Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Fired Up

Last Thursday I was in the front room of our house, and I heard sirens. Getting closer. I sat up and looked out, and up our street came a couple of fire trucks. Hmmm, that doesn't happen very often, and it's always troubling when there's an actual fire going on up here. Of course, fire trucks don't always mean there's a fire, but not too much longer, here comes another pair of fire trucks. Shortly after, another vehicle, the size of a fire truck, but more boxlike with "Urban Search & Rescue" on the side.

None of this sounded good as far as there actually being a fire, and sometime in there, a fire helicopter joined the party. Instead of having a spotlight, it had forward facing lights, and when it circled towards us, you could see billowing smoke. Fortunately, while the area surrounding us were experiencing high winds, it has been calm in our area, so no red flag days for us.

I was curious, and was considering trying to walk to where it was going on, but never did. Fell asleep before the news came on that night, but caught it the next day.

A six room,9,100 square foot house. 10 to 15 people living there. The house was apparently in foreclosure. I've walked by the place before, I remember admiring the octagon turrets. Might even have actual pictures of the place on the hard drive from my old Toshiba laptop. The before pictures are from Google Street View.

After I got home from work on Saturday, the younger and I went over to see what we could see. The street does a loop around, with houses on each end and a wide dirt trail on an undeveloped side of the hill with the namesake Sea View. Not knowing exactly which end of the street it was on, we figured it out in a hurry. Two days later, the street is still blocked off with a lot of the fire trucks, and a mobile command center on the opposite side (which is the same style of vehicle that the Urban Search and Rescue had). Parking enforcement was there, guarding the end. Asked if the street was blocked to pedestrian traffic as well as vehicles, and was answered in the affirmative. I asked how we were supposed to rubberneck then???

We walked back, and took off down the next street over, a dead end that has something of a view across the canyon, and it turns out we were able to see a good amount of the property from there.

Unfortunately, there's one person unaccounted for, an 84 year old man. One story I read said he went back in for a litter of puppies. An old guy died last time there was a structure fire up here, too.

Last stories I read, they still hadn't determined the cause. I'd speculate that with that many people, someone may have been using a hot plate in their room. Could be a smoker, too, or some other reason for all I know.

Saturday, October 08, 2016

ReCovery 2.0

Finally a follow up with a post I alluded to!!! A post about a post, as it were!!!

In my last post, I mentioned the cat post getting ratty, and not in the way cats like (although, the cat didn't seem to have any qualms about how bad it looked). In the first shot, here's a trick the guy does, he'll leap right up on the top of the post, but never in a direction where he's good for a picture. Once again, you can see it's come undone.

So, as I did three years back, it was time to re cover the post!!! Next shot is the remains of the old rope removed. This time, instead of just bolting the post down on the rope, I cut a little groove into the bottom of the base to hold the rope. Came out a lot better, but it still has a bit of a tilt.

Instead of the hokey bent over nails on the top, I cut another slot on the top and secured it with a couple of steel straps on the top. I'm still planning to make up a new wood square to finish off the top, but I could tell the absence of a claw post was disturbing to the cat, so it's sitting in it's place as is for now. Also, I had considerably more rope to work with. Quite a while back I re-did the perch in the laundry room, and added a 2 x 4 claw post to the end employing the same rope wound construction. I purchased enough rope to make that one and have enough to cover the original completely. Unfortunately, none of the cats took to clawing much at it. Sometimes, though, when the cat is riled up, he'll run in and run up the side of the post, climbed to the top with his ears back.

Hey!!! I think he likes it!!!

Monday, October 03, 2016

Backlog Random

As usual, I've got a lot more post in me than I ever get out of me!!! So, for now, here's a smattering of shots and allusions on things that could get a post of their own!!!

To start off, back in September, I believe it was, my wife and I went to a concert at the Greek. Back in the first half of the year I had a Kings game I was going to have tickets to as prize for the last design contest at work. Unfortunately, I went too long before I went to HR to pick them up, and they gave them to someone else. Oh well. That was around the time Counting Crows had announced their tour schedule, and since we've got a block of seats at the Greek, I made mention to keep an eye out for those in lieu. For whatever reason, that never came through, either, but she offered me quite a bit later tickets to see The Piano Guys there. I was a bit familiar, so I took them. It ended up being a VERY entertaining and amusing show!!! Bonus, included with the passes was admission to the Fandango lounge there, featuring various snacks before the show, and coffee at intermission!!!

Make note of that design contest reference, there's a post (hopefully) on the way about that!!!

On the week of my Birthday, the firstborn graduated from his first Navy school, and came back home for a week. He's purchased a vehicle, but doesn't have a driver's license yet. He didn't want to get it in the state he was in, due to time between the written and driving tests, so he was going to do both on his visit. Well, he was able to do half. He's got 6 months to do the other half to get it, so he'll be making another visit sometime soon. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of him, but mom did. Here's one of my few, the reunion with his cat. Make note of the clawed to pieces claw post in the background, there's a post (hopefully) on the way about that!!!

He had his dress whites hanging in the bathroom, which I've done up in black and white. Goes rather nicely in there!!! I've been off and on searching for some black ceramic floor tile to black and white the floor in there, too. For like close to two years!!! It's not easy to find!!!

The only work day I had off while he was visiting was my actual birthday. I was thinking of going to the beach, and we were going to visit my parents that afternoon. Got a late start, and went to the Golden Star in Long Beach for breakfast/lunch. By the time we got out, it was already afternoon, so we went straight to my parents house and swam there for a while. As it was drawing towards dark, we went down to the beach in Long Beach, where they were doing a Movie on the Beach night, screening Toy Story. So I got to go to the beach that day, too!!!

Another set of tickets I got was for Dodgers -vs- Cubs. That was a fun evening, even though the Dodgers ended up losing in the 10th inning. As I recall, in the last innings they kept putting in new pitchers and every time they'd get hits right off!!! This picture of the scoreboard the inning count score looked very binary!!!

On our trip down San Diego way, as previously mentioned, we did many touristy things. One of these things, on my list on two of the other trips we'd made there but never attained, was to go to the Midway aircraft carrier. It was pretty cool, but most places we went in the actual SD area need more parking!!!

Another thing often on my list but never actually gotten to is a trip to the San Diego Zoo. This is one of my best shots from there. Richard Parker!!!

I think it was three years back, the wife & I went to Carlsbad for our anniversary. Always enjoy that place!!! We went to Leo Carrillo Ranchero while we were there, which was pretty cool. Come to find out, it's home to much pea foul. On the way back this year, we stopped there again, and this time found out there's an albino peacock there!!!

Not great pictures, but here's another fun thing that we did a bit ago. At the Ford Theater, they had a production of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio opera... only done as a Star Trek episode!!!

None of the characters were actual Star Trek players, but adaptations of the names Mozart had in the original. The orchestra were all red shirts, and the conductor was a gold shirt!!!

Finally, I've got a few places that supposedly have Chicago Deep Dish pizza around here, but the only one I've managed to try is a place in South El Monte called The One. Pizza and Hawaiian BBQ. I've had it twice now. It ain't Giordano's, but it's not bad for South El Monte!!!