Well, the fires caused some phone service problems, so we had no broadband at home all weekend. I also found out that my surge protector is totally ineffective, since with each 1/10 second power blip my desktop startet rebooting. I thought some of you would like a little flavor of what's going on here in Los Angeles.

I live just on the other side of a mountain range from Simi Valley (South, that is), probably 10 miles from the fire as the crow flies. I took the picture below this past Sunday in the EARLY AFTERNOON from the top of my street, and you can notice the bright sunshine reflecting off of the houses. Of course, I sympathize with those whose lives are being encroached upon by the fire itself, but my minor annoyance has been dealing with the constant smell of smoke for several days as well as a nice thick coating of ashes on my car whenever I'm home. In fact, I get a nice coating at work, too, 40 miles away in Culver City.