Wildfire Killers

Today on shift, GFD sent Ross and a team down to Bastrop to fight off that big ass fire down there. Actually a picture is worth a thousand words. Let's pause for one.

Wow. Right? It's huge! This picture freaks me out but I really think it says it all.

Like I was saying, Ross was part of the GFD team who went down to Bastrop today to fight this sucker. They spent about 6 hours on it.

When I asked how they tackled it, he said it was hoses from the back of the brush truck and then some hiking through the brush. To me that means 2 things. 1) Hubby was very close to the fire and 2) it is now contained enough to be fought on foot. Number 1 isn't all that awesome but number 2 is fantastic.

When Ross and his crew packed up today, the word on the street was that the fire was 45% contained. That's up from 30% just 8 hours or so before. That's amazing.

Clearly, they are wildfire killers. Wonderful, brave wildfire killers.

I'm proud of him and his team. He feels really good about what they were able to contribute and they can be confident, they made a difference in the lives of their not so distant neighbors.

I think in "plane ticket" terms

A little lunch hour blog musing for you...

I'm wearing really cute shoes today (from the ShoeDazzle shoe club) which while my lunch was heating inspired the "Oh I need to go show Jen" thought which then led to "She's gonna ask why I'm not in shoe club anymore" (because hello, look how cute these are) which led to "but that's $480 per year on shoes...that's a plane ticket, actually one and a half plane tickets."

This isn't the first time I thought in plane ticket terms. I recently received some "free money" (you know money you weren't counting on and can use at your discretion) and my first thought was "That's a plane ticket!" My second thought was "San Diego or Boston? Hmmm."

When I was in college I always kept $300 in my checking account "just in case." Just in case of what? Just in case I needed an emergency plane ticket. Food, bills, rent, whatever. I would switch to Ramen for week if I started to encroach on my scared plane ticket fund.

I think I was the ripe old age of 13 when I started asking for plane tickets for birthdays/Christmas as opposed to stuff. Currently I'm trying to convince Ross that we should be in Italy for my birthday next year and sure, that can be my present. It's a plane ticket after all.

The situation manifests itself beyond the actual plane ticket too.

You may have heard me say this before, but my only real complaint about Austin (when it isn't a burning inferno as it has been lately) is the airport is tiny. While this is actually good for swiftly getting through the airport to use said plane tickets, there's a direct negative correlation between airport size and bang for plane ticket buck. To quote The Sandlot "You're killing me Smalls!"

Relocation has also been affected by plane tickets. As in OK we can move to Georgetown but we should move to the eastside of Georgetown which has easy access to the 130 toll road and thus the airport. Airport access is right up there with granite countertops and a double vanity.

As you can see, thoughts like "I'm not buying that! That's X plane tickets!" and "How is this going to affect my plane ticket potential" are pretty stinkin' common. And I gotta be honest, the pro plane ticket side usually wins these debates.

What terms do you think in and how often do you cave to those terms?

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Back in the winter I read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and because I like a lot of variation in the books I read, I didn't get around to The Girl Who Played With Fire until just now.

Like the first one, it had a wonderfully complicated plot and a more than average dose of who-done-it. It had the same main two characters, Mikael and Lisbeth, as well as some of the same supporting characters. I really liked how much more you got to know Lisbeth in this book. She is so much easier to relate to and given the plot, it's important for the reader to "get" her. I won't give anything away but just know, her history is worth paying very close mind to.

One part I found odd was the very beginning. Lisbeth is in the Caribbean and a hurricane strikes. She develops a few relationships, a couple positive and one negative. However, once she leaves the Caribbean, those people don't tie back in. The only thing that makes sense about that part to me is helping illustrate Lisbeth's characteristics, morality, etc. Kinda odd though.

It has some obscure (well obscure to me) references to Swedish history but the footnotes are concise and clear. Thus the historical references didn't trip me up and I can see how a Swedish audience would connect to them.

As the second in the series, it makes sense to read it second. I think you could get away with having not read the first but there is quite a bit of building. To enjoy the book the most, I suggest reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo first. And on the same note, for optimal enjoyment, keep in mind, this book centers around a murder. I found I couldn't really read it on nights when I was home alone. (But when my big strong hubby was home to protect me from things that go bump in the night, no problem. Bring on the murder mysteries!) If things like that make you a little jumpy too, I'd consider it when picking this book up.

Finally, also like the first book I have one complaint: the similarities in characters names. I know this sounds trivial but there are a lot of characters and I swear half of their last names start with B. I had to really think sometimes about who was the cop, who was the crooked lawyer, etc. Some variation in names and spelling of names would have greatly helped in keeping the myriad of characters straight.

Verdict: read it but begin at the beginning by reading the first one first. And maybe consider taking notes on the many characters named B.

Spread like Wildfire

There's a reason behind that "spread like wildfire" saying and holy cow are we discovering it here in Central Texas this Labor Day weekend.

Yesterday we had three wildfires start in our little town and believe it or not, we were one of the lucky towns. We had 200-ish acres burn but only two homes were affected. One of the fires was a little too close to our home for comfort (but not so close that we were evacuated) but it was a smaller one and extinguished literally before I even knew it had occurred. Fortunately it only took a few hours to contain and extinguish all the fires in our town.

Ross was on shift yesterday and with his team at GFD, extinguished two wildfires. Then he stayed up on a nearly all night watch to make sure they didn't flare up again. As of leaving his shift at 7a today, all was good in that community.

East of Austin in Bastrop, more than 14000 acres have burned in the past 24 hours (including about half of a state park) and in the northwest part of the city, even more areas are burning. More than 300 houses locally have been lost.

The fire in Bastrop is 0% contained and the fire on the northwest side of town isn't much better. And just in general, it's still so dry and the winds are so high, nobody is out of the woods yet. We're on a high fire danger warning through tonight and really, there will be continued risk until we get a good rain. However, when the wind dies down, that'll help.

In the meantime, if you are curious about your friends or family, try checking the Red Cross "Safe and Well" website. And if you are someone who needs to update friends and family, add yourself to that site. You can also make donations through the Central Texas Red Cross if you feel so inclined.

Mother Knows Best

Yesterday Ross and I drove out to Houston for a visit with the parentals. It started with lunch with Grandma at Chili's. (She's doing very well, thank you for asking.)

Then on to Seabrook where Ross took a nap (as much as the puppies would allow him to anyways) and I headed over to Brenda's to drop off a small thank you gift for letting us crash their lake house. It was chocolate from the amazing chocolate place Val took me in Seattle. Here's to hoping they like it!

Then a relaxing evening at home with Mom, Dad, puppies, football and surf-n-turf. Usually we have this little predicament of Lexi jumping at TVs and Mom and Dad having a very nice not-mounted flat panel. There's some concern about Lexi tipping it over. We came prepared with the vicious squirt bottle this time and after a few threatening "Lexi! I'm gonna squirt you!" declarations, all was fine.

The boys went to bed kinda early but per the usual, Mom and I stayed up late into the night gabbing.

Lexi, wore out and sleeping on
floorboards on the drive home

Then a lazy morning, a puppy walk down to Pine Gully Park (which is right on the Gulf, it was so good to see salt water) and a little more college football. And the puppies, they just played, and played and played. They are almost exactly the same size and age and a very good match for each other. There was so much puppy play, Lexi was dead tired on the drive home.

Good weekend all around.

Sometime during all the gabbing, Mom told me about the new Southwest Airlines credit card they signed up for. It came with a 50,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points, enough for two round trip tickets to just about anywhere! There was an annual fee of $100 but when you figure that the free flights would probably equal $300 each...that means they come out ahead by $500.

Mom is a smart lady and I listen to her. She got me thinkin' and tonight at home I applied for a Southwest credit card. The special that Mom and Dad got with the 50,000 points wasn't going on any more but they did offer 25,000 points, enough for one free ticket. I crunched some numbers and I think this works out well.

A ticket to Boston for Jane's wedding will be 21,000 points. And then a flight from San Diego to San Francisco (which I intend on needing in April) is 7,000 points. I'll get 25,000 points from the credit card and then I have 4,000 points just from my current Southwest account. So I think with the annual $70 credit card fee, $5 per flight security fee...I think I can spend $85 and end up with round trip tickets Austin-Boston and one-way San Diego-San Francisco. Add into that the fact that I far prefer to fly Southwest v. other airlines and it's virtually perfect.

Mother knows best and I think Southwest Airlines is about to prove her right again.

No way

At the risk of sounding really old...

There is no way that driving with earbuds in both ears is safe.

Do you see people do this? I see it more than I'd like to believe.

At first I saw people with one earbud in and thought "well that's dumb" but then when I got my iPhone, I realized for some of them, it might be their hands free cell phone. Now you can argue that talking and driving is dumb too. But that's not what I'm here to blog about.

Is there something that would require earbuds in both ears? Or is it just people rockin out to their iPods?