Maybe I don't exist

Ok, so I have taken a VERY long leave of absence from the blogging world. I don't promise to not take another, however I am planning on attempting a return. I have become very addicted to Facebook, and to a point that might be considered unhealthy. On top of the fact that since I have been gone I haven't done really much of anything. Now I don't have anything planned to blog about, however my life can't really be as boring as my blog would imply, then again, maybe it is.

Do I really exist??

Lol, I just found out I might not really exist!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 1 or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Is it just me??

Ok, so on a recent visit to the local Dollar Tree store I saw something that was just plain wrong. Here it is the beginning of August and there were Christmas decorations. I understand that people doing crafts need that stuff now, but it was in the seasonal section, not in the craft section. Now I know that the first store to put up its Christmas stuff is most likely going to do the most business, and we are even beginning to anticipate our Christmas stuff at Radio Shack, but putting out decoration stuff this early in the year just seems wrong to me.

Latest diversions

Ok, so I have 2 new diversions in my life. One is good and healthy, as long as you don't over estimate you abilities, and don't have friends (or nephews for that matter) who are out to "kill" you. That diversion is swimming. I have been working my legs fairly well by bike riding, however that hasn't been helping my arms at all. I have only been 3 times in the last 2 weeks, but have felt the work out every time. I will probably only participate once a week or so, do to the fact that the lake where it would be free looks more like a mud puddle, and I don't want to be paying several times a week just to go swimming, and I have to wait for my schedule and friends with access to a pools schedules to coincide. Never the less, I have found that to be a great workout and lots of fun.

My other new addiction is no where near as healthy, mainly because computer games don't workout much more than the fingers needed to push the buttons. The price on this one is perfect though, and I have spent much more time on this than much else this week. A big part of that is that some of my nephews and one niece are here, at least that is my excuse. This diversion is call TrackMania. A racing game that is free to download, and play either on line or off. Some of the reasons this game has captured my interest so much is that it is a non-violent game with very challenging play and great graphics for the price. Here are some screen shots.

The Humbolt Fire is fully contained

Well, the Humboldt fire is now fully contained at 23,433 acres. They lost 74 homes and another 20 were damaged. Over 3,000 firefighters were involved, not to mention 10 air tankers, 7 helicopters multiple water tankers and bulldozers. There were only 9 injuries and none of them were serious. I will probably add to this post as other final numbers come out, and will add more pics and maybe videos as they continue to open up the areas to other than residents only.

The aftermath of the Humboldt fire

Ok, I video taped the trip back in to Paradise from Chico after the mandatory evacuation at my house was over. I will add more photos and maybe videos to this post as they get more of the fire out and open up more roads. As of right now, the fire stands at about 23000 acres burned, 74 homes destroyed, and 20 more damaged. There have been about 3400 firefighters, 520 engines, 10 air tankers, and 7 helicopters, not to mention all the other support equipment, including water tankers, bulldozers and other trucks involved in fighting this fire, with crews from all over California and even from Nevada. The farthest traveling crews had more than a 12 hour drive to get here, and I am very grateful to every one of them for their willingness to help us out up here and for their sacrifice in leaving their families and homes to come up here.

The Humboldt Fire

Ok, Thursday started out normal enough. I got up and picked up my mom at the repair shop, as she was having the CV joints replaced on her car. A few hours later we went back to pick her car up.

On the way home my car completely died. It was idling fine, then as I started to go I had no power what so ever. I got down the hill I was on, but couldn't make it back up the other side. I stopped and backed down and off the road and called a tow truck. After an hour the truck showed up and he towed it to my house.
I started working on my car, not exactly what I had planned for my day off, and on my way back home from Auto Zone I took this picture of the smoke from the fire burning just out side of town. I got back home and they had given me the wrong distributor cap, so I went back up to exchange it. As I got home I happened to catch this photo of the DC10 that Cal Fire is using to dump retardant in the path of the fire. At this point the fire and evacuations were still about a mile away from where I live.
I got back to working on my car and was getting ready to change the fuel filter, and then the cap, rotor and plugs. As I got the air cleaner out, which is necessary to change the fuel filter, a get ready to evacuate notice came out over the public radio broadcast that Paradise has set up for times of emergency. I closed down the hood on the car as best I could and moved my dad's van over to start loading things into it to be ready to go if we needed to. As soon as I got the van by the house a police officer drove by using his PA system to let us know that we were in an immediate threat evacuation area. We hastily loaded a bunch of things in to the van and car and made arrangements with friends on where to stay and headed out.
On the way out of town we had to stop and pick up a lady that my mom takes care of, we were in her apartment complex for about 45 minutes and then got back on the road. There are 5 roads that go down out of Paradise only 4 of which are really usable for evacuation purposes. Well, 3 of them had been closed due to the fire actually jumping across them, or burning right up to them. So all 9,500 people leaving town were headed to a 2 lane road with one being used to get out of town and the other being used to bring emergency personnel into town. My first stop was to help some friends load a moving truck as they are moving to Las Vegas. I was going to meet them at 5:30, and left home at 2:30. Their house is about 25 miles from mine using the road I had to, to get out of town, and I got to their house at 8:30. Taking into consideration that I stopped for about an hour total, once to help the lady my mom cares for, and the second time where we were supposed to meet her family to drop her off, that makes it an average of 5 miles an hour to get out of town. I actually got this picture of the traffic while at a particularly long stop.
Once down the hill, I went to where they were loading the truck, knowing that they would be done, but I wanted to call the people I was going to be staying with to let them know where I was and what was up. I then left their house and stopped and grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed off to the West's where I would spend the next 36 or so hours. I caught this video on the way to their house as I had to drive back along the other side of where the fire was burning to get there.