Fuzzy, I hope the hurricane does not hit your area too hard!  Thoughts are with you and Dez.

Steve and Kathy

After sleeping hard last night Kathy had to wake me up around 0800 today.  I was needed to follow her to the RV dealership as she needed to have some repairs made to the motor home.  Ginger rode with me and of course there was her usual excited greeting when first seeing Kathy after being separated from her for a bit.  (in this case it was just a very short bit but oh well that is our Ginger)

Back at home Kathy heads off to work and it was the shower for me after taking morning meds.  Shower finished Ginger and I headed out for our morning walk.  Not too bad out there this morning.  Air quality was mostly okay.  Some wind so the walk was a good one.  Then back home we head.  I need to load the car up with all of the necessary gear for TNS.  That was not too bad a chore so it got finished pretty fast.  Then I started on Collecting the garbage and putting it into the Gray cart.  The recycle stuff goes into the blue cart.  I put both carts into the garage for movement out to the street later this evening.

I then checked the news to see if any thing new had been reported on the fire fronts here abouts.  Nope!  Not much from any of the news outlets.  I guess wildland fires are becoming old news hereabouts.  Go figure.

I decide to head to Los Gordos for some lunch.  Have not been there lately.  My stomach has been acting up a bit...too much spicy salsa on my plain fish tacos.  But it has finally calmed down so I guess if I am careful today I will be good to go.  After lunch I head for home where I spend some time with Ginger.  She needs some skritches and of course a romp in the back yard.  Must take of business ya know before I head to the range.

I finish loading up the car making sure I have plenty of water and my equipment.  A final skritch for Ginger and I head out.  I am early today as I need to help with stage set-up.  Oh yeah, then I found out I had left two of my magazines at home.  Good thing I had plenty of spares in my bag.My friend who has been handling and managing TNS this summer is recovering from some surgery and I was asked to help out.  I like it early so I can take my time.  There are simple things like put water bottles on ice and unlock the connex and fenced areas where our props are kept. 

That finished I start to build the first stage for tonight.  It is a simple layout with a minimum of 19 rounds.  Very little movement to make it even easier.  Did not take long so I decided to build a second stage.  This one was even simpler.  Four round plates and the "Spinner".  The spinner can be a challenging prop.  It consists of two flat, hexagon targets connected at the mid point between the two.  The mid point has a Bearing at right angles to the flat plates.  One target is smaller than the other.  So it comes to rest with the smaller plate on top.  With the plates facing the shooter the object is to get the plate array to spin.  One does this by hitting one of the plates several times in succession.  Then as the other plate starts to return one must hit that plate enough to drive it back farther.  Do this enough times and the array will turn over.  The rules are easy...sort of.  One must hit each target at least four times before quitting to avoid a penalty.  And if you are successful in spinning the array you get a 15 second bonus.  What can go wrong you ask???  Well if your timing is off and you hit one of the plates as it comes towards you, you can stop the target and have to start over.  I was able to get it to spin tonight.  This link will take you to a youtube video of the spinner.  You can skip ahead to about 3:30 to where they actually shoot the spinner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxldNwiFUzc

My squad finishes the match and everything is put away.  I chat a bit with some friends.  Then I commit to help again next week.  Then home I head.  Kathy is still up and working on the computer.  We chat a bit then I look up renewed TV programs for this fall.  We got a new DISH Hopper and Joeys and the system needs to be re-programed.  It took me a week to get used to the new remote and the system before I tackled the job.  How they can take the easy design of the old remote and make the new one not even close.  No longer user friendly in my opinion.  So I got that finished and then it was time to write this weeks note to you all.

I might just have to enjoy an adult beverage while watching the tube.  Then off to bed my ownself.

I swear it don't get no better!

Yeah, my husband, Jeff thinks that it's arson too. He thinks that it's a deliberate act of terrorism, but I won't expound on that (he watches too much Fox News).

Yeppers.  Even with doors closed enough crud gets in that the filters show "black" through the spaces in the cover.

This has been an unusual year.  Much hotter than normal temps for longer periods of time mean very low moisture content in the brush.  Then the humidity has also been low.  The Carr fire was caused by a flat tire on a camp trailer.  The people towing said trailer got off the road as soon as possible but there was enough heat to start the fire.  The Hirz and Delta fires were both human caused.  But the petty-b's are not giving a specific act that caused the fires.  Personally I lean towards arson.

I bet you are having to change out your AC filter more often as well.

I am so sorry that you all are having to live with all of these fires and smoke. Is it like this every summer or is there something unusual this year?

Because of the smoke in the air for the last month and a half many folks are wearing N-95 rated masks.  From a web page of the CDC:  The N95 respirator is the most common of the seven types of particulate filtering facepiece respirators. This product filters at least 95% of airborne particles but is not resistant to oil.

Some of them are the semi-ridged type with an exhalation valve but a large number are rectangular flexible ones (read very inexpensive).  Worn correctly the semi-ridged ones will do a pretty good job of filtering out particulate matter.  Worn correctly is the key...too often I see folks using only one of the elastic loops to hold the mask on their face.  I asked one person why didn't they use both loops?  The reply...too much trouble to use the lower one and I am only going outside for a little bit.  I did not even comment to that.  The flexible ones not so good.  What happens with those is the fact they are hard to fit the wearer's face.  If you look at someone wearing one there will be gaps near the nose, alongside the mouth, or under the chin.  These open channels will allow ans significant amount of particulate matter into one's respiration.  Almost as if one was not wearing a mask.

You can tell if a mask is not fitted properly after removing it at the end of your time in the hazardous environment easily.  The particles that get through the gaps will collect on your skin on their way through to your lungs.  This leaves dark marks.  This from my personal experience many many moons ago.  I now wear semi-ridged masks using both of the elastic loops when I feel I need one.

Smoke levels are on the ground here in town, and we are 40 miles from the fire.  The visibility reminds me of a semi-dense fog.  I am guessing that the visibilty is way less than 1 mile.  You can taste it as  well as feel the smoke.

I was out and about just after 1100 today and one of the clerks said she had just received a phone call from her child's school.  The school wanted her to pick up her child as they were closing early today.  Apparently "they" have a means/method for testing the air quality and the smoke particulate reading was exceeding the hazardous level.  That explained the large increase in traffic in the area I was shopping.

Well...so much for lower temperatures and a higher humidity.  The Delta Fire is now over 15,000 acres.  That figure was reached sometime around 0300 this morning.

The fire over in Trinity County has grown to 2,000 acres.

Yep a long summer.