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Monday, October 27, 2003
Firewatch, cont'd 
| | Got a good look at the Simi Valley fires — or at least the billowing cloud of smoke above them — from the plane on our way out of Santa Barbara about an hour ago. What I didn't expect to see was another fire, this one above Cuesta Grade, which is the long hill on Highway 101 north of San Luis Obispo that has been under construction for years.. Got a good shot of it from out over San Simeon. It doesn't appear to be moving toward civilization, and there appears to be a good fire break on the top of the ridge; though the flames were pretty big. You might notice a few pixels of orange in the midst of the picture above. That stuff is real fire. |
| | Okay, I just downloaded a live space image from here. The Cuesta Grade fire is in the upper left section. You sen see the plume trending southeast. The next set of plumes (moving southeast) are in Simi Valley, above San Bernardino, and in San Diego. You can see a full size image by clicking on the picture. |
| | So much for my visit to SFO. Now it's on to Las Vegas. Thanks to all of you who have suggested broadbandwidth options there. |
Sweet 61
| | Britt's birthday is today. Unfortunately, he's not dyslexic about it. |
Lowspeed hotel
| | I'll be staying at the Mandalay Bay tonight. Nice hotel. Only one problem: no high speed Internet in the rooms. The only place to get it is at the Business Center, which is only open from 7am to 6pm. |
| | I'll find someplace that has broadband, I'm sure. But the day is fast coming that high speed internet service will be as standard as TV in hotel rooms. Even in Vegas, where they don't want you to sit in your room all day. |
| | Right now I'm trying to find the street address of the Mandalay Bay so I can see where the nearest hot spot (e.g. Starbucks) might be. No luck. Or not much, anyway. At least not from the hotel. Others are more accomodating. |
Firelines
Flying wide
| | At this point many fewer flights are going through LAX and other L.A. area airports. As it happens, I'm supposed to fly today through LAX to Las Vegas. I'll be speaking at ISP Exchange tomorrow morning. |
| | So I just rebooked through SFO. Lucky to get the flight. Things are kind of intense out there right now. |
Revisionism vision
| | Ultimately, I think Congress will kill the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; the right wing will present the death of CPB as an ideological triumph, of course, but CPB needs to go, not because it might offend a segment of the population, but because it's an anachronism, and one which adds (albeit only slightly) to the ongoing budget deficits at that. While public radio isn't exactly awash in money, they've learned how to turn a buck just like their rivals on the commercial side of things, and with most public-broadcasting frequencies reserved by long-established FCC rules (KGOU is one of very few public stations on a normally-commercial channel), it's highly unlikely that they're going to be swallowed up by the Clear Channel juggernaut. |
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