LISA, Day 0

Today I woke up to the morning news telling me "Stay inside, don't go out driving, don't use your water, the firefighters need it."

It was eight in the morning (after daylight savings time had been removed) and the sky was the dismal color pictured to the right. As you walked outside, it was as though it was a crisp January morning, with light flurries falling, and the ground covered in that morning dusting that blows away. Except these weren't snowflakes, and they weren't going to melt away. There were thousands upon thousands of acres on fire a short drive away, and the sky was the worse for it. I took a couple pictures to share.

As I write this this evening, twelve hours later, nothing much has changed. It's still smoky out, everyone and everything smells like ash. I've seen employees wearing dust-masks to keep themselves from inhaling ash all day.

But, most of the day I was indoors, attending the Seven Habits of the Highly Effective System Administrator tutorial. I cannot express enough how great this session was. Lots of good information, great audience participation so other points were brought up, you name it.

Dinner at Charlie's was less than stellar. It feels like I'll be dealing with that issue later this evening in some greater depth.

Time to hang out in the server room (and avoid the crappy hotel $.95/30-minute service charges), and recharge the batteries and suck down some high-speed access.