Yesterday, while on IRC on #lindependence and enjoying the conversation, I took a look out the window. The view here faces west-northwest, I think, into a small ridge that becomes Bonny Doon on the other side and, past that, the Pacific. As I was looking out, there was what appeared to be fog, but with the temperature being what it is, that was unlikely.
The only alternative: Smoke, as in smoke from yet another local fire.
I went outside to take a closer look, and the air had a certain barbeque aroma to it.
“Fog,” I said aloud. “Tell me that’s fog.”
Over to the solar-powered fire station, which is only a block away: “Hey, nothing’s burning, is it?” I got the prize for being the 100th person to ask, and the answer, of course, was “not near here.” Apparently, there are hundreds of small fires burning all over the state, none of which are burning in the area (after all, we just got finished with three big ones last month), and the smoke is wafting its way up and down the coast into the nostrils of those of us here in the San Lorenzo Valley.
The fact that any part of the state is burning is bad enough, but thankfully it’s not here. And I’m not a praying man, but I will ask the supreme being to hold off any fires in these parts for as long as possible, or at least until Lindependence ends on August 4.
A couple of things that transpired today: We got the key to the hall and I discussed the set up with Kelly at the church. We may not have wireless/Internet connectivity, and if worse comes to worst, I may run the mile of ethernet cable I salvaged from the Santa Cruz Sentinel’s move from my office to the church (well, it wouldn’t be a mile, but it would be quite a bit). Unless we can intercept a signal from nearby — and this makes a great case for making Felton wireless (as one person has suggested) — then we’ll just be incommunicado with the outside world on Sunday.
Meanwhile, today was a scorcher out of the starting blocks, and as I’ve found out the hard way, a bad day to be moving large monitors and such. Time to hit the showers.
90 and sunny (ugh — It’s starting to get like Florida, Amenditman, but without the high humidity).
