Friday  25 Jun 2021           comment?

Wednesday  23 Jun 2021           comment?

Tuesday  22 Jun 2021           comment?

The fire calmed down a bit overnight but there's a ways to go before it's under control. This DC-10 was among the aircraft working on the fire today.

Monday  21 Jun 2021           comment?

Another fire started by lightning, a couple miles southwest of Friday's fire, and now considerably larger. This one is in forest at a higher elevation. Aircraft have been fighting it for the past few days but it was windy today and the fire spread considerably.

Updates at https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/7564/

It got even worse after sundown. The area on fire in the pic below is about six miles away and is over a mile wide. This is scary.

Sunday  20 Jun 2021           comment?

Saturday  19 Jun 2021           comment?

Yesterday's fire is under control. No more smoke, no more aircraft dropping stuff. I am impressed by yesterday's quick and thorough response, which included several helicopters and a couple jets.

I found a bug in Firefox this week and went to report it, which entailed first searching to see if it had already been reported. Yes, someone reported the same bug ten years ago and it is still unfixed. I've seen a browser bug languish for years before but ten years is impressive.

Happy nineteenth, everyone.

Friday  18 Jun 2021           comment?

Wildfires started by lightning about six miles from my house. I got an automated phone call saying to prepare to evacuate. My guess is it won't reach my neighborhood but you never know. I'm putting stuff in my car. A helicopter dropping lake water on the fire:

Sunday  13 Jun 2021           comment?

I was hanging out with friends a couple days ago and someone asked whether Long Island was really an island. I said you can't walk there without going over a bridge. A web search called to our attention that in 1985, the US Supreme Court ruled 9‑0 that Long Island was not an island.

The case settled a dispute over whether the federal government or the states controlled waters around Long Island. The court deemed Long Island an extension of the mainland for the purpose of determining whether certain waters constituted a bay and were thus under state control. The decision cited precedent that said islands aren't islands when they 'are so integrally related to the mainland as realistically to be parts of the "coast" '.

In justifying its conclusion that Long Island wasn't much of an island, the 1985 decision noted that the East River used to be only 15 feet deep. I stand by my statement that you can't walk there without going over a bridge.

Friday  11 Jun 2021           comment?

Saturday  05 Jun 2021           1 comment

As long-time readers of this blog know, jackrabbits are creatures of habit and often take refuge from the sun in the same spot day after day. This year, a jackrabbit has chosen a spot next to my driveway. Unlike a certain rabbit from 2019, this one is leery of me and runs away when I walk by.

I walk down the driveway every morning to get my mail. I've tried taking another route to the mailbox but in so doing I disturbed a jackrabbit resting in a different shady spot. You can't win.

I posted video today of the rabbit settling into the spot near my driveway. 42 seconds, parts of it at 8x speed.

Thursday  03 Jun 2021           1 comment

One cholla flower in my yard this year. I'm impressed there are that many in light of how little rain we've had.