fire – Still Not King

Decompressing

Just finished fighting with a Linux server that somehow ended up re-activating a service which it didn’t need, but which interferes with a service that it does need. *grumble*.

Boss returned this morning from a week out following back surgery…and has jury duty. Figures if he actually gets called in, he can easily get it dismissed, but for now, the only number he has is for the automated message.

Managed to mostly avoid fire+smoke problems this weekend, except Sunday afternoon why my eyes just wouldn’t stop itching. A co-worker had to evacuate his parents from Yorba Linda on Saturday, but their house made it through okay.

Got together with andrea_wot, wayens and gasean for Andrea’s birthday and monopolized a table at Cosi for about 4 hours on Sunday. Fortunately they didn’t seem to mind!

Caught up on comics & Netflix over the weekend. Read Crecy, about the 1300s battle in which the English longbow triumphed over vastly superior French numbers. Mostly about medieval war tactics, swearing, and xenophobia. Narrated by an utter bastard who breaks the fourth wall a lot. Did I mention it was by Warren Ellis? Also read Chrono Mechanics, about a squad of techs whose job is to repair time. A bit too crazy even for me, and I loved Tales from the Bully Pulpit. And finally Harley and Ivy, a collection of stories focusing on Batman villains Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, which was great fun.

As for TV, we’ve finished season 1 of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. I also wrapped up watching season 5 of The Batman (though I haven’t watched the earlier seasons, and based on this one, probably won’t). And then there’s Stan Lee’s Lightspeed…I had to watch it because it’s about a speedster, but OMG it was awful. At least now I know Netflix’ "Watch Instantly" service works well with our system/connection. Snarky commentary will go up at Speed Force in the next week or two.

We’ve backed off on the house hunting for a bit. We actually got a counteroffer on one of the places we looked at a few weeks ago, but decided not to take it. We need to reevaluate what we’re looking for before we dive back in.

Drove alenxa to an interview this morning. Thought it was in one of those two new buildings by the spectrum until she told me the address, and realized it was actually across the street from where I work. Highly convenient for today, but the actual job location is off in another direction.

Fire and Dreams

So, this morning I read that there were a bunch of fires around LA. Hardly a big surprise, given that we’ve had a really dry year, and it’s insanely hot for No-frickin-vember, and we’ve got genuine Santra Ana winds going.

Except that last night I dreamed I was on a ferry returning from Catalina Island, and saw smoke coming over the mountains, to the north of Saddleback. I thought there must be a fire in the Santiago Canyon area, or possibly on the other side out toward Riverside, and this being a dream I had some way to get higher (Plane? Helicopter? Really high hill that doesn’t exist? Balloon? Don’t remember.) and saw the huge conical volcano that had sprung up out of nowhere in the hills southeast of Corona.

I also dreamed that I left the laptop computer on a table at In-N-Out as I left, walked back in to grab it, and was convinced that someone had swapped it for an identical one during the 30 seconds I was away from it. And then it turned into one of those extremely tiny portables that only have half a screen and sort of fill the gap between smartphone and notebook. And I couldn’t find where they’d put the period key, which really bugged me because I wanted to use proper punctuation.

Whee.

Got some nighttime photos yesterday of the orange moon (to the right) and the glow coming from the hills in front of Saddleback.

The smoke is back again, like Monday. It’s thinner, so at first I figured it would be better, but I feel much worse. Maybe because I’ve been breathing the crap for the last 4 days, maybe because without the wind, the smoke and ash are settling at ground level.

Meanwhile I’ve been putting out virtual fires with our network since about 3:00 yesterday. Yesterday my boss and I spent most of the afternoon trying to troubleshoot a computer that was running incredibly slow, but only when the network was plugged in. I was there until almost 6:30 trying to troubleshoot problems that started affecting the few other people who were still in the office at that hour.

This morning, I got to troubleshoot the connection issues that started cascading around the office. Finally I discovered a cable on the back of the stack of hubs was plugged into the wrong port. We’d temporarily disconnected it yesterday afternoon for testing, and someone (presumably my boss) plugged it back into the wrong connector.

And of course, anything that’s already flaky has taken the opportunity to stop working, leading to follow-up “Hey, X isn’t working” visits that have led, so far, to rebooting a server, replacing a network card in a desktop, and resetting a hub. Did I mention my boss isn’t in yet, and no one’s really sure if he’s going to be in today?

So here I am, sitting at my desk, writing this in bits and pieces when I have time, drinking ~~hot~~ lukewarm chocolate, wishing I’d remembered to grab that bottle of Vizine or Clear Eyes or whatever it is from home. I really don’t want to go anywhere at lunch today, between having to leave early and wanting to stay indoors as much as possible.

Current Mood: 😴groggy

Smoke

Lungs doing tolerably well, considering all the smoke in the air. On the plus side, it’s a lot clearer (relatively speaking) than yesterday, since the smoke seems to be concentrated in the canyons & drifting outward, rather than being driven directly at the building where I work. (Naturally, I had an appointment with my allergist yesterday. In an office on the edge of the smoke plume. And she insisted on doing a breathing test.)

Family are all okay, though my dad’s workplace keeps trying to call people in despite being a few hundred yards from yesterday’s fire lines. AFAIK, friends all live out of the danger zone (I think we’re the second-closest to the Santiago fire, after wayens).

Work’s been interesting, with people periodically clustering around computers for online updates or around a conference room window that looks out at the mountains. Two co-workers who live out in the Santiago Canyon area: one was evacuated this morning, and figured he might as well come into the office. No word from the other. We’re all speculating as to whether he’s still helping put out fires, or standing guard at his house, or what.

Been fireblogging at K2R, with photos.

Current Location: Irvine, California