Move to SoCal and you learn a new vocabulary. Some may have made it back east before, especially in films (“Don’t hork it down” or “We mac’ed out on those chips” or any of the billion “dude” quotes), but lots haven’t…until now.

Extreme fire behavior was used by the fire fighters to refer to just how bad the fires were. I think it makes the fires sound like unruly kids rather than a firestorm.

Containment percentage, as in “The fire is only 10% contained,” is the term for the amount of fire edge restricted and controlled by the fire fighters. It is NOT the same as controlling a fire in the fire fighters’ terms. Control means, essentially, putting the fire out. So, a contained fire is in control and a controlled fire is extinguished. Go fig. Here’s an example from one of the recent press releases about the Witch Fire, in the north/northeast part of the county:
The Witch Fire is 197,990 acres and 60% contained. Full containment is expected on October 31st and full control on November 5th.

Santa Anas may have been heard of in the past, but now the debate about their name is better known–some say they are named for the mountains they go through and others say they were the winds of Santana…in English, Satan. I vote for the latter.

The marine layer made national news as the fires receded. That is, essentially, the fog bank that lives off-shore most of the time but moves in when the winds are right.

That leads us to on-shore and off-shore winds. The winds are usually on-shore (from ocean to land) in May and June (May Grey, June Gloom) but not so much in the Fall (the Santa Anas are off-shore winds, meaning they blow from inland out to sea). The famous San Francisco fog is really just the marine layer moving in at night, when the wind shifts to on-shore.

Red Flag Warnings are not some warning about giant cloths attacking. Coming from the land of tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings meaning tornadoes/severe storms were in the area, this one seems oddly named. Red Flag Warnings are issued from the Weather Service when the humidity will be below 20% for 24 hours or more and winds (sustained) at 15+ mph. Oh, and the vegetation needs to be dry already, but it always is here so that’s pretty much assumed. They should be called bone sucking dry warnings, I think, or skin peel alerts or spontaneous combustion warnings. But what do I know.

By the way, the first few days of the fires had humidities at 6-9% and dew points of less than zero. Sustained winds were over 40 in many places, close to hurricane force in some places, and with gusts close to 100.

I feel like a friggin’ raisin still.

San Diego is burning again. I moved here just a couple of months before the Cedar (and other) fire(s), which started almost four years ago today. Today we have two major fires, and already they are saying it may be worse than 2003.

Because of technical problems, I can’t uploads images to this blog, but I have them at the following links:

Sunset facing west
Sunset facing west 2
Sunset facing northwest
Sunset facing east
These are all taken from our back yard. The fires are south near the 94 and Dulzura and north near a place called Witch Creek, on the 78 not far from Ramona. We’re about 30 miles from either of these places, but there is smoke in the air here and ash falling. Because of the Santa Ana winds, the smoke (etc.) blows west, so we get the residue and the oddly-colored skies.

They’re running a crawl right now over 60 Minutes. The southern fire is now at 14000 acres and the northern is at 5000. It’s 7:50pm PDT. Tomorrow the Santa Anas are supposed to be worse. Right now, it’s 71º, 9% relative humidity, and the dew point is 9º here. Make that 7% in Ramona near the fire. The winds are down some all over, only 20mph with gusts to 40 mph now in the calm of the evening in the fire area, but tomorrow they’ll blow hard again.

Our air is officially unhealthy, here, because of all the ash and smoke. Santa Anas by themselves make my skin feel like it’s being peeled off and my eyes burn and I get a weird hacking cough. The crappy air doesn’t help. I feel sorry for all the poor folk and elderly who may be unhealthy already, having to live with this stuff. And the animals and people dying in these fires.

Think good thoughts for their suffering. It’s going to be a long week of the winds and fire.

Recently, a member of the extended family died–Christopher’s brother’s wife’s mother. It wasn’t a big surprise and could be considered a blessing as she had Alzheimer’s with a concurrent heart condition. Still, as Trish (the wife/daughter in this equation) was an only child and fatherless, this was a serious blow. My gut reaction was to make golumpki.

As a kid, every time there was a death of a friend or neighbor or the like, my mother would make golumpki for the bereaved family. She’s make it at other times, too, but it was pretty much a sure bet: death = golumpki.

Anyway, my first question for Christopher, after he got off the phone and told me the news, was “When is the funeral?” so I could prep the dish. He didn’t know. We didn’t hear for days. After a week, we finally got word of the mass and were informed that bringing food would not be needed or even wanted. I told him to double-check. He did–no food.

I was very confused. Death meant cooking. Must feed the living and everyone not directly touched by death should supply the edibles. My genes were telling me it was absolutely wrong not to be cooking, but we were assured that the food was completely taken care of, so we went empty-handed.

Turns out they had the event catered–that is, the food was brought in, but there were no servers or anything. After the mass, C’s brother picked up a load of pre-ordered (and very tasty) Mexican food and at their house his sister Janeen finished preparing a big Caesar-ish salad she had brought. Trish had, apparently, bought some cakes and candies for dessert.

I was miffed (there is a history of me not being permitted/asked to cook for family events), but it was not the time to think of my feelings and, instead, got to work helping out however I could. I set up the food on the buffet table, cleaned up after everyone ate, put away the leftovers, washed dishes, and reset the buffet for coffee and dessert.

No one else got off their butts to do a thing–except Trish, which was, I think, wrong. None of the cousins (Janeen’s kids) or Trish’s cousins…nada. In my book, the closest family members, the most bereaved, shouldn’t have to do a damn thing at a funeral/wake thing. I was glad I was there to help, but I don’t understand why others weren’t stepping in. Different strokes, I guess.

Anyway, the golumpki idea has been in my head since then. So, today, I made some. I used turkey instead of beef/pork, but everything else traditional is in there: peppers, onions, garlic, rice, and a good tomato sauce with sauerkraut and vinegar for the top.

Sure, it seems wrong to be making golumpki when it’s 86º with 11% humidity and Santa Ana winds, but they’re tasty cold later too. And if I wait for it to get cold here before I make ‘em, I may die first.

I think Californians are the front-runners in the US for “I got mine, it doesn’t matter how or who I hurt to get it, but if you try it it’s wrong”-ism, or, as my Aunt Rose would say “Me me my my people.” It’s starting to bite them in the ass now, though. Here’s an interesting bit of research from one of my favorite housing blogs:

Today’s news from California made me curious about bankruptcy filings, so I did a little research here: http://www.uscourts.gov/bnkrpctystats/bankruptcystats.htm. In the 9th District (which includes pretty much the whole west coast) recorded 31,124 business and non-business filings for BK in April, May, and June of 2007. For the same period in 2006, 20,404 filings were recorded. This is a 53% jump

That’s the cost of living, for basic needs, for a family of four in San Diego. More than three times the federal poverty number. Note this $70K+ number does not include things like savings, retirement savings, cable, or internet. In other cities in California, the number is even higher, but it’s high enough to me.

I figured out how much it costs us two to live here, and we are not extravagant (cars paid off, don’t eat out often, hardly travel except for work, and I spent less than $500 on clothes last year) but we do have things like cable, internet, and health and earthquake insurance (lots of people do not have eq. ins.). Let’s just say our total is not far off that number.

Un-friggin’-believable.

Just for reference, in Ohio, a family of four needs to make about $45K…almost 40% less.

When I think about how much money we have lost just to live in this effing state, I swear I get ill.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
–Albert Einstein

(confirmation of authenticity available on several quote database sites)

Yesterday, I awoke to wet outside. Here, they called it rain, but at most it was a drizzle of varying intensities. Officially, it was the most rain we had received since mid-April and it was something like .15″. It was enough to cause multiple accidents (good thing it was a Saturday so traffic was light) and to confuse the cats, who demanded to go outside first thing (as usual), then clamored to get back inside within a minute or so. They shot me looks as if it were my fault it was wet and I should somehow stop it.

By the time Christopher was awake the only signs it had rained at all was that the air was more humid than usual and the sky wasn’t devoid of clouds.

The day had more good news (rain is good news here, even if it causes major accidents), brought in the afternoon with the postman: Christopher passed another of his Architectural Board exams. The end is much more in sight.