Something is up with the combination of wind and fires next door in California… all of a sudden we have a teeny tiny smoke-covered pinkish sun, orange skies, and ashes falling from the heavens. This is an un-edited color photo, no sepia tones or funny stuff. That dot is the sun. Creepy.
Somewhat funnily, today I got an email from the race organizers of the Donner Lake Triathlon in nearby Truckee, which I was/am planning to race this weekend. The email said that air quality “continues to improve” and they will most likely not be canceling the event. I was feeling a bit punchy, so I wrote back asking if that was because they didn’t want to risk having to refund everyone’s entries. I guess that wasn’t very nice of me. I’d like to race this weekend, but the race really has no bearing on my training plan, it’s a pretty low priority. The lives and resources affected by the fires are a much bigger priority, I kinda wish I had followed my mom’s advice from a few years ago and looked into becoming a Smoke Jumper so that I could do something to actually help.
Comments
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 6:17 pm and is filed under environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I was (a 3 day course is all I need) a certified US Department of Agriculture: US Forest Service fire fighter. You can take the certification course and be on the front lines in 3 days. It’s not easy, it’s not fun and there’s a chance you can get very hurt (how does cooked in a mylar tent sound). You also have to pass a fitness test (or did) which involved going up and down stairs without your HR getting out of the accepted range. You’d be better off supporting the folks who are fighting fires.
That’s kind of how I felt about the Lake Mendo swim a couple of weeks ago. They kept saying it was ‘fine’ and that the air quality was actually alright. I thought “are you kidding me?” It was HORRIBLE in Santa Rosa…60 miles away! I was so angry that they wouldn’t cancel it. Then the day before a state of emergency was called in Ukiah (where Lake Mendocino is) so that pretty much sealed the deal and they had to cancel it. I was really happy about that.