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Post by Light Rises on Oct 1, 2005 15:35:49 GMT -5
Nope, I'm not dead. ^^; There's just been a greater accumulation of personal and school stuff going on than usual, so free time's become something of a luxury. We had to put our sweet and wonderful rottie, Heidi, to sleep a couple weeks ago (we'd had her for ten years [we adopted her when she was one], and her illness just came on so suddenly...) *sigh* Yeah, that was a rough week. On all of us.  On a lighter note, though, my older sister got engaged (*mock long-suffering sigh* "Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!"  ), and I'm in Animation I at my school! ;D And, yeah, that class has been the other big time suck, along with the personal stuff. When our professor warned informed us that animation was the single most time-consuming artform, she wasn't kiddin'!  Stressful stuff at times, yes, but exceedingly fun nonetheless (and sooooo fascinating!).^^ Still, though, I could certainly do without being away from you guys for long stretches of time. It's getting rather irritating, to put it mildly. *shakes head*...These fires are insane. I could smell the burning from my house on Thursday (and we live in the flats, a good distance away from the hills where the huge Topanga fire was/is still ravaging, so that's saying something). The odor's no longer in the air, though, at least from home, but goshdarnit if those firefighters haven't been working like dogs (and probably will be for the weeks to come)! On the plus side, this is happening towards the tailend of the fire season, and amazingly, only two homes have been lost so far (and we're talking about fires that have burned thousands of acres of land, the Topanga one alone having pretty much torched 20,000+ acres). So...yeah. 'Nuff rambling. It's too, too good to be back.  ~Light Rises |
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Post by pitbulllady on Oct 1, 2005 16:32:19 GMT -5
I'm sorry to hear about your dog, LR. Believe me, if anybody knows what it's like to lose a pet, it's me, having just lost two dogs recently, one to old age and one to heat stroke, of all things(which tells you how hot it's been here, when a dog native to Louisiana can't take the heat).
I've been hearing about those fires all over the news, too, but didn't know how close you were to them. A friend of mine has been trying for the past couple of years to get me to move from SC to the Southwest, since she freaks out every time there's a hurricane approaching the Atlantic or Gulf coasts. She's worried about me getting killed by a hurricane, and worried about our mutual friends in Louisiana. I've tried to tell her that in the Southwest, including southern California, wildfires are the big threat, and I can deal with a hurricane better than I can a huge fire. Like I've said, there's no place in the US that isn't prone to SOME sort of natural disaster.
pitbulllady
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Post by RandallBoggs on Oct 2, 2005 2:20:28 GMT -5
I can understand too for you two.
I lose two dalmations a long time ago. My sis was SO attached to them. Gin and Sable. Sable died first...and....Gin just....couldn't hang on without him....
Ehh...anyway....
Fires?
Sorry...I've heard about Rita and...and...err...that Critrina one....but I didn't hear about fires...
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Post by lizardgirl on Oct 2, 2005 4:28:03 GMT -5
*salutes Heidi* It's hard to loose a pet, huh LR? *hug*
I haven't heard much about the fires, either, except for a small article in the newspaper that we get, but that didn't really inform us of the extent of things.
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Beboots
Randall's Head Servant (300-799)
Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a plague in Equatorial Guinea that I have to attend.
Posts: 646
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Post by Beboots on Oct 2, 2005 11:51:42 GMT -5
*gives hug* I know how you feel with the smell of fires - we in central Alberta can smell the smoke from forest fires far away in the mountains during the summer sometimes. |
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Post by lizardgirl on Oct 6, 2005 11:48:43 GMT -5
I guess with strong winds that strong scent can really travel.
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Post by Light Rises on Oct 7, 2005 15:06:24 GMT -5
Thanks for the condolences, everyone. *hugs all around* It means a whole lot, believe you me. I guess with strong winds that strong scent can really travel. More than that, the Santa Ana winds really make quite a piece of work out of fires that are already big, creating other "spot fires" and whatnot. I guess that, even without the winds, though, the smell would've still been persistent for miles and miles around; from Northridge alone (which is in Los Angeles county), you could see a literal wall of smoke blocking out the view of the mountains and sky westward (from the Topanga fire), and I'd never seen something of that magnitude before. The good news is that the Topanga fire has pretty much been put out by now, although another huge one has started up in Riverside. It's funny, because my biology professor was discussing that on Tuesday. She told us that this part of California is a "chaparral zone", which is naturally prone to quick-spreading fires. It's nothing new or different, no matter what the media might make people think, because this was a chaparral zone long before ANY humans settled here. You're a lot less likely to be affected by these fires (or by mudslides for that matter), though, so long as you live away from the hills and mountain areas, like us. It might not be as pretty, but then that just leaves us with the earthquakes to worry about. ~Light Rises |
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Post by RandallBoggs on Oct 7, 2005 15:11:05 GMT -5
I'm still wondering what you guys are talking about....
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Post by Light Rises on Oct 7, 2005 15:21:37 GMT -5
I'm still wondering what you guys are talking about.... Hmm...how about googling something like "California wildfires", and seeing what you get? There's been tons of stuff written about these fires (at least locally), so I'm sure you'll find at least a good chuck of news articles online. ~Light Rises |
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Post by RandallBoggs on Oct 7, 2005 15:25:17 GMT -5
Geez....and I thought Hollywood was impervious....
But wow....
But....Something happen?
I mean...from what I see, I think this happened in 2003 right?
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Post by Light Rises on Oct 7, 2005 15:31:36 GMT -5
Geez....and I thought Hollywood was impervious.... But wow.... But....Something happen? I mean...from what I see, I think this happened in 2003 right? What? No -- this is happening right now. I think there were some major fires going on in 2003, yes, but nothing like this. *is confused* ~Light Rises |
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Post by RandallBoggs on Oct 7, 2005 15:36:23 GMT -5
What caused it? From how your sounding, it's devistation....
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Post by Light Rises on Oct 7, 2005 15:52:03 GMT -5
Well, except for a couple cases that were somewhat suspicious, all the rest of the fires just started on their own. It's the typical thing at this time of year: the brush and other plants are at their driest, along with the air, and it's also one of the hottest times of year. Part of what made the fires so bad this year was the fact that NONE had broken out until the past couple weeks, at the very end of the fire season. Consequently, that's given the fires a lot more "fuel" to feed off of than usual, since none of the brush, etc. had been burned off before now. All things considered, it's amazing that only a handful of homes have been lost to the fires, and there's been no loss of human life, either. They've certainly devasated the natural landscape, however, but as I said before, that's just part of the natural cycle of things around here.
~Light Rises
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Post by lizardgirl on Oct 8, 2005 8:05:34 GMT -5
Yep, because the best part is when all the fires have gone and everything grows back.
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Post by RandallBoggs on Oct 8, 2005 12:29:53 GMT -5
Wouldn't it be easier to send in H20 helicopters to dounse the flames? Like on patrol?
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On a lighter note, though, my older sister got engaged (*mock long-suffering sigh* "Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!" 
), and I'm in Animation I at my school! ;D And, yeah, that class has been the other big time suck, along with the personal stuff. When our professor 
Stressful stuff at times, yes, but exceedingly fun nonetheless (and sooooo fascinating!).^^ Still, though, I could certainly do without being away from you guys for long stretches of time. It's getting rather irritating, to put it mildly. 
