In Memorium: Granite Mountain Hotshots

This afternoon the Prescott Fire Department's Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew (a Type-1 hand crew) was defending the Arizona town of Yarnell when the Yarnell Hill Fire blew up on them forcing them to deploy their shelters but to no avail as they were nearly entirely wiped out with 18 or 19 of the crew killed. This story is in its early stages so there is much more unknown than known including precisely how many were killed and if there was one survivor as some reports indicate as well as what precisely went terribly wrong today. Initial reports have half of Yarnell leveled by the fire with approximately 250 structures destroyed. Details here will undoubtedly be revised as more becomes known.
At bottom is a television news segment about the crew and their training taken earlier this year.
HERE is a newspaper article about them just one week ago as they worked the Doce Incident near Payson, AZ.

Undated, unattributed, and unprovenanced photo of the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew.

Undated, unattributed, and unprovenanced photo of the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew.

Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew logo patch.

Hot Shots from Cronkite News on Vimeo.

Picture of the Day - Scatological Discord

While working traffic control at the Jack's Helping Hand benefit barbeque earlier today into the evening out at the historic Santa Margarita Ranch I saw this funny bumpersticker relating to the ongoing and seemingly perpetual community division over the future of the Los Osos sewer system. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

I'm "Possessed" By This

My dear, sweet friend Erin shared this with me just now and it was love at first hearing of the music and love at first sight in seeing its cute and clever accompanying video. I'll probably watch/listen to this over and over in the coming days as I'm wont to do when I find a new musical infatuation. The artist is a European duo whom call themselves The Green Children. I love the message/theme of this song and hope to be the recipient someday of such love on all levels. I'm certainly ready to give such to another when the right person comes into my life by God's will.

West Fork Complex

I found this via Twitter several minutes ago and it resonated with me so I'm sharing it with you. The West Fork Complex consists of three fires which in the aggregate have burned over 80,000 acres as of this morning.

West Fork Complex from Hon schlapfer on Vimeo.

Tsunami As Harvester of Souls

While surfing the web recently I came across this image for the first time. I do not know who took this tragic image nor do I know the precise date or location. What I do know is that it is a scene of devastation and carnage in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Given the architecture of the structures and and the number of bodies in this image and how it looks compared to all the other images I have seen of this disaster from the perspective of Thailand and Indonesia I believe this image shows a scene in Indonesia. I have looked at this image magnified and I believe there are well over 100 bloated, leaking corpses tangled in this jetsam and flotsam.

Homophobic Batman

This hilarious (NSFW) spoof of the Batman-Joker Interrogation Scene in the film The Dark Knight is something I actually saw BEFORE I ever watched any of the actual film strangely enough. I have heretofore neglected to share this on my blog but now seems perfect given the previous post here features the original scene in the film to which this spoof refers. Enjoy, but be aware it is not for all tastes.

How Heath Ledger Earned An Oscar

Unfortunately, I did not discover how much I like Heath Ledger as an actor until after his death. I appear to be going through a Batman movie phase at present (applies only to Christopher Nolan versions only and mostly the last two movies at that). Ledger was quite deservedly awarded a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight. Below are my favorite scenes featuring him and they are arguably his best scenes in that film and perfectly demonstrate his acting genius. I have presented them to you in the order they appear in the movie. For those of you whom have not seen this movie I highly recommend you do so at once.