Archive for the ‘Fire’ Category

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Powerless

October 9, 2019

“Who turned out the lights? Strike a match, Betty Lou, I can’t see shit.”

Remember the good ol’ days, when you could make magic just by flipping a switch? Communication, refrigeration, information, even transportation, all delivered with a wave of one hand. One finger, actually. No, not that one.

And without burning down half the county, too.

As is often the case, our brethren and sisthren in California are getting a sneak peek at the future this week as PG&E returns them to the Dark Ages, that they may not be barbecued by their desires for communication, refrigeration, information, even transportation.

I wonder how much safer everyone will be with a few million generators busily chugging along next to the woodpiles.

“Crank up the Honda, hon’, ‘Dancing With the Stars’ is coming on!”

• Extra Bonus Snark: Good timing, awarding the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to three scientists behind the lithium-ion battery. We’re gonna need a bigger one, dudes.

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Posted in Fire, Technology, Things that suck | 11 Comments »

Happy solstice?

June 21, 2019

This is what the Foothills air looks like when it’s not full of imported particulates.

The air is definitely a tad chewy around here today on the first day of summer.

The Woodbury Fire in Arizona is sharing its smoke, a little treat we asthmatics can do without. I took a couple peeks out various windows, and cracked the front door for a nanosecond, and that was that. None of the old bikey ridey for Your Humble Narrator, not today.

Yesterday I shipped the latest “Quick Spin” video to Adventure Cyclist. It features the Masi Speciale Randonneur (pictured above). Masi is deep into the bike-travel thing and has been for a while now. I think I first saw their Giramondo at Interbike 2015, and as touring bikes go, it still seems like a hell of a bargain to me — chromoly frame and fork, 10-speed Deore drivetrain (with a low end of 24×36), TRP Spyre brakes, and Tubus racks (Tara front, Cargo rear), all for the low low price of $1,399.

Masi offers a 650b version of the Giramondo, too. No racks, but more adventurous.

The Speciale, as you might guess from its name, has roots in randonneuring, so it’s more of a road bike, happiest with a front load and maybe some other light bits scattered around and about in frame and saddle bags.

It will be staying indoors this morning, however. As will I. So don’t go looking for me at Stonehenge.

Meanwhile, when you see a flat-footed statement this thick — “Road bikes average 10-15 pounds.” — you have to question the rest of the story.

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Posted in Adventure Cyclist, Bike stuff, Fire | 12 Comments »

Some like it hot(ter)

June 20, 2019

No follow-up from the local media, but the fire near the Elena Gallegos area was reported to have covered more than 50 acres before it was contained.

Some douche(s) burned up one of my trails last week. You can’t take your eyes off these people for a minute.

Meanwhile, it’s 91 at 4:15 p.m., we’re enjoying a hazardous-weather outlook, a fire-weather watch, and an air-quality alert, and it’s not even summer yet.

The good news? Fireworks sales started today.

Officials with the Bernalillo County Fire Department recommend designating “a sober person” to be in charge of lighting fireworks, and keeping a bucket of water nearby. A word to the wise.

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Posted in Assholes, Feckin' eejits, Fire | 18 Comments »

Hard reign in Swamptown

January 12, 2019

What a blockhead.

The pestilence of the Benighted States, Wally O’Steele, a.k.a. Artie Deal, wants a Big, Beautiful Wall® at the nation’s southern boundary to keep brown people* from crossing the border to work anywhere other than at his hotels or golf courses.

Unable to procure funding for same, he has instead walled off the feddle gummint from its own tax-paying citizens, idling more than a few of them in the process and forcing others to work without pay while selling their Christmas presents on eBay to keep from freezing to death in the dark.

It’s a hard reign, and the water — if that’s what it is — just keeps rising.

Man the lifeboats and rig for heavy seas, matey — it’s the latest episode of Radio Free Dogpatch.

* Russian oligarchs and Saudi princelings get a pass, of course, along with a coupon for a complimentary fluff and fold at Artie Deal’s Motor Inn & Money Laundry.

 

P L A Y    R A D I O    F R E E    D O G P A T C H

• Technical notes: This episode was recorded with a Shure SM58 microphone and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. Additional bad noise via an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB mic and a Sony ICD-UX533. I edited this hot mess using a Behringer XENYX 1200USB mixer wired to a 2014 MacBook Pro with an external LG 24MP59HT-P monitor and Apple’s GarageBand. Obligatory Cultural References From Bygone Days© courtesy the Bard of Hibbing.

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Posted in Agitprop, Assholes, Capitalist swine, Deep political thought, Derision, Feckin' eejits, Feddle gummint, Fire, Flood, Podcasting, Radio Free Dogpatch | 11 Comments »

Fiddling while Rome burns

November 24, 2018

Nero didn’t get it either and cashed out the hard way.

OK, let’s see if I’ve got this right:

“A major scientific report issued by 13 federal agencies on Friday presents the starkest warnings to date of the consequences of climate change for the United States, predicting that if significant steps are not taken to rein in global warming, the damage will knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century’s end.”

In response, the courtiers attending His Most Pissant Majesty, King Donald the Short-fingered, Terror of Twitter, are focused like the proverbial laser beam on whether trans folk may serve in the Empire’s armed forces.

Got it. Makes perfect sense. See, if they’re not camping in camo’ down by The Wall*, or using the wrong latrines in Afghanistan, they’ll be available to fight fire and flood elsewhere, p’raps in more fashionable neighborhoods, in order that the gentry may be both protected and entertained.

* Wall not pictured. Or even built.

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Posted in Assholes, Bad news, Capitalist swine, Deep political thought, Derision, Dire portents, Feckin' eejits, Feddle gummint, Fire, Flood, Just Fucking Shoot Me, Small hat sizes, Stupidity, Things that suck, Weather | 17 Comments »

A sign of the tines

November 19, 2018

MARA the Tempter is always on the job. Though not necessarily with a rake.

Or “A Rake’s Progress.”

• A tip of the bracero’s sombrero for the news nugget goes out to Merrill “M-Dogg” Oliver, a Noo Yawkah turned Californicator who is something of a rake in his own right.

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Posted in Arts & letters, Casual snark, Cheap gags, Fire, Zen | 19 Comments »

Yeah, but it’s a dry Hell

July 27, 2018

And you thought it was hot where you are. On June 28, the temperature in Quriyat, Oman, hit 109 — and that was the low, “the hottest low temperature ever recorded on Earth,” according to The Washington Post.

As a buddy noted, you gotta give the Chinese credit for going the extra mile to make their climate-change hoax look like the real deal. Why, they went so far as to make it rain here in ’Burque. I thought that was a little over the top, but what isn’t these days?

The hardboiled eggheads of climate science, as usual, predict the worst — roads melting, airplanes unable to take off, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

The good news is, there’s water on Mars, which is really close to Earth this weekend. Cowabunga! Come on and safari with me!

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Posted in Fire, Flood, Heat, Stupidity, Summer, Things that suck, Viewing with alarm | 3 Comments »

Sun day

May 27, 2018

Blue skies this morning.

Same shot, different day. I could still catch a whiff of the Buzzard Fire, now scorching 15,313 acres (h/t Pat O’B), but it seemed the winds were taking the bulk of the smoke elsewhere.

I was making my own smoke here yesterday, firing up the Char-Broil gas grill for the first time this season. Steak and taters and salad, oh my. Oh, boy, hey, hey, it’s a national holiday.

But Mad Dog and his band of jerks aren’t lighting off the fireworks. It’s enough of a thrill just to grill.

 

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Posted in Albuquerque, Fire | 3 Comments »

Fire on the mountain

May 26, 2018

The view from below the tram.

When I sallied forth for the day’s ride I saw smoke and assumed that some asshat had been careless in my vicinity.

Nope.

A local TV station says that the haze bellied up to the base of the Sandias is from the Buzzard Fire, a 12,400-acre blaze in the Gila National Forest.

This doesn’t mean that asshats have not been careless in my vicinity. After observing the smoke I started noticing the cigarette butts scattered along the shoulder of Tramway Boulevard. I thought I’d count them but it proved impossible. It seemed more important in the short term to focus on the asshats trying to kill me with their cars.

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Posted in Albuquerque, Bike stuff, Feckin' eejits, Fire | 17 Comments »

El mejor

October 14, 2017

The mayor-to-be Back in the Day®, with a much lighter ball in the air, and only one of them, too.

Back in the Seventies, after Chris Coursey and I had completed our majors in beer with minors in journalism and gone to work for an unremarkable Colorado daily, neither of us had the slightest inkling that he would one day be the mayor of Dresden.

If there’s any good news to be found here, it’s this: Chris has already been to hell and back, and more than once, too. Santa Rosa is in good hands.

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Posted in Fire, Friends | 15 Comments »

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