More Red Flags...

I'm sure you've seen the terrible wildfires going on in Southern California. For the first time in a long while they actually called red flag day in my neighborhood. Before last years' vacation to Tennessee, it looked like there was a possibility of there being one while we were gone (we managed to dodge the first summer heat wave) but to avoid the possibly of having my cars impounded I used the day before we left to sell off the carcass of Baby as well as the wreck of my old Scirocco. Looking back, the place I had all the pictures of my ol' Scirocco aren't in service any more. May have to dust some off if I can find 'em to repost here.

Anyway, last week they called a red flag day on Tuesday, I believe. Our area never had much wind at all, which is one of the components of the alert. The conditions are defined as wind speeds 25 mph or more and humidity 15% or less (cut and pasted from their website). Accordingly, the next day it was lifted. Of course, the areas around us were burning, so the next day it was back in effect, once again with little wind in our area. For one day. As you can see, the Gif I made up shows it switching from one status to another with only a few seconds between. Apparently you need to manually refresh.

I know what the reasoning behind the red flag days is, and have no problem with it... EXCEPT they always call it when conditions aren't actually met!!! The local news outlets aren't much help, either, their maps pretty much show everything south of Frisco as being active red flag areas.

There. I haven't had an actual raving here for a while!!!

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.

The Lost Crash Video

Because it has been quite a while since I've updated, not for lack of content but from getting my money's worth out of my Runescape subscription, I decided to re-try posting the race video. It seems to have worked!!!



This is the crash that triggered the red flag. I saw somebody getting loose coming out of turn 4, and got the video cam fired up (not pointed up, but fired up...) and caught this!!! I'm sure there's better video of it out there, but cool that I caught this one. Dig that a crash gets a fist-pump from one of the fans!!! Perhaps later I'll edit the post-Halloween videos for here...

Red Flag Day

Another busy weekend!!! Saturday I took the family to Magic Mountain again. Last time I went was just the older boy and I. We rode Colossus several times that day, wait time versus good drops, it's probably the best coaster there. We also rode Scream several times, another short wait to maximum inversions coaster. X2 and Tatsu are better coasters, but the wait is always fairly long. Also rode the new Terminator Salvation coaster that time. It has some of the best queue theming in the whole park, but I was less than impressed with the ride itself. But I digress, when the older and I had been there that time, I told him how they used to have one of the tracks on Colossus running backwards. Well, they've brought that back for their Halloween festivities!!! We rode it. Meh. I had the funny thought that I should have brought my camera, taken a picture of the back of the headrest ahead of me, and passed it off as my on-ride photo. Anyway, that was a fun time. Bought my older boy his Johnny Rocket's milkshake in collector cup, and when night was falling and they fired up the fog machines, he was filling up the cup with the fog. Looked like a Wizard's Mind Bomb!!!



Sunday I had tickets through my work for the Pepsi 500!!! I had invited Sammy, and he was excited about it, but he's been having back problems and being there all day he was worried about it bothering it. Hard to take just one of the boys, the other would want to come too. However, one of my other friends from work had won the other pair, and he has two boys, too. Since that was how I got my boys both there last year, I thought it a good payback to pass my other ticket off to him so he could take both of his sons.



Last time I was there, they were announcing after the race the shuttle to the Metro Link station. The exiting of the parking lots there is hellish, and I thought that sounded like it might be a better way to go. I'd never had experience with the Metro Link system before, so I researched it a bit beforehand. Turns out they have a station right around the back side of the track, which they only operate on race days. Sounds good to me!!! Trying to get a schedule for the local Metro Rail to Union Station to Metro Link Fontana proved to be near impossible. Metro has some of the worst planning software on their site!!! I decided that since the race starts at noon, I'd head out at ten and hopefully be there close to on time.



Made it to Union Station in short order, and got my pass for the Metro Link train. However, it would be 11:35 before it departs. Oh well, guess I'd miss some of the beginning of the race, no big deal. Boarded the train, and it is very nice. Rode there in comfort, and had a chance to read more of the Sunday paper than I usually do. The train nears Fontana, and at the race track, it slows down... then proceeds right on past!!! No explanation. The next station is about four miles later, and I exit there. It's a bus depot center there. I look at the route maps, and decide on one that heads near. The driver of that bus explains to me and a few other race fans that the track station is "locked down", but didn't say how or why. He also told us how to get to the track from the closest stop, as well as the stop to return. Close to a mile is all we'd have to walk. Each way. I was not amused. I do not believe that I will take the train out there again. I did, however, stop at Jack in the Box for lunch and payed probably about 1/3 of what I'd have paid at the track.



Got to the track not quite halfway through the race. They were under yellow flag when I got there, and re started not long after. Fairly uneventful for several laps after that, which is fairly typical of California Speedway. This is a wide, long track, and thus the races tend to be a real snore a lot of the time. Jimmy Johnson was leading the race for most of this time, almost a whole 1/3 track away from the #2 car. Then, another yellow is called for debris on the track. After that, I don't think they came out of yellow without an event!!!



Coming out of that yellow, a couple of cars got together just after the green, sending Hamlin's #11 down the grass on the front stretch. Would have been fine, except he caught the concrete pit barrier right at the end, messing up his front sheet metal. He came back several laps later with the whole front stripped off, but it wasn't working for him.



I got a lot of pictures of the incidents, and some video of a couple of the crashes. I tried to upload the shorter clip, but Blogger is being stupid about that tonight. Six laps from the finish, once again coming off a yellow, there was a sizable crash taking out four cars and calling the only red flag I've ever seen at this track. 22 minutes they spent cleaning up from that.



Jimmy Johnson managed to take the checkered flag. I was fortunate to have made it for the better half of the race!!! Worth walking almost two miles for??? Almost...

Worrisome

The top picture is from the top of my street on Thursday. On my drive home that evening, it seemed like almost every freeway I was on had smoke billowing up at the end of it. The sky was otherwise completely clear, just smoke filling the northwest. On the second to the last freeway, I could actually see flames. Not a good feeling, looking at fire rising from directly behind where your home is. It's actually quite a bit farther away than it looked, but still too close.




On Wednesday morning I could smell it inside the house, and it was like walking into a light fog bank when I walked outside. Funny thing, that fire was since Wednesday, but there wasn't a whole lot of coverage until the last couple of days. A fire breaks out in Palos Verdes, and it's top story. More yellow journalism, I tells ya!!! Friday evening we were out, and you could see the red glow rising from the hills. I found a map tool that shows the size and scope of the fire, since they weren't showing one on any of the news channels. They'd show aerial views and say "This will give you an idea of the size and scope of this fire", but there are no points of reference.

The weather hasn't been helping. The humidity has been low and the temperatures have been high. I think it's the hottest and most sustained it's been all summer. On the plus side, the wind hasn't been that high, although these fires create their own weather.



Final shot is from Mount Wilson's webcam, where much of tonight's coverage is of the transmitter towers being threatened by this fire.

Give It Back!!!

I always procrastinate. I don't know why, it always ends up good for me. OK, not much time left, time to get to it. All the stuff is over there on the counter, let's see... Damit, I'm missing one of my W2 forms. Dig, dig, dig... minor setback, but I finally found it. Starts off easy, then comes line 6C, gotta put in the kids SSN's in there. I don't know what that number is, I'll have to find that. I'll be back for that. Line 7, add up my income. 8A, add in the pittance that I get in my meager savings interest. 10, add in my refund from the state last year. Not a whole lot more for that section, managed to dodge having to fill in line 19 for unemployment compensation. Add it all up for line 22.

Lines 23 to 36. Adjusted gross income. Nope, nothing in there for me, move the sum from 22 down to 37. While I'm at it, flip the form over and put that same number on 38. Line 39 has a place that says to check this box if you are blind. I consider putting a check mark a few inches away, and decide against it. Line 40, now things start looking good. Time to break out the Schedule A for more line filling fun.

Lines 1 through 3 on Schedule A are all about medical. Being as I'm nicely insured, it's usually under the threshold of 7.5% of my gross income, so I've not kept track of that. Possibly I should start, but I'd have to start doing that. From the beginning of the year. Not real likely to happen. Lines 5 and 6, state and property tax. A little preview of what I can look for from the state. Not bad. Skip down to line 10 for the interest on the mortgage. Down to 15 and 16 for gifts to charity. Gifts other than cash. How much do those old clothes and appliances I gave to Goodwill rate??? Probably they get considerably more for 'em than I'll claim. Call it $85 to keep from raising any flags. No job expenses, no casualty or theft losses, I don't even know what other miscellaneous deductions would be. Add it all up for line 28. Nice.

Back to the 1040. Line 41, take out the Schedule A deductions. YES!!! Line 42, multiply the number of deductions on line 6D by $3,300, then subtract that for line 43. Even better!!! Line 44, go to the tax tables and see how much they'd like to get out of me. Not bad. No alternative minimum tax for me, so blank 45 and move 44 down to 46. Nothing for me on lines 47 through 52, but at 53 things start looking good again. Child tax credit, see page 42. $1,000 per kid, or the amount on line 46 of the 1040, whichever is less. Haha, THAT'S where I break even!!! C'mere and gimme a hug, my little deductions!!! Could this get better??? Less than zero taxes??? Well, lets see, taxes minus credits is only line 57, this goes all the way to 76.

From there to line 63 is blank for me. Line 64 is what they withheld, how much I could ask for, nay, will ask for back. Line 66a, earned income credit. What could this be??? Flip to page 46 and check it out. Nope, apparently I make more than enough to be less than eligible for that. Line 68, additional child tax credit. Hmmm, I'll be needing a for 8812 for that. Subtract the difference between the child tax credit I already took and the $1,000 per kid. Takes it from the tax table amount to the full $2,000. Not bad. Not a huge amount, but made it worth my while to spend a few hours working this all out.

Didn't I tell you before??? I don't mind The Man taking his chunk. I'll have it back come April 15th, and then some!!!