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12:07 AM
@tchrist That sucks.
Looks like there are multiple fires. That whole area could be burning.
@tchrist Are your cats taken care of?
 
12:36 AM
@Robusto Working very hard at it.
> Per the scanner, a deputy is on the way to help a family getting ready to evacuate that got locked out of their car when a goat decided to shut the door. Evacuating in the #Boulder County foothills is a different animal.
map shows the red evacuation zone isn't the yellow edge to its south I feared. Yet.
I've lined up (separate) temporary housing for both the pair of cats and the dog. But one cat is still outside and won't come in for collection.
I hope it won't come to that of course, Man this is going to be a long ride home tomorrow.
 
Good luck with that.
 
They've been loading water into the chopper scoops from the lake right by me. And I hear there were 3 circling observation planes too.
Seems to be growing due east for now. If it doesn't turn south then I'm ok.
But that 504 AQI yesterday was scary, and that wasn't even from this new fire here.
We've been having 70 mph gusts I guess. Red flag day yesterday and today. No moisture in sight, only wind.
 
@tchrist Yeah, that was the line in Yellowstone when it burned down around me. Everything was copacetic until it suddenly wasn't.
 
12:51 AM
That's the record of the sensor nearest to me.
Didn't like how it was looking yesterday.
That was from the East Troublesome fire.
And the Cameron Peak fire farther to the north is now the largest ever in Colorado at 173k acres and only 50% containment. Troublesome is at 5%. The new one we don't even know the size of yet.
All these high winds have done us no good. And it's been in the 70s tempwise there again I guess.
 
1:07 AM
Yeah, that's not good.
 
 
1 hour later…
2:33 AM
 
Eww
 
So we have a size now. The new one today has burned 7,000 acres since it started this afternoon.
 
How many in the state?
 
Only one with an evacuation warning zone that stops 1.5 miles north of me.
 
:O
time to prepare to move, pal
 
2:38 AM
I'm a thousand miles away right now.. Returning in morning. By car. Slowly.
That's how many wildfires there are in Colorado right now. Unclear how you should count those.
 
Yeah, starting to look like trying to count clouds...
...looks like they're color coded for severity?
Plan your return route carefully.
 
No, for expected growth potential.
From here if you can make anything of it.
It's the new Jamestown one, which is green on their map for low growth potential, that started today and has burnt 7,000 acres so far, and has an evacuation line a few miles to my north.
Now called the Calwood Fire.
Yesterday's East Troublesome fire put our AQI over 500 for a brief spell.
I'll be coming in from the northeast corner, but changing my route to dip down to Denver first instead of shortcutting straight across to get to Boulder, since that road probably will not be open.
Current AQI is 175. No one knows what the morrow shall bring, nor the one following it.
They've evacuated 900 (homes? people?) now, but only 6 people needed makeshift accommodations by the emergency management team because they had no other shelter to go to, with friends etc.
A friend just finished helping evacuate 60 horses. I'm sure there are dozens of these stories.
 
2:54 AM
Do you have asthma or any other breathing problems?
 
Only in wildfire smoke. After a week away, I can finally breathe right again without a pair of duelling inhalers. Super not looking forward to this.
SpO₂ was dipping down to 89, 90 before I left. Just couldn't get air. Here there's a surfeit of it.
And I'm a normal 97, 98.
 
Get yourself an oxygen tank, just in case.
 
Did so.
Night shots from home look like hell right now. Correction, make that look like Hell.
 
Yikes.
Where have you been staying?
 
@Cerberus Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. With the folks.
 
3:05 AM
Ah, OK.
 
Steer as far away as possible from the high expectations of growth potential.
 
No fires there?
 
That's from the horse rescue looking west from 65th street.
@Cerberus Correct.
 
You can't stay there longer?
 
3:06 AM
^
 
I have. I already stayed longer than I'd planned.
Because of the fires.
 
But now you have to go home?
 
I'm am very worried about my creatures, my home. I don't want to have other people looking after my cats in particular, lest they should escape and be forever lost. My cousin can safely take the puppy in because he has another dog who gets along with her, but not with my cats.
 
I see.
They are important.
It's terrible, when one's house is potentially unsafe.
 
He lives well to the south part of town, me to the north. His wife got the evacuation reverse 911 but only because she was driving up in the north part of town when it hit those cell towers.
It hasn't hit my landline, which would be forwarded to my cell. As I said, the evac warning line is 1.5 miles due north right now. Fire is moving due east. For now.
I have oxygen at home, and have N95 as needed. Now do you understand why I need that?
 
3:11 AM
West wind?
 
Yes.
Gale.
70 mph gusts.
 
Will it keep blowing in that direction?
 
Nobody can say for sure.
It could turn south if the wind shifts.
I've had to hurry home from far away before due to fire reverse 911ing me. That time I was 12 hours away not 15.
I made that run in in 9.5h out of 12.
I won't be overdriving this time though.
 
@CowperKettle Because someone stole half of them?
@tchrist I'll pray atheistically.
 
I just have to be steady and methodical, stay safe, sleep halfway.
 
3:15 AM
@FaheemMitha Yes: smaller sites have fewer users, so also fewer grumpy users. And it is the absolute number that matters, not relative.
@tchrist You couldn't hire someone who get the animals out or something?
 
I have people ready to swoops the animals to safety if it gets worse. Three different people to have double-backup.
 
ah, OK.
 
This sort of thing I don't want to leave to luck. Already made arrangements.
 
Good.
 
I've spent most of the summer and fall not breathing right. It's hard to describe the relief of being able to inhale as much as you want to here.
 
3:18 AM
So I can imagine.
I do hope drastic measures will be taken next year.
 
I notice that every time I step outside, I without thinking draw in a slow breath through my nose trying to detect any smoke.
It has become a reflex.
 
Is it cynical to think forests that burned down a year ago won't burn again soon?
 
They wouldn't.
 
I still smell smoke easily (usually where there is none). Have done so ever since my house burned down.
 
The burnt child fears fire.
 
3:21 AM
Yeah, I did fear fire for some time.
I remember when I visited my friend, who was frying in a way similar to how my kitchen caught fire.
A few months after the fire.
 
Panic?
 
I was very nervous.
Not quite, but there was a hint.
 
Yes. That's what happens when I smell wildfire.
 
But being there, being able to see it, helps of course.
 
Tense up, look around, try to figure out if you need to run.
 
3:23 AM
You cannot see it, and it's there all the time.
In theory, what radius should a safe circle around your house be, if you cut down all trees within in?
 
As I stepped outside to bring in my grandparents' cat I paused to sniff for smoke. Laughed and told Mom what I'd just caught myself doing. The air smells so clean here, so thick.
@Cerberus And pave it with concrete?
 
You still have a cat who lived to see your grandparents?
 
@Cerberus Yes of course. Mom does.
It wasn't that long ago.
 
@tchrist Well, I imagine low or sparse vegetation might be easier to control?
 
@Cerberus We're hoping.
 
3:25 AM
@tchrist That is nice.
My grandparents died long ago.
 
My grandparents helped raise me, and lived till I was 47 and 49.
 
Arbitrary cats.
@tchrist Amazing.
 
 
4 hours later…
7:35 AM
Putin's regime fined this old lady 20 thousand rubles, more than her monthly pension, just for her going to the street in protest against Putin's actions.
 
8:26 AM
Guess what that type of image is called.
 
8:44 AM
@faerd you might tell us?
 
9:32 AM
> After Beethoven died, he de-composed
 
9:52 AM
A rubbing (frottage) is a reproduction of the texture of a surface created by placing a piece of paper or similar material over the subject and then rubbing the paper with something to deposit marks, most commonly charcoal or pencil, but also various forms of blotted and rolled ink, chalk, wax, and many other substances. For all its simplicity, the technique can be used to produce blur-free images of minuscule elevations and depressions on areas of any size in a way that can hardly be matched by even the most elaborate, state-of-the-art methods. In this way, surface elevations measuring only a...
rubbing, frottage
 
 
2 hours later…
12:18 PM
@Færd - I did this, 40+ years ago. Where I grew up, there was a cemetery down the street, on a small piece of land. It dated back to the 1700's. There were some tombstones that were fascinating, and we got a big piece of paper and charcoal to create the rubbing. And that project got me an "A" in 8th grade. Hadn't thought about this in a long time.
 
12:33 PM
@JTP-ApologisetoMonica Aww that's adorable! I used to do it on coins all the time when I was little.
 
> William Patrick Hitler was drafted into the United States Navy during World War II as a Pharmacist's Mate (a designation later changed to Hospital Corpsman) until he was discharged in 1947. On reporting for duty, the induction officer asked his name. "Hitler," he replied. Thinking he was joking, the officer replied: "Glad to see you, Hitler. My name's Hess." He was wounded in action during the war and awarded the Purple Heart.
Today I learned that Hitler served in the US Navy during WWII
 
1:31 PM
Another kind of rubbing.
 
 
2 hours later…
3:07 PM
@Robusto Yeah there're all sorts of rubbings...
 
3:23 PM
Home, from last night.
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (248): What is the difference of meaning between "a bigger size" and "a size bigger"? by user403033 on english.SE
 
Hope you see why I've been concerned about the fire back in Colorado so close to me and mine.
My own property lies just a tiny bit up from the geometric center of that rectangle, in the dark part at the base of the hills following right from the line of city lights.
 
3:43 PM
@tchrist Wow. I hope you dodge that bullet.
 
It rained a bit overnight, drizzle really, and is still doing so now.
 
Let's hope it's enough.
 
Burning 7,000 acres all of a sudden just yesterday afternoon was quite concerning.
 
Well, and firefighting resources have to be nearly exhausted at this point.
I don't even know what that looks like now.
 
How it started. How it's going:
 
3:58 PM
That shot up there was just past sunset: notice the blue sky on the left. The black on the right is not night.
 
4:08 PM
@tchrist Pretty horrifying. I wouldn't like to see flames like that on my horizon.
 
4:21 PM
The Post is covering it.
Curiously.
 
5:09 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at beginning of answer (34): Naïve, naïf, naïvety, naïveté ✏️ by user210787 on english.SE
 
5:20 PM
@tchrist Is your house still safe?
 
 
4 hours later…
9:29 PM
@Cerberus He's too busy looking for a missing comma:
> Programar es como escribir un libro... Salvo que cuando se te olvida poner una coma en la página 126, toda la cosa deja de tener sentido
cc @Robusto
 
@skillpatrol Deja de tener sentido ... cue David Byrne and Jonathan Demme.
 
@Cerberus Think so but not sure. A 3rd fire in as many days has just cropped up, causing another little mountain town in Boulder County to evacuate. Just crossed Mississippi into Iowa, homeward bound. Many, many more miles and hours to go.
 
10:07 PM
Corona cases in Switzerland.
This image on Spiegel right now.
A venerable publication exploring the possibility of becoming the next meme generator.
Not realizing that there's no money in that, either.
 
 
1 hour later…
11:29 PM
Dunno how to feel about that.
 
11:58 PM
@tchrist Download an Audible book. That's what I do.
 

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