Fires - That's the big news for the past week. Fires. I work at JPL, Jet Propulsion Laboratory. You know, one of the NASA centers. Part of CalTech. Pasadena, near Mt Wilson, all that. And we're *right next to* the gigantic "Station Fire" going on in southern CA right now. At first, there were just some smaller smoky images I snapped with my cell phone. Then Saturday I went to our Fiber Frolic with Griffin Dyeworks, hosted in La Crescenta... you know, just next door to Pasadena, right along that northern ridge freeway called Hwy 210, directly south of and next to the huge PLUME of smoke that took off on Saturday. Now I had to get out my real camera and take both photos of the plume, the shock of people standing around looking at the plume, and finally video of the cloud building right before our very eyes. By night, there were sheets of flame visible from the freeways, for nearly 25-35 miles. By Sunday, the radio news pre-empted all normal programming, and did nothing by fire coverage. Then my cell phone started going off. The JPL emergency contact system not only left me voice messages but a text message and instructions on how to send a confirmation code back, that I'd gotten the message that the entire Lab was shut down for Monday, for air quality. Monday, the radio coverage was still nothing but fire coverage, and by early afternoon I had to turn the radio off. There's only so much fire coverage I can listen to non-stop before I go a little stir-crazy. But I was forced to stay home from work, and the background noise of radio news shows is usually the soundtrack for working on my computer.

Yesterday we were allowed to come to the office, and wow, I had no idea how bad the interior air quality could be. Just walking in from outdoors, you're immediately assaulted with a heavy "campfire smoke" smell from the inside air. All day at my desk yesterday, it was tough to breathe and I needed eye drops all day long. Today it's a little bit easier to breathe, and I haven't had to use eye drops yet today. But imagine sitting around a campfire with friends one evening, and then smelling your clothing the next morning. The morning air seems crisp and clear, but your clothing is heavy with a clinging, heavy musk of smoke. That's what our offices smell like.

There's almost no point in trying to take photos right now outside at work, because it would just include a WASH of heavy grey, obliterating visibility and swallowing up whole mountains, foothills, and communities. I almost want to take photos now and do a time-lapse series as the air finally clears up, just to demonstate how LITTLE we can see out there.

I never realized I can see Mt. Wilson from the sidewalk outside my office, until I watched video feeds yesterday on the internet of the large water tanker plane doing water and gel drops on all the transmission towers. I walked outside an hour later (to get warm, because the A/C is still *cranked* indoors), and saw the same tanker doing another water drop over the ridge just north and east of us. Yup, there were all the transmission towers I'd just seen from the helicopter view. Yup, I'm right in the shadow of the image of all those ridges. But this morning, the hazy of smoke was so thick, you couldn't see that there were any foothills or mountain ridges at all. None. Just solid haze, maybe reducing visibility to about 1/4 mile in any direction. So eerie.

These photos, however, I *have* been uploading. You can see all my fire images here. More information I've been gathering lately... if you follow me on Facebook, you may have seen these already. But here they are all together:

* http://tinyurl.com/nqd436 - A wonderful Google map with icons and legends, marking things along the fires in Southern CA right now
* http://tinyurl.com/ltfgvb - Photos from the LA Times
* http://joy.chara.gsu.edu/CHARA/fire.php - Updates re: Mt. Wilson
* http://www.eosnap.com/?p=9886 - Some satellite imagery, the smoke from space
* http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2298 - More space imagery, this time from JPL
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8ht1Ezn5q0 - A video shot and narrated by a co-worker
* http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-322595 - A time-lapse daylight video of the creation of the smoke plume
* http://wv.enplan.com/ - Another wonderful Google maps mash up with fire imagery overlay
* http://vimeo.com/6335740 - another daylight time lapse video
* http://vimeo.com/6326408 - a night time lapse video, with flames visible
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrFpW4djr8k - My video of the smoke plume above La Crescenta on Saturday

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Something I wrote over a week ago, and thought I might still share with you today.

Status of the "East Coast Time" trick - It's a struggle. Some days I =want= to collapse in bed around 9 or 10 (which would be midnight or 1 am), and then it's pure simplicity to leap out of bed between 3-5 am. Other days, I just get on a roll and stay up working on things until 2 am or later, and then of course there's no way I'm getting up before 5. So I'm only about 50/50 on getting up "early" versus my older habits (sometimes 75/25 leaning towards staying up too late). I'm still of two minds on this issue. Most notably, meals end up being thrown horribly out of whack, and staying late at the office to wait for traffic to die down is near impossible if I've been here since 6 or 7 am.

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And finally, the stories I haven't had time for yet -- I thought I was just going to hit a few highlights, but well, um, I babbled a bit. I know, you're all shocked. *giggle* Here goes:

Two More Weddings - I still want to finish the photo albums for David and Juliette's wedding (number 3 of 4 for the summer), and tell you more details about the fun that Eric, Kirsten, and I had together. But in short I drove up on my own (missing Angels Melee event), and then Eric's aunt and cousins gave us a place to crash Saturday night before the Sunday afternoon wedding. I made two new Facebook friends from the adventure (hi Ginger! hi Daniel!), and the wedding itself was quite an experience. On the way home, I gave a ride to Leon -- David met Leon in Israel, and it turns out Leon and I missed working in the same office by only about 1-2 months. We laughed quite a bit at the serendipity of how small a world this really is.

Wedding 4 of 4 was for my friends Ben and Erika, and includes the grand experience of my first-ever Hebrew calligraphy project. So most of THAT story can also only be told with the pictures, so that will come later too.

An Tir / West War - Over July 4th weekend, I went to a large camping event in Oregon for the SCA (kingdom / regional) groups that are typically considered to be "Northern CA" and "Oregon, Washington, and western Canada" (although it's a bit more than that). Our King and Queen from the southern CA regional kingdom group (called Caid, pronounced "kah-EED") were traveling to the event, and I wanted to join them. I have a LONG and wonderful story about meeting Dawn and Misty (Mistress Achaxe and Sir Rauokinn) ... my "SCA sisters" that I didn't know I had. You see, my parents met because two gals introduced them. I was named for those two gals. I've met both my namesakes, and after my divorce I kept my name-sake names, my college nickname, ditched all my old last names, and made it all legal. So I've always thought fondly of those two gals, who's names I've carried with me all my life. My Mom is highly addicted to finding old friends on Facebook (face it Mom, you're addicted) and when she suggested one of my namesakes, I immediately accepted. Turns out that her two daughters are SCA peers, and then it turned out that they were planning to day-trip the An Tir / West war (because they only live several hours away). So I had a chance to meet them -- my namesake's daughters -- and I've decided they are my SCA sisters... how else do I describe the fondness I feel for them that I was named after their Mom? You will all *definitely* want to see THAT photo album, because I think Dawn and Misty and I look a little like we could be related. Sure, my actual sister and I look nothing alike, a fun exercise in splitting genetics from our parents completely differently. But it's eerie how much Dawn, Misty, and I look related to one another. It doesn't hurt that we're completely SCA nuts, which just adds to my fondness for them immediately. And between the three of us: We are a Laurel, a Knight, and a Pelican, which is really bizarre!

Oh, so we flew into North Bend OR and drove down to a little camp ground off the coast and in the trees: The best way to show you is this Google Maps link. Check out the satellite imagery at the point labeled "B" on my map link: We were back there under the trees. It was lovely. And yup, I have a whole photo album yet to work on. I also got to meet in person a friend I only know through Livejournal (hi Dana!) and we ran around doing some artsy things together. I love finding my peeps all around the world!

Reconnecting - Speaking of spending time with new friends, I've also had a summer filled with wonderful connections with old friends too. My college friend Kendall took an across-the-country trip with his family, and we were fortunate enough to get to meet up for coffee and chatting one evening. His kids are *adorable* (and Facebook gets the credit once again, for reconnecting old friends).

And my college friend Ken and I hadn't seen each other in fifteen years. He emailed me right after I returned from the An Tir West war camping in Oregon, and we've been able to chat on the computer or text messaging for the past two months. And on a whim I decided to fly out to Florida to spend a weekend hanging out with him, and we had an absolute blast. He got us tickets to see Cirque du Soleil (La Nouba), which was so amazing I actually found myself wiping away tears of happiness, some of the acts were so incredible. I've seen all the Cirque shows on TV, some more than once, but seeing them live is unbelievable. We drove out to the beach and I got to walk with my toes in the Atlantic, and we enjoyed a *fantastic* dinner, where there was a decent belly dancer performing. (I'm spoiled, that I know so many AMAZING bellydancers, the bar is really set high for me to enjoy other dancers.) All in all it was a fantastic trip, and I'm very thankful to be reconnected with a favorite friend from college. (hi Ken!) Here's us on the beach: http://twitpic.com/e4qmj. I really forgot to take photos, except a quick shot on the beach, because I was having too much fun catching up and enjoying the trip.

Finally, there are still tales and photos to share from Pennsic, Lyondemere Anniversary, my short evening visit with Shava and Giles, but I'll wrap it up here.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Life. Firefighters. Family and Friends. Life.