Category: General

Posted on
by

This morning I found myself asking the question: How do you tell someone their gas cap is open at 65 MPH?

I was on one of those giant, arcing ramps connecting one freeway to another, and noticed that the car in front of me (a PT Cruiser, I think) had something flopping around on its side. It quickly became clear that it was the gas cap, still tethered to the car, with the open flap above it. As we both merged onto the next freeway, I contemplated: how could I tell the driver?

On city streets, I’d try to pull up next to the car at a red light, roll the window down, wave, maybe honk the horn, and then say, “Your gas cap is open.”

But on a highway with no stopping points, at a speed where safe driving distance would keep us out of earshot?

I thought about honking the horn. But what good would that do? A horn only says one thing: “Hey!” Sure, you can vary it a little to give it a sense of urgency — “Hey! Hey!Hey!” “Heeeeeeeey!!!!!!” But it doesn’t allow much for specifics. I suppose you could try Morse code, but I wouldn’t count on most people being able to understand it — I’m an Eagle Scout and I only remember 4 letters — and it would take too long to spell out a message anyway.

Should I try to get in the next lane, match speeds, wave, and try to point to the back of the car? No, that didn’t seem safe.

Flash my headlights? No, that had the same problem as the horn. Too vague.

Outside of the basics (turn signals & brake lights) and a few standard signals (flashing the brights to tell someone you’re passing) — there really isn’t a good way to tell another driver something specific, like “Your lights are off,” “You’ve got a coffee mug on your roof,” or “Stop trying to crawl into my trunk.” Which I suppose is just as well, judging by a random sampling of bumper stickers and the way people treat other drivers. The enhanced road rage might cause more hazards than the enhanced communication would solve.

As for this morning’s PT Cruiser, I eventually I saw it move over to the shoulder. I guess there must have been a warning light on the dashboard.

Posted on
by

This past week has mostly been taken up by unpacking, at least to the point that we can use things. We got most of the bedroom set up the first night — we needed somewhere to sleep — but the rest has been slow going. We finally got the TV and DVD player hooked up today, and tested it by re-watching Raiders of the Lost Ark.*

One thing I’ve noticed is all the extra expenses that pile up after the move.

You have to replace things lost during the move. I misplaced the screws that held together the bed frame when I dismantled it, so after we moved the last boxes in and got cleaned up, I drove out to Lowe’s looking for replacement hardware. Similarly, we forgot to remove the under-the-cupboard paper towel holder, and had to get a new one.

There are also things you can’t take with you. Stick-on wall hooks in the closet, for instance.

Or things that are included in one place, but not in another. Our old apartment had a built-in lock on its garage storage. At this place, we had to get a padlock. (Well, actually, we didn’t. A day after buying it, I found one in my toolbox that I’d forgotten.) We also had to get a shower curtain rod. Fortunately we have plenty of lamps, but that’s one I’ve run into when moving before.

All this on top of the stuff you expect to pay: rent, deposits, boxes, movers or a rental truck, pizza for friends who are helping, etc.

*Regarding Indy, I had originally planned to re-watch the entire Indiana Jones trilogy before going out this weekend to see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But it took a while to empty enough boxes to get the TV set up. We did manage to watch Last Crusade on one of the computers, which was a bit awkward. We went out with friends on Saturday to catch the new film. It was a lot of fun, but not phenomenal. Better than Temple of Doom (which is still better than a lot of films) but not as good as Raiders or Last Crusade.

Posted on
by

Five posts since last weekend didn’t show up properly in the feed, so if you’re following by RSS or LiveJournal, you probably missed these:

(For the record: the GMT timestamps were set to zero. It seems to be this problem, probably triggered by turning on the XCache-based object cache last weekend. I’ve applied a patch, so let’s see if it works.)

Posted on
by

Yes, I’m shocked as well. 🙂 This morning I had to go into the Department of Motor Vehicles for the first time in several years, and was surprised to find that they’d actually worked out a very efficient system for handling people as they came in. I don’t know if this is standard across the California DMV, or if it’s specific to the Laguna Hills office, but I was impressed.

It’s a 2-stage system, starting with a single line, then a set of take-a-number queues running in parallel.

  1. Everyone starts in a single line leading to a “Directory” desk. The clerk at this desk handles initial questions and hands out the appropriate forms.
  2. You fill out the forms, then go back to the desk without standing in line again.
  3. The directory desk assigns you a number in one of several queues, depending on the type of service you need (ID, license, registration, testing, etc.).
  4. They call your number and send you to an open window.

The thing that impressed me was step 2. They have you fill out the forms before they assign you to a queue. That means that you won’t get caught half-way through the form when your number is called, so clerks at the windows don’t have to wait around while you finish filling things out. That means they can handle more people in the same amount of time.

The only problem I noticed with this part of the system was that it wasn’t clear where to go if you had an appointment.

Well, that and the occasional clueless visitor. I felt really stupid after marveling at the simple optimization, then discovering when I got to the window that I’d missed a section. 😳

Posted on
by

The change in the weather has brought in clouds today (Saturday), and even the occasional sprinkle of rain. It apparently helped slow the Santiago Fire considerably.

I went into work this morning to deal with some network problems (you may have noticed that this site was down for a while), then went over to the Spectrum to grab lunch and take a look at Leopard. (Incidentally, my plan seems to have failed: Amazon shipped the box yesterday, so I’ll have it in just a few days. And I’ll really want to put it on the PowerBook.) I went up to the top of the parking structure to take a look at what was visible.

Saddleback Smoke and Clouds

There’s considerably less smoke than yesterday, and you can see the beginnings of a layer of haze below the hills. The cloud of smoke peeking out from behind the lower peak just in front of Saddleback stayed there, without getting visibly larger or smaller.

The air’s been relatively clear, except for the fertilizer smell when I walked out of the office. People were out shopping and sitting at outdoor tables. I saw one woman walk by with a face mask, but everyone else seemed to be taking things as normally as possible.

The apartment complex cleaned out the pool, which a few days ago had intricate patterns of ash lining the bottom.

Ashes at the base of a swimming pool

Orange SawdustThey also finally cleared away the remnants of the tree that collapsed on Sunday. They chopped it up into smaller pieces, and moved it off the sidewalk, but left the stacks of logs, branches, the stump and piles of sawdust sitting on the lawn for the rest of the week. After a day or so, the sawdust turned almost bright orange. My best guess is that they ran the sprinklers.

Of the two co-workers who live out in Silverado, one cleared out on Tuesday, while the other stayed to help out with, well whatever he could. Putting out spot fires, rescuing animals, scouting. His wife has been sending out email updates whenever he manages to contact her. I ran into the one who evacuated at the office today (he frequently comes in on weekends). At the time, the prognosis didn’t look good, but now it sounds like the canyon homes were spared for another day.

It still wasn’t encouraging when, walking to the Corner Bakery at the Tustin Marketplace tonight, Katie and I were again able to see a red glow in the mountains. We went looking for a spot where I could both steady the camera and see the glow, and finally set it up on one of those waist-height light poles lining the entryways to the parking lot.

The glow brightened and dimmed several times while we paused.

Fireglow above the hills, framed by trees

This is a 10-second exposure taken around 8:50 PM. You can see how well-lit the parking lot is by looking at the trees. I suspect the Marketplace is the primary reason we can’t see as many stars from home as I’d like.

Posted on
by

The Santiago Fire has moved up into the mountains, raging through the Cleveland National Forest. The canyons are still under evacuation, but out here in the Saddleback Valley, it just looks like a really smoggy day. With yellower-than normal sunlight. It was actually cold this morning, for the first time in well over a week.

Things were just clear enough at home last night that we opened the windows for about an hour to air the place out. Then the smell of smoke started drifting in again.

Because there hasn’t been much to see since Thursday, I haven’t been taking as many photos. So instead I’ll point you to a couple of nighttime photos I found on Wikipedia’s article on all the fires. The one on the left is a view from Aliso Viejo across the valley (the Washington Mutual building at the lower left is half a block from the comic store I frequent) by Wikipedia user Bighead. The one on the right is a view from Mission Viejo by Kevin Labianco. His other photos on Flickr are worth looking at as well.

Santiago Fire from AV Santiago Fire from Mission Viejo

Map: Santiago Fire Progression from Sunday through ThursdayThe OCFA has posted a nice map showing the progression of the fire. Since they replace their maps every day or so, the thumbnail links to a local copy of the map. (via AerynCrichton)

I’ve noticed people starting to speculate on terrorism as a possible cause of the fires, because it’s awfully suspicious that they’d all break out at once. Well, no, actually: it isn’t suspicious at all. Southern California is a very dry region. It rains in the winter (well, usually), then dries out in the summer. By the end of summer, the grasslands and brush are basically tinder. Then the Santa Ana winds blow in, usually in October: high speed, high temperature, low humidity. They dry things out even further, spark power lines, and once a fire has started (by arson, accident, etc.), make it spread rapidly. To make matters worse, there’s that drought I mentioned last week.

So if conditions are ideal (so to speak) for fire in one place, they’re usually ideal all over the region. We get wildfires every year, often two or three at once. They don’t get the headlines when they’re out in the wilderness, only when they encroach on cities and homes. And sometimes, when conditions are really bad, we get massive fires across the region. It’s happening now, it happened in 2003 (with the Cedar Fire being the largest), it happened in 1993 (the nearby Laguna Beach fire being only one of several).

In short, California burns regularly. People can help that process along, but it happens. Could terrorists have started some of the fires? (So far, only the Santiago Fire has been identified as arson.) Possibly. But it’s hardly the most likely explanation.

Posted on
by

The Santa Ana winds arrived in earnest overnight. We spent most of the day indoors, going about our usual business with the howling wind and occasional thump in the background. I’d glance up from my book (I’m about halfway through Regeneration, the conclusion of Julie Czerneda’s 3-part Species Imperative) and look out at the trees as the branches shifted, making the leaves shimmer.

We went out for a late lunch/early dinner, and noticed it smelled like smoke outside. There wasn’t any smoke visible, though. There were lots of trees bending as the wind gusted, including a conical juniper whose tip would bend over even further than the rest, then flip back, like a finger beckoning or a hand waving good-bye.

After dinner we ran a few errands. Around 6:00, we walked out of the S-Mart* in Tustin and saw a huge billowing cloud of smoke rising in the distance. All we could tell as we walked through the parking lot was that it was coming from the hills off toward Saddleback. I decided to go to the Best Buy parking lot, where I knew there was a much better view of the hills, and on the way, Katie managed to spot actual flames on the hillside.

Column of smoke

By the time we reached Best Buy, the smoke plume had grown, the flames looked like they’d crept down the hillside, and the buildings across the way blocked more than I remembered.

But there were over a dozen people standing out in the lot, looking at the smoke, and taking pictures. In fact, as I ran around looking for a better view of the hillside, I noticed that people were walking out of the store, stopping, and getting out their cameras.

Hillside Flames

It was clear that we weren’t in imminent danger where we were, so we continued on with our errands. After sunset, we walked out of another store. While the smoke was invisible against the dark sky and the glare of the street lights, the moon was clearly visible—and deep red, not unlike during an eclipse (except with only a first-quarter moon). As the smoke shifted, the color changed to a lighter orange, then back to red. By the time we got home, we were clear of the smoke cloud and the moon looked normal.

Most news coverage seems to be focusing on the fire in Malibu, but the OC Register has an article on this one (link via Aeryncrichton). The location—near the 241/133 interchange and Portola Parkway—sounds like it’s near an area I drove through a few months ago, looking for random scenic views and finding the beginnings of new housing construction (and the “Ridge Valley” sign). That puts it disturbingly close to actual neighborhoods, though the fire authority site only indicates voluntary evacuations in that area.

When we got home, the sidewalk leading up to our apartment was blocked off. As we worked our way around the long way, we realized that the tree in front of our balcony had fallen over. Fortunately, away from the building and not into it. Just a few hours earlier, we’d been looking out at the courtyard and thinking it was a good thing all the table umbrellas were closed up, or someone on the other side would find one smashing through their window.

At this point, the smell of smoke has worked its way into our living room, but not anywhere else. Tomorrow morning’s gong to be interesting, that’s for sure. I’m just hoping it’ll be interesting on a normal Monday schedule.

*It used to be a K-Mart. Now it’s a “Sears Home Essentials”—as my brother once suggested, as opposed to “Sears Useless Crap You Don’t Need.”

»All pages site-wide with this tag