Fire Fire Fire!

In case it's not in the national news, Vandenberg AFB (where I work) has been burning up since last Saturday afternoon! The Southbase fire (officially called "The Canyon fire") started sometime around 5:30 in the afternoon/evening somewhere in the remote areas of Vandenberg Southbase. Just for some clarification here, Southbase is literally a 2nd and separate part of Vandenberg AFB. To get onto it from "Northbase" you drive down a hill, across a highway and into another manned gate (again showing ID's, just like you do for Northbase). As of Sunday morning it was at a couple hundred acres. As of Monday morning it was at 2000 acres. As of Tuesday morning it was at 4500 acres (still 0% contained). As of Wednesday morning it was at 12,500 acres, however they finally had it at about 40% containment. By Thursday morning it appeared to be mostly contained and the slurry bombers were gone. Looking over the valley towards Southbase, all you see is smoldering land seemingly everywhere. However on Thursday the forecast called for "HIGH" winds (sustained between 20 to 25mph w/ gusts to/over 40mph). They nailed that forecast on the head!

And just as we had HOWLING WINDS whipping up the Canyon Fire by lunchtime on Thursday,  SOMEHOW (we haven't yet heard just how) a brush-fire started right up on Northbase just a few miles from where I work! We were up on the roof (it's about a 10 story building) watching the 3 bucket-helicopters and the 2 big Sikorsky "dipping" helicopters rotating in and out and completely getting their asses handed to them by the wind! It took about 2 hours before the first of the Slurry bombers arrived on-scene (I assume they had been sent back up north to help fight the Sobranes fire up by Big Sur, which has been burning for about 2 months now and is now THE MOST COSTLIEST FIRE IN AMERICAN HISTORY...and still isn't out yet.

Of course, it goes without saying that things are a bit 'dry' here in Cali. And actually, Vandenberg is probably about as 'green' a place as you will find in all of the Central Coast or Southern California due to the routine Marine Layer (fog) that envelopes and covers it about 8 out of every 10 mornings, sometimes until well into the afternoon and sometimes earlier...and SOMETIMES it comes back by the afternoon after being clear for a few hours (which is what makes me so CRAZY in trying to road/mt bike out there). But the entire area is still covered with brown dead grass and LOTS and LOTS Of dead trees.

So...I've collected a bunch of pictures off the news services and internet of the fires. Pretty crazy stuff...last week I was whining that I wasn't able to ride my mt bike on Southbase becasue of the impending launch of an Atlas V rocket from SLC-3 (SLC=Space Launch Complex) and the Worldview 4 spacecraft. It was set to go off on Thursday but had a problem with leaking Liquid Hydrogen from one of the valves, so the scrubbed the launch until Monday so they could switch out the valve. And on Monday we had a FREAKING FOREST FIRE going on and being HEAVILY fought (trying to keep it away from said launch complex),  so the launch had to be scrubbed YET AGAIN. And not to whine, but now I have no idea WHEN I'll be able to go biking up there...I am guessing it will be totally burned where I ride and they may not let me in there...DANG FIRE!! Ruining my LIFE!!!

OK...so...here's some pictures!

 The view from Harris Grade looking at Southbase. You can clearly see SLC-3 (with the Atlas V rocket and WV4 spacecraft inside) over to the right, the tall white building (tho it's not a building, it's the MST...Mobile Service Tower...it rolls away from the rocket for launch).

And speaking of SLC-3, here it is with the fire moving up behind it. This is a view looking at the front of the MST and the UT (Umbilical Tower...the rocket and spacecraft are actually attached to the UT until the moment of launch when the umbilicals detach and swing away).

And here's the fire-line approaching SLC-3. Now THAT is getting kind'a close!

  This is one of the BIG Slurry Bombers: a DC10 (there are at least 2 of them that I've seen in our area helping with fires).

The big DC10 again hammering away at the front of the fire.

 Another shot of the DC10.

 This is one of the big Sikorsky "Dipping" helicopters (that big tube hanging down drops into any kind of water source and sucks up a full payload of water to drop on the unsuspecting fire). My company (Lockheed Martin) OWNS Sikorsky...we bought it a while back. Not that it has anything to do with anything, I just find it kind of cool that my company owns the company that makes those awesome heavy lift helicopters!

 A pretty cool shot of a plane coming out of the smoke after it's slurry drop. You can see the top portion of the SLC-3 MST in the upper right of the photo...so this is the fire creeping down towards the complex (and btw, the launch complex'es are worth HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, and that's WITHOUT a rocket and spacecraft inside worth MANY MORE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS). So you can see why they fought so hard to keep the fire away from them. There are many many thousands of gallons of highly refined Kerosene and Liquid Oxygen on the SLC-3 complex (what is used to fuel the rocket launch that has been scrubbed twice in the last week). Fire would be BAD for that stuff I can safely say!

 One of the smaller slurry bombers..no idea what model plane this is but it's pretty cool!

 I found this picture and included it because it's right on the side of a road that I routinely road-ride! This is the start of the Egress Road descent! I can't wait to ride it again and see the desolation!

 A night shot of the fire...pretty crazy!

This shot was taken from down by the Union Sugar plant just a few miles from the Southbase gate, looking up into the hills. It was likely taken Sunday or Monday night (guessing by the size of the fire).

This is SLC-6, which is the launch facility for the Delta IV rockets. The fire burned right up to it's borders on 2 sides (as seen in the picture 2 down). THAT IS ONE CRAZY PICTURE! I believe they have a booster (rocket) inside the tower at this time...more hundreds of millions of dollars!

This shot shows where Vandenberg is, and the fires that are currently burning in the Central Coast area. Directly to the right of the Vandenberg Canyon Fire (which is indicated by the small red squares...this pic must have been taken Saturday night cuz it's still quite small) and below all the other fires is the Cathedral Fire. It's burning in ANOTHER area that I routinely mt bike over off of Paradise Road! I actually thought it was out, but now can see that it's still burning also! Not sure when they will let me back in there either! Dang, I'm losing all my mt biking areas!

 This picture is fantastic as it shows the scope of the Southbase (Canyon) fire. You can see the city of Lompoc in the upper left area, I'm guessing the fire started somewhere in the middle of the top of the burned out area (the wind switched directions on them during the week and it burned into a totally different area). You can clearly see where it shows Launch Complex 9 in the lower right of the photo...well, that's actually SLC-6 (complex 8 is also there but is mostly just a field with a tiny man-moved service tower, where-as SLC-6 is HUGEMONGOUS and was built to launch Space Shuttles in the 80's, and later converted to the Delta IV's after the Challenger disaster and they canceled Shuttle launches from the west coast). This picture shows that about 80% of Southbase has burned (my guess on the size).

 And here's some shots of the Northbase fire! (btw: as of Thursday afternoon when the fire was getting out of hand, the Base Commander basically closed the base and sent everybody but "Mission Essential" personnel home. So we all left about 3:30...what a cluster that was! And then I got a call last night (Thursday) that the Base Commander was keeping the base closed to continue the fight on Friday...so again only Mission Essential personnel were allowed on base. IF we had a spacecraft that we were prepping for launch then we would be in that group of Mission Essential Personnel..but right now we don't so everybody got a day off with pay (sadly, I was getting the day off already as it was my "Friday off" in our 9/80 work schedule we started back in the beginning of August).

 Here's one of the big DC10 bombers trying to get this fire under control in the stupid wind! In the background above the plane you can see one of the bucket-helo's with a full load of water (I can tell becasue the bucket is hanging almost straight down...when the buckets are empty they fly WAY back behind/under the helo due to their speed and the wind they were fighting).

 This is a shot from east of the smoke plume (I had to drive THRU the smoke plume to get off base..it was amazing...couldn't see much more than 50' in front of me, and it was horribly choking smoke!)

 The view of the smoke from the main gate of the smoke plume. The fire is WAY to the right of this picture.

 One of hte smaller slurry bombers helping get this fire under control.

And here's one of the big Sikorsky heavy lift choppers dumping a huge load of water on the fire. They were able to put a lot of people on this fire quick as the main "camp" for the Southbase fire is right on Northbase, probably about 2 miles from where the fire started! It will be interesting to find an aerial shot of the aftermath of this fire, to see exactly where it burned. Crazy stuff for sure!

All I can say is that we (California) are in the midst of a HISTORIC DROUGHT (the longest drought on record) and we need some freaking WATER! Come on people...we can build a gigantic pipeline across freaking ALASKA to carry highly toxic OIL for crying out loud...so why on earth can't we build a HUGER pipeline from almost EVERYWHERE THAT ISN'T CALIFORNIA TO CALIFORNIA? It seems that pretty much everybody ELSE has TOO MUCH water...we'll take it ALL please! Just make huge inlets that would suck the water off your rivers when they get anywhere near flood stage and start pumping it...then the smaller pipes join into bigger and bigger pipes...eventually there's just a few GINORMOUS pipes going up over the Sierra's. Sure you have to pump it up, but THEN gravity takes over and you could put a few turbines in the downhill side, and those could power the pumps driving it up the East Side! Hey...I'm the idea guy...somebody ELSE needs to make it work. I'm just saying, we'll take all the extra water the REST of the US has....thank you very much!

OK...I need to hit the sack. It's tiring solving all our problems. Hope your weekend is free from fires...and flooding.

Time for some COLLEGE FOOTBALL tomorrow....HOORRAY!!!

Game ON!


Saturday evening update: I stopped by my work this afternoon to get some of my stuff ready to ship to Colorado Springs (I leave a week from Monday for 3 weeks). My work building was right in the smoke plume back on Thursday afternoon when we were evacuated...it smells like a forest fire INSIDE the building! I mean it's INTENSE! I can't imagine how people are going to work in there come Monday morning...it's actually pretty hard to breath. Anyway, I can only guess but it still had to be a mile or 2 from the fire, only downwind. And our parking lot and road outside the parking lot looks like we got a slurry bomber drop on us! Here's a picture of one of our work vans! I'm guessing the wind was blowing so hard that a high drop of slurry just blew the 2 miles and slathered out building and parking lot. I have to think this stuff is biodegradable...they do spread it all over creation when firefighting.

Crazy stuff...and today there wasn't a lick of smoke visible from either north or southbase. But there was a spotter plane doing circles around the Northbase fire...I am guessing they are making sure no hotspots flare up, as they don't want to do that all over again.

OK....on to Sunday!

Yay...it's FOOTBALL time again!

Now that cycling season is winding down it's time for the Pigskin to start dominating the sports-scene. I'm pretty excited this year...my Raiders are looking the best they've been in AGES! Among other things, we ACTUALLY HAVE a quarter back! For REAL! SERIOUSLY! And an offensive line who can give him more than a token tidbit of protection! OMG, what a difference THAT will make, having our poor passer NOT running for his life on every play! And hey...we WON our first game! What decade were the Raiders last 1 and 0?? Gosh, I can't tell you...seems like a lifetime ago! I think we can really give Denver a run for their money this year!


And then on to College football...what an exciting season it's going to be! Bama still looks pretty darn tough, as does Clemson (maybe I should have mentioned Clemson first...I think at this moment they are VERY likely to be in the title game again)...the ACC will (as usual) be a very tough nut to crack for all the other divisions.


But HEY HEY HEY, look at Michigan!!! We have a REAL COACH, and they are looking pretty fantastic (IMO)! I think the Big Ten conference will be VERY tough this year...in the East division Ohio State sure looks good again (RATS!) and will be EXTREMELY tough to beat (as always...or at least the last decade or so)...also there's Penn State and Michigan State who are NEVER pushovers (there's also your Turtles Susie, but sadly I don't personally expect them to be vying for the conference title...sorry). Nor do I expect big things from Indiana and Rutgers...but still...the Big Ten East will be a VERY hard-fought division this year.


The West side has it easier...Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Illinois, Purdue and Northwestern. They are all pretty decent teams, but I expect only Wisconsin and Nebraska to be fighting for the West title come November...if I had to choose now I'd say it will be Wisconsin...they are looking very good again. But hey....I could very easily be WAY off-base...if there's one thing I DO KNOW for a PROVEN (time and time again) fact, it's that I pretty much I SUCK at football predictions. But it's fun to choose my champions, and then to root for them as the season goes on.


So far there's been very little in the way of TOUGH early season games for any of the teams that are still 2 and 0 this far (the exception being Wisconsin beat LSU). As for the rest of the entire Conference, it's all been warm-up. Today there's a few tougher games....Michigan plays Colorado, Michigan State plays Notre Dame, and OSU plays Oklahoma. NEXT week is when things really start to heat up....Michigan plays Penn State and Wisconsin plays Michigan State. And the following week Michigan plays Wisconsin. That these are all Conference games maks them even MORE important in the long run.


Of course, being a Michigan fan, everything really boils down to our final game of the season...this year just after Thanksgiving. We play Ohio State on Nov 26th IN Columbus (urgh!). We don't know how the 2 teams will be faring at this point (will one of them be shooting for a National Title shot?)...but one thing is FOR SURE: the wins and losses of the season don't count for much in this game. It's a HARD FOUGHT BITTER BATTLE between two teams who have hated each other pretty much since FOREVER! I'm really hoping it's THIS YEAR that Michigan can bring that title back home to Ann Arbor...it's been a LONG WHILE since we've beaten OSU.


OK...enough for now...(more to come OBVIOUSLY).


Game ON!

Happy Birthday!

A couple of birthdays to talk about today. First off, our little darling (MONSTER) Sophie turned TWO back on Wednesday! Jeannie made her a cake (all doggie friendly ingredients, which is why PG didn't really care for it at ALL). Here's a couple of shots from her little birthday party:

She sure is a cutie-patooty, isn't she (for a little Kracken-Monster anyway)!

Her tongue is hanging out as Jeannie just got home and when either of us get home she runs around like a wild animal and exhausts her self...got a pretty humongous tongue for such a small monster! And that's not even all the way out...you should see it when we are at the park and she's chasing the tennis-ball!

We still can't believe we've had her for over a year and a half already...seems not very long ago she was a little 4 month old puppy we brought home (December 2014). But she's fully grown now thankfully, and even tho I haven't weighed her lately, I'm betting she's close to 60lbs. That's a LOT for how small she seems..it's like picking up a ROCK! But PG is still large and in charge (the 3 legged Whippet/Terrier mix...you can see her in the first picture checking out the happenings). She will turn FIFTEEN in early Dec...which we find pretty amazing, as she doesn't really ACT like a 15 year old...she still plays with Sophie most days!

And then there's another birthday: my CAR! My little ol' VW Jetta wagon. I've now had it TEN years as of the 6th (Tuesday). It's an 03 (so it's actually THIRTEEN years old). I bought it used at 3 years old in Sept of 06)! It turned 250,000 miles-old last Friday on my way to a Mt bike ride...that's a QUARTER OF A MILLION MILES! Not too shabby at all...and I like to think she will easily make a half-million miles (and MORE)! Diesels are FANTASTIC!!!

Here's my car in it's birthday hat.

And then there's yet ANOTHER birthday (that hasn't quite happened yet)...mine! Gosh...I'm getting old...back in July I went with my brothers to Nevada to spend the day with our Dad (who turned 85)! Well...as of THIS Friday I'll be 56, and 85 will only be a SHORT 29 years away! How on earth is THAT possible??? I mean, I look at my dad and think yep...he's kind'a old (tho in pretty good shape)...but to think that I'm only 29 years away from 85?? I can't wrap my head around that...I mean...I'm still riding bikes.... a LOT (both mt and road) and I'M STILL GETTING STRONGER! So HOW can I be SO OLD?? It just doesn't seem possible! And to make things worse, time seems to be picking up speed! It's like the years are going by FASTER than ever! I blink and it's a new year. Blink again and it's summer...half a blink later and summer is OVER (like it was as of this weekend...Labor Day). The next blink and it will be Thanksgiving, then a quarter-blink and it's Christmas! Gosh...I'm totally afraid to blink anymore! Gotta prop my eyes open with toothpicks or something!

Anyway, that's the haps here. Oh, and I accidentally found that I DO have the UHD (Universal High Def) sports channel! I don't recall EVER seeing it in our lineup before! It's like it suddenly just appeared (and Jeannie has already canceled our upgraded package that we had for le Tour and the Olympics). Note: I have a full-time 'record' option setup so that the DVR records ANYTHING that has "cycling" in the title...I've had it record all kinds of US Crits and tiny races I've never heard of and such over the years...so I know it works...for the life of me can't figure why it didn't record the Vuelta from the start, and I would have known it was in my lineup. So anywho, I have it set to start recording the Vuelta starting with Stage 14 tomorrow! So I'll stop reading about it on VN every day and start WATCHING some of the stages (woo-HOO!) I see it's only a 2 hour broadcast every day, that's a good amount that I can deal with. (another note: years ago when I did the package upgrade for le Tour I found I got Universal Sports with the upgrade, and after the upgrade was canceled I lost it...so I've never looked again until this year, and I'd SWEAR I didnt' have it even w/ the package upgrade...but I"m guessing it was there all along and I didn't know it was now called UHD).

OK. That's the scoop from the CA Central Coast...it's just Birthday CITY! I hope things are good for you and you're not taking life for granted! Get out there and do something FUN! Time won't wait for you...that's for sure. So ENJOY YOURSELF!

HAPPY LABOR DAY! Get out there and DON'T do any labor! (except I will ignore that as I will be PAINTING some on Labor Day...and painting is indeed LABOR).

Cheers!