Dry!

The chart at right shows the temperature (°F on the left scale, red line) and relative humidity (% on the right scale, green line). For the past four days we've been below 20% relative humidity — much of the time below 10%!

This is extraordinarily dry even for the chapparal country, and it's been quite prolonged as well. Yesterday the wind was from the northeast for much of the day, indicating a Santa Ana condition, though the winds weren't high as they usually are in a Santa Ana.

This is a litle worrisome, as conditions like this are enablers for wildfires. There's one going on right now 150 miles north of us, and much the same weather conditions apply there. The longer the dry air continues, the longer the brush and botanical detritus has to dehydrate — and the drier that fuel gets, the more dangerous the conditions. When the fuel gets very dry — like it was before the Cedar Fires two years ago — then even the smallest spark can turn into a hard-to-stop fire. And because Lawson Valley hasn't burned for over 30 years, we have a lot of fuel on our hillsides.

Just today I ran across a map of San Diego County that was color-coded to show when each area had last burned. Lawson Valley is colored to indicate "1961-1970" — and if that's right, we've got 35 - 45 years of chapparal growth on our hillsides. Yikes!

Ponder Power

Jimmy Valentine is the Producer of the Roger Hedgecock Show (the only radio talk show you'll find me listening to regularly), where he's described this way:

Jimmy writes the Flash Fax daily, hangs around the Team Hedgecock office when he is not outside smoking. He barely graduated from high school and has no degree whatsoever. But for an old guy he's a little cute and often quite playful. He is mostly harmless and unproductive...he yearns for a permanent position in gummint where the wage and pension is great and the workload is light.

The "Flash Fax" mentioned above is an appoximately daily email that Jimmy writes. It's always interesting, often informative and insightful, sometimes inspiring, and occasionally hurt-your-belly funny. An example from today's edition illustrates at least some of the preceding claims:

THE POWER OF THE PONDER… not sure exactly where I picked up the power, most likely in Texas. We did several TV shows via satellite out in the Big Bend area back in the mid-80s and that area tends to be kinda mystic. I think it just come on me. I am not sure it’s a gift but it does strike often and just automatically re-sorts all the stuff in my head so that it makes better sense. A lot of dots connect in sudden fashion. I guess it’s like defragging your computer. And it seems to thrive out here in Dehesa Valley for some reason.

The Ponder can strike near anytime but it mostly happens during shaving in the morning or after the first Jack of an evening. Mind is wandering and suddenly “pop,” you set to pondering. You can’t turn it on and off, it happens.

It’s the Ponder that tells me that bankruptcy is the best and fastest way for SD City to resolve it’s financial crisis. I can’t vote there but the Ponder doesn’t abide by jurisdiction.

It’s the Ponder that tells me that it will be a good thing if Katrina victims sue local, state and federal gummints for not protecting them and demanding a 911 fund. And win. Cause we fire folks left over from the 2003 Wildfire Debacle are trying to class act a suit against the numbskulls that couldn’t quit the fire up in Ramona. So far court is saying you can’t sue the gummint. The Ponder sez that Jesse Jackson and his group will lead a court suit and a judge will bark when told to by Jesse and the gang. That’ll set court precedent and pave our way.

It’s the Ponder that tells me that if you are in favor of abortion then you are in favor of killing children and that is how it should be stated. Not, “I’m pro-choice,” but “I’m for killing kids.” And folks who have had abortions ought to be up front about it and proclaim, “I killed my baby,” and be proud in public.

It’s the Ponder that tells me that if you are opposed to big gas guzzling vehicles, you should ride the trolley, ride a bike to work or walk. And if you do drive you had better have 18 other folks in the car with you.

We’ve noted the Ponder many times in the flash over the years. The above examples are likely lousy but I hadda face the Ponder today and let it know that I know it exists…and that I ain’t scared of it……. tho I am awed. it’s a good power, tho sometimes I kinda wish I was able to see thru womens clothing instead.

I subscribe to quite a few email newsletters; this is one of them that I look forward to every day.

I've never met Jimmy Valentine, but he's nearly a neighbor of mine. He lives in Dehesa Valley, which is one ridge away from Lawson Valley, where my home is. Unlike me, Jimmy lost his home in the Cedar Fire of 2003 — we were just one ridge away from the same fate.

You can (and should!) subscribe to the FlashFax yourself (scroll all the way down), or you can peruse the FlashFax archives. Personally, I think Jimmy would make a great blogger; maybe we can talk him into it one of these fine days...

Priceless!

An honest man was being tailgated by a stressed out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him.

He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman hit the roof, and the horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell.

After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. "I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the'Follow Me to Sunday-School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."

Priceless!

Produce Blogging

The photo at right is not (I'm sad to say) one of mine. It's one of Rick Lee's photos, from his blog "On Location with Rick Lee". As he puts it in his blog's "About" section:

A commercial photographer in a small market. I love my work and I love the people I work with. How cool is that?

It's very cool. And what a pleasure for the rest of us, even those who (like me) can't help but be jealous of his talent for making memorable images of everyday things. His blog is on my "daily read" list just for the sheer pleasure of it.

APOD

APOD brings us...

Clouds of glowing hydrogen gas mingle ominously with dark dust lanes in this close-up of IC 1396, an active star forming region some 2,000 light years away in the constellation Cepheus. In this and other similar emission nebulae, energetic ultraviolet light from a hot young star strips electrons from the surrounding hydrogen atoms. As the electrons and atoms recombine they emit longer wavelength, lower energy light in a well known characteristic pattern of bright spectral lines. At visible wavelengths, the strongest emission line in this pattern is in the red part of the spectrum and is known as "Hydrogen-alpha" or just H-alpha. Part of IPHAS, a survey of H-alpha emission in our Milky Way Galaxy, this image spans about 20 light-years and highlights bright, dense regions within IC 1396, likely sites where massive new stars are born.

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Hyperion

The Cassini-Huygens probe (which I've posted about many times) flew close by Hyperion a few days ago, producing the photo at right. As the mission web site says:

This stunning false-color view of Saturn's moon Hyperion reveals crisp details across the strange, tumbling moon's surface. Differences in color could represent differences in the composition of surface materials. The view was obtained during Cassini's close flyby on Sept. 26, 2005.

Hyperion has a notably reddish tint when viewed in natural color. The red color was toned down in this false-color view, and the other hues were enhanced, in order to make more subtle color variations across Hyperion's surface more apparent.

Images taken using infrared, green and ultraviolet spectral filters were combined to create this view. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft's narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 62,000 kilometers (38,500 miles) from Hyperion and at a Sun-Hyperion-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 52 degrees. The image scale is 362 meters (1,200 feet) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Check out the mission's web site, and also the imaging team's web site — both are full of interesting photos and information. As usual, click on the photo for a larger view...