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I just heard that the winds have changed and the Pendleton fires, which were supposedly contained, have turned back towards Fallbrook. If this is true it is not good at all.

My answering machine still picks up as of 10:34 pm.

Update: 11:52 pm answering machine is still working.

Any one reading this? Feel free to reply. I’ve changed the settings for now so that you don’t have to register.

Update: 12:24 am Wednesday morning. The machine is still working.

Update: 12:56 am. My answering machine is still answering. There are people still in Fallbrook at the Albertson’s parking lot which is a mile or so from my house. They say they see a glow and heard an explosion on the NE side of town which is away from my house.

I’m running on fumes, but I can’t sleep. I’ll update until I finally go to bed.

Update: 1:30 am. The machine is still answering. Surrounding areas such as Bonsall, San Luis Rey Heights and Winterwarm on the north side of state Route 76 are being told to evacuate. They are being told to head W on 76. The problem with that is according to the chip site: DUE TO FIRE, NB 5 AT LAS PULGAS AND SB 5 AND BASILONE SHUT DWN. They will need to head south on some side roads.

Update: 1:49 am. The 5 shutdown is due to smoke from a back burn according to http://www.cpp.usmc.mil/ They say that there is no danger to the 5.

Update: 1:59 am. My answering machine is still picking up. The guy in Albertson’s parking lot says that it is quiet in the area and doesn’t mention anything new. I think I’m going to bed.

Update: 2:30 am. Haven’t made it to bed yet, but I’m going now. My machine is still working so I still have a home. The albertsons guy posted and said that all was quiet in my direction. We’ll see what the morning brings in three or four hours.

Update: 3 am. Answering machine still works. Going to bed. No. Really.

This is the latest info from various sources.

The Rice fire in Fallbrook has grown to 7,500 acres and is 10 percent contained. Firefighters expect full containment on Oct. 28 and full control of the blaze by Nov. 5.

San Diego County faced the most dire situation as flames raced unchecked, with 500,000 people now ordered to evacuate their homes, county supervisor Ron Roberts said. At least 1,250 homes were destroyed.

Doesn’t look great.

As of 9:25 pm my answering machine still picks up so I still have a house!

I did hear that the winds have been better today and should be even better tomorrow. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get back into the house on Thursday, but we will see.

Sorry for the lack of posts. I’ve been on vacation for the last two weeks and before that I was overwhelmed at work. I wish I had better things to post about.

For anyone that doesn’t know, much of San Diego and surrounding areas are on fire. This is worse than the fire from four years ago. If you remember that one then you have some idea just how bad it is.

I live in Fallbrook, an area in northern San Diego county. When I went to bed on Sunday night the fires had already started, but they were a good distance from me. By the time I got up around 9am Monday (the last day of my vacation) that had changed.

Turning on the news I saw that there were now 8 fires that were blanketing the entire area. One of them, the Rice Fire, was close enough to make me worry. I spent the next four hours running around trying to find information on the fire and getting ready to evacuate.

It’s been a long day, but as far as I can remember sometime around 1pm half of Fallbrook was ordered to evacuate. This wasn’t my half, but it was only a couple of miles away. I finished packing and managed to convince my roommate that this was serious and he needed to get ready.

We left sometime around 1:30pm?, about a half hour or so after the partial evacuation.  Apparently we left at a good time.

The road out of Fallbrook is a narrow two lane that winds around and ends up at 76. We ran into a little traffic, but not too much that was out of the ordinary. We got on the 76 and headed to the 5. We stopped briefly to get gas and overpaid for it.

The 5 North was good for a few miles, then it went to a crawl. It took over two hours to get to Irvine, a drive that normally takes an hour at worst.

Harvey, my roommate, has relatives in Irvine and we were heading there. As we got closer I started to worry as there was a lot of smoke. Fortunately we rode out of it and their place seems to be safe. Once we got there, we found out that we left at the right time.

Shortly after we left the partial evacuation of Fallbrook was elevated to a total evacuation. The 76 became a parking lot. They opened the road that goes through Pendleton (a military base) to help people evacuate and that was a parking lot as well. I’m glad we didn’t wait any longer.

As of right now my answering machine still picks up (12:50am) so my house seems to be standing. I’ve also heard that the santa anna winds that are driving these fires have died down a bit, at least from reports from people that are still in the fallbrook area. They are predicted to pick up again in the morning though and they are saying that they’ll be blowing until Thursday.

We’re not out of this yet.

I’ll try to update this as I can.

After I saw the video, I wrote the following letter to John Kerry. (Links at the end of the article.)

Why was Andrew Meyer arrested?

Was he obnoxious? Yes. So what. Aren’t we allowed to be a little passionate at times? A little over-excited in our youth? A little obnoxious when trying to make a point?

Is being obnoxious a good enough reason to be thrown to the ground, held there by multiple officers and then tasered? I think not.

There are those that say he ‘resisted arrested’. From a technical stand point they may be right. What I saw in the video was a kid who got in over his head. A kid who didn’t know how to react when cops over-reacted.

If this was an isolated incident, it could be forgiven as an aberration. Unfortunately it is not. Many such reports of police brutality appear in our newspapers practically every day.

Since 9-11 we have become a nation that is not only willing to give up our freedoms for the illusion of security, but eager. We’ve also unfortunately had a president that is more than willing to take advantage of that.

Mr. Kerry. You should have done better. You should have directed the police to release him immediately. If you truly didn’t know what was happening at the time, once you found out about it you should have personally appeared at the police station and demanded his release.

Was Andrew Meyer obnoxious? Yes. But he committed no crime. Your relative silence on this issue is criminal however.

You need to do better. You need to talk about this incident. You need to answer his questions. You need to do something, anything, to give people hope that this country will not become the police state it is headed towards.

Links

http://theandrewmeyer.com/

One video of the incident.

There are many more videos of this on youtube, just search for Andrew Meyer.

There is one, and only one, spoiler in this posting. It was made by Rowling herself before the book was released and I discuss it. Other than that I will talk about reading the book, but not about the story or what happens in it. I may talk about the story in a few weeks, but for now I want to talk about my experience reading the book.

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This was good, surprisingly good. I haven’t been a fan of this book at all. The art didn’t work for me and the first story arc managed to be both long and boring. This issue is the start of a new arc and while I’m still not fond of the art, the story is excellent.

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I wasn’t expecting anything more than an entertaining read when I picked this issue up at the comic shop last Wednesday. It hadn’t been advertised heavily so I didn’t expect anything. Boy was I wrong!

I don’t usually post spoiler alerts, but I will this time. Do NOT read beyond the break if you’re a DC fanboy like I am and you haven’t yet read this issue! I’m not kidding!

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I tried this title a while back, and while I didn’t dislike it, it also didn’t really grab me. Recently I decided to give it another go. I’m glad I did.

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I wish that I could have reviewed the entire Shadowflame series, but even though I ordered all four issues from my comic store, only this last issue actually showed up. My store claims that they ordered them, so this is most likely a Diamond problem. In any event I’m glad that I got at least this final issue.

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Once in a while a major creator will step out of the worlds of the big two comic publishers and create something for himself. This doesn’t seem to happen often, but it’s usually worth a look. Kid Kosmos is Jim Starlin’s creation, and it’s definitely worth a look.

Published by Dynamite Entertainment, this long delayed graphic novel, it was originally scheduled for last year, has been worth the wait. It picks up directly from the earlier Cosmic Guard mini-series and continues the story of Ray Torres, a young orphan who is chosen to be the latest Comic Guardian.

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