Hey ya Rob!

So you did the impossible: battered chunks of kayak made back into a kayak. You stud! You keep this up and pretty soon you'll be doing this MacGyver thing and assembling kayaks in 10 minutes from objects around the house...

Scene: Rob trips in his crowded garage, spills Guiness. Rob disgustingly sets beer down and tosses offending objects outside. Soon a pile of dissociated objects is lying there before his eyes. Pondering the pile and finishing beer, Rob leans closer (belches) and says:
"hmmmm."
Twenty minutes later the spare tire, the kids toys, that piece of wood that's always in the way, the old blinds and that dull set of wire-cutters are now a kayak complete with emblems.

: Hey, I got mine done yesterday. The rebuild is, for ht emost part, completed
: except for the final smoothing, graphics and graphite coating on the
: bottom. I'm not launching because it's snowing over here. I'll wait until
: the snow stops then get some shots of the launch. I like the removeable
: keel idea, I'll be doing that to the VJ during the winter.

Naw, no medal for me. It's the Canadian spirit of community that rubbed off on me. That's what happens when paddling in Beuatiful BC. I tell you what though, the world is making a big deal of this when next to nothing was said about the hell that BC went through this summer and early fall. Just thinking about the complete loss that so many up there experienced, yet remain cheerful just makes me weep. Down here victims for the most part will be able to rebuild, and its a FEMA area now so for the most part it's just time and patience. The real sad thing is that these fires are a normal and yearly part of the environment. It's the uncontrolled growth of the region and the failure of local and state goverment that were factors in the loss of homes. There's a lot more to the story then the sensationalism and this rally-round-the-flag horseshit mentality: that greenzones aren't mandatory, that reclaimed wastewater aren't used, that enforcement of cleared areas doesn't occur, that "right-sizing" of fire services-all are factors. More so is the nature of the media and the general public. For instance, San Diego county lost approximately 20% of the cell repeaters, but everyone was yakking on their cells and crashing the system. That the US federal manadate to bury electrical and phone services has stalled with the local energy purveyors saying they have no money though moneys were paid by the rate-payers for years. So when electrical lines were lost the grid became unstable and power spikes and drops were rampant. Co-gen facilities were dropping off line because of the wildly fluctuating levels. And during the fire power consumption INCREASED. Let's talk about water: fucking idiots miles from the fire edge in the middle of suburbia were watering their roofs! Pressure in the lines was so low that fire-fighting efforts were greatly hampered. The point is that the media should have been concise and factual, not stirring up the panic. They should have had normal TV shows on and only interrupt the shows with bulletins and factual reminders and updates-from the staff and not the politcial types, and they should have been telling people to get off their friggin cells, reduce power use and turn their fucking water off.

You know, the fire is way overblown. First thing, there's no such thing as a firestorm. There are fire intensity levels, but the threat to homes are low for the community. Suburbia is in the fire biz a safe place. The first and second line of homes next to the open lands will suffer, but streets and houses act to slow the fire and are in all essence, firebreaks. Two firefronts combining are two firefronts combining and nothing more, it doesn't mean that the adjacent area is any more threatened. But media and talking heads babble about scenarios that just can't occur. This idea should have been conveyed to the public. Another thing is the way the media is reporting that the air is "unhealthy" in this county from the smoke. Well, that is a level established by the local San Diego Air Pollution Control District (APCD) and is based on many factors. The trigger was the particulates (PM 2.5 and 5) levels in some parts of the heavy-smoke areas, not the entire county. To compare, a local community in the lower mountains has 200 days of unhealthy air from smog and ozone. The levels in the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD, a combination of APCDs in the LA basin) has a much higher level for "unhealthy." In terms of particulates of PM 2.5 and 5, the eastern side of LA has less then 2 months of days where it's healthy. So with this, local goverment heads decided that no public employees should be at work. No public services. If that isn't assine, what is.

I tell you, the US needs to learn all about big fires from Canada and more so, how all parties are to behave. Places like Kewlona where deep fire fronts-basement and canopy-advanced at 30 miles per hour over a 20 mile length. Now that was a very intense, very scary bad fire, and that was one of many BC suffered. The town of Barrier was incinerated by a fire that moved so fast that all the efforts were overwhelmed. Those conditions are a whole different beast.

I'm on my soapbox...I need to build a yak...

: A medal for you, Mike, for reaching out to those in need. I heard that if
: those two fires out there meet in the middle you'll have a firestorm:
: that's an very frightening, ugly scenario. How close is it to your place
: now?

: Robert N Pruden