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Post by james1979 on Aug 20, 2020 16:17:45 GMT -8
James, I see that the NWS predicts your area of the country as having good potential for a hurricane making land. My thoughts will be with you as well JB Luckily, I'm far enough inland that we generally just get a lot of rain. My plans for the beach, however, are screwed!
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Post by vance on Aug 20, 2020 17:48:07 GMT -8
I was a firefighter in the Navy as well, #1 OBA hose man on several destroyers back in the day. The training scared the sh** out of me, and I am thankful that I only had to fight 1 major engine room fire and a few small ones. There's no place to go, so you put it out!
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Post by crabbyjim on Aug 20, 2020 19:44:45 GMT -8
We are refugees from the River Road fire in Monterey County. Sadly, we have had to seek shelter in a beachfront condo in Monterey. Don't know how long we'll have to stay here in this two bedroom, two bath hellhole. The microwave doesn't even have a turntable. Woe is us.
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Post by nikeajax on Aug 21, 2020 7:47:33 GMT -8
CJ, I'm very sorry to hear this--really! When I met my wife she lived in Boulder Creek, on Big Basin Way, this is the road you take to get to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. California Redwoods, Sequoia sempervirens, "is an evergreen, long-lived, monoecious tree living 1,200–1,800 years or more. This species includes the tallest living trees on Earth, reaching up to 379 feet (115.5 m) in height (without the roots) and up to 29.2 feet (8.9 m) in diameter at breast height". They have evolved to live with fire, which is what creates a chemical reaction and causes their cones to germinate afterwords, but these fires are so hot that they may not be able to survive: the cambium will be damaged. Towns like Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond and Felton which are in Santa Cruz County may no longer exist in a short time. JB
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Post by SeaRat on Aug 21, 2020 7:59:02 GMT -8
Oh my, thank you for the update, JB.
John
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Post by vance on Aug 21, 2020 9:24:11 GMT -8
It's bad. My brother, sister in law, and nephew are staying with us while their home in Scotts Valley is threatened and probably burned down.
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Post by nikeajax on Aug 21, 2020 10:17:35 GMT -8
I just got back from shopping, the whole Bay Area smells like wood smoke: the light that filters through the hazy sky casts an orange light on everything. While I was loading up my truck I saw a really old guy, who'd been inside the store shopping: he had his mask pulled down puffing on a cigarette. I could smell his damned cigarette through my mask.
My latest obsession is post-War Japanese fishing reels: when I go out to my garage to work on them it smells like smoke, well, a bit like BBQ too! The smoke is worse today and it is supposed to be warmer as well.
The depressing thing is there are no firefighters to help with places like Boulder Creek, only a small volunteer department: they are staying away because of COVID. I think my wife said there was one CDF truck from Los Angeles though helping for that area.
JB
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Post by nikeajax on Aug 21, 2020 11:24:54 GMT -8
We interrupt our program of the regularly scheduled "Doom and Gloom" to bring you something 6000% hopeful! JB
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Post by nikeajax on Aug 21, 2020 14:11:26 GMT -8
WHOOOOO-HOOOO!My wife just informed me that Lick Observatory was successfully saved from the fire. This is one of the world's most historically significant observatories with scores of "firsts" in the field of astronomy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lick_ObservatoryJB
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Post by SeaRat on Aug 21, 2020 16:14:12 GMT -8
We interrupt our program of the regularly scheduled "Doom and Gloom" to bring you something 6000% hopeful! JB JB, I was out deer hunting with my Dad and brothers in the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness area in the 1960s. We each took a different, parallel compass course with the hope of scaring out a deer for someone to get a shot. As I recall, I came up on a ridge top, and crested it. It was a rolling hill crest, with some pine and fir trees on top. I watched as in front of me a fairly large animal, low to the ground, kinda silver in color with a lot of fur, ambled out from the brush and walked in front of me to a tree with a lot of limbs on the ground. It simply went into these limbs, and disappeared. I'm convinced that it was a wolverine that I saw. We didn't get a shot at a deer that day, but to this day I'm sure I saw that wolverine, and although I never reported the sighting, it apparently was very rare even then. It's great to hear that they have been sighted in Washington State too. John PS, I stopped hunting deer, and spearfishing, for that matter, in the 1970s after returning from Vietnam.
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Post by SeaRat on Aug 21, 2020 16:21:14 GMT -8
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Post by nikeajax on Aug 21, 2020 17:25:51 GMT -8
John, thanks for sharing that image: it literally brought tears to my eyes! It's such a special place: did you know that at one point James Lick was the richest man in California? He had so much money and no heir, that he didn't know what to do with it once he died. He wanted to build a pyramid as a memorial to himself in Downtown San Francisco, fortunately someone convinced him to have the worlds largest telescope built overlooking San Jose. It was the worlds first mountaintop observatory... Very shortly after my mother died my soon to be wife and I went up there as a way of doing something nice: when we got there they were having an exhibit of Chesley Bonestell's work: if I wanted to I could have touched these priceless pieces of art. Who is Chesley Bonestell you ask? You've seen his work, but may not have known it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesley_BonestellHe is known now as for his space paintings. As the story goes, he was such an influence and his work was so good that the Apollo-11 astronauts didn't feel seeing the moon was as impressive as they expected because they'd seen it before in Mr. Bonestell's work. JB
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Post by nikeajax on Aug 21, 2020 18:15:03 GMT -8
OH geeeze, I went to take the garbage out tonight... It was sooooo nice out there, all of 74 luscious degrees, it was like I was taking some really good drugs: it felt so good and yet it was so bad to be breathing that junk even with a mask on, and soooo bloody hot in our house. I'm fantasizing about winter right now--UFF-DA!
JB
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Post by crabbyjim on Aug 22, 2020 5:57:31 GMT -8
Winter in Dulutt?
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Post by vance on Aug 22, 2020 17:06:46 GMT -8
I googled that. Nuttin'. Whatz or wherez a Dulutt?
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