Tag: idyllwild

Posted on

I See Pavement

That’s ridiculous.

This was certainly a Monday. I haven’t really had one of your “I hate Monday” Mondays in a while. Today kind of made up for it. I upgraded some software on some servers in one of America’s Finest Almost As Good As Dysfunctional Cities last weekend and the ease of the install was balanced by the problems surfacing today.

Things started broken and the love just flowed from there. Not simple catching up from the weekend problems either. A copier here, a balky DVD driver there, the emails back and forth with Mr. Boss, you’d think things were going badly.

The day went as long as you would imagine after all that bullshit. But my day was beautiful and relaxing compared to Mrs. Toyota Highlander driving in front of me this afternoon. We were headed up through the twisty bits, past the fire station in Pinyon through the evening shadows. I hated the low light and the tight formation in front and behind but she seemed bored. The slow left sweep was easy enough, but didn’t seem to warrant even her steering input. Not left, straight.

The result was not the obvious falling into the abyss moment, but more moon buggy action over rocks and low manzanita. She corrected and stayed out of, well, being dead. No airbag deployment, but she was fully shaken. As her fun house ride took her 60 degrees from vertical at one point, I saw an Allstate commercial playing out in slow motion in front of me. She hooked a wheel on a tree which righted her and left me with room to slow to a stop. She looked fine, but I was in no mood to stop and confirm. I think I recovered from my own heart attack about five miles later.

Four miles after that, I informed the fine folks at the Garner Valley fire station. Aw, too close to Pinyon. They weren’t worried, so I wasn’t either.

Houseblogging? Not today since I got back to my little alpine nirvana well after dark. More tomorrow, I hope.

Your best (alive) pal,

bob

UPDATE: Does this qualify for a Genius! post? It’s quick, you’ll love it. Report came in of a failed mouse. Our friend was moving it all around, but damned if the cursor would move. People checked connections, drivers, but nothing seemed to fix the problem. Until they figured out what she was pushing around the mousepad—her cell phone. Yep.

Posted on

The End Of Fear

Friends,

The fire is 100% contained and everybody in my little burg is relieved to say the least. We had phenomenal air support during the battle to knock the thing down, including the celebrated DC-10 supertanker. No pictures of the monster, but here’s one from Saturday that I thought turned out well.

The men who lost their lives fighting that fire were from here though, so it’s fair to say that the normally light mood here is abnormally somber. “Getting back to normal” mode doesn’t come easy for my neighbors and their efforts, like the carnival held this evening, appeared a little forced. I entirely get it having feared for my own house but for the folks who knew the chief and his crew, it’s still tough.

What this town does though is get together and make something else of the loss. Every event that was to be held to benefit something else, from the play at the school to the concert down the way to the Halloween Carnival itself are now fundraisers for the families left behind. They don’t have to do these things, but they do. And that’s yet another reason why I live here.

Your pal,

– bob

Posted on

Holy Crap!

Yeah, I said it.

You may have heard of a little conflagration in my neighborhood. Don’t take my word for it, ask Chief John Hawkins:

“This was a deliberately set arson fire,” John Hawkins, chief of the Riverside County Fire Department, said in a televised press briefing. “And a deliberately set arson fire in which someone is killed constitutes murder.”

I’ve gotta tell you that the local media coverage stinks to high heaven. The article via the AP from the San Jose Mercury News is tons better than, say, the freakin’ Riverside paper (except for the lack of photography). Hell, all of the local coverage has stunk it up in a big way. My folks are getting their news about this huge local event from CNN. My friends have been watching Fox News, Los Angeles stations, and for all I know the Toronto Daily News.

How’d I hear about it? Oh, my sister called to ask if I was okay. “Um, sure,” I replied. “Why do you ask?” She mentioned something about fire so I took a look at the mountain from the side lot at work. Yeah, holy crap.


I asked the boss if I could leave and promptly did. Here’s a shot from La Quinta on Highway 111 (only 555 away from being the devil’s highway, by the way).

What I discovered once I’d arrived back at The Lodge was that the fire had taken westerly turn, saving my little burg. The smoke is pretty heavy here, but I’ll take it.

That was awfully close.

Your pal,

– bob