A Beautiful Chaparral Morning...

This is the view just now from the west-looking camera on Lyons Peak. Aside from the char in the foreground, you'd never know San Diego County was on fire just a few days ago. The white layer you see in the distance is just fog; our normal “marine layer” that we see on many mornings. I love this sight, especially as I drive down the last stretch of Skyline Truck Trail into the town of Jamul – the mountain tops look like islands rising out of an ethereal sea…

I received several emails from worried readers this morning, wondering why I wasn't posting. I suspect these are all new readers (and very welcome!) who have the impression from last week that I normally post a couple hundred times a day. This, I'm afraid, is simply not true. I actually have a job, where for some reason they expect me to do things for them <smile>. Normally I write a couple of posts a day, on average; some days more, some days none at all. It doesn't mean I've disappeared!

In response to another reader email, here's an offer: if you'd like your fire story to be up on the web (with photos, if you'd like), I'd be more than happy to let you do so on my blog. Just send me an email with what you want to say, and any photos you want to put up, and I'll take care of getting it up there. Make sure you let me know what personal details you do and don't want published (your real name, your address, etc.).

And one more excellent idea a reader had: if you have a story related to the firefighters and the wonderful job they did protecting our properties, or if you just want to say THANK YOU, I'd be happy to publish that as well. Again, just write up what you'd like to say in an email, and send it to me.

My email address is slightlyloony-at-jamulblog.com (replace the -at- with @). I have to write it in this odd way to keep the spambots from finding it an inundating me with disgusting email advertisements…

Reverse 911

Many of us who live in the remoter regions of San Diego County spend quite a bit of time many miles from home, at work, shopping, having fun, or whatever. A reverse 911 call to our homes when we're away is of little use.

I heard on the radio this morning that San Diego County very recently installed a second-generation reverse 911 system that is much more capable than the old one. It can make hundreds of thousands of calls per hour (a huge improvement), and it can handle cell phones and email addresses. But – a big but – it can only do this if you tell it what numbers or email addresses to call when your address is threatened.

Fortunately they've made it very easy. I just did it for our home, and it took less than a minute to register my cell phone, my wife's cell phone, and both our email addresses. All you need to do is to go to the County's sign-up web site, and fill in one simple form.

Take a few moments and do it now, while you're thinking of it…