small album of pictures from my recent road trip, but don't look for that until I get my ALN contribution finished.

7 September 2008

My Fox's family returned home from Huntsville in seven hours. No damage to any houses belonging to family, thank God.

Small comfort, though as Ike bears down on the gulf. I think my wife's family will be evacuating again, if Ike holds true to course. He'll make landfall in Louisiana or Texas, I'm betting, as at least a category three, probably bigger. He's a cat four right now, but has to run the length of Cuba before hitting the big energy source that the warm Gulf waters are. Per California OES situation report this morning, here is the latest info for Ike: As of 0500 EDT, Hurricane Ike is a Category 4 Hurricane and its center is located about 65 miles east of Great Inagua Island. [At this moment, as shown in the above image, Ike is now west of Great Inagua, bearing down on the east coast of Cuba] Ike is moving to the west-southwest near 15 mph. A turn to the west-northwest is expected today. Maximum sustained winds are 135 mph with higher gusts. Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 45 miles and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 145 miles. Estimated arrival of tropical storm force winds in the Florida Keys is 0001 EDT, Tuesday, 9 September.

FEMA reported 23 confirmed deaths in Louisiana and 4 confirmed deaths in Mississippi for a total of 27 fatalities attributed to Hurricane Gustav. California OES filled an EMAC request for eight (8) Swift Water Rescue Teams to be sent to the State of Louisiana. The Teams consist of 14 personnel each, staffed with personnel from the following Fire Agencies: Los Angeles City FD, Los Angeles County FD, Sacramento City FD, Sac-Metro FPD, Ventura County FD, Marin County FD, Long Beach FD, and Stockton FD. California has deployed a total of 399 personnel with specialized equipment to support the response efforts to Hurricane Gustav. The California National Guard has also activated 130 guard personnel and two HH-60 helicopters, two C-130, and two MC-130 fixed wing aircraft to support Air National Guard rescue missions in Louisiana. These crews and equipment are still in service pending the disposition of Hurricane Ike.

Unfortunately I won't be around The Range to be of any assistance to my Fox's family, should they decide to evacuate west this time like they did for Katrina. Tomorrow I'll be on the road well before sunrise, and expect to be east of Banning Pass on the first job site by breakfast time. I'll be in the eastern Mojave all week, working at various remote sites and communications facilities, and also re-programming a bunch of fleet radios. I don't expect to be back before Thursday evening, maybe some time Friday at the earliest. They say it will be cooler out there than it has been this coming week, only getting up into the hundreds, not the teens.

So as I was telling Aramis on YIM just now, what better place for a canid son of the desert to be than ... out in the desert? I'm looking forward to the trip and the work, in spite of the fact that my Red Fox won't be with me. Neither will my personal laptop be making the trip, mostly due to the fact that there's no room on my truck to carry it. I'm loaded up for the mission, and already have my company laptop .

Which means that I'll also miss Sonic's radio show on KWKAT. All you need is something that will play streaming audio and a browser, but my company machine is well hobbled in that regard by our network Nazis, so I doubt I'll be catching that. It does have MS Office in it, so I can take my portion of ALN with me on a thumb drive and work on that in the evenings, though. I'm about 5100 words into my next contribution as I type this, in the middle of a big fight scene that I'll probably re-write at least half a dozen times before I send it to my proof-readers. But it's in development! Hopefully by the time I return from the desert it'll be ready for that proofreading.

I've been trading IMs and e-mails with several friends, which has gone a long way towards improving my disposition and outlook. As I've explained to a number of them, I'm trying to quietly petition The Boss. I don't expect miracles, or even moderation of the course of events. I don't even expect to understand my portion of the big picture. All I really want is the courage to face what's coming, and a tiny bit of wisdom to make the next few years as easy and as pleasant for my folks and my Fox as possible. Is that too much to ask? I wouldn't think so ... In any event, I'll probably be ranting a bit more now and then, so get ready for it.

I haven't posted about fires recently, so let me bring you up to date. Twelve firefighters have lost their lives battling the conflagrations in California since June. Of these, nine died in a single accident, the crash of Carson's Sikorsky, detailed elsewhere in this blog. Five hundred and six firefighters have been injured during this same time. There are only five large uncontained fires left burning in the state: The Panther Complex, the Iron Alps Complex, the Bear Wallow Complex, the Siskiyou / Blue 2 Complex, and the Deerhorn Fire. There are a total of 1,261,296 acres burned (1,970 square miles), 364 residences, 481 outbuildings, and 2 commercial properties destroyed, 20 residences and 138 outbuildings damaged. Currently 138 residences, 12 commercial buildings, and 240 outbuildings are threatened on the Iron Alps Complex. The California National Guard has 416 Guardsmen on state status supporting the fires.

Another bit of fire-related misery, we lost a tanker a few days ago. Gustav was grabbing headlines on 2 September when a P2V belonging to Neptune Aviation went down out of Reno Stead airport. Preliminary reports from witnesses suggested the tanker lost a piece of its engine or a wing after its 6:11 p.m. takeoff before it caught fire and went down about a half-mile away. The debris field from the crash covered approximately 5 square miles, northwest of the airport, northeast of US Highway 395. All three crew members aboard perished in the post crash fire.

So even as we wind down our three month response to the lightning fires of late June, fire still reaches out to claim some of our own. It is a dangerous business, emergency response, whether we fight fire, water, or the very earth itself. As Ike heads into the Gulf Of Mexico we pray for the residents of the Gulf coast, and for the brave souls who will travel many miles to rescue the misfortunate ones.

I'll be back after my desert trip, hopefully with some images to share.

1 September 2008

Gustav Makes Landfall

At 1030 local time this morning Hurricane Gustav made landfall on the coast of Louisiana west of the city of New Orleans, coming ashore as a category two storm.

As I'm typing this entry we are watching video of Geraldo Rivera, on scene for Fox News, standing on top of the western levee south of where the Industrial Canal meets Lake Ponchartrain in the Ninth Ward of Orleans Parish. The sea water is over-topping the levees there, crests of waves splashing over the top. Quite dramatic, and not a little foolish. Granny is in charge of the remote, and is flipping between Fox News, CNN, and the weather channel.

My Fox's family is safe up in Huntsville. We got a call this morning from my brother in law Chris, who told us it took them 21 hours to make the trip from Metairie to Huntsville! That's a distance of approximately 400 to 450 miles, depending on the route one chooses to take, normally about an eight hour trip by automobile. I guess there was quite a crowd with them on the interstates. The folks that know these things are saying that Gustav has prompted the largest evacuation in Louisiana and New Orleans' history.

Meanwhile, it appears that so far their homes have been given a reprieve from flooding, but winds in the area of Jefferson Parish are being recorded at speeds of 100 miles per hour, so damage is still quite possible, even if the levees hold. A lot of water can fall into a house if the roof is missing ... If the levees hold, New Orleans may get a pass on this one. I hope so.

The fires out here are finally being put down. From the almost two thousand fires that were ignited starting 20 June, there are only five complexes still working. The stubborn Iron Alps Complex is still active, 96% contained at 105,445 acres, with only 207 personnel on scene. Personnel on the Eagle and Buckhorn Fires, divisions within the Iron Alps Complex, continue to patrol and mop-up. Crews continue to identify and accomplish significant suppression repair work. A helitack squad was utilized to mop-up on the Carey Fire. Other fires still active from the June lightning storms include:
The Siskiyou / Blue 2 Complex (93%, 78,188 acres)
The Canyon Complex (97%, 37,831 acres)
The Bear Wallow Complex (62%, 42,522 acres)
The Panther Wildland Fire (75%, 47,910 acres)

I received a very heartwarming e-mail this morning in response to yesterday's rant here. And while I was comforted and empowered by the contents of this message, for some reason it prompted me to think about something, and to make a simple fact known here: I was cold sober last night when I wrote that. I'm on standby this weekend, and have been called twice already, so seeking the comforts of John Barleycorn (temporary though they may be) is not an option for me.

Tomorrow I start therapy, perhaps. The abbreviated schedule will find me on various mountain tops for the duration of the work week, maintenance on various tower and antenna systems. The following week I will be in the eastern Mojave desert, doing site surveys and programming user radios. I'm supposed to return Thursday night, but won't be surprised if work runs long and takes me through Friday. Lots of road time, and lots of remote, dusty places to play in. Just the thing a coyote needs to blow the dust out from between his own ears.

This afternoon my folks will be here for an early dinner. It's been a busy weekend, for them as well as us, and this is the first opportunity we'll have to get together as a family, something we try to do at least once a week now. It's been warm and humid, as usual, but the mornings start with a deep marine layer, so the temperatures don't start to climb in earnest until the overcast burns off around the noon hour. The sea breeze usually comes up around 1700 or so and cools things down again, so all in all we're not too uncomfortable here. I guess, upon reflection (and with some encouragement from close friends), we take our blessings where we find them.

31 August 2008

I went to church today, something I hadn't done in a month. And wouldn't you know it, the sermon was on trust. Specifically, trust in God. The precise thing I've been having the most trouble with lately. Yay me. And if you read on, yay you.

<rant>

You all know, if you've been keeping up with my little diatribe here, about my dad and the troubles he having. Now I've managed to keep a smile on my muzzle (after the fact, at least) through most of the shit that's happened to me in my life, and have not had the opportunity to call God's benevolence into question. In fact, I've been able to rationalize in my own mind just about every grievous thing that has befallen me, been able to put a positive spin on it and make myself see the good that came of it.

But I'm having a Hell of a time doing that these days. And coupled with an ongoing problem I'm having with lack of sleep, it is causing me to be a different fur than the one my pups and my Fox are used to seeing around the den. And they can all too plainly see who I am becoming, and they are not pleased.

Take this temporary duty I'm on. I was so excited about getting reassigned to the telecommunications crew. Radio is what I do. It's more than a job, it's a hobby, a passion. It was what I did before starting to work with my present employer. I was a communications technician or engineer for the Santa Fe, for the State, and for a paging company. Thirteen years I was out of radio on my current job, and I finally within the last few months managed to get my foot back in the door, managed to wiggle my way back into two-way. I thought I had found my little niche in the great scheme of things, finally. And less than three months into the assignment I now find myself asking "What the Hell was I thinking?" Sure, I spend time doing what I do best, working on systems and interconnect and microwave at remote sites and not-so-remote sites, and that is great. But it is offset by the most frustrating, mind-numbing crap that just makes me crazy. All I want to do is provide a service to my employer, something I'm good at, something I do effectively and efficiently, and I seem to be getting pushed back a couple of steps every time I try to step up and do so. Where's the benevolence in this?

Meanwhile, my dear friend gets in touch with me to relate a sad tale from the bosom of his own family. This guy is one of the most connected furs I know, connected in ways I struggle to weakly emulate on my best days. And suddenly someone has kicked the figurative stool out from under his feet, and again I ask myself "what is the fucking point in this?" Maybe he'll get things pulled back together and his home will once again become the happy place it's always been, or maybe there's a different angle at paw, one I don't understand and which I'm betting he won't either.

And then there is my father, who tries his damndest to put a good face on a deteriorating situation, who tries to be strong even as he and I both boil over with our respective emotions, he frustration and me rage. There is no denying the progression of his disease. The state took away his driver's license last month, probably the most difficult thing he's had to do since voluntarily relinquishing his pilot's license all those years ago. He's not nearly the active man he was as little as a year or two ago. Since moving to OC he has lost his vehicular mobility, which I'm reasonably certain in his mind is the equivalent of independence, as it is in my mind. Coupled with that he seems to have lost virtually all interest in being active outdoors. He used to walk a lot, used to like to go places and do things. Not any more. As his world becomes less and less familiar to him, he tends to stay home. It seems the only place he feels completely relaxed and secure in any more is my home. He's had twenty some years to get used to my home, he's only lived in his own home for about eleven months.

It pains me to my core watching him slowly dissolve before my eyes, turning into a man completely unlike anyone I've ever known, losing his strength, his character, his memory ... it's all tied together, I suppose. He's literally forgetting who he is, who he has been.

And it's tearing my mom apart, and she's rapidly approaching the point where she won't be able to take care of him without help. Which puts her, and my Fox and I, up against some very tough questions that will have very tough answers, and few choices.

And as I sit in my little corner in the evening, paw wrapped tightly around my whiskey while I stare gloomily at a laptop display, hoping against hope that something there will bring a smile to my muzzle, I instead tilt my head back to stare through the ceiling, a snarl on my lips, and ask out loud "What ... Is ... The Fucking ... Point?" Not loudly, but with conviction and the sincere desire to have it make some sort of sense, to seem like something besides the perverse joy taken in a good man's suffering.

</rant, pauses to catch breath>

I've got about 2800 words of my next contribution to ALN done, about a third of the way along perhaps, and the plot for my section is completely developed. If I wasn't getting interrupted every time I sit down with it, and I wasn't so deep in my own portion of anger and my unique way of managing it, I might be done with it by now. As it is, I've been called two days out of three on my standby duty so far, and am mildly surprised I haven't been interrupted in this monologue to go fix some widget or other in the heat and humidity that is this summer in the OC.

One thing I did manage to enjoy in spite of myself was my younger son's acquisition of a drum set. He spent a considerable amount of his savings on it, and is quite tickled. He's got himself an oversize kick drum, two floor toms, a rack tom, snare, high hat, throne, and all the hardware, and it's all set up in our garage. Cymbals are being borrowed until yours truly can go with him to pay for a set. Those things aren't cheap. A good set of cymbals can cost as much as the rest of the set. Adam has to wait for now, the old dog's checkbook isn't nearly as fat as his expectations (and my desires) are high.

I'm also excited about my daughter, hoping that as her study and organizational skills improve she'll have time to get her electric guitar and jam with her brother occasionally. Perhaps God will find it in His mercy to allow Mike to drop by now and then as well, so they can form a trio. That would be cool. I'd have a real garage band in my garage!

Finally, as I cool off a bit, I offer my prayers to One who may or may not be listening to me these days; not to plead my case, but for my friend back east, and for all the folks in the Gulf Coast who are not at home this evening. My Fox's family call Metairie, Louisiana home, and they are all up in Huntsville, Alabama tonight as Gustav draws a bead on New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast. Category Four since leaving Cuba behind, Gus may be Five by the time he makes landfall on the continental US. So for Rach, and Chris and Anne, and Cathy and Jerry and Paul, I plead that God visit a little peace of heart and perhaps some understanding upon them, and bless them with stability and comfort and safety in the face of their various adversities.

As for me ...

22 August 2008

A word of warning to my favorite furs. You know who you are. The next part of ALN is officially in the works. I have my plot roughed out, and words are forming on the screen into logical sequences of thoughts, in spite of the Merlot in the glass near my left paw and in spite also of the music blaring in my ears (at the moment Sweet Bird of Truth, The The). I have no idea how long it will take me to finish, but I can look all of you in the eye and say with assurity, and even a bit of a swagger ... the coyote's back.

Are ya listening, Filly?

Meanwhile the NTSB has released it's preliminary findings on the loss of Carson's Sikorsky S-61 at Iron 44. Main rotor power loss is the initial assumption. There is a long trail ahead of the inspectors, it will be a long time before we find out if that was actually the case, and if so why the main rotor lost power. The Iron / Alps Complex is still burning, 94% contained after consuming 105,325 acres. Most of the other large fires in California are fully contained or extinguished, the only others still active are the Siskiyou / Blue 2 Complex (78%, 79,762 acres), the Bear Wallow Fire (35% 44,543 acres), the Panther Fire (75%, 47,910 acres), the Canyon Complex Wildland Fire (97%, 37,831 acres), and the Ukonom South Complex (82%, 29,327 acres).

I heard from Keith Torres a couple of times. It was good to reconnect with him after all this time. Still waiting to hear from the others, I drift by their web sites occasionally to see what, if anything, is happening there. Meanwhile Aramis and Tigermark and I have been swapping e-mails, and I've been tuning in to Sonic Blue's Time Machine Show when time permits for a little entertainment. That Barhoppin' Bill is a fur I can relate to ...

Fairly quiet around The Range. My job is sending me farther and farther afield, at more and more odd hours, so it gets harder to post updates here. Apologies for that.

Peace.

13 August 2008

"Iron 44"

That's what they've taken to referring to the crash site as, taken from the fact that it was on the Iron Fire and the accident scene was a few hundred feet away from a landing zone known as Helispot 44. Nine brave men died there, incinerated in the post crash fire of Carson's Sikorsky. The NTSB is focusing on the engines, they say, as they have been removed from the scene and sent to an undisclosed location for further inspection. Mention was also made of the fact that the helicopter had just been refueled before the fateful liftoff: The Sikorsky S-61N helicopter had just been refueled when it lifted off from a remote clearing, struck a tree and plummeted into a hillside, according to National Transportation Safety Board officials. The chopper then erupted into flames. [Quoted from an Associated Press article.] The NTSB expects to release a preliminary report by the end of the week.

Since 20 June, 2,096 fires have burned 1,214,142 acres in California. This figure constitutes 30% of all acreage lost to fire in the United States (4,049,281) since 1 January of this year. And we burned that 1,897 square miles in less than two months. The majority of these fires have been contained, yet conditions remain extremely dry and fire danger remains very high. As one of the most severe wildland fire situations ever experienced in California’s history, these fires destroyed a total of 511 structures and have taken 15 lives.

Red Flag conditions are working their way south. I was working on Oat Mountain in soCal this morning, and the air was clear, dry, and hot. Further south the humidity was much higher, but up where we were the breeze, when there was one, was out of the northeast.

Not much feedback yet from the authors I polled, but I did get an unsolicited barrage of good stuff from Aramis, most of which I'm ashamed to say I haven't had the time to look at. A double shame, 'cause he was kind enough to send his latest "vixen art drop," something he regularly delights in teasing the old coyote with. There was also some of his craft included, which I always enjoy when I can hold still long enough to partake of it.

I sure wish Sonic Blu was back on the air.

10 August 2008

I decided to rattle some cages this morning.

A while back (as in more than a year and a half ago) I made the acquaintance of a few new authors whom I considered to be rather promising. I know, that sounds stuffy, like I'm some sort of expert in writing or something, but it isn't that way. I liked the stories these guys were putting out there, and encouraged them to keep with it. I'm not a great exhorter, but I care about those I choose to call friends, and want to see them do well and excel in their craft. Several furs have encouraged me in the past, so in a way this is paying it forward.

Unfortunately, I have not heard anything from several of them, and while another is making sporadic appearances at the PF forums, he is not doing much with his own writing. So this morning, as I silently lamented my own age and inability to sleep worth a damn, I decided to do something valuable with my time and see who I could stir up. I posted to The Foxx's forum, as I couldn't seem to find an e-mail address for him. I then dropped an e-mail on Kulkum, Karou, and Keith to see if they are still willing to communicate with the old coyote or, even better, get goaded into putting some new material on line. We'll see what comes of my efforts at annoyance.

I also sent a brief message to Kellan just to inquire after his health and let him know he has a brother in arms down south, and caught up a bit with Tigermark as well.

And what would this missive be without some fire numbers? We have lost 1,131,655 acres (almost 1,770 square miles) to the fires, along with 181 homes. 12,815 firefighters are engaged in battle across the state on 801 engines and in 291 crews, supported by 132 dozers, 187 water tenders, and 75 helicopters. Fixed wing tankers are still on the fly, including the C-130 MAFFS.

25 fires are still active in the state, including the stubborn Iron / Alps Complex where the helicopter was lost. Here's a link to a blog post by Michael Reid, a firefighter who was first on scene at the crash site. Grayback Forestry firefighters Michael Brown, 20, and Jonathan Frohreich, 18, as well as Carson Helicopters pilot Bill Coultas, 44, are being treated at the UC Davis hospital in Sacramento. Coultas was in critical condition, Brown was in fair condition and Frohreich was upgraded from critical to serious condition Thursday morning, hospital officials said. Another Grayback employee, identified by the company as Richard Schroeder, 42, was in serious condition at Mercy Medical Center in Redding. "All Grayback firefighters from the Iron Complex fire are returning to their home base," said Grayback owner Mike Wheelock. "No crews remain on the fire. We will be providing incident debriefing and other support as needed to all of our crews."

A pilot and a Forest Service employee are among the dead, said Carson spokesman Bob Madden. The company identified the deceased pilot as Roark Schwanenberg, 54, of Lostine, Oregon. Seven Grayback firefighters died in the crash, they were all Oregon residents. The company has identified six of them: Shawn Blazer, 30, and Bryan Rich, 29, of Medford; Scott Charleson, 25, of Phoenix; Matthew Hammer, 23, of Grants Pass; Edrik Gomez, 19, and David Steele, 19, of Ashland. Officials had not yet released the names of two firefighters, pending notification of their relatives.

There is much speculation that the crash is a result of mechanical failure. The pilots had amassed a combined 25,000 hours flight time. "These are not the kind of pilots who are going to fly this helicopter into the ground. It could have been a tail rotor malfunction, a systems control problem, a linkage problem with the main rotor or engine failure. We're dealing with some kind of in-flight mechanical malfunction because there's no other logical explanation for what happened."

The NTSB has yet to file it's initial report.

6 August 2008

And Now It Begins

The National Transportation Safety Board has dispatched a Go Team to investigate a helicopter crash in a remote wooded area about 35 miles northwest of Redding, California. The Sikorsky S-61N (N612AZ) operated by the U.S. Forest Service, crashed at about 7:30 p.m. PDT last night during takeoff. A post-crash fire ensued. Of the 13 people reported to be on-board, four suffered serious injuries; nine are unaccounted for and are presumed to be fatally injured.

Statement by Shasta-Trinity National Forest Supervisor Sharon Heywood

At approximately 7:45 p.m. last night, Forest Service officials were notified that a Sikorsky S-61 contract helicopter assigned to the Iron Complex on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest crashed. Four fire personnel were airlifted to Mercy Medical Center and arrived at approximately 9:30 p.m. Two fire personnel, one of which is the pilot of the helicopter, were air lifted to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. This morning at about 8 a.m. a third individual was air lifted to UC Davis Medical Center.

At this time the first individual, identified as the Pilot, is located at UC Davis Medical Center in serious condition. A second contract firefighter is located at UC Davis Medical Center in critical condition. A third contract firefighter is located at UC Davis Medical Center in serious condition. A fourth contract firefighter remains at Mercy Medical Center Redding and is listed in serious, but stable condition.

I ask the public to join me in our thoughts and prayers for the fire personnel, family and friends.

We still have people unaccounted for and we are working in close cooperation with the Trinity County Sheriff's Department. The location of the incident is within the Trinity Alps Wilderness. This area is step, remote and rugged and difficult to access. The helicopter went down on the north end of the Buckhorn Fire, approximately 15 miles northwest of Junction City, California. We can confirm the helicopter was shuttling fire crews. The helicopter is a contract helicopter registered to Carson Helicopters with offices in Grants Pass, Oregon and Perkasie, Pennsylvania.

The National Safety Transportation Board has the lead investigative authority over the incident. From this point forward the NTSB will be the lead agency. Any information related to the circumstances of the helicopter accident will be released by the NTSB.

I'd like to thank our extended fire service family, as well as police and public service agencies and the public, your support means a lot to us, especially at this time.

We will continue to aggressively fight all fires on the forest, while working to provide for firefighter safety.

The Buckhorn Fire is part of the Iron Complex Fires in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and has burned more than 18,500 acres since it started June 21. It is currently 25 percent contained. The four fires that make up the Iron Complex have burned more than 84,000 acres.

No mention is made of the other nine passengers on the Sikorsky, except that they were all firefighters and that they are, as of this writing, unaccounted for. Prayers for them and their families would certainly be appreciated.

Tonight's numbers: there are 17 active fires in the state, 99% of all fires in California have been contained, including the Telegraph Fire near Yosemite National Park. There are a total of 1,121,592 acres burned (1,752 square miles). This is slightly less than the figure quoted here on 2 August, the change is due to better reconnaissance in the fire zones. 8,989 firefighters are still engaged on the fires, but thousands have begun to demobilize as many of the incidents begin to wrap up and mop up. 443 firefighter injuries and 2 firefighter fatalities have been incurred since 20 June (not counting today's crash). 190 residences have been destroyed.

New fires include the Craig Fire near Lake Oroville in Butte County, the Sherwin Fire just south of Mammoth Lake in Mono County, and the Inyo Lightning Fire burning near but away from the Edison #2 Power Plant on Bishop Creek.

Meanwhile, the North (San Diego) County Times reports that Cal Fire has asked San Diego Gas and Electric to pay more than $21 million for costs incurred by fire agencies during last year's Witch Creek and Rice fires, the origins which have been attributed to downed SDG&E power lines.

Here at home it is uncommonly quiet. All three of my pups are in the mountains at summer camp, the younger two as students and the oldest as a worship leader. On the job I got a "new" work truck assigned to me. It has only 155,700 miles on it, and has only almost stranded me twice, once for a dead battery yesterday and then again today when the serpentine belt decided to split in half... lengthwise... while I was navigating rush-hour traffic on the southbound 605 freeway. I managed to limp home after un-tangling the half of the belt that had wrapped itself around the fan hub. Hopefully it'll stay in one piece (or is that one half piece?) until I can get back to the plant with it tomorrow morning. With such an auspicious start begins officially my temporary assignment with the telecomm crew. Yay me!

2 August 2008

The light earthquake we had is already slipping into distant memory, while the fires continue to burn up north. Here's this morning's numbers:

Total fires in the state since 20 June: 2,096. Of these, 21 are active, 99% of all fires have been contained. 1,137,880 acres of terrain have been burned (1,778 square miles), 181 residences and one commercial building were destroyed. There has been one on-duty firefighter death and 436 firefighter injuries reported. 12,239 firefighters are still engaged across the state.

The Telegraph Fire near Yosemite is 80% contained now with 34,034 acres consumed. 4,057 firefighters are still on this fire, 28 of them have sustained injury. 21 residences have been lost. All mandatory evacuations have been lifted. State Highway 140, the primary access route to Yosemite National Park along the Merced River corridor, is currently under traffic restriction
orders. This closure spans from the Octogon/Briceburg area east to the Cedar Lodge area near El Portal. Soft closures are in affect from 0800 hrs. to 2100 hrs. CHP and Yosemite National Park are working together to escort one-way traffic through the Merced River corridor. The closure is due to active fire behavior and Cal Fire air operations and will be in affect until further notice. From approximately 2100 hrs to 0800 hrs there are no restrictions on Hwy 140 in the Merced River corridor.

New fires include:
The Rich Fire in Plumas County (5,198 acres, 646 firefighters, 7 firefighter injuries, 10% contained, 2 residences lost)
The Panther Complex in Siskiyou County (7,111 acres, 761 firefighters, 2 firefighter injuries, 0% contained)

Up in Independence in Inyo County the cleanup from the mudslides goes on, as does similar work in the Erskine Creek drainage in Kern County. US Highway 395 is open, but Caltrans and LADWP crews continue work to expand flood control and runoff diversion infrastructure in and Independence.

It's hot and humid in the OC this morning. The skies here are clear and calm. Red Flag warnings are up again across the northern counties of California, but down here it's deceptively calm. I spent some time this morning with a friend who lost his home, and eventually his marriage, to the 2003 Cedar Fire down San Diego way. He is retired from the San Diego County Sheriff's Department (SDSD) and spent many years working and living in San Diego County. While we did not meet to discuss that incident or it's ramifications in his life, the memories are still fresh in his mind five years later. He is in the process of moving to northern Washington state. He's had enough of California, and wants to get out.

"I don't like living here any more," he said. "I'm tired of the crowds, I'm tired of the noise, I'm tired of the hassle." Interesting commentary from a native son.

29 July 2008

We had a little rock and roll with lunch today. At 11:42 local time a magnitude 5.4 earthquake occurred four miles north-northeast of our treatment plant in Yorba Linda. Apparently our facility was quite shaken up and sustained some superficial damage, but nothing that affected our ability to treat or deliver. All pipelines remained in service, although all of our hydro plants tripped off line. Elsewhere in soCal there were brief, random interruptions to power and telephone service, and a couple of broken water mains, but nothing significant or troublesome.

I was helping to conduct a communications exercise at our emergency operations center in Eagle Rock when the quake struck. I had arrived before 0700, and we were about halfway done with our work. While the quake was quite noticeable, no damage occurred. Our EOC activated immediately following, and that made for a long afternoon. All of our patrol runs activated, and the last one finally called in clear at 1800.

Apparently this moderate quake made national news. It really was no big deal, denizens of soCal have lived through much worse, and fairly recently, too. But because we haven't had a noticeable quake in a while, it got everyone's attention and jangled a few nerves.

My boys were johnny on the spot running around the corner to check on granny and grandpa coyote. By the time I got a phone connection to my home from the EOC in Eagle Rock they were already over at my folks house. Nothing amiss there. The water didn't even slosh out of the pool. My folks, who can both recall much larger quakes starting with the 1933 Long Beach Quake, were nonplussed, unruffled.

I was at the EOC until past 1800. It's been a long day, but I'll throw some updated fire info at you before I sign off.

Someone target shooting in the wildland west of Yosemite National Park touched off a fire the day before my last post. On that day (25 July) it didn't grow much, but the following day it "exploded," gaining 16,000 acres of burn in less than 24 hours with the help of a shift in weather conditions. Now at 29,600 acres, the Telegraph Fire is only 15% contained. It has taken 25 residences and 27 outbuildings, and caused 12 injuries in it's short life. Burning in steep, rugged, and remote terrain, it is consuming fuels that have been growing for almost 100 years. In Mariposa County tonight 4,000 residences have been evacuated in the communities of Midpines, Briceburg, Mariposa, Greenley Hill, Coulterville, Bear Valley, and Mt. Bullion Camp. State highway 140, the main access route to Yosemite National Park from the west, is closed, and Yosemite Valley is buried under a blanket of smoke with heavy ashfall.

3,458 firefighters (1,766 from Cal Fire) are on the fire tonight on 408 engines and in 71 hand crews backed by 59 dozers, 30 water tenders, 13 helicopters, and 12 airtankers. Over $10 million dollars have already been expended in a fight that by all accounts is just beginning.

These resources are over and above the 12,483 firefighters still engaged on 27 other active fires throughout the state. They are on 816 engines in 256 hand crews supported by 134 dozers, 174 water tenders, and 78 helicopters. I couldn't begin to add up the cost of those fires, not in lost homes, injured and deceased firefighters, or monies spent fighting the fight.

1,089,756 acres lost. 1,702 square miles of useless, scorched terrain.

But there is some good news. The list of fully contained fires is growing, and has added some big names recently:
Butte Complex
Shasta & Trinity Complex
Mendocino Complex
Humboldt Complex
Corral Fire
Oliver Fire
Walker Fire
Wild Fire
Tehama & Glenn Complex
Indians Fire
Basin Complex (Big Sur)
Gap Fire (Goleta)
Hells Half Complex
all at 100% containment. A tip of the hat and a heartfelt thanks to all the brave firefighters, on and above the earth, from all over the USA and several sovereign nations, for this monstrous effort.

We're winning. Slowly.

Little aftershocks are still popping in Tonner Canyon up north of Yorba Linda. Most of them we don't even feel. It does not comfort us when the USGS reassures us that At this time (immediately after the mainshock) the probability of a strong and possibly damaging aftershock IN THE NEXT 7 DAYS is approximately 30 PERCENT. Thanks for that, guys. There is a small chance (APPROXIMATELY 5 TO 10 PERCENT) of an earthquake equal to or larger than this mainshock in the next 7 days. More joy. So while the tanker crews stand down and the night shift firefighters take over on the ground, some of us wonder... what next?

26 July 2008

I've not been much for chattiness lately. My father, not already without his portion of difficulties, has been re-visited by an old friend in a new guise. He was recently diagnosed with a skin cancer, something described as "a step above a basil carcinoma" just under his ear. We're not sure what it means, but the doctor says it must come out as soon as possible. In the odd world of doctor-speak, apparently that means early September. I guess we can all sit around on our tails and chew on our claws in nervous anticipation until then. <sighs> It always something. As Al Swearengen said: "Many times, that's what the f*ck life is... one vile f*cking task after another."

Meanwhile, the fires still burn, although according to Cal Fire 98% of them are contained. Still, there are 27 active fires burning in the state, and 1,027,173 acres of wildland have been destroyed. That's 1,604 square miles, twice the landmass of the county I live in, larger by 400 square miles than the state of Rhode Island.

As of this morning there are still 12,128 firefighters engaged in battle on 667 engines and comprising 282 hand crews with 107 dozers, 209 water tenders, and 71 helicopters in support of their operations. 158 residences, 1 commercial building, and 139 outbuildings have been lost. Approximately 3,500 residences remain threatened, and areas of Trinity and Humboldt counties are under evacuation orders at this time. Precautionary evacuation orders currently exist in areas of Monterey and Siskiyou counties.

This is the army on the ground that airborne operations support.
These are the Smokey Bear Hotshots on the Basin Complex. They're a long way from home, true professionals on a mission.
Image by Kari Greer.

The Gap Fire above Goleta is now 97% contained and projected full containment is set for 28 July. The fire no longer threatens communities and has burned 9,443 acres or wildland and inhabited areas.

The Basin Complex Fire is 79% contained, projected full containment expected 30 July. 162,818 acres have been burned. The communities of Tanbark and Arroyo Seco are still threatened, but aggressive burnout operations have helped to secure the perimeter, and firefighters are now enlarging the perimeter to 300 feet or more for full containment.

Hopefully, as we approach the "normal" Santa Ana season down south, we'll have these operations concluded in time to give the armies a rest. It's still going to be a long, hot, dry, and windy summer, one which will last well into what most of the rest of the country calls "fall." We have four seasons here, just like everyone else. We call them Red Flag, normal, June Gloom, and mud. "Normal" is hot and dry, and occurs about 75% of the time. Between late April and early July there occurs the "June Gloom", when we have brief periods of deep marine layers with overcast skies, fog, thick haze, and relatively mild temperatures. Maybe we even get a very light shower now and then, but nothing measurable. The other 5% to 10% of the time we have Red Flag conditions, with the hot northeast winds pushing temperatures above the century mark as humidity levels plummet to single digit values. These are the times of the conflagrations as wildfire spreads across counties and destroys communities and wildland by the square mile in seeming moments.

And then there is mud. Those of us who have been around more than a decade or two can recall when we called this season "rain." Back then rain was fairly predictable and came with summer thunderstorms or wintertime Pacific Storms out of the gulf of Alaska. No more. Maybe global warming is to blame, who knows... but we don't see much rain anymore. And when we do, the meager inch or two we get is more than enough to trigger mudslides and flash floods across the southland, falling as it does on naked mountainsides denuded by fire. So our wet season isn't recalled fondly with images of young pups playing in the puddles, rather we recall homes and neighborhoods sliding away, walls of debris choking roadways, burying yards, rendering those structures left standing as uninhabitable.

And still they come to soCal by the thousands every month... What is it about this place that brings them, and keeps me here?

18 July 2008

"One Million Gallons Served "

A bit of review is in order, driven by an event that occurred quietly and with minimal fanfare a week ago (if you ignore the peppermint patty). MAFFS have been in service on the California fires practically since day one, 20 June. Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) are military C-130 transport planes that can be converted to serve as fire fighting airtankers. The C-130 can carry 3,000 gallons of fire retardant, as compared to Cal Fire's S-2T airtankers which carry 1200 gallons. MAFFS are part of the fleet of big dogs, the heavy bombers of airborne firefighting which include the P-3 Orion tankers, the Evergreen 747 tanker, and Tanker 910. When the hand crews and Strike Teams on the ground are up against the fire and losing the fight, the call goes out for these guys with predictable results.

MAFFS are requested only when all other fire service aircraft are committed to major, extended incidents. They are considered a 24-hour resource, meaning that when ordered, it will be at least 24 hours before they can be expected on duty. When ordered, MAFFS must be taken from their regular military duties and then fitted with fire fighting airtanker equipment.

There are eight MAFFS in the United States. Two are stationed in California, the rest around the nation. All eight have been committed to California fires in the past, all eight are engaged in the current firefight in the state.

A week ago, 11 July, the MAFFS crews passed the "one million gallons served" milestone on the current fire response, a goal achieved in less then three weeks. MAFFS 1 was piloted that day by Major Justin Walrath with the Wyoming Air National Guard, with Captain Drew Judkins as his co-pilot. MAFFS 1 was one of three C-130s dropping on the Motion Fire (part of the Shasta-Trinity Complex, 83,293 acres, 63% contained). Major Walrath was not really aware that his plane had dropped that one particular gallon of note, which is not surprising given all the mission-critical criteria that must be considered while on a flight. This impressive accomplishment was only possible due to the diligent efforts of many people, from the flight crews to the maintainers to everyone working behind the scenes to ensure the planes fly effectively and safely. A hearty congratulations and a salute to all the crews, in the air and on the ground, that made this achievement possible.

This morning's numbers: 907,568 acres (1,512 square miles) burned on a total of 2,093 fires, 38 of which are still active (uncontained). 17,842 firefighters are still engaged on 1,058 engines with 432 hand crews, 180 dozers, 317 water tenders, and 113 helicopters. 102 residences are lost. No information is available on total firefighter injuries to date.

A working weekend for me at the folks place, building cabinets and uncrating more stuff.

15 July 2008

Things are quieting down in California these days. All Red Flag Warnings across the state have been rescinded; however the potential remains for isolated thunderstorm activity throughout the Sierra Nevada range this evening. 873,025 acres are scorched earth tonight, 1,364 square miles of new moonscape. There are still 18,805 firefighters carrying the fight to 81 active fires in the state tonight, on the backs of 1,175 engines or astride one of 114 helicopters. 450 hand crews are on the ground supported by 205 dozers and 331 water tenders. 101 residences have been lost. A total of 2,085 fires have occurred in the state since 20 June..

And with the changing weather patterns came rain, lots of it where we didn't need it. Strong to violent thundershowers fell in the southern Sierra and fanned out across the deserts and mountains of soCal starting over the weekend. There was much lightning, but it wasn't dry lightning, so no new fires of significance have been reported. Yet. And the weather-guessers say we won't get much more rain, and that what we got wasn't enough to help on the Piute Fire near Lake Isabella, where some of the worst storms occurred.

Cleanup crews are still busy on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada up in the Owens Valley, where a mudslide 300 yards wide and up to 3 feet deep damaged dozens of homes, splitting the tiny community of Independence in half and covering Highway 395 with debris over the weekend. Mud and boulders were still blocking parts of the highway yesterday. Inyo County sheriff's officials said road crews have been escorting vehicles through the affected area north of town since the mudslide on Saturday.

The mudslide seriously damaged at least 25 structures and numerous outbuildings. Residents were evacuated to a nearby shelter, Sheriff Bill Lutze said. The mud flow also destroyed part of the Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery and its brood stock of rainbow trout, said the facility's manager Robert Wakefield. About a fifth of the 40-acre hatchery was covered in mud, at least 3,000 fish were buried under debris and the stream that provides water for the facility was running brown, he said.

Some of the mud made it's way into the Los Angeles Aqueduct, but LADWP had nothing to say about it, so apparently it was not a serious issue for the agency.

Some of you may recall that Independence, some 200 miles north of Los Angeles, is not very far away from where the Old Raccoon used to live in Lone Pine. Mike did catch some of the violent weather, in a message he posted at Planet Furry he commented about the horizontal rain he and Chris had witnessed. Fortunately they suffered no ill effects from it where they now live, somewhat farther to the south.

The Owens Valley is, of course, my crew's staging area for high adventure in the eastern Sierra and the Inyo Mountains. We normally base out of Lone Pine for those operations, but have explored many canyons both east and west of Independence.

Meanwhile, to the northwest of us and very near where my pups were last weekend, the community of Lake Isabella suffered a similar fate as multiple slides of ash and mud invaded the town, covering one of the town's principle streets. The mudslides came after heavy rain from the last couple days left the ground near the Erskine Creek Canyon unstable. Authorities recommended evacuations for about 80 homes due to concerns that flash floods near the 57-square-mile Piute wildfire burn area could give way to mudslides. It was the third such warning in three days, and proved to be prophetic.

Closer to home my TDY is keeping me busy, and it looks like it's gonna get worse before it gets better. But that's good, 'cause I like the work. I was at our Riverside Plant today, will be at Galactic Hindquarters tomorrow, and will be at the Oat Mountain site Thursday. Yay! Finally I get to get back to what I love! Mountains!

Finally, I finished Destiny's Change. It was a good book, if I do say so, and kept me turning pages. There were parts that really caught my eye and my gut, one dealing with something that is very prominent in my family now, and another that has a lot to do with who I work for. No spoilers here, so that's all I'm sayin', but I know Kellan and I will be swapping e-mails about those things, and others. The story didn't end as much as it paused briefly on the last page, I suspect that Kellan will have more to offer the reading furs amongst us before too much longer. Can't wait for the hardcopy? Check his web site for other interesting stuff. Tell him SC sent you, but don't believe everything that old warhorse says about your favorite coyote...

Be safe, friends.

13 July 2008

This morning it seems that things may be settling down a bit. "Turning a corner," as the Public Information Officer on the Butte Complex Fire put it. Many of the evacuations ordered in the towns of Paradise, Big Sur, and Goleta have been lifted, although as Red Flag conditions persist across the northern half of the state residents are advised to be ready to go again on short notice. Thousands of firefighters from California are still on the lines, as well as others from throughout the nation. Additional firefighting resources from Australia, Canada, Mexico and New Zealand are in transit to assist California in the effort. Severe thundershowers occurred over the Piute Fire yesterday afternoon resulting in over 0.75 inch of rain and road closures due to flash flooding.

Here's the numbers:

Of the 1,781 total fires, 1,493 have been fully contained, leaving 288 active fires in the state still threatening life and property. 817,621 acres have burned, over 1,275 square miles. There are 20,685 firefighters engaged in battle on 1,568 engines in 450 crews assisted by 298 dozers, 413 water tenders, and 123 helicopters. 100 residences have been destroyed, and one civilian fatality has been attributed directly to the fires, a resident of Concow who failed to evacuate and appears to have burned with his home. Two other deaths have occurred, a sixty year old volunteer firefighter collapsed and died on the fire lines, and an elderly civilian woman died of an apparent heart attack while evacuating her home.

All the multiple airborne resources from other states and the Air National Guard are still in the air, flying sorties side-by-side with the air attack tankers and helicopters owned or contracted by Cal Fire. Last Friday Governor Schwarzenegger ordered an additional 2,000 National Guard troops into firefighting duty to help relieve those thousands of firefighters that have been engaged for weeks in the complex fires up north. Meanwhile, the federal government has committed $100 million and 80 percent of its firefighting resources to California, said Glen Cannon, an assistant administrator with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. I wonder what those "resources" are. $100 million will cover the costs incurred on maybe two of the dozen or more large complex fires still burning.

Closer to home, a monsoonal airmass is moving up out of Mexico over the southwest, including the Los Angeles basin, and we had some very light showers here in the OC last night. Nothing like measurable rain for us, but they had some impressive lightning displays and some good downpours in the San Gabriel Mountains and San Bernardino Mountains last night, and as mentioned earlier a damn good thunderstorm near Lake Isabella that dropped some measurable rain on the Piute Fire out there.

My two younger pups returned from north of the Piute Fire yesterday afternoon. They were above Kernville on the Kern River up in the canyon in Tulare County, quite far north of the Piute Fire. They did drive through a lot of smoke to get to their campsite, but once there the skies were clear and the weather hot, they tell me.

A few hours before they got home my eldest pup flew out to Chicago to see his lady friend. Considering he saved up money to pay for this himself, and knowing his financial picture as well as my Fox and I do, we're trying not to read too much into this, although there has been much bemused speculating, winking, and chuckling going on here at home in Mike's absence.

And Granny Fox flew in from New Orleans last night on an apparently less than pleasant flight. She didn't look so good at baggage claim at LAX, and kept telling us about all the odd noises she heard the aircraft (a Boeing 737 operated by United Airlines) making while coming back. As she flies every year, I'm assuming she knows something wasn't right, and wasn't just overly nervous. In any event, she's home save with us.

And finally, word reached our home last night that I lost another uncle. I believe DB had reached the ripe old age of 90, and passed of congestive heart failure. That's the second uncle I've lost this year, which bugs because I had only two to give up. I have no uncles left any more, and only two aunts, both of my dad's sisters. And the history of Alzheimer's, as some of you may know, is thick amongst them, so it's a sad and frustrating thing, and also a slightly chilling look into our own future.

Godspeed, DB. Put in a good word for all the firefighters down here when you sit down to chat with the Lord, will you?

11 July 2008

This morning's snapshot:

The total State and Federal fires in California number 1,781. Of those, the total contained fires number 1,459. 81% of the fires in California are contained, there are a total of 323 active fires left in the state, 23 complexes are actively threatening life and
property.

There are a total of 752,944 acres burned (1,176 square miles, slightly larger than the land mass of the state of Rhode Island), 19,900 personnel assigned, 118 total rotary aircraft, and 8 fixed wing aircraft. Other resources include: 140 Strike Teams/Task Forces, 1,498 engines, 282 dozers, 459 hand crews, 417 water tenders and 3,946 overhead. 262 firefighter injuries reported.

A dozer prepares to cut fireline near the community of Concow, near Paradise, California. The west edge of the Butte Complex Fire is advancing on the town of Paradise now, after running through Concow. The fire has cost nearly $40 million to fight... so far.
Image by Paul Chinn of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Property threatened or destroyed includes: 12,924 residences threatened, 6 residences damaged, and 100 residences destroyed. There are 135 commercial properties threatened, 0 (zero) commercial properties damaged, and 1 (one)
commercial property destroyed. 2,460 outbuildings threatened, 2 (two) outbuilding damaged, and 126 outbuildings destroyed.

U.S. Army Major General William H. Wade II, Adjutant General of the California Air National Guard, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger discuss firefighting missions at the McClellan Airfield on Friday 4 July. One of the C-130 MAFFS fire bombers awaits it's mission in the background.
Image by U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant Roy Santana, copyright © Associated Press.

National Guard and Air Force Reserve resources tasked to support firefighting activity include 31 air resources. The California National Guard has 1,069 Guardsmen on state status supporting the fires. In addition, there are Guard members from North Carolina in T10 federal status supporting MAFFS. National Guard Air Assets are deployed on the California Fires from 9 states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Nebraska and Wyoming.

A Sikorsky CH-53 Super Sea Stallion belonging to the Air National Guard prepares for a water drop on the Basin Complex Fire.
Image by Kurt Rogers of the San Francisco Chronicle.

The BTU (Butte) Complex is the number one priority in the state at the moment. The fire is at 48,800 acres and is 50 percent contained. There are currently 61 crews, 360 engines, 58 dozers, 56 water tenders, 339 overhead and 3,167 firefighters assigned to this fire. There are 24 firefighter injuries reported to date. Threatened structures include 3,800 residences. Destroyed structures include 50 residences and 10 outbuildings.

State agencies were asked by the State Operations Center (SOC) to undertake planning for possible evacuation of the town of Paradise (45-60,000 residents). The Butte County EOC is concerned about potential large scale evacuations of up to 37,000 people in the Paradise/Magalia area if local fires jump fire lines.

The Basin Complex is still burning near Big Sur. The total complex is at 108,026 acres and is 41 percent contained. There are currently 50 crews, 107 engines, 25 dozers, 43 water tenders, 469 overhead and 2,144 firefighters assigned to this fire. There are 6 injuries reported to date. Threatened structures include: 2,000 residences, 0 commercial building and 235 outbuildings. Destroyed structures include: 27 residences and 31 outbuildings. Damaged structures include: 1 residences, and 1 outbuilding. All national forest lands on the Monterey Ranger District are closed to public access. Mandatory evacuations are still in place in the Big Sur area.

Part of the Big Bear Hot Shots crew watches as Tanker 910 makes another run on the Gap Fire above Goleta.
Image by Mike Eliason for the Santa Barbara News-Press, copyright © Associated Press.

There has been much success on the Gap Fire near Goleta, above Santa Barbara. Evacuation orders have been reduced to an Evacuation Warning on much of the south side of the fire. The only current mandatory evacuation affects West Camino Cielo Road residents living west of Windemere Ranch. The fire is at 9,443 acres and is 75 percent contained. There are currently 39 crews, 64 engines, 16 dozers, 18 water tenders, 176 overhead and 1,173 firefighters assigned to this fire. There are 6 firefighter injuries reported. Structures threatened include 85 residences.

Tanker 00 making another drop on the Gap fire above Goleta. "00" is owned and operated by Aero Union out of Chico, California, the name that appears on the upper fuselage amidships. Image by Ray Ford.

Training is over for me. Monday it's back to the "normal" routine at work. Temperatures in the basin are moderate in the low eighties under hazy skies. The winds are gentle in the western Santa Ana Mountains, but they are out of the northeast, which causes some minor concern.

9 July 2008

Tanker 910, operated by 10 Tanker Air Carrier, earning her keep above the Piute Fire near Lake Isabella on 1 July 2008.
This is one of the heavy bombers of the firefighting air war, capable of dropping up to 12,000 gallons per sortie.
Image by David McNew / Getty Images.

Short form tonight:

As of 0735 today, across the state 675,631 acres burned (1,052 square miles). 18,954 firefighters engaged on 156 Strike Teams, 750 more individual engine teams, 1,530 total engines. 259 dozers, 388 hand crews, 398 water tenders, 110 rotary wing air attack, and 3,987 support personnel are also engaged. 233 firefighter injuries sustained. 96 homes destroyed...

Attack 72, a Grumman ST-2 owned and operated by Cal Fire and based out of Hemet Ryan airport, making a drop on the Gap Fire above Goleta on 3 July. The ST-2 is a variant of the venerable Tracker airframe and is capable of delivering up to 800 gallons of retardant on target. Nine Firefighting Trackers have crashed in the types service career with CDF / Cal Fire, killing twelve pilots. It's a tough old airframe,, though. One story has it that a CDF Tracker lost 25% of one wing and an aileron battling fires, and made it back to base safely.
Image by David McNew / Getty Images.

A gentleman I used to work with retired and moved to a small town called Paradise, east of Chico near the foot of the Feather River Canyon in the Sierra foothills. News came out today that he, along with his family and most of the rest of the town, have evacuated in advance of the Camp Fire, part of the massive Butte Lightning Complex of fires. Since 21 June the Butte Complex has consumed 49,000 acres of land, destroying 50 residences in the process. Tonight we keep Gary and his family in our prayers.

I'm in an emergency management training class today and tomorrow. The fires have been very much a topic of conversation. One of our instructors is retired LA County Fire, and even though he served for decades he speaks of the current situation in our state with awe in his voice and a certain level of trepidation, as well.

Triple digit temperatures across much of the southland today, more in store tomorrow. But the winds are gentle out of the southwest and the thick haze testifies to the high humidity. We also pray that it remains so.

6 July 2008

Not to be left out of the fun, the city of Malibu had a small brush fire of their own to contend with on the Fourth of July. It was limited to only 25 acres, destroyed three mobile homes, and forced the evacuation of about 200 campers at Malibu Creek State Park.But coming as it did at the height of our state's current burn-down, it sure got a lot of attention. The crews of the Los Angeles County Fire Department beat that fire into submission in short order with an aggressive ground and air attack. It was all but extinguished by nightfall, thanks in large part to the noticeable absence of General Santa Ana and his east winds. While we struggle with triple-digit temperatures and fairly low humidities, the winds are mostly calm or a gentle breeze out of the southwest, not howling out of the northeast.

Also on the Fourth, Governor Schwarzenegger ordered an additional 200 soldiers from the California National Guard to reinforce firefighters battling the fires in Northern California. This group of soldiers is in addition to the 200 troops the Governor ordered to duty as ground firefighters earlier this week. National Guard aviators have been flying fire suppression missions since the start of this fire emergency. The California National Guard has a total of 854 Guardsmen on state status supporting the fires. OES has verified that National Guard Air Assets have been provided by 10 states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Idaho, Nebraska and Wyoming.

Image by Phil Klein, Associated Press

Per the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), 40 states have provided assets or personnel to assist California with fire fighting operations since the fires began on June 21, 2008. (Forty states!)

There are currently 27 complexes that are actively threatening life and property. There are a total of 558,738 acres (873 square miles) burned, 20,382 personnel assigned, 109 total rotary aircraft, and 8 fixed wing aircraft. Other resources include: 151 Strike Teams/Task Forces, 1,623 engines, 314 dozers, 481 hand crews, 461 water tenders and 4,107 overhead. 190 firefighter injuries reported. 36 homes have been destroyed, that small a number a minor miracle in itself, given the area involved.

The air war goes on, but California has a lot of help. The United States Marine Corps is providing support with 6 CH-47
helicopters. The United States Navy is providing support with 2 CH-53 helicopters. National Guard and Air Force Reserve resources tasked to support firefighting activity include 28 air resources:

Activated Type 1 helicopters: (16 total)
6 UH 60 – California National Guard (1 Firehawk)
2 HH 60 - California National Guard
1 UH 60 – Idaho National Guard
2 UH 60 – Arizona National Guard
1 UH 60 - New Mexico National Guard
1 UH 60 - Nebraska National Guard
1 CH 47 – Oregon National Guard
1 CH 47 – Washington National Guard
1 CH-47 - California National Guard

Activated Type 3 helicopters: (3 total)
3 OH 58 – California National Guard

Imagery (infrared) and Reconnaissance: (1 total)
1 RC 26 – California National Guard

MAFFS (Federal Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System): (8 total)
3 MAFFS – US Air Force Reserve-Federal (Colorado)
3 MAFFS – North Carolina Air Guard
2 MAFFS – Wyoming Air Guard

A P-3 Orion tanker making a drop on The Gap Fire above Goleta, California yesterday.
Image copyright © The Los Angeles Times, image by Spencer Weiner

The Gap Fire continues to top the State's priority list. The fire is approximately 9,367 acres and 28 percent contained. There are currently 49 crews, 214 engines, 22 dozers, 55 water tenders, 318 overhead and 2,179 firefighters assigned to this fire. There are 2 firefighter injuries reported. Structures threatened include 2,869 residences, 228 commercial structures and 200 outbuildings. Four (4) outbuildings are reported destroyed. There are successes, though, and many of the evacuation orders have been lifted.

The Indians / Basin Complex Fire is still trying to make a run on the town of Big Sur. The total complex is 153,807 acres and 54 percent contained. Indians Fire is 81,378 acres and 97 percent contained. The Basin Complex is 72,429 acres and 11 percent contained. There are currently 52 crews, 161 engines, 28 dozers, 53 water tenders, 503 overhead and 2,362 firefighters assigned to this fire. There are 20 injuries reported to date. Threatened structures include: 2,199 residences, 24 commercial building and 335 outbuildings. Destroyed structures include: 24 residences and 30 outbuildings. Damaged structures include: 2 residences, and 1 outbuilding.

Here at The Range things continue to be reasonably calm. Tomorrow I go on TDY, temporary duty. I've been assigned to the telecommunications team for six months to help in the specification and deployment of a new company-wide two-way radio system. Somebody got wind of the fact that I know a little bit about two-way, it seems. I'm looking forward to the work, but really have no idea how it will impact my schedule in terms of my keyboard time. I am fairly confident that I'll be spending more time on the road and in the mountains, though, and that's always a good thing.

Triple digit temperatures remain in the forecast. More of the same for soCal, but if the General stays away, it's not so bad. No rain in the forecast, but that shouldn't surprise anybody.

Be safe...

4 July 2008

Happy Birthday America.

The situation has stabilized across many of the fire zones today, but new fires are growing in the southland. Here's the wrapup:

There are currently 26 complexes that are actively threatening life and property. There has been a total of 520,831 acres burned, 19,925 personnel assigned, 109 total rotary aircraft, and 0 fixed wing, other resources include: 152 Strike Teams/Task Forces, 1,570 engines, 327 dozers, 631 hand crews, 417 water tenders and 3,579 overhead. 170 firefighter injuries reported.

Property threatened or destroyed includes: 10,727 residences threatened, 4 residences damaged, and 34 residences destroyed. There are 421 commercial properties threatened, 0 (zero) commercial properties damaged, and 1 (one) commercial property destroyed. 3,016 outbuildings threatened, 0 (zero) outbuildings damaged, and 32 outbuildings destroyed.

The Gap Fire continues to plague the communities north of Santa Barbara. The fire is approximately 5,400 acres and 10 percent contained. There are currently 32 crews, 141 engines, 6 dozers, 9 water tenders, 56 overhead and 1,072 personnel assigned to this fire. There are no reported firefighter injuries. Structures threatened include 2,647 residences, 228 commercial structures and 200 outbuildings. No structures are reported destroyed. Mandatory evacuations affect 1,770 residences equaling approximately 4,425 people. This fire is the number one priority in the state this morning.

A small fire, The Ridge Fire, is burning in San Bernardino County near Yucaipa. It was contained yesterday at 250 acres.

Meanwhile I made some good use of my spare time this morning, and eagerly read the first five chapters of Kellan Meig'h's Destiny's Change. It's a good enough read that I'll probably finish it off before the weekend is over.

All is quiet here in Orange County, although the Fire Authority is bracing for the pyromaniacal onslaught that will come at sunset.The Governor and Cal Fire have been pleading with the populace of California to leave the fireworks shows to the professionals this holiday, and to not light off fireworks at their residences (or anywhere else). Fat chance of that gaining public support. I suspect by this time tomorrow there will be quite a few stories in the news about various parts of the state burning down thanks to the combinations of dry heat, wind, tinder-dry wildlands, and fireworks.

Be careful this holiday weekend, my friends. Stay safe.

3 July 2008

California's Fourth of July goes on, the fires continue to burn up north as new fires start down south. Today inland temperatures around the coyote's den will push into the triple digits, but General Santa Ana is elsewhere. Up in Fremont Canyon right now, in the northern Santa Ana Mountains, the air temperature is 86 degrees with the relative humidity at 47% and winds at 8 miles per hour out of the southwest. Here's what's happening on the fire lines:

There are a total of 1,781 fires burning in the state, 1,414 of them are contained. There are currently 28 complexes that are actively threatening life and property; 21 are located in Northern California and 7 are located in Southern California. There has been a total of 505,872 acres burned (790 square miles), 20,254 personnel assigned, 119 total rotary aircraft, and 0 fixed wing, other resources include: 146 Strike Teams/Task Forces, 1,503 engines, 340 dozers, 571 hand crews, 428 water tenders and 3,569 overhead. 155 firefighter injuries reported.

Property threatened or destroyed includes: 8,307 residences threatened, 4 residences damaged, and 31 residences destroyed. There are 193 commercial properties threatened, 0 (zero) commercial properties damaged, and 1 (one) commercial property destroyed. 2,816 outbuildings threatened, 0 (zero) outbuildings damaged, and 32 outbuildings destroyed.

Military and Out-of-State Resources include:
* The United States Marine Corps is providing support with 6 CH-47 helicopters.
* The United States Navy is providing support with 2 CH-53 helicopters.

The California National Guard has 765 Guardsmen on state status supporting the fires. National Guard resources tasked to support firefighting activity include 23 air resources:

Activated Type 1 helicopters: (11 total)
6 UH 60 – California National Guard (1 Firehawk)
1 UH 60 – Nevada National Guard
1 UH 60 – Arizona National Guard
1 CH 47 – California National Guard
1 CH 47 – Oregon National Guard
1 CH 47 – Washington National Guard

Activated Type 3 helicopters: (3 total)
2 OH 58 – California National Guard
1 OH 58 – New Mexico National Guard

Imagery (infrared) and Reconnaissance: (1 total)
1 RC 26 – California National Guard

MAFFS (Federal Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System - C-130 aircraft, 8 total):
3 MAFFS – Colorado Guard
3 MAFFS – North Carolina Guard
2 MAFFS – Wyoming Guard

Fires of note in the southland include:

The Gap Fire
Santa Barbara County
Approximately 2,400 acres and 0 percent contained.
There are currently 2 crews, 30 engines, 4 water tenders, 15 overhead and 227 personnel assigned to this fire.
There are no reported firefighter injuries.
Structures threatened include 200 residences. and zero commercial structure.
No structures are reported destroyed.
Glen Annie Canyon and La Patera Canyon have mandatory evacuation order affecting 40 residences.

Indians Fire
(Includes the Basin Complex) Big, Sur, Monterey County
The total complex is 145,683 acres and is 49 percent contained. Indians Fire is 81,378 acres and 95 percent contained. The Basin Complex is 64,305 acres and 3 percent contained.
There are currently 61 crews, 172 engines, 35 dozers, 15 water tenders, 452 overhead and 2,412 personnel assigned to this fire.
There are 19 injuries reported to date.
Threatened structures include: 2,199 residences, 1 commercial buildings and 10 outbuildings.
Destroyed structures include: 19 residences and 16 outbuildings.
Damaged structures include: 1 residence.
Mandatory Evacuation Order, Indians Fire: Issued for Arroyo Seco Road west of Carmel Valley Road (west of Greenfield); approximately 40 households affected. A thirty mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway is reported closed at this time due to the fire.

Piute Fire
Kern County near Twin Oaks
14,520 acres burned, 15% contained
27 hand crews, 3 medium and 1 heavy helicopter, 7 heavy air tankers on order, 2 lead planes, 84 engines, 6 dozers, 11 water tenders, 2 camp crews, and 1,323 total personnel.
1,231 structures threatened

Clover Fire
Sequoia and Inyo National Forests in the South Sierra Wilderness, north of Kennedy Meadows and south of Beck Meadow, California.
15,235 acres. - 40% Contained
5 helicopters, 16 hand crews, 6 engines, 1 dozer, and a total of 513 personnel assigned

Farther south, at USMC Camp Pendleton, the Yankee Fire was reported yesterday. It's burning into the Cleveland National Forest, which has taken command of the incident with support from the USMC and Cal Fire. Last night it was said to be over 125 acres in size. Five engines, seven fire crews, two bulldozers, three tanker airplanes and three helicopters were engaged in the fight. The flames were burning into steep, rugged terrain near San Mateo Canyon, but no structures were threatened.

As I explained to Tigermark earlier this morning, things are quiet here at the coyote's den in the Santa Ana Mountains. It seems the state is aflame all around us, but here in soCal it's fairly calm. Hopefully that trend will continue...

Oh! And did I mention that we have another rock star in the den?

29 June 2008

More about the fires up north from OES. They can tell it as well as I can...::

On 28 June 2008 a Presidential declaration was proclaimed to include the Counties of Butte, Mendocino, Monterey, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Trinity counties beginning on June 20, 2008 and continuing. EM 3287 – “Emergency protective measures, limited to direct Federal assistance….”

There are over 1000 fires currently burning in California. There are currently 30 complexes that are actively threatening life and property; 25 are located in Northern California and 5 are located in Southern California.

There has been a total of 356,134 acres burned, 18,608 personnel assigned, 82 total rotary aircraft, other resources include: 150 Strike Teams/Task Forces, 1,377 engines, 331 dozers, 465 hand crews, 375 water tenders and 3,001 overhead. That's 556 square miles of scorched earth...

Property threatened or destroyed includes: 7,589 residences threatened, 4 residences damaged, and 29 residences destroyed. 135 commercial properties threatened, 0 (zero) commercial properties damaged, and 1 (one) commercial property destroyed. 2,856 outbuildings threatened, 0 (zero) outbuildings damaged, and 21 outbuildings destroyed.

National Guard resources tasked to support firefighting activity include 23 air resources. (Type 1 helicopters have water dropping capability. Type 3 helicopters are smaller helicopters used for reconnaissance. Imagery aircraft provide infrared/reconnaissance support. MAFFS (Modular Airborne Fighting Systems) is a pressurized 3,000 gallon tank installed on a C-130 aircraft used to drop fire retardant or water.)

Activated Type 1 helicopters: (12 total)
5 UH 60 – California National Guard
1 UH 60 – Nevada National Guard
1 UH 60 – Oregon National Guard
1 UH 60 – Arizona National Guard
1 CH 47 – California National Guard
1 CH 47 – Nevada National Guard
1 CH 47 – Oregon National Guard
1 CH 47 – Washington National Guard

Activated Type 3 helicopters: (2 total)
2 OH 58 – California National Guard

Imagery (infrared) and Reconnaissance: (3 total)
1 RC 26 – Mississippi National Guard
1 RC 26 – California National Guard
1 C23 – Washington National Guard (Fixed Wing aircraft)

MAFFS (Federal Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System): (6 total)
2 MAFFS – Colorado Guard
2 MAFFS – North Carolina Guard
2 MAFFS – Wyoming Guard

Coordination is ongoing for Title 10 Forces to provide 4 additional helicopters in support of California Wildland firefighting operations. These helicopters will likely come from the U.S. Marine Corps. California has activated the Military Coordination Group to synchronize and coordinate military resources from all branches and components.

The California National Guard has 358 Guardsmen on state status from California, Oregon, and Nevada supporting the fires. Guardsmen from Washington and Mississippi were added yesterday. In addition, there are Guard members from North Carolina in a T10 federal status supporting MAFFS.

OES has verified Federal, State and Local Resources from 8 states: Arizona, Colorado, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Washington, Oregon and Wyoming. God bless these folks who are willing to go to another state to fight their fires.

Department of Defense (DOD) NORTHCOM, through the Commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, requested a Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle be deployed for Defense Support to Civil Authorities in support of the California wildfires.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) NASA is providing the Ikhana Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in support of the California fires; tentative first mission over Northern California will be July 1, 2008. Ikhana is a Predator B modified to perform multiple civil research roles and capable of collecting data for up to 30 hours.

And the weather isn't cooperating much. Red Flag Warnings remain in effect for scattered thunderstorms and dry lightning for the majority of northern California through Monday. Fire Weather Watches remain in effect for the majority of northern and central California through this evening due to the threat of scattered to numerous thunderstorms and dry lightning. Afternoon thunderstorms and dry lightning are a threat for areas of northern and central California through the weekend. And air quality in northern California will continue to be affected by the numerous wildfires in the foothills and mountain areas.

That last is misleading. There's a lot of nasty stuff in smoke and ash, chemicals that are high in acid content and smoke that's high in abrasive materials content, stuff that'll damage and tear your lungs up and leave them permanently injured if you ingest enough of it. The firefighters are protected by their personal protective equipment (PPE) from this stuff, but the entire northern two thirds of the state of California is either submerged in or shaded by a huge smoke cloud. God knows how many civilians are getting lungsful of this stuff.

The battles rage on. Everything from the little Robinson R-22 helicopters flying spotter to the C-130 MAFFs fire bombers are in the air, doing what they can to support the legions of firefighters on the ground. We'll win, but there's been dozens of injuries so far. With God's grace no one will die.

Pray for the brave folks who fight these fires. It's a war waged against a mighty enemy with seemingly unlimited resources.

27 June 2008

My son Adam returned home last night on another red-eye flight, none the worse for his experiences in Guatemala City. I'm sure he has stories to tell, and pictures to show, but he's not here. Alas, 17 year old males and birthday parties seem to attract each other. For that matter, his 21 year old brother seemed to get reeled in to the party fairly easily, too. They're both out for the evening. I'm sure I'll get the story out of Adam, just as soon as I get off this shutdown schedule and get off these twelve and a half hour shifts.

We're having a problem up north. There are over 1000 wildland fires burning in California. There are currently 31 fires that are actively threatening life and property; 25 are located in Northern California and 6 are located in Southern California. Here's the numbers. For the sake of brevity I will not list fires of less than 1,000 acres burned. If you want to skip the specifics and see the summary, go here.

Northern California

BTU Lightning Complex
North of the Concow Lake in Butte County
31 fires, 10,660 acres burned, 15% contained
22 crews, 155 engines, 26 dozers, 15 water tenders, 219 overhead, 4 camp crews and 1,313 firefighters
1,200 structures threatened
4 injuries reported to date

SHU Lightning Complex
near Shingletown in Butte County
158 fires, 35,000 acres burned, 5% contained
14 crews, 9 helicopters, 146 engines, 35 dozers, 72 water tenders, 194 overhead, 5 camp crews and 1,129 firefighters
230 residences threatened, 1 damaged
3 injuries reported to date

Lime Complex Fire
Trinity County
70 fires, 19,000 acres burned, 15% contained
6 crews, 2 helicopters, 7 engines, 0 dozers, 1 water tenders, 40 overhead, 2 camp crews and 219 firefighters
1 commercial property destroyed, 1,500 residences threatened
1 injury reported to date

Iron Complex
Near Junctions City in Trinity County
38 fires, 12,500 acres burned, 5% contained
15 crews, 3 helicopters, 26 engines, 7 dozers, 6 water tenders, 110 overhead, 2 camp crews and 578 firefighters
850 residences, 50 commercial properties threatened
0 injuries reported to date

MEU Lightning Complex
Near the Rancho Navarro subdivision in Mendocino County
87 fires, 27,000 acres burned, 5% contained
19 crews, 7 helicopters, 83 engines, 26 dozers, 30 water tenders, 188 overhead, 4 camp crews and 988
2 residences destroyed, 900 threatened
2 injuries reported to date

American River Complex
Tahoe National Forest in Placer County
10 fires, 2,170 acres burned, 5% contained
6 crews, 1 helicopter, 8 engines, 5 dozers, 1 water tenders, 60 overhead and 220 firefighters
1 residence destroyed, 5 threatened
1 injury reported to date

Yuba River Complex
In Yuba, Nevada, and Sierra Counties
25 fires, 2,803 acres burned, 35% contained
17 crews, 28 engines, 5 dozers, 9 water tenders, 60 overhead, 2 camp crews and 628 firefighters
100 residences threatened
11 injuries reported to date

Walker Fire
Lake and Colusa Counties (originally located near Indian Valley Reservoir in Lake County)
14,500 acres burned, 70% contained
15 crews, 7 helicopters, 61 engines, 24 dozers, 16 water tenders, 85 overhead, 4 camp crews and 689 firefighters
0 structures threatened
6 injuries reported to date

Humboldt Complex
Humboldt County
55 fires, 1,125 acres burned, 50% contained
12 crews, 6 helicopters, 71 engines, 23 dozers, 20 water tenders, 66 overhead, 1 camp crew and 645 firefighters
500 residences threatened
1 injury reported to date

Canyon Complex
Plumas National Forest in Plumas County
50 fires, 7,664 acres burned, 5% contained
29 crews, 4 helicopters, 44 engines, 9 dozers, 18 water tenders, 144 overhead, 5 camp crews and 938 firefighters
20 residences threatened
0 injuries reported to date

TGU Lightning Complex
Tehama County
34 fires, 14,541 acres burned, 40% contained
5 crews, 2 helicopters, 24 engines, 12 dozers, 9 water tenders, 65 overhead and 301 firefighters
0 structures threatened
1 injury reported to date

Siskiyou Complex
Siskiyou County
5 fires, 5,000 acres burned, 12% contained
13 crews, 1 helicopter, 15 engines, 9 dozers, 10 water tenders, 74 overhead, 27 camp crews and 580 firefighters
2 residences threatened
0 injuries reported to date

Hell's Half Complex
Near Burnt Ranch in Humboldt/Trinity Counties
9 fires, 1,450 acres burned, 15% contained
9 crews, 18 engines, 3 dozers, 7 water tenders, 72 overhead, 2 camp crews and 349 firefighters
22 residences threatened
2 injuries reported to date

Ukonom Complex
Near Orleans and Somes Bar, Humboldt County
9 fires, 4,100 acres burned, 3% contained
4 crews, 1 helicopter, 3 engines, 1 water tender, 63 overhead, 2 camp crews and 195 firefighters
12 residences threatened
0 injuries reported to date

Whiskeytown Complex
8 miles west of Redding in Shasta County
5 fires, 3,600 acres burned, 10% contained
5 crews, 2 helicopter, 9 engines, 1 water tender, 42 overhead, 2 camp crews and 189 firefighters
12 commercial properties threatened
0 injuries reported to date

Soda Complex
15 miles northwest of Upper Lake in Lake County
3,500 acres, 50% contained
8 crews, 2 helicopters, 15 engines, 4 dozers, 3 water tenders, 32 overhead and 268 firefighters
2 residences destroyed, 30 residences threatened
1 injury reported to date

Mad Complex
Humboldt and Trinity Counties
1,450 acres burned, 25% contained
12 crews, 1 helicopter, 13 engines, 4 dozers, 8 water tenders, 17 overhead, 1 camp crew and 323 firefighters
75 residences threatened
1 injuries reported to date

Corral Fire
Upper Gooch Valley in Lassen County
3,200 acres burned, 0% contained
2 crews, 6 engines, 9 dozers, 6 water tenders, 7 overhead and 99 firefighters
0 structures threatened
1 injury reported to date

Peterson Complex
12 miles east of Cassell in Shasta County
7,480 acres burned, 45% contained
9 crews, 2 helicopters, 17 engines, 11 dozers, 14 water tenders 64 overhead, and 343 firefighters
30 residences threatened
0 injuries reported to date

Mill Complex
In the Ishi Wilderness in Tehama County
2,100 acres burned, 0% contained
no crews on scene

Cub Complex
16 miles SE of Chester in Lassen County
2,200 acres, 15% contained
15 crews, 14 helicopter, 10 engines, 5 water tenders, 88 overhead, 4 camp crews and 532 firefighters
0 structures threatened
2 injuries reported to date

Southern California

Basin Complex Fire
Near Big Sur in Monterey County
2 fires, 26,763 acres burned, 3% contained
24 crews, 3 helicopter, 54 engines, 9 dozers, 11 water tenders, 89 overhead, 3 camp crews and 743 firefighters
16 residences destroyed, 500 threatened
1 injury reported to date

Oliver Complex
North of Ponderosa Basin in Madera and Mariposa Counties
2,200 acres burned, 20% contained
27 crews, 5 helicopters, 141 engines, 15 dozers, 11 water tenders, 89 overhead and 1,238 firefighters
200 residences threatened
8 injuries reported to date

North Mountain Fire
7 miles northeast of Groveland in Tuolumne County
1,411 acres burned, 30% contained
9 crews, 3 helicopter, 29 engines, 2 dozers, 5 water tenders, 81 overhead, 2 camp crews and 422 firefighters
200 residences threatened
5 injuries reported to date

Indians Fire
Located in the Ventana Wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest
59,703 acres burned, 71% contained
37 crews, 11 helicopter, 57 engines, 7 dozers, 30 water tenders, 356 overhead, 2 camp crews and 1,414 firefighters
2 residences destroyed, 422 threatened
15 injuries reported to date

Clover Fire
8 miles north of Kennedy Meadows in the South Sierra Wilderness in Tulare/Inyo Counties
15,217 acres burned, 45% contained
18 crews, 7 helicopter, 17 engines, 1 dozers, 3 water tender, 159 overhead and 728 firefighters
12 residences threatened
0 injuries reported to date

I'll do the math for you. Tonight there are over 15,000 firefighters scattered across central and northern California working more than 286,000 acres of fire zone (almost 450 square miles), battling blazes caused mostly by lightning. In addition to our own crews the National Guard has 170 personnel from California, Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada supporting the fires, mostly in air ops, and is expecting more from Washington, Mississippi, and elsewhere. The NG has 10 water dropping helicopters and 6 MAFFS (C-130s equipped with the Modular Airborne FireFighting System), and an RC-26 imagery aircraft from Mississippi. The US Marine Corps is also stepping up with 4 helicopters of their own.

A Red Flag Warning is in effect from 1100 hours today through 2000 hours Saturday evening for the Sierra Nevada from Yosemite Park south to Kings Canyon Park, to the Fresno/Tulare County line.

It's ominously quiet here in the OC. No one says much, but we can't help but think our turn is coming. The hot, dry, windy part of the summer hasn't arrived yet. When it gets here, you can bet we'll be busy...

17 June 2008

Tonight my younger son is on the red-eye flight, destination Guatemala City, Central America. He's on his first international missions trip at the tender age of 17, freshly graduated from high school yesterday. It was hard to watch him go, but I'm excited for him.

Meanwhile, I've tinkered with the next piece of Transport long enough. The start of Chapter Two has been posted to the Stories section. Enjoy...

A feeder is being shutdown tomorrow, and we move into shutdown scheduling. We don't normally shut down feeders in the hot, high-flow part of the year, but apparently there were enough problems uncovered in a recent inspection that the big cheeses decided it wouldn't be prudent to wait until this winter when flows are considerably lower. So I work an odd seven day shift next week, Wednesday to Wednesday, twelve and a half hours a day. Yay.

<shrugs> With Adam starting college and Mike still finishing, I guess I can use the cash flow.

Peace, friends.

8 June 2008

I added a short story today called Gee Too. It can be found in the Stories section under Other Interesting Things. I've been working on this for quite a while, little bits at a time, but it's not very long. Let me know what you think.

I've also been working on the next part of Transport. A few more late evenings musings and that should be appearing as well.

Speaking of books, I just finished reading a great little book called Don Coyote. It's not fiction, and is written by one who learned to understand and support the natural order of things, Dayton O. Hyde. My next subject for reading: Kellan Meig'h's Destiny's Change. I don't know how much aviating the old warhorse has packed into this story, but I'm going to find out, and I'll report on my findings here.

Not much new and different to report on the home front. Now that the school year is ending my pups are all running off in different directions. Mike is already back east for a conference at Willow Creek, Adam is in the final stages of preparing for a missions trip to Guatemala. Meanwhile The Fox and I are trying to set up a family gathering up in Oregon, where a sizeable chunk of what's left of my own family has started to settle. We can't help feeling that this may be the "last hurrah" for a lot of them, my folks included, who are becoming too old to travel great distances, so there is some pressure on us to get this done this summer. Lots of planning.

My job takes me farther and farther afield. I'll be learning more about places like Santa Rosa, Chuckwalla, and Cactus City in the near future as we build out sites and make upgrades to existing systems. I've been doing a site survey of stuff we already have operational and finding that much of what we're working with is, while functional, substandard. Lots of work for me to do, not the least of which is wading through the murky halls of budget and authority. It's difficult to get things done when you don't have a budget, it forces you to go hat-in-paw every time you need money to buy parts or equipment. It gets even harder when you're not sure who your boss is this week, or who's budget should fund whatever it is you need.

All in a day's work for a coyote in the mountains...

25 May 2008

My Fox and I celebrated our 18th anniversary last night. Nothing spectacular, but we did get a chance to spend several hours alone with each other, which is a cherished gift in and of itself.

Today I uploaded the album from our '08 Easter Break trip to the Owens Valley. This link takes you directly to the album, or you can go to the Albums Page and start from there.

A week ago it was 105 degrees under clear, breezy skies with a mild Santa Ana condition. Last Thursday four tornadoes touched down in various parts of the Inland Empire, my base of operations had quarter-sized hail in a downpour that left inches of water running in the streets, and Silverado, Modjeska, and Williams Canyons in the Santa Ana Mountains were all closed and evacuated for mud slides. Mud also flowed across Santiago Canyon Road at Cooks Corner, blocking my most direct return route to the plant. We were able to navigate around it, but it added time to the day's work.

The weather continues to be cool, damp, and unstable. But no worries, the summer hasn't started yet, even though fire season has. Up north in Santa Clara County the Summit Fire is raising all kinds of hell with folks. It's only a matter of time before they start burning down here in soCal again.

My big project on the pipeline is done, except for the documentation. I should feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders, but I have to turn immediately around and dive into my next emergency preparedness exercise, which I've been under the gun to get started for quite a while now. So the pressure is still there, just over a different project. <sighs> It's always something.

Later in the day: I also cleaned up some dead or incorrect links at my Links page and at at my About SC page.

18 May 2008

They say that you can forestall the advance of AD (Alzheimer's Disease) by keeping the person afflicted with it active and engaged in things they enjoy. Well, I figured, what could be better than an air show? And it so happens that right across the smoking and smoldering Chino Hills lies Chino Airport, home of the Planes Of Fame Museum and host of the annual Planes Of Fame Air Show. So off we went with our cameras, and my results are at the Album Page.

I know I haven't yet assembled the Easter '08 album. I'm working on it.

Stress is high, but plans are being made and we're all coming to grips with what the future may hold. My mom is building her support group within the family, and we're all coming together to do what we can, what we must. These short breaks from the routine are fun for my dad now, and hopefully will continue to be for a while. My mom enjoyed her time at home as much as my dad had fun with me, I think. I need to do this for both of them on a more regular basis.

Lots of fires burning around here, but that's not an unusual thing.

26 April 2008

It's been a while, hasn't it?

My thanks to the furs who thought to inquire of my absence. One of you knows more or less the full story. Our trip was OK, not without it's expensive adventures, but we survived to tell the tale. The condensed version of the big news is broken down to this: my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease upon the return from our trip.

Not to make myself out the drama queen, but this was a life-changing event for the lot of us. I am an only child. My folks are both the youngest of their families; all my mom's siblings are deceased. My father's two older sisters, while still among us, are both suffering from and in the advanced stages of the same disease. What that translates to is that my 82 year old mother and I (assisted by my Fox and our pups) are the only caregivers. Now, in addition to pondering how to fund college for my younger son and daughter, I must also consider the in-home and hospice care that is certainly a part of my father's future at some point.

Right now he is in what the doctors call the "early stages." His noticeable symptoms are general short-term memory problems (mostly of the "what was I doing?" or "where are my keys?" type) and an ever increasing difficulty in finding the words he needs to construct sentences. It is very frustrating for him, and now that he knows what his future holds I'm sure it's a tiny bit terrifying as well. It certainly is for me.

My father has always met life head-on. When I was a very young pup of six, he went through a plate glass window at work and almost severed his left paw. The only things holding it to his arm were the bones of his wrist. Back in the 1960s this was a big deal, because not many doctors knew how to re-attach severed tendons and re-construct a paw. But my dad latched on to this guy that said he could repair the damage and went for it. The surgery was a smashing success for the day. He recovered about 90% of the use of his paw, the only things he could no longer do were grip a ski pole or chord a guitar. (Due to their shortened length, the tendons of his left paw would not, and do not now, allow him to completely close a fist or completely open his fingers flat and straight.) This incident, and the loss of his two favorite hobbies of skiing and guitar playing, lead directly to his career as a private pilot. Before his paw was fully healed he was taking lessons.

In his mid-sixties cancer tried to get him; he underwent a colostomy surgery within a week of being told of his condition and recovered to a perfectly normal life that included international travel, flying, and four-wheeling with his Jeeps. When he was diagnosed with clogged arteries in his late sixties, he immediately scheduled a double bypass and underwent it within a week. Again he recovered fully and continued to live actively, which included long bicycle rides with me. That double bypass also caused a battle with the FAA, which suspended his medical certificate until he could prove that he was still fit to fly as pilot in command. It took him two years of fighting with the feds and the doctors, but his iron will and perseverance paid off and he prevailed. At 70 years of age he won back his medical certificate. We got that happy news on my birthday.

A couple years after that, my dad "hung up his gloves" after a thirty-plus year flying career. He confessed to me that he felt he had slowed down to the point that he couldn't keep up with the aircraft in an emergency. He voluntarily did not seek to renew his medical. It was probably the hardest decision he's ever made in his life, flying was his life. But he stayed active flying with friends as a passenger / copilot. I reassured him that he was making the right decision, that he was retiring undefeated. All those years, all those hours in the air, and never a forced landing, never any bent aluminum, never any near misses... a perfect career. He should be proud. I am.

At age 80 my dad decided that he had put up with enough joint pain, and had his left knee replaced. Those of you who were reading my blog back in the summer of '06 remember the post-op fun he had with Dilaudid, a pain killer. But even so, he recovered much faster than expected and once again returned to a normal, active life.

This is different. Other than a couple medications (Aricept and Namenda) that may moderate early symptoms and slow the progression of the disease, there is absolutely nothing any of us can do for him. The die are cast, the future is clear. Unless the Lord takes him some other way before the fact, this will kill him. And it will be a slow, consumptive, and painful demise for all of us to endure.

I have been furious with God and have had my say. This is a horribly inhumane and unjust way to take such a strong and good man, a teacher, husband, father, and grandfather. The hell this has and will put my family through is not warranted, and I do not approach this time of our lives with anything except all the love I can muster for my family and a slow-burning, all consuming rage against whatever grand design has brought this about. I will break the jaws of the first five souls who try to persuade me that there is anything resembling a "silver lining" in any of this.

As you might imagine, throwing this on top of all the other things I have been challenged with, both at home and on the job, has pretty much screwed me out of any recreational time to myself. Writing has ground to a stop. Reading has ground to a stop. I have an in-box full of stories to proofread, and at the end of the day can not muster the energy to even open them, let alone read their contents. It's all I can do to keep up with the few e-mails I get of a personal nature, and even those may languish for days before I find them.

But the absolute worst has been the tension between my Fox and I. She gets understandably upset at my prolonged absences, at the amount of my time that is spent with my folks at their home. She understands the necessity of it, she does not resent me or them for it, but she doesn't like it. And that has put us on a bit of a knife edge just when we should be hunkering down together for the next fight of our lives. We communicate a lot when we can (usually very late in the evening), and that helps a lot. I growl and snarl my way into the conversation, ranting and railing against "the way things are," and she is there for me, quietly absorbing whatever verbal vitriol I might have pent up inside. She implores me to take some time to myself, to spend some time with her, to remember that I am not the bottomless cup of solutions and energy.

<sighs>

And the Ducks lost in the first round of the playoffs. And fires continue to burn in soCal, planes continue to crash, folks continue to find new and devious ways to do harm to each other. And I don't care.

So everything here at The Range has more or less ground to a stop, like a motor minus it's oil. I have no idea when things will get better, or if they will, at least in terms of my writing. I will try and maintain a presence on line for my friends, but it will most likely be confined to e-mail as my keyboard time is very sporadic and limited these days.

I pray life is treating you well, my friends. Please excuse my continued absence. Know that I wish I had the time to play, the time to relax, the time to create with you once again. Someday, perhaps. But not any time soon.

21 March 2008

It seems I have failed to meet my obligations as a proofreader once again. <Tips hat to the tiger.> Sorry my friend. Matters of state, you know? No rest for the wicked.

Speaking of which, I am removing myself from this tangled mass of idiocy that is soCal for a while. I'm at the end of my rope, and must get some time in solitude and open spaces before I self-destruct completely. I've been a very difficult coyote to be around the past few weeks, and owe it to myself and my family to try and straighten myself out while there's still something to salvage. This isn't a swan song, but it may help to explain my absence and inattentiveness.

Believe it or not, I have been trying to write. I've cobbed together some crap for a couple of my stories, but I'm not pleased with any of it, so it's in limbo and will very likely get tossed. And I've got a basic plot for my final contribution to ALN lined out, but am still trying to figure how to make the continuity work. Maybe I'll find some inspiration in the desert, maybe I won't. If I come back alive and reasonably well adjusted then the trip will have been a success. Hell, I'll be happy if I can just get a decent night's sleep.

Enough howling. I'll post something here when I get back. Peace...

1 March 2008

I'm an impatient fur. I don't have time to wait around for my body to auto-correct. So Last Monday, after a weekend of doing absolutely nothing, I hit the ground running and haven't stopped. Too much to do. That may be good, or it may not be. I'm still sore, and kind of stiff when my feet first hit the floor in the morning, but I'm warm and loose by the time I'm dressed for the work day. At the end of the day... well sometimes I need a bit of that medicine that comes in the square bottle with the black label.

Tonight we achieve the belated celebration of Granny Fox's birthday at a favorite haunt. Most of the pups will be in attendance, I'm not sure about Mike. My college son is hard to find these days, hiding as he is behind his eighteen unit workload, his jobs in ministry, and his new girlfriend. <grins> Yeah, we've met her. She's cute, intelligent, a fellow student at Biola, but most importantly, she seems to be a good fit with him. They are a relaxed and engaging couple. My Fox and I dare to smile and speculate with happy thoughts.

The beast is one hundred percent operational after a new water pump and a brake job. Aramis and Tigermark may not recognize it because it no longer drools and grumbles, but fear not, friends. Trips to the high passes are in the offing, so I'm sure that by the time Easter has come and gone and we gather around the camp fires to reminisce the good times, there will be sizeable puddles of questionable and objectionable fluids abounding, not to mention a scuffed skid plate or two and some rearranged paint. Like me, the beast soldiers on, dents, scuffs, and marginally operational sub-systems not withstanding.

Gee Too got put on hold when my muse crept up on me last night and grabbed my tail fiercely, twisting it with all her might. As I related to Lucky Bab while the work was ongoing, I've got over 1900 words towards the next chapter of The B Team, and it feels like it's barely beginning. Poor Joe, he's about to discover that there are indeed things in life more difficult to deal with than recalcitrant transports and hardball schedules. <grins evilly> It'll be fun!

I could go on and on about the Ducks and the Kings, but you can read the stats yourselves. All I can say about the Kings is better luck next season, guys. I love ya, but get it together. The Ducks are one point back from the Dallas Stars in the Pacific Division, which is why they aren't in the top three of the western conference. The Ducks are 9-1-0, the Stars 8-2-0 in the last ten games. A fierce battle for the top spot in the division is developing between the two teams, a fight the Calgary Flames got a taste of last night at the Pond when Anaheim fought them down to a 3-1 victory. The game included four fighting majors, a game misconduct call against Todd Bertuzzi, an unsportsmanlike conduct call against Dion Phaneuf, and more minors than you could count on your paws, mostly for roughing. It was a very physical game, my Fox and I were overjoyed. <smiles> That battle will erupt again, I'm sure, when the Stars greet the Ducks in Dallas on the 19th. That'll be a game to watch.

Randy Carlyle was not present last night, he is suffering from the same flu that has been sweeping the NHL in the past few weeks. Assistant coach Dave Farrish earned his first career win, stepping up to skipper the Ducks to their victory with the assistance of team captain Chris Pronger behind the bench. Chris was himself sidelined after surgery to repair the damage to his jaw inflicted by the stick of Patrick Sharp of the Blackhawks, on the follow-through of a scoring slap shot last Sunday.

Thin as the Ducks ranks looked, they were strong on the ice, and none shone better than JS Giguere, who made save after amazing save with a seeming nonchalance. He allowed one goal on 23 shots, he is now 29-16-5 for the season with a 91.9% save percentage and a GAA of 2.19. He is tied for fourth overall amongst his net minding peers, flying high with the likes of Martin Brodeur, Evgeni Nabokov, Miikka Kiprusoff, Marty Turco, and Henrik Lundqvist. He was honored at the end of last nights game along with Scott Niedermayer as one of the stars of the game, an honor richly deserved.

So. Today it's all about furniture shopping, pizza and chianti, a pretty Fox, and maybe some keyboard time late this evening to spend with Joe and Lola and the rest of The B Team. Enjoy your weekend!

22 February 2008

It had to happen sooner or later, I suppose.

As I've explained to a couple friends individually already, it seems that my zealously industrial, full-throttle lifestyle has caught up with me. For the past couple of days I've been sitting on my tail doing virtually nothing, waiting for my back to stop paining me.

This is not an unusual situation, really, although it had been getting rare. I used to have this kind of trouble annually just about this time of year. Arthritis in my lower back, the doc says. No kidding. But somehow I managed to miss the past two or three years, so while this is familiar and I know how to eventually remedy the pain, it was still kind of unexpected. <sighs> God has been reminding me of my age, no doubt, I suppose I've been too busy to listen to all but this latest message.

So while the cold fronts push through soCal and the rain falls, my projects are all on hold pending my return to normal operational status. Hopefully I'll be back to kicking tail by the end of this week, when temperatures are forecast to return to the eighties under clear, hazy skies.

Every storm cloud has a silver lining though, and the silver lining in my storm system right this minute is an extremely rare opportunity to catch up on my proofreading for various authors. And while I have yet to do any writing of my own, I'm certainly feeling the itch to do so. Perhaps by the end of this weekend I'll have fleshed out Gee Too a bit, or maybe (God forbid!) started on the next chapter of The B Team. My muse has been needling me a bit, now that I'm forced to remain somewhat a stationary target I guess her job is easier. Yay me.

I had to drop back behind the goal and make a line change Tuesday. I got shut out again at Box Springs, this time apparently by a hidden receiver problem and an even more mysterious problem in a eight-bay duplexer. So my friend Bruce and I, along with Larry's help late in the day, ripped the entire system out and trucked it down the hill, back to my shop. Johnstone is next in my sights, but I have some emergency preparedness exercise stuff to get through before I can make that happen.

The Los Angeles Kings have had a couple of impressive wins lately, taking the Calgary Flames 6-3 on the 15th and most recently blasting the St. Louis Blues 5-1. But in between those victories were a couple of losses at the paws of the Phoenix Coyotes, one of them an embarrassing 4-0 shutout right here in Los Angeles. Even with the recent wins they are still at the bottom of the Western Conference, while the Coyotes are four points away from a playoff berth in ninth behind the Calgary Flames. LA is 26-34-1 this morning.

The Anaheim Ducks are faring a little better, they are 34-23-7 this morning after their 3-2 shootout victory over the Colorado Avalanche two nights ago. JS Giguere has looked strong in goal, winning four of his last five games and currently tied for fifth overall in player ranking with 27 wins this season, a save percentage of 91.8%, and goals against average of 2.24. He made 26 saves on 28 shots against Colorado Wednesday night. The Ducks are fourth in the Western Conference behind the Minnesota Wild. While they have two more points than the Wild, they've also had three more games than the Wild to earn them. Anaheim is seventh overall and will almost certainly make the playoffs, while it is also a certainty that Los Angeles will not.

Finally, Granny Fox turns 85 today, so we'll be having cake tonight whether we need it or not.

And that's the news from Casa Coyote.

17 February 2008

Hi friends. <looks over shoulder quickly> Yep, still there. As fast as I've been going, and in as many different directions for as long as I do, I would not have been surprised to notice my tail was missing.

My Fox and I missed out on the latest "secret meeting" with Sonic and the Ol' Raccoon and the gang, thanks to my employer's demands and my peers understandable reluctance to swap the standby duty with me on a holiday weekend. Hopefully the next time Sonic ventures out west we will be able to join him and the rest of our friends at that favorite retreat of the meat.

Double duty for me at work, splitting my time between developing training exercises in emergency management and working on the mountain top two-way systems. The state is gearing up for a major, state-wide, everyone-get-on-board emergency training exercise this November called Golden Guardian '08. My little corner of this big pie involves my unit getting together with my equivalents from the OCFA, OCSD, WEROC, and local law enforcement. My first exercise is coming up in mid-March, with at least three more before the "big event" in November. I thought developing these exercises in-house was difficult! Coordination with all these folk from other agencies is time-consuming, to say the least.

I muddle through that stuff. I guess I do OK at it, based on the feedback I get from my "victims" and from the feedback I also get from the all-knowing folk in our Emergency Response organization. <shrugs> Whatever, my heart is still in the mountains. The bad weather that swept through here starting in late January has left one of our sites inaccessible and others much more difficult to get to. Difficult enough that greater minds than mine decided I should wait for a spell of good weather before attacking the mountains. Well, I've waited long enough, the mud and snow will just have to put up with me being in it, I've got stuff to do. Projects at five different sites demand my attention, there's enough work involved to keep me busy for the better part of a month, at least. <grins> Music to my ears...

So Tuesday, after a couple of cups of coffee, my buddy Bruce and I head out for Box Springs to see what kind of damage we can cause. If I have a moment or two I'll get some pictures while we're out there.

My weekends are still buried in tasks at the folks house. My Fox is starting to comment about how little she sees of me these days, as I spend virtually my entire weekend at the folks place fixing this, building that, and painting the other. There's a message buried not too deeply in those comments, a message I think I'd better start paying attention to.

Meanwhile, I have started a little project here at The Range that might be of interest to the few of you who still happen by here. I have tentatively called it "Gee Too," I referred to it in my post of the fifth below. I was busily hacking away at it the other night when I got pleasantly interrupted by some IM chatter from my dear Filly, who happened to find me up in the middle of the night here in soCal (breakfast time where she lives). So I haven't done much with it, it's still very early in the development stages, but I hope it'll be a viable if interesting short story when I'm done. Just a one-off, no chapters to muddle through. It's less than a thousand words at this point, so I've got some serious work ahead of me.

Finally, I've been trying to keep up with my buddies on the ice. The Kings got nipped 4-3 by the Coyotes last night in Phoenix, and will have a chance to make a comeback against their division foe Monday night here at Staples Center. LA rallied to a 3-3 tie in the third period, but even with LaBarbera in goal Vrbata's snap shot at 12:54 sealed the deal. Dan Cloutier defended the LA goal well for the first two periods of the game, making his second start since a February 7 recall from the minors and stopping 18 of 21 shots before leaving with what Kings coach Marc Crawford termed "flu-like symptoms." Jason LaBarbera replaced him for the third period, allowing one goal facing 16 shots.

Not much information on what happened to JS Aubin since we last saw him against the New Jersey Devils on 2 February. In that game he replaced Jason LaBarbera in the third period after Jason made 19 saves on 24 shots. It was the first time either goalie had faced the Devils, JS Aubin saved two of three shots taken on him. Rumors say he's gone back to the minors, but I can't confirm that yet.

And the Ducks take on the Calgary Flames tonight. Calgary (29-21-8) took a 6-3 beating from the Kings when they met Friday night, while Anaheim completed a nine-game road trip 5-3-1, returning home Friday to have its five game win streak snapped with a 4-2 loss to Pacific Division-leading Dallas Stars. JS Giguere was outstanding during the Ducks' win streak, going 4-0-0 with a 1.00 goals-against average and one shutout before allowing three goals on 20 shots Friday. He is 7-1-0 with two ties and a 2.27 GAA in 10 career home starts against Calgary. He made 17 saves on 20 shots from Dallas in a hard-fought game. He spent the final minute of the third on the bench while Anaheim tried to tie the game and head into overtime with a sixth attacker, but Steve Ott of the Stars had other ideas, sending the puck into the empty net with 17 seconds left to go in regulation.

So while I'm off this morning to do more work at my folks place, I plan to be in front of the vid screen at 1700 when they face off at the Honda Center.

And that's what's up with me. Exciting, isn't it? <yawns>

5 February 2008

Well while the political pundits are hacking away at each other in the polls and on the media stage, something really important has happened back east... they're back. Jiggy and Jason both. Tonight the Anaheim Ducks, with Jean-Sebastien Giguere in goal and in charge, shut out the New York Islanders 3-0 in regulation with able assistance from none other than Teemu Selanne, making his first appearance this season after signing back on with the team 28 January. Teemu didn't score any goals himself, but along with Chris Pronger assisted Scott Niedermayer on a snap shot power play goal in the second period. In the third Todd Marchant (assists by Ryan Carter  and  Rob Niedermayer) backhanded one past New York's Rick DiPietro, and Doug Weight's snap shot (assisted by Todd Bertuzzi  and  Francois Beauchemin) sealed the deal with twelve and a half minutes left to play. And while the team was scoring Jean-Sebastien Giguere earned his fourth shutout of the year to increase his franchise-record total to 29. Jiggy saved all 25 shots he faced. Welcome back, JS. (Note to Randy - paws off # 35!)

Meanwhile, over at Madison Square Garden, the Los Angeles Kings triumphed over the New York Rangers as well. Jason LaBarbera allowed only two goals on 41 shots, making the game an easier win for his teammates in the 4-2 victory in regulation. First period goals for Los Angeles were counted by Scott Thornton and Brian Boyle, while Alexander Frolov and Anze Kopitar each had a goal and an assist, Frolov's snap shot coming in the second and Kopitar's slap shot in the third.

Brian Boyle is working overtime, it seems, to make a name for himself, continuing his stellar performance since making his debut appearance in the NHL three nights ago against the New Jersey Devils. Los Angeles didn't win that game, but Boyle certainly helped the Kings get on the scoreboard, scoring the first goal for the Kings with a wrist shot 8:38 into the first period. Brian was an emergency recall from Lowell of the AHL on Saturday, and was driven to the game on a road trip lasting a little more than four hours. It certainly turned out to be a worthwhile drive.

So southern California's hockey teams seem to be pulling out of their respective slumps. JS and Jason had both, along with their teams, been struggling. But no more, it seems. Smiles abounded after the games, none larger than that gracing the mug of JS Giguere. It is certainly a pleasure to see him back on his game, and Jason LaBarbera as well.

The NTSB has released it's preliminary findings on the midair collision near Corona Airport as well as the crash of the Robinson R-22 near Los Angeles. Neither report contains any real surprises, unfortunately.

I have been super busy, dividing my time between emergency management and RF communications systems. The dividing line between those two is constantly blurring, which is challenging and sometimes confusing. And on top of that I've been called out twice in the past few days to deal with errant SCADA systems. Yay me. The wallet loves me, but I'm too pooped out to have fun with the money.

Vehicle maintenance on The Fox's STS this weekend, and the usual adventures (painting this time) at the folks house.

I had a great idea for a short story last Sunday; my muse was kicked heartily in the tail by none other than the teacher of my Bible study class. I don't know if I'll have a chance to write it any time soon, but the idea intrigued me so much I wrote down a few notes before I left church.

Awesome weather we've been having. Clear and cool with unstable air. It's the kind of weather I wish we had much more of. All too soon the temps will climb and the haze will return, capped by our typical inversion layer. So I try to suck up as much of the current conditions as I can. No telling how long the next stretch of soCal typical weather will last.

And now to bed. Tomorrow's another day. Peace, friends.

29 January 2008

Johnstone Revisited

Remember this image? It was taken by a media photographer (probably Associated Press, but I don't know) in early September of 2002 on the 21,000 acre Curve Fire in the San Gabriel Mountains. A retardant tanker is making an east-to-west drop along the ridge of Johnstone Peak. While an impressive image of a tanker crew earning it's pay, I print this here for comparison's sake. Please note the structure on the farthest right side of the ridge, where the retardant is already in the trees.

This is the same site. That's where I was again today, along with a couple of my fellow RF conspirators. The weather was quite different today compared to that horrific day in September, but in spite of the five and a half years that have passed since that burn, there is still abundant evidence of that fire, and the two or three others that have burned in the area since then.

Today was cold and wet. No rain fell today, but the mountains are soggy and slick with the rain that's been falling off and on for the past two weeks. We got sideways once in the van on the way up, but managed to extricate ourselves from the mud before things got totally out of control.

It was actually pretty up there. Here we look a bit west of north, San Gabriel Canyon is visible beyond Glendora Ridge, the hills in the foreground with the road climbing up from the lower center of the image. The high peaks in the distance, to the right of the upper reaches of the canyon and partially hidden by cloud, are the Mount Hawkins complex, over 8,700 feet above sea level. Snow line is somewhere around 5,000 feet MSL. We were under cloud most of the day, but at one point around noon or a bit later the coverage broke up to about 50% coverage and we had sunlight for a while.

We were on site to finish the installation of a repeater there. We were successful in repairing a cable connector problem and completing the installation, but the system will need further attention as we are now suffering from some sort of interference issue, possibly an intermodulation problem. So more trips to the site are in the offing with additional parts and service equipment.

All of these images were taken by my friend Brigid, who with Larry comprised my co-conspirators. She's got a good eye for composition even when the subject matter is somewhat questionable, as the below image might lead you to agree.

This is an old coyote in his element.

Meanwhile, the Kings lost to Philadelphia tonight in overtime, 3-2. It was their first loss in overtime this season. They played a good game, the Flyers winning goal coming with just 28 seconds left to play in overtime. Jason LaBarbera was very strong in goal tonight, he had some amazing saves. Matt Moulson and Anze Kopitar made the goals for the Kings, Anze's wrist shot coming at 1:50 into the second period and Matt's tip-in coming at 12:58 in the third. It was a fast game on the ice, and the final goal went to a review because it came off the skates of Scott Hartnell as he crashed LaBarbera's goal crease. The play was reviewed, but it was determined Hartnell didn't intentionally kick the puck. "It happened so fast. It was tough for me to see," LaBarbera said. "I know it didn't go off his stick. It just bounced off the ice and hit his shin pad and it went in. Fluke play." It was enough...

Tomorrow the Ducks will take a crack at the Flyers. Hopefully I'll be home in time to see the end of the game. Tomorrow my mountaineers and I take a crack at Box Springs and another repeater system we want to get operational. I think this time I'll leave ol' "3099" in the yard and take one of the five-ton sleds. They have four wheel drive, and the road to Box is at least as rough and probably as muddy and slick as that to Johnstone. Tomorrow it's supposed to be clearing, but the forecast includes wind and cold. Not sure how aggressively we'll pursue tower work in any significant wind, and the numbers I'm hearing sound like 50 to 60 MPH.

The NTSB database is back, but no information about Corona or the R-22 is there to be found yet.

I've been thinking a lot about Frank Turner and Transport. Enough that I may shelf my ambition about ALN until I can get a bit more of the Frank and Yahzi story cranked out. Too, a particular C-130 has been grumbling in the back of my mind, I'll probably have to address that as well. <sighs> I wish my muse would tease me when I had enough time and energy to get back at her a bit.

27 January 2008

A little additional info (thanks to the Associated Press) on the R-22 that went down the night before last:

Police say the Robinson R-22 was heading from El Monte airport to Torrance when it went down Friday night on a freeway in South Los Angeles. The California Highway Patrol says the man was flying too low and hit power lines north of Century Boulevard. The FAA says the pilot, who was alone, was not in contact with air traffic controllers at the time. The man's body was so badly burned in the crash that dental records may be needed to identify him.

A quiet day today, with some brief but heavy showers this afternoon after a sunny morning. Lots of gusty wind as well. The forecast calls for more of the same tomorrow and working into the week. 80% chance of rain Monday, partial clearing Tuesday, then 30% chance Wednesday. Clearing the rest of the week, then the rain will return Saturday. That big low pressure system sort of disorganized and disintegrated as it approached the central coast area, where it is right now. Still, there's a lot of unstable air about, and even now at 2000 hours there's still a lot of cloud in the sky (about four to five tenths coverage, mostly low level stuff).

No major mud slides or unusual problems from this weather. Even the avalanches were not to be unexpected. The canyons and ridgelines of the Santa Anas are holding for now.

26 January 2008

There's a wicked low pressure system winding up tight off the California coast tonight. The next round of storms is in the offing. This morning dawned bright and sunny, and it got fairly warm this afternoon, but now a huge band of clouds is getting sucked up out of the Pacific from down off Baja, and it's getting cool and damp again. The weather guessers are saying that we're gonna get it as that low moves southeast towards soCal. No kidding...

We had several small avalanches in the San Gabriel Mountains, up around the ski areas. Two people died Friday in two separate avalanches: Michael McKay, 23, a former ski patrolman for Mountain High, and Darrin Coffey, 33, of Wrightwood, were killed. The body of a third skier, a man in his 60s from Santa Monica, was discovered Saturday morning near the Mountain High ski resort in Wrightwood. All of the deceased were found in the "out of bounds" areas of the ski resorts, areas that are supposedly off limits to skiers because of dangerous conditions.

There is some good news today, however. 24-year-old Oscar Gonzales, Jr. survived a night on the mountain after he became separated from his friends. Gonzales said he stayed warm by keeping his hands in his armpits and finding shelter from the cold. "These guys who work at Mountain High let you know everyday not to go past the boundaries [into the "out of bounds" zones], because there are a lot of things on the backside of that mountain that you'll never want to see, and I'm not talking about animals," he said. He's lucky to be alive. He was airlifted to a local hospital and released after an examination. As all missing people have been accounted for, the searches in the avalanche zones have been called off.

I heard an interesting fact today. Orange County has had more rain in the past four weeks than it got in the twelve months of 2007. Our drought is far from over, however. In fact, much to the dismay of any who consider these things, most of the snow that fell in the wave of storms that passed through last week will be gone by the end of next week. The weather coming up from the south is warm and wet. That snow on the ground will melt and wash away with all the falling rain, and won't stop until it reaches the Pacific, where it will do us no good at all.

The Sierra snowpack and Rocky Mountain snowpack are of primary importance to our water supply, and both are still woefully short of where they need to be. Lets face it, soCal doesn't have enough reservoir capacity to store meaningful reserves for twenty million inhabitants, and even if funding were unlimited there's just not that much terrain available to build the kinds of reservoirs that would be required. So we're sort of dependent on storage in the form of snowpack that feeds the reservoirs of the intermountain west, like Lake Powell and Lake Mead and Lake Havasu. Too, the big reservoirs up north depend on Sierra snowpack for the same thing. If the snowpack isn't there, it doesn't much matter how hard it rains, we're going to be having a drought.

So it's kind of a profound nose rub when all this rain falls and those that know about these things go on bleating about the drought. Yeah, they're right, but that doesn't make it any easier to take.

On a different note, a small Robinson R-22 helicopter crashed on the Harbor Freeway (I-110) at Century Boulevard late last night. One fatality was found by first responders in the flaming wreckage. The R-22 is a small two-place helicopter used mostly for training purposes, at least around here. There are a lot of them around, although most all of them are not certified for IFR (instrument flight rules) flying. As this one went down at 2300 hours on the tail end of a weather system moving through the area, I can't help but wonder if that might be a factor in the crash. More will come out, I'm sure, when the NTSB and the FAA are done checking things out.

Speaking of the NTSB, their database is down temporarily, so I have nothing to report on the crash in Corona the other day. The media has lost interest, which is probably just as well.

This afternoon I took my youngest over to a pro shop and bought her a hockey stick and some gloves. She's got this burning desire to play ice hockey, an ambition I told her I'd support if she excels in street hockey. Time will tell where this goes, but she's pretty excited about it.

We all had dinner out this evening. It was good to see our folks out blowing a little dust off and having some fun.

As for the old dog, I'm patiently waiting for my work in the mountains next week. It'll be fun to get back home...

24 January 2008

I just finished watching the Ducks play a disappointing game against their cross-town rivals at the Staples Center. It was the final game in a series of "Freeway Face-Offs," and the Kings beat 'em in regulation 3-1. JS Giguere got pulled from goal during the second period after the Kings wing Alexander Frolov scored the third goal against him. He was doing well, considering he played a full game the night before against the Red Wings (a 2-1 loss to Detroit in which he had 31 saves), and made 15 saves before leaving the ice. Jonas Hiller looked strong in goal the rest of the night, but a weak offense crippled the Ducks. I felt sorry for Jiggy. He looked quite unhappy watching the balance of the game from the bench.

A slug-fest involving George Parros and Raitis Ivanans didn't seem to do much to stir up the Ducks or their fans, although it was the first time I had seen George skate for the Ducks since his knee injury of 9 January, itself the result of fisticuffs with the Maple Leafs' Wade Belak.

Meanwhile I have concluded a week of training. I am now supposed to be all knowledgeable about logic trunked radio (LTR) systems and the PassPort protocol, a product of Trident Micro Systems. This afforded me an opportunity to remember why I'm glad I don't work in LA, as I was required to venture from Orange County west to Redondo Beach, making the trip via the 105 and 405 freeways. With the inclement weather we've been having (the tornado watch was lifted here about an hour ago, and it's still raining with thunder rumbling in the distance) it took me over two hours to make the thirty five mile trip home last night. I spent over thirty minutes crawling across a quarter-mile transition bridge from the north 405 to the east 105 last night in the rain. Angelenos, it seems, forget how to drive when more than three drops of water hit the windshield between sweeps of the wiper blades. So anyway, yay me, when we deploy the new radio system we've all been babbling about, I'll know what's going on. <yawns>

The NTSB has yet to weigh in on the collision over Corona the other day. I keep checking, but so far no information. It might be a few more days before they release their preliminary report.

In less than an hour it'll be tomorrow. More rain forecast for the weekend. So far the mountains have been content to stay where God put them, none of the burn areas have tried to migrate anywhere. But the rain is steady when the storm cells aren't passing through (then the wind kicks up and the lightning flashes overhead), and there's a lot more of it in the forecast. Snow on the Grapevine and on Cajon, and lots of water everywhere else. Good thing Casa Coyote has a reasonably good roof...

Tomorrow it's back to the folks house for some work in their family room. Their new entertainment center, while nice looking and huge, is a tilt-together. The components stand free against each other. Maybe OK if you live in a seismically quiet area, which we don't, so I'll be securing the main components to the wall and bolting the rest of it together tomorrow. Then the big dogs of the house (Adam and Mike) will help me get that hundred pound TV in the center of it all, and we'll take care of getting the technology all hooked up. Should be all set for us to enjoy the All Star Game this weekend!

Next week it's back to the mountains, snow or no snow. I'm still 0-2 in installations and have another site limping along at half power. We're gonna fix all that, even if the old coyote has to roll up his sleeves and get wet and dirty.

Should be fun!

22 January 2008

A bit more information on the accident of the 20th at Corona Airport. The NTSB is leaning towards the bright afternoon sun playing a part in the collision.

Scott Gayle Lawrence, 55, of Cerritos; Paul Luther Carlson, 73, of Cerritos; Anthony Joel Guzman, 20, of Hesperia; and Brandon William Johnson, 24, of Costa Mesa, were killed on the planes, coroner's officials said. Two of the victims were in one plane and two in the other. Carlson, a former Air Force Reserve helicopter pilot and retired aerospace engineer, had taken his neighbor Lawrence for a ride in his single-engine plane. Guzman was a student in the commercial pilot program at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut and was flying to build up his hours. This means that Guzman was already a licensed pilot and was training and practicing for a higher level rating, one that would allow him to fly professionally. Johnson was also a licensed pilot.

Today investigator Wayne Pollack of the National Transportation Safety Board said most of the airplane debris has been collected and is being examined. "Thus far, signatures of paint transfer of one [plane] onto another ... [is] consistent with an impact between the two aircraft," he said. One plane hit the other about "mid-section of the fuselage," he said. "We have both wings separating from the [Cessna] 150 and both occupants ejected." He went on to say that the bodies and main wreckage of the 150 were found "embedded into the car dealership." The mangled wreckage of the Cessna 172 was found a short distance away with two bodies still inside, he continued, adding that components of each plane were "co-mingled" with the other.

Meanwhile the media is raising a hue and cry about Corona being an uncontrolled airport. Now granted, the presence of an air traffic control tower on the airport might have prompted additional vigilance on the part of the pilots involved, might have prompted them to fly different routes in their travels, might have changed the outcome of the incident. But what the media jumps on is the word uncontrolled, as if that automatically implies a ten- or one hundred-fold increase in the level of danger.

A ridiculous assertion, I know. But explain the lack of veracity of their claims to those who don't know anything about aviation and don't want to learn. I pity the poor folks who allow the talking heads on TV to tell them what to think and how to act.

As it happens, the Cessna 172 was based at Fullerton Airport right here in Orange County, a location that has played a small part in one of my stories and has been a favorite hangout of mine for way too many years. Long faces over there today...

I'm in training this week, and am getting home much later than usual. The LA Kings (currently in the bottom of the NHL standings) are facing off against the Detroit Red Wings (currently number one in the NHL) right now, so I'm going to cut this short. It's kind of cool living in a city with two hockey teams, although I'm pretty bummed that the Ducks let Dallas wipe their noses again. They dropped to number four in the league standings behind Detroit, Ottawa, and Dallas. And my Coyote buddies? Number 15... not doing too badly for a young team. Ilya Bryzgalov, by the way, just signed a three year deal with them. His career has really rocketed away since stepping out of the mighty shadow of JS Giguere.

S'all for now. Catch ya later...

21 January 2008

Bad day for general aviation around here yesterday. At about 1535 hours yesterday two small aircraft collided in mid-air very near Corona Airport, not too many miles east of where we live. At least five deaths resulted from the collision, two aboard the Cessna 150 and at least two more aboard the Cessna 172, and one on the ground killed by falling wreckage. The debris field was mostly contained in a 300 yard radius, but some pieces were found as far as 1000 yards away. There was no fire.

Witnesses described the smaller of the two aircraft (the Cessna 150) "disintegrating" in the collision, while the other Cessna remained somewhat intact, at least as far as the fuselage was concerned. The collision occurred above a row of car dealerships near the airport, and the ground fatality occurred inside a Chevrolet dealership when a portion of wreckage, perhaps the engine of one of the aircraft, crashed through the roof of the building, striking the victim.

The occupants of the Cessna 150 were ejected during the collision sequence and their bodies fell to earth, one landing atop a vehicle on a car lot, the other falling to the ground not too far away. The cabin of the Cessna 172 was badly mangled but still intact when rescue personnel arrived. They were unable to clearly ascertain how many victims were within the wreckage, but counted at least two. A final count is expected later today. "Until we open that aircraft up we cannot be certain how many people were on board," said investigator Wayne Pollack of the NTSB. The FAA is also investigating.

What's left of the Cessna 172. Unseen in this view, most of the port wing is still attached to the wreckage, as are the tail surfaces, even though it is all badly mangled and twisted. The outer portion of the starboard wing appears to have separated from the main wreckage.

Marc Campos, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

The largest piece of the Cessna 150 is seen here.

I'm sure it will be some time before the NTSB determines what happened, but supposedly there will be more information released this evening after the 172 is opened up. The media, as you might expect, are having a field day with this. I'll try and filter out the conjecture and mis-information and present you with any facts that may come to light.

A prayer for the airmen might be in order, as well as for the victim on the ground.

16 January 2008

I received the most excellent gift yesterday.

From Tigermark, who while feline has obviously got good taste in things canine, this little doll came all the way across the country to grace the Casa Coyote and add a little class to our humble abode. I'll let him tell you about it:

I saw this in a vendor's booth at the Pow-Wow here in September, and of course immediately thought of my amigo who sings to the sky. This piece is done by a native American artist using a mold. What makes this so unique is the way it's cast. The clay is dug from a location in Kansas. It's then mixed with mineral water from a spring in Georgia. The colors left by the minerals in the water don't show up until the piece is fired. This makes every one unique.

When I heard the story of how this is made, I was even more reminded of you. Like this guy (I know, he's a wolf and not a coyote, but I think the spirit is still there), your true colors don't completely show through until you've played in the mud a bit and the heat is on.

Well Tiger, all I can say is right on, and thanks! The spirit is certainly there in spades. If anything it looks like our friend here spent a bit of time under his four wheel rig on the trail somewhere, wrenching something or other back to an operational state before heading back to camp for a shot and a steak. And of course, when you've spent a perfect day doing those things, it's time to sing to the sky and tell the Maker how you feel about things. He sure looks happy...

And he arrived safe and sound in his very protective shipping container. Not a scratch on him.

<removes hat and bows> You sir, and your wonderful family, are most excellent friends. My Fox and our pups and I thank you all. Indeed we shall keep the faith, and our little friend here will lay claim to a corner of my desk in close proximity to a dream-catcher you might recall.

Meanwhile, yours truly has been idling away his time working in the mountains.

Yesterday I was at Johnstone Peak, a couple thousand feet above our plant in La Verne, installing a low band repeater for our Conveyance & Distribution System team. A bad connector and some missing adapters shut me down in the early afternoon. While the equipment I installed is perfectly operational, the antenna system is not. I encountered an intermittent connection at one of the feedlines, and the missing adapters prevented me from cabling up the cavity filters in the receive antenna system. So even though I was on site all day I came away with empty paws as far as job completion was concerned. But I did manage to wander around a bit during my lunch break and get a few lungs full of some clean air and remind myself how lucky I am to have the opportunity to do what I do. And my trusty sidekick here, ol' 3099, didn't even break a sweat getting up and down the mountain.

I'm 0-2! Tuesday I was at Box Springs and got skunked by a previously installed antenna. Box is a single-antenna system, so I was shut out completely here. Again all the hardware I installed was in good operating order, and again I came away with empty paws. The view above, by the way, looks south. The open space in the middle distance is what used to be March Air Force Base, now the March Air Reserve Base. My father was inducted into the Army Air Force in 1944 at this facility. Back then this was a very remote area. My work location was, and remains, on the peak to the upper left. The peak is about 1500 feet above the runways.

More work for me out in the Valley, I have another installation to do at Oat Mountain later in the month. Hopefully I'll be able to revisit Johnstone and Box Springs between now and then, so I can attack Oat 2-0 instead of 0-2. In any event, I'll be on the road, getting dirty and having fun. No doubt I'll be doing some singing to the sky now and then as well, so our little friend pictured above will have some off-key company.

No time to write yet. Lots going on at the folks house. We're making some real headway on a few of the bigger projects, but there are still a couple of big ones left to go. Hopefully the dust will be settling enough such that we might actually get out to our favorite spot between the Inyos and the Sierra this spring, and The Fox and I can serenade the stars. At least until our fellow campers start throwing old shoes at us and hollering "Get a room!"

Oh... And the Ducks got by the Stars last night 4-2, and the Coyotes (you gotta love those guys) clobbered the Sharks 5-3 in Phoenix as well. So as it stands tonight the Ducks are only one point behind the division leading Sharks, and the Coyotes are eight points back at the number four slot. Detroit is still on top of the league, but they got clobbered themselves last night by Atlanta, 5-1. It's going to be an "anybody's guess" second half after the All Star Game!

Such are the lives of busy canids. Thanks again, Tiger. Please give our best to TL and the tinx.

12 January 2008

Well pat me on the back and call me an electronics technician! My laptop has resurrected with a little assistance from yours truly. I won't bother with the details, but suffice to say that disassembling the cooling system for the processor and building it up again finally got me going. I am a happy coyote tonight!

Ably assisted by the Kings beating the Stars in a shootout at Staples Center this afternoon, and even more ably supported by my beautiful Fox, who never lost confidence in my abilities even when I did. Tomorrow, to seal the deal for the weekend, Phoenix will face off against the Vancouver Canucks. You can bet I'll either be watching or recording that game!

So as soon as I get all my stuff backed up to guard against the next disaster, I'll get back on my regular schedule of excuses as to why ALN is taking so long.

6 January 2008

More drama today that may indirectly affect many. My laptop is dead, it cannot even initialize it's POST (power on self test). The battery is fully charged and the power supply is fine, I get proper presence of power indications when i connect the supply to the laptop. It just won't boot up. Two rounds of open heart surgery could not resurrect it, and it's too old for any of the Hewlett Packard recommended repair centers to touch.

Rant: Back in the day, when I worked in the Test & Measurement sector of HP, we had service centers scattered around the country that would repair any HP product. And a customer could take his HP product to any HP facility, be it sales office, factory, repair center, or whatever, and the product would be forwarded by HP to the proper location for service. Now, it seems, once HP's warranty expires, so also does their interest in helping their customers keep their systems viable.

Backslash rant. What it means for me is that I've got to save up the bucks for a new laptop and then obtain the hardware that will allow me to transfer my application data from the old hard disk to the new one. Now I know what you're thinking. "SC, you nut! You should always back up everything!" And I have been good about that, my last complete data backup was on 14 December. Except for my iTunes library, which I have recently been adding to. So I've got a few data files newer than the middle of last month to capture, and some music files to hunt down. Shouldn't be a big deal.

I'll maintain my presence on the forums at PF, and will be able to check my e-mail through web portals, but this will put a major crimp in my writing, as you might imagine. Please bear with my absence as I muddle through this latest mess.

Happy New Year!

5 January 2008

Chapter 44 of Precious Cargo, Across The Divide, went live this morning. Thanks to Tigermark for his timely and effective proofreading. Now I will turn my attentions to A Little Nothing.

The "monster storm" blew through, I guess. It was pretty windy last night when I went to bed, but a survey by dawn's light revealed nothing amiss at Casa Coyote except for a trash can lid having been blown off a can. I think I can handle that.

    It wasn't so bad in the Santa Ana mountains either. Mandatory evacuations were ordered for about 3000 residents of the canyons in the burn areas, but as far as I know no major mudslides have occurred. Up in Fremont Canyon they got about three and a half inches of rain and the peak wind gusts were considerably lower than those of a Santa Ana wind, the worst was 53 MPH from the southwest.

    I hear the Sierra got up to ten feet of snow or more, and that peak wind gusts up on the high ridges were around 125 MPH. I hope the snow actually stays on the ground for a while. We badly need the water reserves that a good snow pack can provide us.

    The next front is supposed to push through tomorrow, but it's supposedly colder and drier than this last one. I think the majority of the wet messy stuff is past, and we should be drying out just in time for the work week to get under way. Yay wrench-turners!

4 January 2008

Chapter 44 of Precious Cargo went to my proof-reader this afternoon. As soon as his corrections and changes are implemented it will go live here at The Range. And yes, before my fellows ambush me with reminders, I haven't forgotten about my duty to ALN. But neither have I been able to put together the next section yet, so cool your jets, amigos. All things in time.

I'm wondering if all this rain that is supposed to clobber us will arrive before or after the Ducks face off against the Blackhawks tonight at 1900 local time. Hopefully after, so I won't notice it. Last night Columbus took LA 4-3 in regulation, a bit of a surprise after watching the Kings clobber the Blackhawks 9-2 in regulation on New Years Day. I thought JS Aubin got the short end of the stick last night, as he was pulled from the Kings goal during the second period after facing only twelve shots and yielding three goals. Granted that's not stellar performance, but the Blue Jackets got another goal off of Jason LaBarbera as well. I think JS Aubin should have been allowed to stay in the game to vindicate himself. He had some good saves between those goals against him. I think Crawford should have left him alone. Columbus was never up on the Kings by more than a point, and LA always managed to battle back to a tie. Columbus' last goal against the Kings came with six minutes left to go in the third period, and LA just couldn't rally back in time to go to overtime.

Oh well boys, better luck against the Flames tomorrow night. Meanwhile... go Ducks!

3 January 2008

Happy '08 to you, my friends.

Some changes for The Range for 2008. Tonight, just before the Los Angeles Kings faced off against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Staples Center, Mike Regan helped me set up an official forum for The Range at Planet Furry. The thread for The B Team was moved from Mike's forum for The Raccoon's Bookshelf to this new forum, and I created threads for ALN and Precious Cargo, as well as threads for the pseudo-blogs. I'm looking forward to making some new friends in this way, and to having a better way to maintain the on-line friendships I have developed as well.

I have changed or added links to the forums for the various stories at the Stories page.

Meanwhile my youngest, Katie, is enjoying The Blood Jaguar, a work of fantasy anthro fiction by Michael H. Payne that Aramis Dagaz sent us. She seems to be enjoying it quite a bit. I found it entertaining, but there wasn't enough technology in it to get me really cranked up.

A series of "big storms" is supposedly bearing down on soCal. The weather-guessers have their doppler radar fired up in maximum hysteria mode, and everyone is unfurling their "storm watch 2008" banners. I don't much care what happens down here, because it'll all run off into the oceans anyway, but I'm praying the Sierra gets a good blanket of snow. Of course, if we get enough rain down here in a short enough period of time, mud slides will be the order of the day. No worries about that here at Casa Coyote, but it could be bad for others, which will keep those of us in emergency response and emergency management busy. Our regional EOC is operational and staffed, and they're expecting the worst.

Next week it's back to work for me, and a lot of it will be on mountain tops working on radio systems. I dare say that, weather permitting, I'll be posting a picture or two from those adventures here. Stay tuned.

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