anything but ordinary

oc fire update...

today the winds shifted, which was wonderful for us, but horrible for others in the silverado canyon and modjesca areas. i'm sure you have seen that story all over the news.

early this morning, around 7:30 or so, tony and i drove around the same areas we looked at last night, trying to survey the damage and see where the fire had moved to.

here is a picture from the same place we stood last night to watch the fire on the hill.  as you can see, no more fire. just smoldering ash at this point.  (the orange area is the morning sun shining through the smoke.)

there were a few spot fires on the hill, but didn't look like anything serious. this was a spot seen up on lake forest.

still, to be on the safe side, i decided to stay home in case the fickle wind decided to change directions yet again. this picture shows what i was concerned about...this is the field that is right next to our apartment complex. well, the day was boring; no new news in my area, which i guess is a good thing.

however, i went outside around 5:45 this evening to move my car and saw that you could see new pockets of fire from our apartment!!!

here is what the view from our apartment looked like this morning at 7:30...this picture is taken with me standing right next to our apartment building.

and here is another photo taken of the same area...this one was taken at 5:45 this evening! luckily, this looks closer than it actually is...it is still on that same hill area as before. this was the first time we were able to see flames from this distance, so we were worried at first. but tony called helen to verify the location of the fire since she is much closer to the spot. she said that the fire was actually moving away from us...this fire we were seeing was on a crest further away from them than the one last night. tony and i drove back to that spot we had been at before, to make sure for ourselves. yup, the fire was definitely further away. looks can be deceiving...turns out that this vantage point from our apartment complex was the ONLY place we were able to see the actual flames from...the crest just happened to face us directly. from everywhere else, you could only see the smoke from the fire.

so, this is it for the update...for now. i'll take one last drive around in the morning, to make sure things are still calm before i head into work. and tony will be calling helen tomorrow throughout the day, for further detailed updates.

fire update

it's just about 11 pm on monday, october 22, 2007 as i start this update. the fires rage on...including the one in foothill ranch. luckily (at least for us, for now), the wind has changed course yet again, blowing north...moving the fire away from us. at this point, we are about 1 mile (and no more than 2 miles) away from the flames. so, we are hoping our luck holds. of course, we are inland a bit, and the fire would have to cover a lot of residential ground before it reached our humble little apartment. but we are still wary of embers that might catch fire to the empty field beside us or the hills surrounding our complex.

tony and i both left work around noon to head home, just in case we needed to get out in a hurry...we had packed our important belongings last night, so we could grab and go. a few roads were already closed near my home at noon, including one of the major roads i usually travel to get to my apartment (Bake).

we had a few power surges and weren't prepared for the coming darkness, so we headed back out to get flashlights. here is what the area looked like at that time...lots of smoke in the area:

and this next picture is NOT a photo of the sunset...the sun is being filtered through the smoke:

even with all of this going on, some people are still just plain jackasses. i couldn't believe my eyes as we drove around, surrounded by smoke from the fire...and the person in the car in front of us THREW HIS CIGARETTE OUT THE WINDOW!!! seriously, how idiotic to you have to be?!!

later in the evening, we were going a bit stir-crazy...we decided to head out and grab dinner, and just see for ourselves what things were like. well, we didn't have to go far. the news coverage on the tv is good, but it hadn't indicated how far the fire had been traveling. as we headed up lake forest drive (which is the major street we live off of), we only had to look right in front of us to see the fire up in the hills. and just a bit later, the fire had spread another major street over, to el toro road. i haven't been outside now for over an hour, but i suspect it may be further still.

tony has a friend, helen, who lives up near the (earlier) evacuated area of foothill ranch. tony hadn't heard from her in a few hours, so we drove by her house to see if she needed help evacuating. she and her husband had packed a bunch of their belongings, but were staying put for the moment. the flames were VERY near their home...in the hills, just one crest over. here are a few photos i took, while standing right next to her home (the red spot is one section of flames, though there were several around there...and no firefighters to be seen):

this is another one taken next to helen's house.

later, as we headed home, i captured another shot of the fire. this one is taken from inside our car, as we are driving on el toro road, about to turn onto the sidestreets that bring us to our apartment. as you can see in the very center of the photo, the fire isn't that far away...right in front of us:

i couldn't find any late coverage of the fires, either on tv or on the internet. and i wanted to know the status before we went to bed for the night...so tony and i took one more drive at about 12:30 in the morning. we were scared at first, because with the sky still orange, it looked as if the fire had jumped much closer to us. but looks are deceiving. although it was a bit closer, it wasn't anything to worry about for now. we tracked the fire to one of the hills it was still located on, up in foothill ranch. there was a group gathered, all taking pictures. and no firefighters around. so we joined the group for a few minutes. this photo here is from that spot.

this is a close up of that same fire.

the winds are still constantly changing...they changed directions at least 3 times while we were standing in that spot for a few minutes. here is the exact same fire from the photos above, when the winds changed directions again, so the smoke started blowing back towards where we stood. i couldn't get any good pictures of them, but there were a bunch of smaller fires on the hillside in front of us, which looked to have been caused by floating embers. several of these smaller fires flared up while we watched.

on the way home, we noticed that we could see another finger of flame on the hill. this photo was taken about 1/4 mile from our apartment. you can see the fire up on the hill (orange area in center-left area of the picture)

one last photo for now... this one is not only indicative of the trees that are broken from the wind and are all over the area, but in this picture you can see how the embers are swirling through the air. hopefully none are glowing...like i said, this is right around the corner from our apartment, and near that open field.

i'll keep you updated...it's now almost 2 am and i need to get some sleep. i think we're pretty safe.

say a prayer...

so, i sit here a bundle of nerves, watching the local news for updates. There are fires all over southern california, and the one in Irvine is only about 5 miles away from my home.

tony and i have packed up a bunch of things we deem to be important, and now we sit and wait to see if we need to evacuate. the more time i have, the more i pack. my pile is growing...we have several people on standby with their cars and vans, in case we need to evacuate our apartment.

so far the winds are heading southwest, and we are south of the fire...which means that the winds are barely missing us. i am afraid of the direction of the wind changing. our apartment is surrounded by open brush and hills, which means that if any embers make it to those places, our apartment isn't going to fare well.

the fire is only 30% contained at this point. there are a bunch of road closures around us. i left work at noon today because i was getting nervous. tony did the same.

they are doing water drops over the fire, which is helping immensely. but i just heard that they must stop with those at sundown, because then it will be too dangerous. so all we can do it wait and hope and pray.

oh...and there aren't that many firefighters available because of all of the other (15+) fires in so. cal. what makes this worse is that this particular fire was the work of arsonists!!! can you believe that?

so much to do, so little $$$

december: buy xmas gifts

january: hopefully our biz will be up and running efficiently by this time. hopefully we will also be exhibiting at CHA. i say "hopefully" cuz the outlook is bleak at this time. might be put off for another few months to a year. not what we WANT to do, but we need to balance our lives...(and our checkbooks).

february: we will be registering for wedding gifts by this month, since our wedding shower will be held in february. woo-hoo! fun activity, and won't cost us anything for the moment...we get to play and dream about the stuff to make our apartment (?) into a home...

march: heading to vegas for the bachelor/bachelorette party. again, most of our costs will be covered, but we still have to eat (and DRINK)!

april: last minute spending for the wedding (which isn't just contained in this month, but will probably skyrocket). and, according to my wedding "budget" (which i thought was pretty generous of my pocketbook and savings account already), i will be going at LEAST $5,000 OVER that planned budget. okay. that means that i will be putting more on my credit card, which means it will be paid off in 3 years, not under 2, as i had hoped.

may: wedding. (yay!) and honeymoon. thankfully, our honeymoon is a gift from my in-laws...airfare and hotel stay in a walt disney world resort. but we still need to bring plenty of our own spending cash for food, drinks, playing, etc...

june: our apartment lease is up in the middle of june, so we will be MOVING again. we are looking into breaking our lease early so we don't have to deal with it right after the wedding. we are looking into buying a home (townhouse?). sigh. more money, more calculations, more panic attacks.

july: relax...???

whelmed.

you can be OVERwhelmed. you can be UNDERwhelmed. but can you ever just be "whelmed?" hmmm...

new project...finally!

i haven't scrapbooked in quite some time now. felt like my mojo has been in hiding. nothing like a last-minute idea to get the juices flowing, right? i totally forgot that there is this wedding shower i am attending tomorrow...the perfect time to present a scrapbook! so, with time constraints fully in place, i am preparing to scrap tonight...to put together a quick album for the couple so that they just add their photos and notes/journaling and voila! done! (wish me luck...) i'll post pictures when it's all done.