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“Oh, baby you make me feel / Like I’m on fire!”

This is the map of the Freeway Complex Fire (or Triangle Complex Fire, whatever they’re calling it now) I got from the Orange County Register, current as of last night. Red represents burn areas, blue represents mandatory evacuation areas; The red circle is where I live. The distance from our house to where the evacuation area was less than half a mile. So yeah, we were close to being in panic mode last night; Bags were packed and preparations were in place in case we had to leave.

I didn’t sleep well last night because I kept expecting to hear heavy knocks on the door from the PD or FD. But fortunately for us (and unfortunately for others), the fire moved up towards Chino Hills and Diamond Bar. It still smelled like CRAP all day today outside and a layer of haze still lingered around, but it was a marked improvement over yesterday.

While doing a quick drive around Anaheim Hills, I saw a bunch of closed stores and restaurants due to the fire. I was able to notice Costco and most of the other Savi Ranch businesses still standing; I think it was just a Thomsaville Furniture and some car repair place that got damaged.

I was messing with mounting my old Rebel XT to my headrest, so don’t mind my dashboard intruding on the picture, but here’s an unremarkable picture of the haze that’s set all over Orange/LA Counties.

Anyways, everything’s good here now, I’ve just started unpacking my “Panic Bag” and started sorting everything out again. Thanks to everyone who texted, e-mailed, called and IMed to make sure everything was okay over here. The OC Register was my main sources of information last night, so thanks to everyone over there. I also got plenty of information from Twitter, especially from @ksablan and #ocfire, so thanks to all you Twitterers! And of course last but not least, thanks to all the rescue workers who helped fight the fire and keep everyone safe.

Here are a couple more shots I took yesterday:

And just for fun, here is my “Freeway/Triangle Complex Fire” playlist:

• Ferry Corsten - Fire
• Joe Budden & Busta Rhymes - Fire (Yes, Yes Y’all)
• Busta Rhymes & Pharrel - Light Your Ass on Fire
• Prodigy - Firestarter
• Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire
• U2 - The Unforgettable Fire
• Franz Ferdinand - This Fire
• Sarah McLachlan - World on Fire
• John Parr - St. Elmo’s Fire

“And it burns, burns, burns / Like a ring of fire”

According to the Orange County Register, the Santa Ana winds are blowing in smoke from a small fire in Corona. How nice of the smoke clouds to stop right before our house.

It smells like smoke again out here, ugh!

Update 1:25 PM Wow, I guess this fire is a lot bigger than I thought it was; The fire started near the 91/71 Freeways, which is the route I take to work every morning. It’s reached the residential areas of Yorba Linda now…I can hear helicopters and planes heading over towards that area. Crazy crazy.

Update 2:13 PM I went to check out the reservoir near my house, the helicopters are scooping up water from it. There was about…5 or 6 helicopters picking up at a time, pretty insane. I brought the wrong lens with me (wide-angle instead of telephoto but it cropped out okay):

Pictures with the telephoto lens :

Update 9:01 PM The mandatory evacuation area just got increased and bordersabout half a mile from here. Good thing I backed up all my data to 2 separate external HDs…packing up some essentials now.

Update 10:22 PM We’re all packed up with our essentials (my personal list: clothes, water, toiletries, one external HD with my manual backups and one with my Time Machine backups, walkie talkies, flashlights, some pictures and a couple keepsakes.), but no new news. I’m keeping an eye on Twitter which will probably get news out faster than traditional media outlets. Here’s hoping the firefighters can contain the fire overnight…

Update 1:01 AM (11-16-08) Here’s a couple of fresh pictures of the blaze to the north of Anaheim Hills:

Sweet, I finally win!

I got a call today from an LA Galaxy representative and I assumed that it was just my new ticket rep reminding me to renew my season tickets for next year.  Lo and behold, I had actually won a team signed LA Galaxy soccer ball from a clothing drive raffle at the Galaxy/Rapids game from almost 4 weeks ago.  The pessimist in me is saying that everyone who donated clothes is getting a signed ball, but who knows, maybe I actually got lucky this time.  Three bags of old clothing netted me a signed soccer ball!

It’s taken this long to be “proud”?

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock or living in a cave for the past ~24 hours, Senator Barack Obama is now President-Elect Obama! Politically, I view myself as a left-leaning moderate (or a moderately left?) so I’m happy with the election results.

Surprisingly, however, I’m not as ecstatic about having a Democrat in the White House as I thought I would be. I read Senator John McCain’s biography yesterday and started feel really bad for him. I really started to understand the scope of his service to the country, in the military and in the Senate. While I don’t necessarily agree with his politics (nor those of his runningmate Sarah Palin, who really alienated a lot of people), I felt increasingly bad for him as the night wore on. It almost got to a point where I would have reconsidered my vote. Almost. But then I read his foreign policies again and I felt at ease with my decision.

It’s a shame he didn’t win the nomination in 2000; He would’ve done MUCH better than President Bush #2. But with the state of our country and President Bush’s fallout didn’t give him much of a chance, so Commander-in-Chief won’t be added to his distinguished list of service.

On a related tangent, I’ve been reading reports of 97% of African-Americans voting for Obama. I naively HOPE that they voted for Obama based on his vision and proposed policies, not just because they share a similar tone of skin color. I wonder, if instead of Obama a white man with the exact same credentials, ideas and vision ran against McCain, how the results would have compared.  Basically, I feel like race was the big white elephant in the room. Everybody was scared to be labeled a racist, so the race issue was downplayed, but in the end, I feel that his ethnic makeup really turned the election into the landslide it was.

After having a day to soak in the media following Obama’s victory, I kept hearing from African-Americans being interviewed, ‘I’ve never been so proud to be an American!!‘ or worse, ‘I can finally be proud to be American!!‘ Why is it only because a black man reached the highest office in the United States makes them proud? While our reputation in the world for the past 8 years has made it hard to have American pride, it just really bothers me now that the only reason some people are proud is because a black man was elected.

Honestly, it’s really hard for me to put my feelings on this matter into words, but hopefully you get the gist of it. 

I feel like I’m incomprehensibly rambling now, so I’ll just cut this short right here. Let me know what you think!

Freeway! Earrrly!

If you like hip-hop, then you should definitely check out this Freeway mixtape by DJ Woogie and DJ Ian.  (Conversely, if you don’t like hip-hop but you do like hearing gun shot and alarm sound effects, it’s also worth a download.)  I’ve already spread the wealth with my grimy friends Ben and Victor, and the response has been positive.  ”Cypher” is definitely my favorite song in this mix tape, with Young Chris, Wale and Beanie Siegel all lending their flows to the song.

Download the torrent!

Lights out for the Galaxy

Annie and I went to the Galaxy Season Ticket Holder event last night at the Home Depot Center. We arrived too late for the “Town Hall Meeting”, but from what I heard from others, we didn’t miss much. We made it there in time to catch the team introduction and gorge on free concessions food. They must have been charging it to the Galaxy, because the guy working concessions was literally forcing me to take more food!

After that, it was time for player autographs. Players were bunched in groups of 3 in various places around the stadium, but of course, the longest lines were for David Beckham and Landon Donovan. Since I already have a picture and two autographs with/of Donovan, Annie and I opted for the Beckham line. We got in at exactly 6:00 and man, the line was RIDICULOUSLY long. Eventually, Annie and I held each other’s spots in line while we went to get autographs from other players.

Throughout our entire wait in line, we were warned by Galaxy personnel that we may or may not make it to get his autograph. Also, no pictures of any kind, only one item signed, nothing from other teams, the door was CLOSING at 8:00 PM, blah blah blah. At 7:55, we were close, but not close enough to get in by 8:00. Some personnel started counting off the last 100 people in line, and by some luck, Annie and I were #98 and #99.

Behind us, the crowd started getting REALLY unruly; They were chanting, jeering and yelling to keep the doors open later. At about 8:05, we got in, got our autographs and bolted. For the 5 seconds I talked to him, Becks seemed like a nice enough guy, but whatever. Once we walked out the door, there was a literal throng of people hanging outside the door trying to catch a glimpse of him and to take pictures once he walked out the door. Amazing.

All in all, I had a good time. I wish I had gotten more autographs, but I had to pick my poison this time. Also, I wish I could’ve taken pictures with the players (although they didn’t stop you taking pictures OF players, sans Becks, but still, what would be the point of that?)

As promised, more pics!

My jersey I sacrificed to the Sharpie gods. Ely Allen, Ante Jazic, Josh Tudela, Jeremy Barlow, Greg Vanney, Josh Wicks, Charles Alamo, David Beckham and Brandon McDonald all have their signatures on it.


Annie’s soccer ball she got signed. That’s Beckham’s John Hancock, front and center!


And this is us with our freshly signed schwag at the end of the night. Annie is euphoric and giddy because ol’ Becks smiled at her. :rolls eyes:

“Sweetest of the Transition Metals…”

Back in my senior and super-senior years in college, Pete got me hooked on Sealab 2021.  This is one of my favorite scenes/quotes [I lifted the quote from Everything2]:

As for the validity of the whale’s assumptions on mercury/fish levels, I have no idea, but it’s funny nevertheless. If you’re not laughing, then I guess it’s a visual thing.

XBox 360 Number 3: Wow. 17 Days? Are you serious?

I don’t know if this is some sort of sick joke but my THIRD XBox360 just got the Red Rings of Death AGAIN.  Stand by for updates, but this doesn’t look good…

Edit: After unplugging and restarting, it seems to be working fine again.  I’m waiting with baited breath.

Random: What Would You Do With $10,000?

Outlandish hypothetical situation: Suppose you discover some magic genie that offered you $10,000 to spend on anything you want, no strings attached.  You can only use his magical money to buy tangible goods, no intangible goods or services.  For the more altruistic or more future-minded folks, this magical conjurer will match you dollar for dollar and donate to a charity, invest into a 401k or what have you, so you can spend this $10,000 guilt-free.

I’d be able to blow through all that money without a second thought:

• $3,000 - Top of the line MacBook Pro.
• $2,700 - Canon 5D Mark II
• $4,000 - 2009 Kawasaki Ninja 250
• $300    -  A few articles of new clothing

So…how about the weather? IT SUCKS.

Because I’m still mourning the premature exit of the Angels from the 2008 World Series hunt, I’m still not going to blog about it.  Maybe a short one in a couple days, but we all know how good I am at reviving old topics.

So instead of bitching about baseball, I’ll turn my wrath towards the weather.  Fall is upon us here in “The Southland” (of California) and with the abrupt change of season comes the Santa Ana winds, cooler temperatures, allergies and an omnipresent sense of DRY.  Besides the aforementioned reasons, I also hate fall because the burnt-in memories of summer BBQs, t-shirts and shorts all day and night and long, sunny days are still fresh.  

The absolute worst type of day during the fall is a day that is extremely dry and windy.  The wind pushes all the clouds in the sky out of the way, so even though the air temperature is cool, the sun still beats down on you.  This leaves you cold from the temperature, but putting on layers just makes you bake from the inside.  To top it off, the wind blows off all the leaves, dust, dander and other crap that just leaves you in allergy city.  The extreme dry leaves the air very staticy, so every damn piece of metal you touch shocks you.   (Case in point is the 2007 ALDS Game 3 I went to last year with Annie.  The elimination loss, coupled with the “perfect storm” of shitty fall weather, I couldn’t have been more miserable that day.)

I can’t wait for spring.