From @ThisIsTrue:
AMAZING false-color NASA satellite pic of the damage caused by LA’s Station Fire.
Yes. Yes it is. (Full size on the linked article.)
Category: Life
Cashew! (Gesundheit)
Ack! Who puts cashews on Hawaiian pizza?
Apparently Red Brick Pizza does. They kindly made a replacement without them.
*whew*
Constant Vigilance!
It was listed on the menu, and I should have looked more closely…but who expects nuts of any kind on Hawaiian pizza? It’s standard: crust, tomato sauce, cheese, ham, and pineapple. Checking for nuts on that would be like checking for strawberry jam on a cheeseburger.
San Gabriel Mountains Emerging From Smoke
The wind’s changed, the weather’s cooled off, and firefighters are starting to get the Station Fire under control. For the first time in days, we’ve been able to see the San Gabriel Mountains.
The eastern part of the range was clearly visible this afternoon — more visible than it usually is during the summer, with LA’s famous smog. The middle was completely shrouded in smoke. Interestingly, while it looks like the plume is being blown east, visibility seems to be worse toward the western end. Maybe wind near the ground is blowing west, and wind higher up is blowing east?
Compare to this shot of the mountains covered in snow last December:
Powerless at the Mall
How an outdoor mall dealt with a lunchtime power outage. And some Apple observations.
Power’s out at the mall. No teriyaki bowl for me. Subway it is! (Hmm, and no iced coffee either. *sigh*)
Near as I can tell, the Apple store is just completely shut down. Hazards of making checkout depend on computer network, I guess. For contrast, Subway just dug out a pad of paper credit card slips and did texture rubbings w/ a pen.
Odd: muzak is so omnipresent I didn’t notice it was still playing. Speakers must be on another circuit from the stores.
Turns out only some buildings have lost power. Including all the coffee except Starbucks. But Jamba Juice has power!
Was weird walking through mall at lunch seeing lighted stores on right and dark on left. Some stayed open, some closed, some adapted.
Coffee Bean was mostly closed during the power outage, but they set an employee out front with two urns of coffee. No ice, though.
Link: Station Fire Photos
LA fire pix at Flickr. An impressive round-up.
Bad Timing
I keep putting off washing my car, then finally getting to it right before a freak storm…or the arrival of a giant cloud of ash. *grumble*
Mt. Wilson Fire Status (Sep 1 2009)
- Mt Wilson still intact for now! Status, Towercam.
- Image from Mt. Wilson Observatory Towercam at 12:06 pm. Observatory website still up, but towercam very slow.
- Mt. Wilson Towercam showing lots of smoke: 12:21 was the last image I could get.
- Definitely cooler today, but humidity & smoke since the wind changed make it feel worse outside.
- Mt. Wilson good news: smoke on towercam was from backfires. Bad: website offline, cam not updating. Status on backup server.
- Los Angeles Fires Seen From Space (from @ecolady via @ThisIsTrue)
Images from the Mt. Wilson Observatory Towercam & NASA. You can probably figure out which is which.