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A real nice calm day for sailing on the North Sea. I miss getting out like that.



You will hardly ever see video of foul weather on a ship. Cameras and wind, wave, spray, with violent pitching motion don't mix very well.

What they do is film at sea during nice sea conditions, and then tell landlubbers that it's of horrible foul weather.

That's what they did in that fakey movie, The Perfect Storm. The part that got to me was they had audio on. In a real storm one would not have audio of conversations between the crew turned on. All one would actually hear would be the roar of the storm, a deafening combination of sea sounds with crashing and groaning hull sounds from within the ship, which would drown out any normal voice conversations in the galley.

I don’t know about the big ships but, on the small boys I was on, you feel the ship quivering as the bow goes under and back up. I’ll never miss that!
 
I don’t know about the big ships but, on the small boys I was on, you feel the ship quivering as the bow goes under and back up. I’ll never miss that!
You certainly were not on vessels which were made to deliver a pleasant ride.

An interesting personal observation about sea sickness. Some say it is all in one's mind, and I guess it is. I can succumb to sea sickness if the motion is too wild when I am in a subordinate position on a crew. On a ship I would take those salty pills, or use a patch if it got rough.

However on my own boat where I was in command, which was a 30 foot IOR sailboat, which I did purposely take offshore in storms, I never have experienced a bit of motion sickness. For me that mental aspect of being in command was a cure for the mental aspect of seasickness.

On ships I never have been in command, or for that matter have been a part of the deck crew. Where I was working, was down below the water line, down in the engine spaces most of the time.

I found that how high one is located in a vessel makes a big difference to how it feels. I don't like being in a bow, especially up near the deck level, I much prefer to be below the water line, in the stern, the ride is better for me there.
 
You certainly were not on vessels which were made to deliver a pleasant ride.

An interesting personal observation about sea sickness. Some say it is all in one's mind, and I guess it is. I can succumb to sea sickness if the motion is too wild when I am in a subordinate position on a crew. On a ship I would take those salty pills, or use a patch if it got rough.

However on my own boat where I was in command, which was a 30 foot IOR sailboat, which I did purposely take offshore in storms, I never have experienced a bit of motion sickness. For me that mental aspect of being in command was a cure for the mental aspect of seasickness.

On ships I never have been in command, or for that matter have been a part of the deck crew. Where I was working, was down below the water line, down in the engine spaces most of the time.

I found that how high one is located in a vessel makes a big difference to how it feels. I don't like being in a bow, especially up near the deck level, I much prefer to be below the water line, in the stern, the ride is better for me there.
My bunk was always, always, forward and at or below the waterline. Made for interesting nights.
 
We're having exciting fireworks here. 400 acres so far and no containment. It called the French Fire. That's in The French Camp, a famous 49er gold rush mining camp.

We had to bug out, went to the other house. We didn't have to, we lost power at that house, and with it being 105 today, and no AC likely all night long, we decided to bug out so that we didn't have to worry all night long in the heat.

At the moment it is only five or so miles away. The wind shifts to that direction during the night so by morning it could be there.

It's mostly scaring the folks in Mariposa. The fire is not yet in town, but it's right on the edge, real close to the Hospital. They've evacuated the folks on the east side of town.

:LOL:

The Sheriff's office, where the evacuation orders come from, have to evacuate. There will be no school tomorrow because the school had to evacuate.

Our courthouse is also in harm's way. It's the oldest courthouse west of the Mississippi. It's made of clear sugar pine. It's whitewashed, not painted.
 
I'm able to watch the fire from the comfort of home as it burns through the east side of town. My guess about where the fire is, is based on night time live video from a powerline pole on the top of Mt Bullion. This is the link to that video camera.

On can view old video and time elapsed video using the controls. There's also a map with the camera location marked, and if one places the mouse on one of the view screens a red vector shows on the map showing one where it is. Distance is not known.


As it stands now that fire has burned all along the east side of town, but I'm not able to tell if it went around the perimeter of town or through town.

As a side note the fire is burning somewhat toward where I evacuated to, and is heading away from where I evacuated from.

We've not unloaded the vehicles. We could go back. The power is still off there, and is on here. We're staying here for now.

There will not be much sleep tonight. We have to worry about wind direction, and that changes during the night.

We're not in the smoke, so it's not moving directly toward us. I may rest, but someone has to stay alert, we take shifts.

I stepped out to look at the horizon, it's cooled down, and the air hasn't a bit of smoke in it. That's because the wind is blowing. If the air were calm there would be smoke all over us. So for us to have nice air, it's hard for the fire crews. It moves the fire and that is bad.
 
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Ok, it's been quite a day. In my mind they have this fire contained and almost out. I'm back home in the nice house at Midpines instead of that other double wide trailer on the old John C Fremont land grant.

My place on the Fremont land grant is what was referred to as no name city in the movie called Paint Your Waggon.

My other place is referred to in that movie as Red Bluff, but is now referred to as Colorado Road on Mt. Midpines.

In modern parlance the one place I evacuated to is slightly east of No Name City in that movie, and it is currently referred to as Mormon Bar on modern maps. The place which I evacuated from is referred to in the movie as Red Bluff, It is currently referred to as Midpines.

The road I drive to get there is now called Colorado Road.

I'm from Colorado, and the soil along that road is just as red as much of the soil in Colorado the state is. Red clay deposits containing lods of Iron ore.

Not that red soil at my place, but near my place, getting to my place. My soils are not soils, they are tan bed rock, and have loads of quartz crystals in it. But to get there I have to drive though quite a distance of that red clay named Colorado.

Folks around here laugh at us red bluff people. Our teeth they say are stained red by the red water we drink.

All but me, I don't drink that red water from Red Bluff. Instead I haul water for drinking from my place on the old Fremont Land Grant. It's much better water to drink and cook with.

My teeth are not red.

Anyway that bad 4th of July fire is effectively out now. They got it out last night around about about five AM. They didn't say so in the news, in fact they still have not said so. They will sit on it for about a week before they say it's out, and that is wise for their part.

But it is out. The oldest courthouse west of the Mississippi River has been saved by the fire people.

After a bad start because firepeople everywhere were tasked to do fireworks displays here and there all over California, which hadn't even begun when this high priority fire begun.

They didn't even get strike crews in there until late last night. The Bulldozers arrived after the fire was effectively put out by the hand crews

They did get it done once they arrived. They saved the old court house which Mark Twain sat in to be a court reporter during the gold rush period. They are my heros.

I've actually sat in that very spot Mark Twain sat in all those years ago. The way I accomplished that was to go into that courtroom early when I had been drawn for jury duty. I sat in every place in that room before anyone else arrived. So I sat where he sat. I covered every possibility in the room.

The bailiff was there and watched me do it. I explained what I was doing and he laughed.



The reason I didn't post all day long, is I was doing fire related stuff all day long. I moved back to the nice house on top of Midpines mountain around noon. The power had been out for 18 hours, and the temperature was 108, That was a harsh return.

I moved my 5,000 watt generator there and fired it up. That provided the power I needed to run the houses swamp cooler, refrigerator, and freezer. That savided most of my food. It stayed cool enough. all but a half gallon of milk, for the 18 hours we were gone. Along with some other minor stuff in the fridge.

It also powered my Internet connection which I didn't have time to mess with

They finally got the power back on at 8 PM after 25 hours of it being out. I had power going after 18 hours using my 10 horse power generator.

That saved the food, all except for that a quart of mayo and two bottles of salad dressing and that milk I mentioned before.

I bought that generator used two weeks ago, it's already paid for itself.

I've learned the hard way, toss that mayo and salad dressing when it has gotten even the slightest bit warm during a fire caused power outage.

I also toss any canned beans which are in there, and any leftover yams and potatoes. This fire was very inexpensive insofar as food lost. Most fires around here ruin about 200 dollars worth of food.

It's worked out OK.

Here the old court house is threatened with fire last night:

Mariposa-Courthouse-7.4.2024-Ricky-Blalock-620x330.jpg
 
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There's been no further flair ups from the fire today. They say it is only 26% contained.

I say there is no visible fire or more than tiny wisps of smoke rising from smoldering hot spots here and there.


It sure was hot today, I would estimate the high outside was 109 or 110. The inside of the house got up to 88 with the swamp cooler going full blast. It will be too hot upstairs to sleep until about 3 AM.


This heat wave has got fires starting faster than they can get crews to them. Except for today Placerville had quite a scare similar to the one my town had two days ago. They got crews in for that right away.

I think they have it handled. Truly historic places in the hills get a bit more attention when there's a fire. National Parks get that heightened level of attention as well.

Not that other places don't get attention. Fire always gets attention.
 
Oh, those poor guy who are out there under the sun, tend those fire hot spots, all bundled up like it is winter, wearing those heavy fire protection suits because they have to wear them.

I couldn't do it anymore, I'm too old, I would pass out in that intense heat and sun. They would have to haul me home. Hopefully not home to the morgue.

Inside my house it's currently like an inside the house, outside Dallas Texas nice day, and i'm quite happy to have be that nice. Why it's so nice I have it down to about a 100% humidity, with it being a nice 88 degrees cool.

That 100% humidity in the house effect is cause by my swamp cooler, which is knocking that temperature down from around a scorching 110, down to a nice cool 88 degrees.

We got to a peak temperature of 109 yesterday, today is suppose to be the HOT day, tomorrow as well.

It's supposed to go above 100 for the next ten days, has been above a 100 for about 4 days so far.

As I understand it a good hot New Orleans day outside will be 100% humidity with it being a temperature of say 95. but Hold the horses if it goes up to a 100.

If the outside humidity goes up from 15% to say 30%, a dry heat above 110, then inside my house the best I can do is the equivalent of what would be a real hot day in gulf coast LA. A place where a swamp cooler would be about as useful as warm spit in a barrel.

Pacific coast LA is were swamp coolers would work most of the time, bit not as often, or as well as they do work here.
 
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OK this one is serious. it's near Lake Tahoe.

Here's a fire forum where they have posted about this fire which is about an hour old. And at the end of that hour Cal Fire produces this photo of it. From a hat full of fire on the ground, to that within one hour.

f79a4e27ee774a9e5e2c5bb4d576d2c6ee336764_2_937x750.jpeg
 
Here it asks, but there's noone there to hear my answer, so I'll give my answer here.

Those female lions are not protecting that leopard. The leopard has been beaten and is dying, soon to become supper. They don't finish it off because they could still be injured by their supper.

The female who killed it is preventing that male from taking it.

In the second video watch the guy in shorts. He's good at it, that's the way one walks a horse which needs to be calmed down.

 
A Lion spotted in the neighborhood at 11AM 7/17/2024. A bit West of my place. I'll be watching for it.

 
Today I have two Earth stories to discuss.

My neighbor Beth Pratt has tweeted a new lion sighting about 800 to 1,000 feet from my house, and this one has the mom lioness and her fine kittens with her.







The other Earth interest story is that Kate Beckinsale has trended on twitter. With this image I think you can figure that out.

GUBzObJb0AA14mr


Yes of Earth interest she is. A lioness of a different stripe,
 
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They ask WHY?



:LOL:

It's pretty obvious why, it's to get that stubborn jackass to come home. The fellow teases the jackass into chasing him to where he wants that jackass to go.
 

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