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.
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.
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.
You never like to see your friends on the hot seat, and my old bro’ Chris Coursey is on a very warm squativoo indeed.
Chris is mayor of Santa Rosa, Calif., which abruptly went from a pretty close approximation of heaven on earth to something else entirely on Monday.
You can survey the damage courtesy of The Press Democrat, where Chris spent a couple decades as a reporter and columnist. He and I go way back, to the Seventies — roommates at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, we later worked for what then was called the Gazette Telegraph in Bibleburg before I left for Tucson and Chris split for Santa Rosa.
Chris spoke about the fire to his old paper, and to NPR, too; you can listen to that report here.
Another of our old Gazette pals, Merrill Oliver, recently retired from The New York Times and bought a place in (wait for it) Santa Rosa. He’s in transit — last I heard he was in Denver, which is too cold to burn at the moment — but clearly, this is not going to be the joyous change of venue he had been anticipating. I’m told Merrill’s new home was not among those destroyed, but it seems like early days yet, so keep your fingers crossed on his behalf.
We have other friends in the area — Gazette and Press Democrat alum Mike Geniella and his wife T, up Hopland way; Lo Esparza and Scot Nicol in Santa Rosa; Patrick Brady of Red Kite Prayer; and many, many more. Here’s hoping everyone comes out of this OK. Stuff you can always replace, but friends are always in short supply.
We seem to be dialing it down from 11, natural-disaster-wise.
The Florida branch of Herself’s kin is back home after a stint in Pensacola, and the Adventurous Cyclists in Montana reported a break in the weather over the weekend, so yay, etc. Hope you and yours are on the right side of the lawn, and that said lawn is neither under water nor on fire.
Without cute pix of dogs carrying their own survival rations or video of knuckleheads getting blown off their feet while iPhoning an incoming wave it will be tough to keep our attention from drifting to the next shiny object. The cleanup is never as much fun as the party.
For example:
There are toxins in Houston’s floodwater. The U.S. Virgin Islands are for the moment no longer a paradise for vacationers (or the people who live there). The cleanup in Florida is liable to take the better part of quite some time.
Cooler, damper weather seems to be lending a hand to firefighters in Montana and Oregon, but nobody’s cracking the bubbly just yet.
Equifax doesn’t give a shit about me or thee.
And Ted Cruz apparently “likes” porn. If anything could finally croak the porn industry, this is it.
But hey, cheer up: The new iPhones are here! The new iPhones are here!
Mad Blog Media 