The Second, Second Best Blog

Sunday morning was a return to more normal conditions after a week of … you know, not normal. It started with the Sunday paper, followed by some outside tasks, then a departure from routine to get a look at how close the fire had come. Our good friend Terry made his weekly trek to Disneyland, [...]

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The fire has moved north and east into Modjeska and Silverado Canyons. Shortly before 4:00 this afternoon I took some more photos from my backyard vantage point, about 4 miles away, as it burned in the rugged terrain above the community of Portola Hills. Here is a high resolution video made from those stills.

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It is very sad to see one of my favorite spots in the world go up in flames. The photo was taken from my backyard about 3 miles away at 9:45 PM. Watch a slideshow taken from 9:29 to 9:52: Whiting Ranch In Flames. We watched the KCAL coverage for several hours earlier in the [...]

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Patty and I had planned to see a movie this afternoon but were thwarted by the fire. The Regal Theater manager at Foothill Ranch informed us that they would not open because the Wal-Mart a short distance away had already been evacuated and they did not want have to do that as well. The first [...]

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On a day that Santa Ana winds were predicted, several fires raged in Socal. The worst by far is in Malibu. But Orange County was hit as well. This photo,  taken from my backyard at 8:17 PM, is of the Santiago Canyon fire. The Orange County Register reported its size as 3800 acres.

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Since I became unemployed last year, I have indulged my interest in birds a bit. One species in particular has captured me with it’s intelligence and boldness: The Western Scrub Jay. Read about my encounters with them here: A Scrub Jay Affair.

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A few months ago Patty’s computer, a seven year old Dell 4100, crashed with the dreaded BSOD. When it came back up, there was an ominous warning in the Windows System Event log with this Description: “The driver has detected that device \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 has predicted that it will fail. Immediately back up your data and [...]

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If you have much interest in Windows Vista, you have probably heard of Windows Easy Transfer. Having used it twice now, I can say that it works as advertised. It did the job of copying accounts and settings from my old XP machines to the new Vista computers very nicely. But it does nothing for applications. [...]

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