Despite late rise this morning, we took Kelley to CSUN to meet my colleagues there. Many of them weren't around, though, for various reasons, but we saw quite a few. Of course everyone thinks the baby's adorable.

On the way to campus we could see the massive smoke bank generated by the 15,000-acre fires a bit to the west. We could not see flames directly, but we saw churning columns of smoke as well. The wind blew the wrong way for us to even smell smoke for the moment. The campus remains open, but if the wind shifts it could easily smother it and force closure.

Just before visiting campus, we ate at the newly opened Chipotle about a block away. Their superdense burritos weigh more than Kelley I do believe, and we both completely scarfed them down. I look forward to going through there entire menu over the next few months.

We scurried back to the house to put more water on the curing stucco (and have to continue doing so every few hours the next couple of days, given how hot, dry, and windy it's been).

Yesterday we installed the framework for the new oven, laid down the backerboard for the kitchen tile, got all the tile into the kitchen itself, moved the fridge to the front room. All powered by Krispy Kreme, thank you very much. We're having another load of stucco mix delivered on the weekend, so we're out of projects for a couple days.

At least we thought we were, so we went and got ourselves a couple more. First, three new much-assembly-required Ikea matching pinewood dressers for the master bedroom. Second, new track lighting for the kitchen. The slate will darken the room somewhat, but the new lights should compensate, look infinitely better than bare flourescent lights, and actually increase the ambience greatly. We'll work on those things tomorrow while waiting for the electrician to install the junction box for the oven.

While shopping for the dressers and lighting this afternoon in Burbank, we walked out of one store and noticed a hillside north of town had erupted in smoke and flame. We could see the fire too. It's not nearly as large as the one to the west, although it was not quite out as of 9 pm tonight when I returned to Ikea to get the dressers (had to go home and drop off wife and baby, particularly the babyseat).

Anyway, the new fire in Burbank originally sent its smoke up and north, but while in another store the wind shifted sending it our way. We had ash dropping on us like a light snowfall. Now at home – outside – it smells like burned popcorn. I think that smell may be coming from the west, rather then Burbank, but it doesn't really matter.

My new iMac backup drive arrived today. Best get that puppy fired up and put to use.