Anna and Jerry made it to Bonsall about 8pm. The van was out of gas, and all the gas stations are closed, and there was no gas to siphon from the motorcycles, so they waited till the road was clear and made it to a friends place at Bonsall, where Jerry helped clear the brush away from the house. Now they are departing to another friends house at ( Read more... )

So Anna and Jerry stayed at home longer. I called and they were standing on the roof watching the wall of fire advance. It was moving quite slowly so they made pasta and loaded up a trailer. Jerry was convinced their place would burn up the next day. When I talked to Anna just now the fire came over the ridge to the northeast. A volunteer ( Read more... )

Posting from my phone. My sister was still home at 2PM, but finishing packing up. They have a large van and Toyota pickup. They are actually located between two fires-- the fallbrook fire and the Davis fire. Apparently the fire across the 15 spread from the valley west to the 15 then leapt across. I know this area quite well as I go on ( Read more... )

My sister called me this morning at 7am that San Diego is on fire and the fires are fairly close-- she mentioned Poway and San Marcos, which are just south of her place in Fallbrook. I checked Google half an hour ago and apparently there is a Fallbrook fire now too, so I tried calling my sister but I couldn't connect. I waited a little bit and ( Read more... )

This year I've gotten serious about my finances. No more blind deposits and withdrawals from Ye Olde Bank of America, no more back of the head savings calculations. And certainly no more damn 0.2% "savings" interest rates ( Read more... )

(since I don't want to sound like a grumpy cynic, here's a product I actually really liked ( Read more... )

I've been lying to everyone I meet while traveling, telling them the photos "will be up soon." When you have taken 15,000 pictures in past year and a half, following up on that promise is a little daunting. Then theres the mountain of video-- 14 hours from Japan alone ( Read more... )

Right out of the airport to the widmer brewery tour. Widmer has just expanded their manufacturing capability to something astronomical. The process is: receive grains, store in seperate tanks. Move upstairs to crack them, then down into one of five tuns. In these tuns the hops go in and get strained out during transfers. At the last step, yeast ( Read more... )

On the way to Portland now. Taking just my backpack. There's the widmer brewery tour at noon so hopefully we will make it on time ( Read more... )

Came back on Monday from Columbus. Sean, from all the way in Ethiopia, pointed out that the blackberry software changed Columbus to Columbia in my last post. So for those of you who may have wondered if I was looking for a $6000 per pound rendevouz with Juan valdez coffee distributors, you are out of luck. The only coffee I had was on the house ( Read more... )