Smoke gets in yer eyes . . .

Hell decided to visit our sunny clime, picking the weekly anniversary of a previous visit as bake the city day. The national news folks visited so you know that it was serious, and worse still the President made a stop and stomped around in the ashes. I sensed some glee. I won't be flippant about the suffering because it was real and frankly if you have never been through a firestorm I wouldn't recommend it. Tragedy is centering though. We couldn't find our navels for an entire week.

One repeating trope was "to evacuate or not to evacuate, that is the question." Evacuate won big, with over a half million folks following orders and getting out of the way of the fire or out of the way of the firemen or just getting. For my buddy who nearly lost his house, the touted "reverse 911" phone system failed. A neighbor knocked on the door and they got out, and he got out just barely. His Honda was showered in embers and when he left he didn't really think that his house would survive the same treatment. Its good to have insomniacs in your neighborhood. Something to consider.

For those who live in east Jesus and have an acre or two to defend, best to stay or maybe best to have a crazy gun-toting NRA neighbor with an apocalypse fetish who has a surplus fire hose and a gas generator for his 3hp water pump. People who had such a neighbor or death wish managed to save a lot of homes. The authorities can't be everywhere and frankly, thank god for that. The violence of the passive aggressive conformists is waxing pathetic. If you can't judge reality for yourself, who are you going to trust? But hell being as unpredictable as it is and was, to heck with your homes. Run for it. Such a response to this type of global warming doesn't provoke much controversy.