Here we come a caroling

Well, the fire is now only a faint memory ... I've got a couple of pictures from a tour of the disaster zone, maybe I'll get them up here soon. The only impending doom for us in Santa Barbara is Danielle's upcoming thesis deadline (Jan 5), but she should really be the one tell you all about that.

The other day I went caroling with my parents and brother up in Palo Alto (Danielle was working on her thesis that afternoon). It was great fun! There's a pretty funky neighborhood called Barron Park near where my parents live that was hosting caroling and cookies. This neighborhood has two neighborhood donkeys ... it's a long story, but they are now cared for by a rotating schedule of neighborhood children. The donkeys came out for the day, though they didn't join us actually walking down the street.

Here's Drew posing with the movie star donkey "Perry":

 

Yeah, that's right, movie star. This donkey was the model from which "Donkey" in the Shrek movies was based off of. Crazy! Here's some of the crew preparing to head off caroling:

 

Barron Park puts this event together every year, so they've even got song books and had boy scouts diverting the few cars on the road around us.

 

There were probably about 70-80 people out, though the best part was that the Gunn High School Chamber Singers were sort of leading the pack ... the singing definitely sounded much better because they were there to get us started.

 

At the end of the caroling walk there was a short concert by the singers with cookies served by the Barron Park seniors. What glorious holiday spirit!

Fire perimeter

The Google map of the fire has been updated to show the area which actually burned. There are still a couple of trouble spots that are under evacuation orders, but we can no longer see any smoke rising.

View Larger Map

The map also shows a bit of what the aftermath of such a disaster is like, there's a schedule for restoring gas service to the area and those who are back in their homes are also advised to boil their water. Kind of a tough combination, no gas and having to boil water!

Dust in the wind

I went out to water the garden today and found some charred remains of other people's lives in our small yard. Pictured are what appears to be some burned home insulation, tar paper, and a eucalyptus leaf.

 

These kinds of flying, burning embers were a huge problem since the area was so dry. The fire jumped long distances and created lots of spot fires around its border with all the wind driven flying burning bits. At 2-3 miles though, we weren't in too much danger as anything light enough to fly this far would have enough heat capacity to set something else ablaze when it landed. Still scary though.

Our neighbor found a charred page from a Betty Ford rehab clinic brochure. The homes which burned were mostly very expensive, though those who bought more than 15 years ago would have paid a much reasonable price. Anyway, mo' money, mo' problems as they say.


There are also ash everywhere, including coating our sage plant.

 

Our garden is also still producing, the "summer" plants are slowly dying off but we've still got over 100 tomatoes that will come off the plants over the next few weeks. The unseasonable warmth which lead to the fire has some upsides, though Danielle didn't appreciate my joke we could combine the costs and benefits and have fire roasted tomatoes.

 

We've also got some more "winter" vegetables growing, beets and sugar snap peas are pictured.

 

A new fire in LA

Progress on the "Tea" fire here in Santa Barbara is pretty good, some people are being let back in to affected areas. The fire continues to burn, but mostly up into the mountains ... understandably the first priority was keeping the fire away from houses. The 40% that's contained represents the southern boundary, so the city of Santa Barbara is safe now.

The bad news, however, is that another big fire has exploded across northern Los Angeles about 70-80 miles away. The strong, dry winds that fueled the Santa Barbara fire on Thursday have shifted and are now causing the LA fire to race across hills. The new fire is already 50% bigger than our fire and has forced the evacuation of at least twice as many people as well. If you hear bad news about a Southern California fire in the next few days it will be that one.

40% contained

That's the news this afternoon. The mandatory evacuation area has been reduced, but evacuation warnings are still in effect. Today the hills seem much calmer, if decimated, and the helicopters are still busy. The governator toured the area this morning. We're breathing easier but remain at the ready. Thanks for the thoughts and good wishes!

day 3, morning

This morning things seem to be stable, all the warnings and maps are the same as they were last night. The hills that have been belching flame and smoke are now clear. They almost look the same, except that what was once green is now black and charred. We're venturing out to find food (by which I mean 'shop at the market' - in the unaffected areas life is still going on almost as normal) and we'll properly troll the news sources and give a more comprehensive update when we return. The links I posted yesterday are still informative, other news sources include the Daily Kos (scroll down, more recent postings are lower), and the LA Times.

night report

The weather has gotten much cooler tonight, which is very good for us. The Riviera, which we can see from upstairs in our house, is charred but no longer emitting billowing flames or plumes of smoke, and it seems that the most active parts of the fire are further away. So the visual indicators available to us are positive. The firefighting team hasn't given a containment estimate though, and the area is on the same level of fire watch as last night. We're still packed and ready to go, but a little more confident in the face of it.

So much for us. The sad news is that there has been a lot of damage elsewhere, and there's still a lot of work to be done to control it. The fire broke out in Montecito near to Westmont College, which is where we sometimes play ultimate frisbee on the weekend. Several parts of that campus were destroyed but others survived. Students and faculty gathered in the fire-proof gym building while firefighters fought the blaze, and were able to leave this morning. That area is in the mandatory evacuation zone and is off-limits to the public while that is in effect. My graduate advisor lives in the hills by Mission Canyon (up the mountain beyond the Santa Barbara Mission), in an area that was completely devastated. He and his wife were out of town - so on the one hand they are safe, but on the other hand everything in their home was lost.

This fire was in a much more populated area than the others that have broken out in the Santa Barbara region in the last year and a half. Where the others caused damage to National Forest and agricultural areas, this time around many people lost their homes - not least because the chaparral in those parts hadn't burned in about 50 years (fires are a natural part of the California ecosystems, but they're usually supressed when areas are developed, which causes tinder like plant material to build up increasing the overall fire risk and leading to bigger fires in the end). It will be interesting watching the town regroup after this. Of course, we're not out of the woods yet (to put a great cliché into the mix). It'll be a few days at least until we're in a position to survey the damage and figure out the next steps.

For the time being, we're being vigilant, although we did venture out to State Street to get dinner this evening. The bags remain packed by the door, while the helicopters continue to fly overhead. We'll update again tomorrow.

favorable winds

Which today are the same as 'no wind at all', for the time being. The fire crews estimated that they had 12 hours (the daylight-ish) to drop water on the fire effectively until evening, when the Santa Ana winds are supposed to swing into gear. Those are some terrible winds - they come up from the South, they're warm and fires love them. So far though, things seem to be improving, based on radio reports and the view from our skylight.

The governator declared a state of emergency this morning, so additional resources have been released to workon the 'Tea Fire'. Last night there were fire crews up from Ventura County (next county south), Los Angeles county (about 1 1/2 hours south) and down from San Luis Obispo county (about 1 1/2 hours north), as well as helicopters. The choppers don't usually fly at night, especially with high winds (gusts in the mountains were clocked at 70mph), but in a couple lulls the pilots flew with night vision goggles, dropping water on the hot spots, which is probably what slowed the blaze. When it started it grew very fast, so their work made a big difference. With the state of emergency we got additional air support, so there are lots of planes and helicopters flying back and forth with water. They're taking it from everywhere: reservoirs, the ocean...

Hopefully things continue this way for the rest of the day, and they'll have a handle on the situation by evening. We usually only get the tail end of the Santa Anas this far north, but the more control the fire crews can get the better off we'll be. More to come.

firewatch

A red smoky morning in Santa Barbara. The fire authorities are not talking about containment yet, so we're staying at home next to the radio, just in case we're put on evacuation watch. Today the most striking visual is smoke whereas last night the flames were scarily large and visible from our skylight. There's also a light descent of ash. We're staying indoors because the air outside is very smoky - indoors we're fine. Other than that, the car is outside and the valuables are packed, just in case. For the time being the mandatory evacuation order stands about 5 miles to the east of us, and evacuation watch extends to an area that ends 8 blocks away. Now that it's morning the wind has decreased considerably, which bodes well for firefighting along the perimeter. They expect the weather to be somewhat calm today, but these things are pretty unpredictable. Because of the drought we've had this season the city has asked residents to minimize the use of water so they crews have as much as possible.

Whichever way things go, we're ready. We think it'll just be a day of waiting by the radio. Either the weather will be favorable today and we'll have some containment this evening, or things will be in limbo (pardon the terrible fire pun) during the day and this evening we'll be packing the car and heading north. We've got some friends in Goleta and elsewhere further away who have been checking in on us and offered refuge :) But if things really heat up (I'm apparently at the point where I can make jokes about this) we'll probably just go all the way up to Palo Alto.

Map of the fire
(to find our house relative to what's going on, zoom in and look for Castillo Street - it's to the left of the action):

View Larger Map


Information
The Montecito Fire District page:
http://www.montecitofire.com/index.htm

The SB county dedicated page:
http://www.countyofsb.org/ceo/oes0.aspx?id=2332

The SB Independent (constant updates):
http://www.independent.com/

Fire update

The fire has burned up the back side of the ridge on the far side of Santa Barbara, but fortunately the fire seems to have stalled at the top of the ridge. The winds are quite a bit calmer now which must help, and there's an incredible force out fighting the fire right now.

We are settling down for the night, trying to sleep with all the excitement. It feels a bit like a battle ground, there are many choppers running through the air.

UPDATE:
Map of fire evacuation areas. The evacuation areas have pushed out North West and South East in the last hour or so.

Still not really coming over the ridge towards Santa Barbara proper ... from my skylight view the main orange glow is now off to the far right (ie South) and also the far left (North). I can't see any flames directly right now. For a little while we were quite scared as the middle of the ridge had a few spots of flames and we watched a few trees torch.

If it had come down the middle of the ridge, it would have been quite scary. That's a more densely populated area than what it had already burned. We could see the flashing lights of the fire crews all over the ridge there. They've done they're job, that section looks quite safe now.

UPDATE2:
We watched on tv with our neighbor earlier, they had video of crews putting out spot fires on the hillside just over 2 miles from our house. The close side of the closest ridge was just buzzing with fire trucks, so the fire came over the ridge in small spots but didn't take hold. The main line of flame isn't coming our way.

That's all for tonight.

Better fire/evacuation map.

Fire 2.0!

This ones much closer than the last one, it's burning in the Santa Barbara city limits and moving very quickly. These pictures are from a couple hours ago, it's now creeping over the ridge in the for ground of these pictures. Tons of smoke and lots of ash falling around our house. The winds are blowing sort of towards us, strong warm winds (it was going to be 80 and windy tomorrow).

We're also losing radio stations pretty fast, since the towers are up in the hills. Several buildings have been burned up in the hills.

 

 

We should be fine, there are a lot of fire hydrants between us and the fire. There are hundreds of trucks here already, CA is well prepared for wild fires! Helicopters are dropping ocean water, there are at least three in the air looping continuously.

It's gonna be a hot time in the old town tonight!

EDIT: Obviously we have power still ... it's been going off around town but we've been fine. Oh, and they just announced 15 "strike" teams are coming up from LA! They come up with such crazy names.

Sunburn for change!

I had a fantastic time helping get out the vote at UCSB today, handing out info about state and local races to fellow students. We got a lot of smiles but what really impressed me were the number of "I voted" stickers, most people had already voted by early this afternoon.

I don't think I've gotten a sunburn in November before ... it was a wonderful California day, 70 degrees, with just a spattering of wispy clouds. A great day for democracy!

election reflections

Today I sent an email to our ex-housemates in London, following up on our lively discussions about politics and the future of the world with a pre-election note on how things are in our little corner of the Most Anticipated Election Ever. I thought I'd share it here as well.

-0-

I'm not sure that I actually ever let myself believe that Obama might be elected president, even when Joey and I were volunteering for his campaign. We want it desperately, but I think that deep down inside I was afraid to really imagine that it could happen - the disappointment would be so great if it didn't. I'm still not entirely willing to hope - I think it's not over until it's over - I'll be the Thomas at the end asking to see the marks in the ballots and to put my hand on the headlines of the newspapers before I believe. I certainly never thought I'd be wondering how to best handle the upcoming 48 hours of complete nerve-wracking suspense. Should things turn out the way we want them to, I doubt we (or just over half the country) will be able to think straight enough to comment on it all. Should they not, the despair may be overwhelming. In order to preempt the necessity of sending some kind of communication once the results are in, whichever way they go, I'm going to post my reactions now.

In the event that our wildest dreams come true:

(Nov 5)
I can scarcely believe that I'm living through this. I think I'll be on edge for the next several weeks, afraid that at any minute, I'll wake up and this whole election will have been little more than a wonderful dream, and it's actually still January of 2007. He won? We won?! There is hope for the future, despite the recession/depression/social upheaval that lie ahead??!! We're not going to work tomorrow! Champagne!! Holiday!! Obama-day! !!!!!!!!!

There aren't enough exclamation points in the world for this. :)

For months, we've been doing what we can: a few dollars donated here, a day spent knocking on doors there, posts on facebook, emails, fundraising, etc. All to try to make this a reality. It will hopefully be a little while before the headiness and euphoria wear off. There's a lot of work to be done, but I think there are a lot of people in this country who are fired up, and ready to roll their sleeves and dive in. We're confident that while it won't be pretty, if we can pull it off, the rest will slowly start to catch up. I've spent some time recently thinking about the 'greatest generation' - the demographic that came of age in WWII, took a look at the mess the world was in, tightened their belts and got to work. I wouldn't say that everything they did made sunshine and roses, in hindsight, but they definitely gave it everything they had. And their legacy is impressive. It's almost as if my generation is at that kind of a juncture now. The major democracies (for want of a better catchphrase) are facing major economic crises. As if the sub-prime/credit fiasco wasn't enough, we're collectively looking at bankrupt social security programs, internal tensions, complicated immigration issues, energy crises, environmental disaster... One could be forgiven for thinking that Armageddon might be upon us. I'm not one of those people who thinks that Obama will be the solution to everything. But I definitely believe that electing him as President is a resoundingly fantastic first step for the generation that will have to deal with this collective disaster, however things come out in the end. Let's get this show on the road.



In the event that the worst has come to pass and the sky actually is falling:

Help.



We'll see you on the other side of Tuesday the 4th.

OMG rain!

It's raining here in Cali! First time really since like March ... there was one afternoon in August where Danielle and I got sprinkled on while out walking, but that was it for summer precipitation. Even then, when we got back to our house the sidewalk was dry, it had only rained on the East side of town. Much of California works like this, very dry from March through October, which is why we get so many wildfires.

Over the next couple weeks the hills will spring back to life after being a parched golden brown all summer. The seeds from last spring will sprout and they'll get several months of growing before drying out in May.

the south of france and beyond, part III

Inland

The final installment: On our last full day in France, we went inland for an unintentionally adventurous trip to Biot (Bee-ott). But first, let me tell you about the night before, when we had dinner at a serious French restaurant. Our hosts had recommended to us a little place called Bistro Antoine, which is in the Old Town of Nice. They described it as typical Provence fare (Nice is in the Provence-Alpes Maritimes part of France), with fresh ingredients and excellent preparation. We were very excited to be there, especially since we'd gone the budget route on most of our meals on the trip. The place certainly didn't disappoint. Unlike the one other restaurant we'd had dinner at a few nights before, which was crowded with tourists like us who don't know one French dish from another, this one had a mostly native crowd. The waiters were the picture of patience and indulgence, which was good because our pocket phrasebook's food section didn't cover half of the foods they listed on their menu. We definitely tried to order something as a starter that was meant to be a dessert. But they were nice and explained the difference to us. And we ended up with:

Fresh calamari and sausages on a bed of greens (starter #1)

Smoked salmon tartare (starter #2)

Unknown cut of lamb with vegetables and potatoes (main dish #1)

Unknown cut of duck with potatoes (main dish #2)

And finally mango tartare (indescribably delicious, sublime even) and fresh figs baked with sweet cheeses (unconventional and fantastic, both unpictured) for dessert. So that you fully appreciate these photos, I have to disclose that the French folks enjoying their dinner at tables near us were more than a little nonplussed/amused that we were taking pictures of our food. Nevertheless, it was everything you think your first real meal at a French restaurant should be, and then some.

And now, Biot. At this point in the voyage, we felt quite comfortable navigating the various arms of the french public transit system. The italian one was a mess, but France, we thought, we had figured. So when we settled on Biot as our last day trip because of its historic glassworks, it never ocurred to us to second guess our chosen means of transport. You see where this is going. 'Oh!' our hosts said, 'I didn't know the train went to Biot.' But, since they rarely took the train and didn't confess to be experts on it in any way, and because our little train schedule clearly listed the stop 'Biot', we merrily hopped on this shining example of the success of European rail (picture below, with logo proclaiming its sponsorship by HRH the Prince of Monaco, I think because he'd had enough of the less shining examples of European rail that roll through his country on a daily basis - see the upcoming post on Turin), and were on our way.



After arriving at the Biot station, taking a couple pictures of the beach beyond and getting our bearings, we figured out why Christiane and Georges hadn't heard of the Biot train stop. The station is on the coast, about 3km from the village itself, which is inland. Critical error. So we started walking. And we walked and we walked and we walked. And eventually we figured out that there was a bus we could take. And eventually, after stopping at a patisserie to replenish ourselves and get change for the bus, missing one bus because we failed to flag down the driver, and more walking than is really necessary for any one holiday, we arrived in Biot. Here is a picture of one of the squares in town, which kind of reminded me of the square in front of Café René in 'Allo 'Allo.


And here is a picture of the beach, which is kind of far from the square.


Having arrived in Biot, though, we did get to see lots of fantastic things. The famous glassworks is called 'La Verrerie de Biot', and it's about 20 minutes walk outside of the village, of course. We were scandalised by the sandals and shorts that seemed to be the clothing of choice around the furnace. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. This gentleman reminded us of some of the seasoned lifelong surfers you see around the beaches of southern california.

Our favorite glassworks though, was a much smaller family-run place we found along the way, not least because the guy working the molten glass in the picture is the spitting image of our friend Aaron. Seriously, it was uncanny.

And finally, some of Biot's finest:

Biot, as another medieval-era village, is on a hill, which we enjoyed climbing...


The old part of the village was also beautiful. Where Eze had prolific greenery and lots of maintenance to keep it looking stunning, Biot is still lived in by regular people. It was great to see how the village is still being used, and to think of how things have changed there over the centuries. We liked this particular image of how transportation is updated for people who live on really, really narrow streets.

After seeing lots of glassblowing, looking at wares from Provence (soaps, textiles, pottery, and lots of glass), and walking over lots of cobbled stone, we took the bus back down to the train station. Naturally, the bus was late, so we ran onto the platform just as the train we were hoping to catch pulled out. So, determined to make lemonade out of our big transportation lemon, we crossed the street to the beach to watch the sunset in the forty-five minute wait until the next train. Here's Joey, really excited about the stone-skipping possibilities presented by a pebble beach.


And here we are, tired, happy, and ready to head home.

the south of france and beyond, part II

The Coast

Our first morning back in Nice, we didn't do much. After walking our little feet off in Turin and getting lost and unlost in-between, we figured we needed to recuperate. So we spent it on the terrasse on top of the house. Here's Joey, making up to his laptop for having left it alone for so much longer than usual.



And here is the lovely view out to the Port Infernet.


That afternoon, once again feeling the need to take advantage of our time in new and beautiful surroundings, we headed down Mt. Boron (the hill/neighborhood where we stayed) to the seaside. On that part of the coast there aren't long beaches so much as long areas of low cliffs, but nonetheless there is a path that winds along and little bathing areas from time to time. We walked for quite some distance, until we came close to the 'plage nudiste' (nude beach). At least we think we were close. There was a sign with an arrow scrawled onto a bench with marker, and we laughed and kept on our way. At the second sign though, we decided things were getting kind of serious, so we took a funny picture and returned hastily whence we had come.



The walk, however, was beautiful.



The next day we ventured further afield, to the beautiful and glitzy area east of Nice. There are a number of towns along bays there, made popular and frequented by the billionaires and movie stars we read about and see on tv. The plebeians are allowed a walking path along the coast, and so, plebeians that we are, we walked along that path from town to town all day. We started at the appropriately named Beaulieu-sur-Mer (which loosely translates to 'little bit of gorgeous on the sea'), and made our way down one side of one bay to St. Jean-Cap Ferrat, where we had lunch at a restaurant called 'Le Pirate' next to the most obnoxious English tourists in the whole wide world ever. If you want to know that story, ask. Then we walked over the hill to the bay on the other side, walked along that one until our feet hurt, caught the bus and went back home. Here are highlights.

Salade Niçoise (of course), part of our lunch at Le Pirate

Your regular Mediterranean villa, with private yacht slip

The view from above the town of Passable. Great name.

Us in silhouette, villa with mooring space in background

That night, Christiane and Georges invited us to eat with them and Noëlle, Georges' sister, at dinner. We were all too pleased to oblige, because they were wonderfully warm hosts, and because we had bought a whole bottle of wine and felt it wise not to shoulder the entire burden ourselves. We needn't have worried. We spent a splendid evening with them, discussing all the world's problems over four hours and delicious French vintages. It was definitely one of the highlights of our stay.

Now I have to take a moment to talk about Mezzomonte, which is the name of Christiane and Georges' home. The house itself is one of the old buildings typical of the area, which they have renovated perfectly. They let out the guest room as a bed-and-breakfast, and I don't think I've stayed in a room finished with such care and attention to detail in my life. The location is a bit far from the centre of Nice, but we were okay with that, because it's quiet, has fantastic views and is close to the bus lines that went to the places we wanted to see. They have 3 cats, including independently-minded Mephisto who is such a special guy he isn't allowed outdoors unless he's on a leash. He's usually the one in front. Christiane and Georges were warm, accommodating (Georges picked us up from the city in the evenings when we went out!) and served a killer breakfast. I will never look at the 'continental' breakfast at Days Inn in the same way ever again.

Breakfast was delightfully presented in the dining room, which had views of the Port

It usually involved fresh croissants and brioches, fruit, yogurt, cheeses and homemade jam and marmalade. Yuuuuuummmmyyyyy.

Here's Joey, trying his hand at walking the headstrong kitty. Georges is getting photographic evidence of the fact that the cat leads people other than himself.

The view out our window

This post is already quite long. But I'm going to squeeze in one more story before I head on to Part III. That is Eze. (Say 'ezz').

In our very full guidebook, Joey found the write-up on Eze, which is a medieval village (well, back in the day they might have called it a city) built on an unlikely rock outcrop just above the coast in the hope of discouraging invaders. Sadly, even that didn't manage to keep out all the invaders, and it was captured by the Moors, recaptured by (who we would now call) the French, captured by the Italian Savoys, recaptured by the French, and so on. Nowadays it's been recreated as an artists' colony, which means the stone streets are clean and adorned with plants, flowers, artists' studios and reaaaaalllllyyyy sheeshy hotels. Georges, bless his heart, drove us there, and from the minute we stepped out of the car we were in love. There isn't much to say about the place other than it's gorgeous. That sounds anti-climactic, but I'm going to have to let the photos speak for themselves in the hopes that the full weight of that 'it's gorgeous' can be conveyed over the internets.


Eze, as seen from the hill a little further inland. The bridge that leads to it across the adjacent ravine is on the bottom right.

The old buildings and the (relatively) new plants

A religious frieze in the one of the walls, with jasmine to adorn it


One of the artist studios

Joey, in front of an entrance to one of the hotels

Me in a little medieval street

Joey, climbing the stairs to the Jardin d'Eze (the Garden of Eze), a garden built on the site of the former castle, which was destroyed in an invasion.

The garden, the village, and the sea beyond



Here we are, loving the village, the sunshine, and everything else