First Storm Of The Season!

This was the scene today as the first big storm of the season rolled over the Central Coast. I shot these images while out walking in Atascadero enjoying the feeling in the atmosphere as the storm approached. I must say the sky looked rather El Nino-ey at times.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Picture of the Day - Halloween Rock Garden

This already cool rock garden in Atascadero was accentuated this week by Halloween flourishes.
Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Of Island-Tippers & Intertubes

Of late I have for the umpteenth time encountered one of my friends indulging themselves on Facebook in that most modern of internet pastimes, seeking group validation in a political-cultural-tribal context by way of mentally-emotionally masturbating themselves by posting a graphic claiming to list several embarrassingly dumb quotes from members of the party opposite. This, as if the same thing could not be done featuring members of their own party. Worse yet, it exposes a dearth of intellectual sophistication and emotional maturity within that person severe enough to delude them into believing that if the side opposite can somehow be proven to be bad that necessarily means that person's group is automatically right. Of course, this mindset precludes the possibility that BOTH sides of the political aisle are wrong, something that reality proves every single day which is obvious to those whom deign to notice the obvious.

In the spirit of blowing up that sort of nonsense and putting things into perspective by way of a tiny sampling, below are two roughly two-minute long clips of stupidity by members of both political parties. The topmost movie player features currently-serving Georgia Democratic Congressman Hank Johnson's now-infamous concern that Guam might tip over if too many people live on the island. The movie player below it features the late former Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens' now-infamous description of the internet as being a series of tubes. Enjoy the bi-partisan stupidity!

Existentialism & Rolled-Up Boogers

As most of those of you who have television have noticed of late, there is a notable new advertising campaign by Lincoln Motor Company. The campaign features Hollywood heartthrob Matthew McConaughey (also a notable Texan) attempting to convey "cool" in a manly detached existentialist sort of way. As effective as the ads are they are also incredibly open to mocking imitation and satirization which is what Saturday Night Live did last weekend using Canadian actor Jim Carrey in the role of McConaughey. There are three faux ads in the final player while the top-most two feature the two real advertisements. The third spoof ad blends a spoof of the long-running All-State Insurance advertising campaign featuring actor Dennis Haysbert. Here we see actor Keenan Thompson of the SNL cast in that role. Enjoy all of it!

Picture of the Day - Who Is This Guy?

This image (which I shot today) was obviously spray-painted using a template. Not obvious in this image is the fact this is on a third-story outer wall of the Building Five (Architecture & Environmental Design). The work could only be done through the narrow vertical gap visible at left through which arms can be extended through from somebody kneeling on the roof of the second floor in that location. Note: this same image appears elsewhere on campus.
Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Rocky Mountain Whirlwind ~ Firewhirl

I have thoroughly enjoyed this video sequence since I first watched it earlier this year. However, I did not share it here as I have been waiting for a version of it that met my standards. That is to say, what has been out there has either been the extended version accompanied by obnoxious and inappropriate music or too short-assed versions or versions with poorer video definition. I give up: this is the best I can find and I no longer wish to wait. Therefore, here you go: the best version I can find in the context of my standards. Please pardon the poor video quality.

Getting Google-Eyed About A Gold Nugget

This 6.07-pound gold nugget, christened "The Butte Nugget" was discovered in the mountains of Butte County, CA, last July. Last week it sold for about $400,000 to a "prominent collector" of whatever this person collects. This person lives in the Bay Area and almost certainly is Tech Money I'd imagine; perhaps even somebody at the top of the food chain of the host of this blog, to wit, Google. I'm glad the nugget is staying home in Northern California. 

I could  not track the photo attributions for these images but undoubtedly all rights are reserved.

Picture of the Day - Downtown Paso Sunrise

I had to get up earlier than usual this morning for a 7:30 a.m. start time to work at Robert Hall Winery. This was the scene that greeted me; this image was taken from 15th Street. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Two Cal Poly Scenes

This was the gorgeous scene today in front of the Mustang Store as I composed an intro to my big paper in History 303.

This was the scene in front of Kennedy Library today... God I love this beautiful campus. That is Bishop Peak in the background. Both photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty + Chest Birth

As I cram to get something Cal Poly-ish accomplished before a deadline tomorrow I am being kept company by the Alien Quadrilogy. I'm specifically watching all four Director's Cuts which are long and better than the Theatrical Releases as good as they were albeit too long for movie audiences. Below is one of the five most famous science fiction movie scenes of all time and appears in Alien, the first movie in the franchise. Unfortunately, I could not find a version that includes the build-up to this climax. Also, some elements of this scene were neither in the Theatrical Release nor the Director's Cut.
The single most famous such scene in ANY science fiction movie is in the same movie and located below it and did irreparable harm to the popularity of the Heimlich Maneuver.

California Drought Designs

I found this series of California drought map sequences on the Los Angeles Times website tonight and was immediately taken with it.  It is a visual hook for a fascinating interactive drought map HERE. Dark red represents Abnormally Dry zones. Bright red represents zones of Moderate Drought. Orange signifies zones of Severe Drought. Tan represents zones of Extreme Drought. Yellow represents zones of Exceptional Drought. The first row of images starts in September 2012 and ends in January 2013. The second row starts in August 2013 and ends in November 2013. The third row starts in March 2014 and ends in July 2014. The drought has since deepened with only good news for some mountain and desert regions since then due to the summer monsoon. Image courtesy of the Los Angeles Times (all rights reserved).

Bays Ball: The Day the Series Stopped

Kudos and thanks go out to Linsis, my sis by another mother, for finding me this documentary, on the 25th anniversary of this seemingly seminal moment in sports and television and California history.

The Haunting Death of Janet Ray

Since first learning of the tragic death of Janet Ray and the soul-crushing anguish of her husband William's final hour with her I have been haunted by the entire episode. Initially, at some point after the 1989 M6.9 Loma Prieta Earthquake I became aware of a reference to there being a victim, a male, having been trapped in the apartment structure at Beach and Divisadero Streets in the Marina District who as the fire overcame the collapsed structure had to be left behind to his fate to burn alive in the rubble. It was only at some point later either in the article from which I share excerpts below or perhaps another reference I have since forgotten, that I learned this person was a woman. Worse yet, upon doing further research which wasn't all that easy, I discovered, to my horror, that her husband was with her until the very last moments of her short life. Her name was Janet Ray and she was only 28.  Had she survived that day and was still with us she would be 53 today.

What follows are select excerpts from Stewart Brand's (of Whole Earth Catalog fame) amazing article "Learning From The Earthquake" which should be canon by now in emergency management and first responder (including CERT) literature. It is his own personal account of his participation in citizen volunteer rescue efforts at the now infamous Beach and Divisadero locale. It also recounts the experiences and observations of others there that day in the Marina District at the time of the earthquake and its immediate aftermath. He wrote this the following spring after the earthquake when memories were more accurate and emotions more raw than now. Although I have not contacted Mr. Brand about my use of his work, I hope my use of it is acceptable with him and received in the spirit in which it is intended to be shared here.

Back to 5:04 p.m.  In the four-story apartment building at 3701 Divisadero,  William Ray, 33, was changing clothes in the bathroom of the apartment on the second floor, above the garage floor, on the west end.  His wife Janet, 28, was in the living room overlooking Beach Street.  When the earthquake began, they both headed to the hallway.  There they embraced, and then their home shattered and embraced them. 

“We were in a spot about eighteen inches high,” Bill Ray remembers, “our arms wrapped around one another.  We couldn’t move.”  Bill Ray was pinned on his back, his right leg numb.  His wife’s lower body was buried in unmovable debris.  “Janet was on top of my leg with her head on my chest.  From her waist up she was okay, but her legs and feet—she was suffering.”  In the dim light full of plaster dust Bill Ray beat on the floorboards above him with a stick, and the couple made contact with neighbors outside.  “We were both fully in command of ourselves.  We were talking.  When you’re in that kind of situation you’re supposed to remain calm.  We were calm.  Janet was a very strong woman.  We were obviously concerned about our welfare, but we just assumed that since we survived the initial building collapse, we were going to get out of there.”

What did the Rays talk about, that hour?  “We talked about our married life.”  They had been married two and a half years, Bill working at the financial firm of Dean Witter, Janet an account representative at Color Copy Printing.  Both of them mountain bikers and skiers, they had travelled widely together.  A handsome couple—Bill tall and soft-spoken, Janet blond, good-looking, private, clear-minded.  In another month they would have been out of the building—escrow on a house they were buying in Montclair was due to close November 21.  Bill reassured his wife, “We’re going to get out, honey.  People are here to rescue us.”

People were, but there were problems.  Their building had collapsed to two floors, and those outside were afraid to go in the lower floor of such a severely damaged building.  So the rescue crew of eight volunteers when I joined it was trying to tunnel a way in from the west side, but with almost nothing in the way of tools.  

One of the best tools is expertise.  In our crew we had that at least.  John Kaplanis, who had run to the scene from a nearby shopping street, recalled later, “I’m a carpenter by trade, and I remember telling the guys, ‘Hang on a second, let me see how this place is built.  Maybe I can figure out how to get in there’—because they were just sort of going at it unorganized.  So I knocked a couple of blocks out in between the joists space, and I figured if I crawled in there I’d be able to break through a ceiling down to whatever space they were in below me.  But when I did that I dug through the plaster and hit concrete.  I couldn’t figure out where they possibly could be.”

Finally we were joined by professionals.  Fire Truck 16 had been guided to the scene not by phone or radio, but by people in the streets.  Captain Bob Jabs sized up the appalling scene and immediately radioed for help, “We have two buildings collapsed, with people in both of them, and one of the buildings is on fire.  I need an engine!”  (A fire truck has no fire fighting capability, being equipped strictly for rescue.  It’s the fire engines that have the pumps, hoses, and some on-board water.)  Jabs split his meager crew—sending Howard Cross and Wayne Martin to the building where Sergeant Gustafson was to take charge of the rescue of the two women there, while he took Tom Bailon and John Reed across the street to our building with smoke puffing out of its eastern corner. 

Firefighter Tom Bailon changed the stalemated rescue situation with two quick moves.  He called to the Rays, “Where were you when the building collapsed?”  “In the hallway!” came the answer.  With that information and his captain’s permission he led the way into the building, looking for the hallway of the floor above the collapsed floor.  A few more shouts pinpointed the Rays’ location, and he and John Reed proceeded to chop down toward them with axes.  Several volunteers joined them.  I found a ladder that shortened the way into the building.  Captain Jabs leaned out the window to call for tools from his fire truck.

Of course it wasn’t as direct and purposeful as this brief account makes it seem.  A real rescue is dreamy and hesitant, full of false starts and conflicting ideas, at times frantic and focussed, at times diffuse.  It is a self-organizing process, neither quick nor tidy, but it proved to be effective all over the Marina that night. 

Since I was trained as an infantry officer, I defaulted into supervisory mode—“What are we overlooking?”  I scouted around the back of the building, my new specialty, and found a second smoke and reported it to firefighter John Reed.  “What can we do about it?”  I asked.  His face was anguished: “No water!”

By now the nearby fire hydrants had been checked.  No pressure.  Broken water mains, broken gas mains, no phones, no power, buildings down with injured people in them, and growing smoke....

Another fire truck arrived—still not an engine.  Firefighter Joe Conway from Truck 10 remembers, “When we rolled around the corner and saw all these buildings out in the middle of the street, I was just numb.  There was people crying and freaking out all over the place.  But then you just tuck it in, and we kicked in to what we do.”  Truck 10’s Captain Bob Boudoures also divided his crew, sending Joe Conway and Jack Porter to help the men in the burning building, while he and two others started a second rescue at 2090 Beach, this one for Sherra Cox.

Volunteers were the message carriers all evening.  Carpenter Kaplanis ran up to newly arrived Truck 10 to report on the need for rescue tools in the burning building.  (Truck 16’s own power saws and jacks had already gone into 2090 Beach.)  So Truck 10 was moved to the front of the fire building to provide tools for the increasingly desperate situation there.  Jabs:  “The volunteers were fantastic.  If we didn’t have them, we wouldn’t have gotten any of that equipment.  I’d yell from the window for a tool, and they’d yell to Truck 10, and Joe Conway would hand it to them.  It was like a bucket brigade going in through the window—hose, power saws, jacks.”

The Rays still didn’t know about the fire.  Bill Ray: “All you’re doing is listening to sounds.  You become aware of where people are in relation to where you’re lying.  They got a chain saw going and they cut this one hole, three feet behind my head.  A fireman stuck his hand down through the hole, and I could reach up, and we could just grab hands.  He told us, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of there.  Just keep calm.’ 

“He had turned the chain saw off, and they couldn’t start it back up.  He kept tugging on it, tugging on it, tugging on it—couldn’t get it started.  I said, ‘Keep cutting!  Cut us out of here!’  Then we started to smell smoke.  That’s when I realized that the building was on fire.”

Tom Bailon, the one who clasped hands with Bill Ray, remembers, “They were both pretty calm and coherent.  The captain asked if I could get them out, and I said, ‘I don’t think so.  I think we should cut a hole right over them.’  And that’s what we started to do.  There was a closet wall in the way, so we kicked that out, and started to cut a hole in the other side with axes.  The building was at a severe angle.  I saw a wall glowing and went over and looked, and the whole other side of the building was on fire.”

The view from the street was frightening.  One minute the fire started to flame up a little at the opposite end of the building from the rescue efforts, and the next minute the top floor was burning to the sky.  A series of sharp explosions shocked the ears.  Collapsed old wood buildings (pre-1945, when sheet rock walls came in) don’t burn like other buildings.  Captain Jabs: “Wood lathe and plaster, when it collapses like that, all it makes is a big pile of kindling that’s fifty or sixty years dry.”  With the walls gone, there was no protection to slow down the fire, and the fire was probably fed by natural gas, making an effective blow torch.  The fire was spreading faster and hotter than anything the firemen had seen before.

Joe Conway was with Truck 10 in front of the fire.  “It got so hot our truck started to melt—the plastic lenses melted, the glass broke.  We jumped in and pulled the rig down further.”  By now some fire engines had arrived and had tried one pressureless hydrant after another the length of Beach Street until they reached the Palace of Fine Arts lagoon three blocks away, where they threw in a hard suction line and began drafting, relaying from engine to engine to Truck 10’s line.  Water!  Kaplanis and I and other volunteers helped maneuver the heavy hose.

Joe Conway: “I was on the front of the large line, with a line of civilians in back of me.  We were trying to put a fog over the fire to keep it cool enough for the guys working in there to get the couple out.  But there wasn’t enough pressure, so you had to get close.  I got a sunburn, and the civilians all got sunburns.  I remember turning around, and they just had their shorts and Hawaiian shirts and stuff.  I almost couldn’t take it because of the heat, and I’m thinking, ‘If I’m taking a beating, imagine what these guys are doing.’  It was just unbelievable.  I was so proud of them.”

But inside 3701 Divisadero the situation was deteriorating.  The chain saw became useless when its blade broke on nails in the floor.  Volunteers relayed in the “multi-purpose saw” from Truck 10—a heavy, gas-powered Homelite XL-98 that can cut through an axle with the right blade.  The multi-purpose, after a delay getting it started, was put to work over where Janet Ray was pinned.  Tom Bailon tried to slow the approaching fire with a light inch-and-a-half hose with partial pressure—“I was trying to keep the fire from getting in the hallway where we were, but it was really hot and smoky.  I did that as long as I could and then I had to get air, and John Reed relieved me on the fire.”  Gasping out the window, Bailon saw that the floor above them was burning.

Captain Jabs had ordered all volunteers out of the now-lethal building.  The three firemen traded off on efforts to cut down directly to where Janet Ray was pinned.  Jabs: “You’ve got to be careful when you start cutting away that you’re not cutting the support.  I wouldn’t want to be cutting, thinking I was freeing somebody and then watch them get crushed in front of me.  You’ve got to jack and shore.”  When the explosions went off, the rescuers thought for a second the building was coming in on them. 

Jabs:  “It was a nightmare.  Being a firefighter in a situation where you have a fire and no way to put it out, and people trapped, is a nightmare.” 

The fire was coming through the walls, and they could hear parts of the roof caving in.  Jabs:  “Then somebody from outside yelled, ‘Get out!  The building is collapsing!’  We stayed a little bit longer, but the smoke was starting to get thick.  There was no time to pick anything up.  We went out through the window.”  Tom Bailon swore and threw his helmet on the street, crying from smoke inhalation, exclaiming, “I was right there!  I almost had them!  I was right there!”

All Bill Ray knew was that the firemen were gone.  And he was through remaining calm. 

“I told Janet, ‘I’m going to get free, and we’re both going to get free.’  I assumed that I was binding her and if I could get loose, then she could get loose.  You just start pulling with everything you’ve got.  You reach up and pull on the lathe and plaster and it’s breaking off in your hand.  Then you’re grabbing a 2 by 12 joist and pulling.  My wife was screaming because it was a lot of pain and her arms were trapped, and a picture frame of glass was cutting her. 

“Then I got free, but she still wasn’t.  I tried to pull her out.  Smoke was coming in.  You could hear the flames cracking and popping.  She couldn’t pull herself loose, and I couldn’t get to her.”  What they said to each other then Bill Ray prefers to keep private.  “Then I left.  I crawled out that hole.  I realized my leg was broken, because I couldn’t move it.  I crawled to the bathroom and stood up in the window.  I wanted somebody to come back and help me, because I thought we could get her out.”

All of us who were there remember him standing in that window, gazing at our street full of chaos.  He stood while we shouted for him to jump, then he tilted forward and slid head first ten feet down the slanting wall to a broken roof at street level.  As we cheered, the nearest volunteer and Captain Jabs rushed forward to grab him and carried him free of the scorching heat to a group of medical volunteers.  He was shouting, “Someone get my wife!  Go back and get my wife!”  A volunteer assured him, “Don’t worry, we’ll get her!”  It was a lie.  Flames were already coming out the window he had just left.

As he was being carried in a sheet a block up the street to an ambulance, the blazing building collapsed into itself with a sudden, shocking finality.  Everyone there absorbed a piece of the horror of it.  We were crying, and then we were shifting attention to whatever had to be done next.  Numb with the knowledge that Janet was dead, Bill Ray directed his ambulance to Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center.  “The only time things started going right is when they got me there.  That place was running like clockwork.”  Next day he had extensive surgery for spiral multiple fractures of his leg, and he commenced his long grieving.

Should we have told the Rays from the start that their building was on fire?  If he had worked free earlier, it might have given the rescuers a better chance at freeing her.  It’s a tough call, but I would now say yes, give people who are trapped all the information you’ve got, and enlist their help.  Have them describe exactly where they are and what their situation is.  Ask their advice.  Tell them what you’re doing.  Pass them tools and medical gear if you can.  Treat them not as helpless victims but as an exceptionally motivated part of the rescue team.

At the conclusion of my interview with Bill Ray, he took off his wedding ring and looked at it.  “That’s all I have left,” he whispered.  Then he looked at my tape recorder.  “I hope something positive comes out of this.  That’s all I ask.”

First 45 Minutes of Loma Prieta Quake 25 Years Later

On this date in 1989 at 5:04 p.m., a time which shall remain indelibly imprinted upon my mind perhaps more than any other time in my life to date, the M6.9 Loma Prieta Earthquake struck Northern California and in particular the Bay Area interrupting Game Three of the Bays Ball World Series that year between the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants (that latter of which are again in the World Series starting on October 21st). One of the key developments of that disaster was the growing role of live television coverage of major disasters, a cultural phenomenon which is still gaining prominence through to the present. In fact, it has gotten to the point that we now have what I would characterize as "disaster porn". Anywho, below is a fascinating first 45 minutes of the local Bay Area ABC affiliates live coverage of the disaster all the while their parent network ran Al Michaels and Tim McCarver live from Candlestick Park covering the disaster largely remotely via the Goodyear Blimp, etc.

A Healing Afterburn on "North Pole"

I first encountered this trance gem from the Golden Age of Trance upon first listening to Tiesto's 2000 album Magic Six: Live In Amsterdam which I purchased circa 2002. During that time I was really starting to come out of my funk although I had a long way to go at that point. One of the big things I did to heal myself to the degree was an exercise of my own agency and not that of God was listening to trance music, particularly while on frequent road trips. I don't know why it helped me but it did and that is all that mattered then or now. It was the right music at the right time for me. Music therapy is not without scientific precedent as some of you perhaps know. Anywho, this song by Afterburn a.k.a. Agnelli & Nelson was the great intro to this album and that version is featured in the player below. Note: an aurally awesome and musically masterful transition occurs at the 3:30 mark.

Scripture of the Day - Solomon

Tonight this passage of scripture came to mind rather loudly right after I had been loitering around in the Book of Proverbs. I'm not sure if simply being in the general neighborhood in which it is located (although I was not looking in the second half of that book) contributed to this or if it came to mind on an entirely unrelated path and thus there is no causation to the correlation. Regardless, it hit me in a fashion that I knew indicated I was being given it if you get my drift. If you don't then it is just as well. Worth noting: this passage is repeated TWICE in Scripture for emphasis, to wit, in Chapters 22 and 27.

"A prudent person foresees trouble beforehand and lays low, but the foolish muddle on and get punished." ~ Proverbs 22:3 & 27:12 (Kimicus ad Absurdum translation)

Quote of the Day - C.S. Lewis

Tonight at my church "home group" (a bible study DELUXE) which has become my spiritual family, we continued reading C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. In particular, I read and we analyzed with my facilitation Book 2, Chapter 8 entitled "The Greatest Sin". It was the best chapter yet in the book and filled with highly repeatable quotes. Tonight I share with you this rather profound one:

"How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a penny's worth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men." ~ C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

Picture of the Day - Cal Poly Seismo-Vino

This morning upon first arriving at Cal Poly I walked through the big G-1 parking lot from my carpool car into campus. There, I was quasi-startled to notice an empty wine bottle. It was standing on the pavement next to a couple of unrelated cars on this a "dry campus"... as if they meant it is actually a dry campus. Anywho, this had been a bottle of Petite Syrah with the "Earthquake" label of Michael David Winery. As you may recall from "My 'Earthquake' Wine" post last year I have a bottle of that wine in my meager collection. As if that wasn't slightly odd enough later in the day my Spanish professor brought up the subject of earthquakes and seaquakes as labeled in Spanish. He then segued into a brief mention of tomorrow being the Great California ShakeOut. What are the odds of all of this happening on the same day at Cal Poly within my range of perception? I'm almost tempted to wonder if this means something.
Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Divergence In Orbit

Linsis, my older sister by another mother, sent this to me to share with you... it is breathtakingly beautiful! The music track is "The Black Parrot" by the artist Divergence. The footage is yet more amazing imagery from the International Space Station (ISS), not to be confused with ISIS.

Ew!

This is truly one of the funniest things I have seen in quite some time! For those of you who don't know these two gentleman, the white guy is Jimmy Fallon of Saturday Night Live fame (1998-2004) and now host of the Tonight Show. The black guy is will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas fame.The two recently collaborated to produce this satirical gem that pokes fun of how girls talk these days... and this is how they talk more and more in a sort of Post-Modern Valley Girl-Speak.

Iceland's Bardarbunga By Drone

The Death of Tanker 81

This past Tuesday a CAL FIRE S-2T tanker crashed while fighting the Dog Rock Fire on the western margin of Yosemite National Park within the park boundary near El Portal, CA. The crash killed 62 year-old Geoffrey "Craig" Hunt who piloted Tanker #81 based out of Hollister Air Attack Base in San Benito County serving San Benito-Monterey Unit (BEU). Below is a sequence of three images captured by an unknown (to me) photographer which I found on FirefighterCloseCalls.com's "Secret List".  The fourth image down features a view of the crash from the perspective of up the hill from it. The final five images were captured from the same general area as the first three and theoretically might have been taken by the same person. They show the new wildfire started by the crash itself and the effort to suppress it by rotary-wing aircraft following the initial shutdown of all fixed-wing aircraft following a crash of such as is a standard operating procedure in such cases.

Note: as the viewer can see in the first image it appeas most of the left wing is not attached to the aircraft. According to an initial FAA document this crash is being preliminarily described as an aircraft crash caused by a wing striking a tree.

Tanker 81 is at left sans left wing while air attack circles above it to the right.
Photo courtesy of FirefighterCloseCalls.com.

Flaming debris raining down on Highway 140 below and out of view of this image.
Photo courtesy of  FirefighterCloseCalls.com.

Note that the wildfire burn area is adjacent to the crash site.
Photo courtesy of FirefighterCloseCalls.com.

Photo by Donald Talend courtesy AP (all rights reserved).

Photo by Ken Yager (all rights reserved).

Photo by Ken Yager (all rights reserved).

Photo by Ken Yager (all rights reserved).

Photo by Ken Yager (all rights reserved).

Photo by Ken Yager (all rights reserved).

The North County Has 11 New Viticultural Areas

Today the federal government will officially begin recognizing the above 11 new viticultural subdivisions of the pre-existing Paso Robles AVA. Technically, I'm in the Paso Robles Estrella District.

"Midnight Sun" At Midnight's Dark

This trance track "Midnight Sun" by ATB was one of my musical obsessions last summer but I never got around to sharing it here for whatever reason(s) although it does appear in set in my post "Actually, This Is My Favorite Trance Set". I used to listen to this artist all the time in the heyday of my trance obsession in the early 2000's and had lost track of the latest goings on it until the past couple of years or so. I was happily surprised to see ATB still making some decent tracks.

This is a clubby song so crank up your speakers and if possible listen to it in the dark of night as such music is inherently nocturnal. Note: there is a great drop/breakdown/whatever it is called at the 1:30 mark.

Picture of the Day - Cactus of the Cthulhu II

Recently I spotted a cactus garden on the west side of Cal Poly near and just west of Building 5 (Architecture & Environmental Design). I shot some images of it and when I got home and looked at them this particular plant caught my attention and immediately reminded me of something out of the Cthulhu mythos.

Site/Sight Of A Volcanic Final Stand

As some of you may know I am a bit haunted by final stands. Indeed I wonder if I am being prepared mentally-emotionally-psychologically-spiritually for this eventuality in my future. If this is the case I am in complete acceptance and peace with this and feel honored to be chosen thus. In any case whenever I encounter a story of such a scenario I am drawn to it.

The latest such story is that of the recent surprise eruption of Mount Ontake in Japan on September 27th which killed 67 day hikers including Izume Noguchi (pictured below) who snapped three amazing images of the ash cloud hurling towards him right before he died of which two of those images are featured below.

Izume Noguchi in the final hours of his life as captured in his own camera by an unknown photographer.

The first image of the eruption captured by Izume Noguchi.

The third image captured by Izume Noguchi who shot one more image which shows the man at right with the blue cap running towards the camera from the euption from a location around the corner to the left of the building. I did not include it here as I could not find a decent-sized version of it but it appears quite similar. Both men in this image were killed as well as Mr. Noguchi shooting these images and 65 other people.

This is a more distant view from down the mountain of the same eruption at about the same time or some seconds later.
Photo courtesy Associated Press and Kyodo News Agency.

Izume Noguchi's unscorched cameras found with his body suggesting he was killed by asphyxia and not thermal shock.
Photo credit unknown to me (all rights reserved).

This is the building seen in the Izume Noguchi images above and where he likely died. I was unaware that such a fantasy-inspiring, Tolkien-esque place existed on Earth made all the more LOTR-ish by the devastated look of it evoking mental images of the aftermath of an attack by Smaug.
Photo credit unknown.

A more distant view of the structure seen in the Noguchi images but showing some additional structures below it. The entire scene does not even look real but rather like a CGI-generated image.
Photo courtesy Kyodo News Agency.

This image places the source volcanic vent in a physical context to Mr. Noguchi's location at the time he shot his final photographs with his last stand being at the top-most structure. Note the "daylighted" roofs caused by volcanic missles and/or the weight of the ash deposits on the rooftops.
Photo courtesy Reuters/Kyodo News Agencies.

Picture of the Day - Disaster Trailer Relic

Last month I was at a friend's house in the hills west of Paso Robles. On previous visits I had taken note of this trailer intending to capture an image of it to share here. On that occasion I finally got around to it and now a couple of weeks or so later I'm finally getting around to actually posting it here. I am quite curious if anybody visiting this blog, perhaps as a result of a web search can tell me anything about a semi-trailer with "American Red Cross Emergency Services Santa Clara Valley Chapter" emblazoned across both sides of it. Note: since first posting this I have discovered that the Palo Alto Area and Santa Clara Valley Chapters of the American Red Cross merged in January 2009 to form the Silicon Valley Chapter.
Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Bridget's Sunset

Earlier this evening my buddy Mike and I worked a wedding for Vino Vice at Silver Horse Winery. And once again an amazing sunset unveiled itself before our eyes. As this latest sunset sequence demonstrates, there is something distinct about Central Coast light as it pertains to this time of the day. We also met a cool Silverado Stages bus driver named Bridget whom we hung out with quite a bit this evening as she was hired to hang around until the wedding was over and drive most of the guests home. She is wisely using her job as a way to go sightseeing the beauty of California and working Silver Horse was her latest sightseeing experience.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).