Schultz Fire

Just the day after the Hardy Fire, this afternoon had another bad fire going on north of Mount Eldon. This one quickly got out of control, and the wind was really blowing hard today.

Just starting out

The smoke quickly climbed up.

Lots of smoke.

We could see flame from this angle, people call it crowning, where fire are on top of the forest, not just the low grassy area. 6 hours later, the smoke has not died down, and the planes from yesterday looks like are grounded today due to high wind.

I hope everyone in the region is OK.

Hardy Fire

This fire was fairly close to our neighborhood. We were on alert for possible evacuation, while 2 other neighborhoods were evacuated.

The fire fighters really fought this one hard, the planes and choppers were busy all day yesterday, since it wasn't too windy. By this morning, the smoke were pretty well contained. Whew. Really apprciate all the hard work by all the fire fighters.

We didnt' get as much smoke by our house, but just down the hill, by the driving range, the smoke really filled the air.

this was a close call.

Snow Storm - 2010

While California and most of Arizona were drenched with rain, up here in Flagstaff, we recieved over 60 + inches of snow since Monday. Late Thursday night, it got up to 38 degrees, so intead of heavy snow, it turned to rain, it compacted the snow, and then made shuffling quite a chore the next day (heavy slush and ice).

taking a quick break from shuffling, sun is out, take some pictures.

The roads have not be plowed for 2 days, this 4x4, with chains, were having problem going through the road. He eventually gave up and stopped a little ways down.

We decided to trek through our neighborhood to see what it looks like. Still can't drive our car yet.

Downtown B&W

A little noisy at ISO800, and several hot pixels, not stars, :)
Location - Flagstaff, AZ
Camera - Pentax DL, 40mm pancake.

Random Thoughts

I found some nice photoblogs today. Went through several of them, and their archives. Nice. I'll post some of them when I figure out which ones I like the most. Photos below are inspired by some of the sites.

Day After

Just 1 day after the cloudy, windy, rainy, and snowy day, we have a clear, almost cloudless day. Even though temperature still hoving around 35 degrees.....

I like the snow covered peaks, after living 16 years in West Texas, 10 years in Florida, seeing snow is kind of exciting. Ask me about snow when I have to shuffle the side walk and drive way, though, :)

Route 66 with Peaks in the background.

Colorful freight containers.

First Snow - 2007

First snow of the year in Flagstaff. Didn't stick to the ground, but definitely look nice on the mountain close by.
This is Mt. Eldon, I am sure San Francisco Peaks received more snow due to elevation, but it was too cloudy to see any of the peaks.

Back Yard, but all melted within an hour.

Mt. Eldon from the neighborhood street.

Mt. Eldon, peeking through the cloud.

Mt. Eldon, from Eldon Trail-head parking.
Shot with Pentax DL with 18-55mm Kit lens.

Painted sky

These 2 shots were taken last evening, the cloud has been building up - maybe some snow this weekend, but with the sunset and the cloud, it produced a spectacular fireworks in the sky! I wish I had noticed it a little earlier, so I can drive to a better location that allows me to capture more of the sky.

I am not sure why the pictures turned out so differently, both were set to Aperture priority, only a minute apart, no post processing.

Shot with Pentax DL with kit lens.

Cast iron fence

Old fence, outside of Josephine's restaurant.

One of the many nice places to eat in Flagstaff.

Fall is here!

Leaves are changing color here. The silver maple trees are the first to turn rusty, now red. I can see some aspen has started to turn yellow. I can't wait to go up to the peaks to take pictures of the aspens. I moved here a little too late last year, so I missed the main color change.

10/02/2007

Decline of the Bulletin Board (System)

Bulletin Board - Downtown Flagstaff.

Whatever happened to Bulletin Board Systems? Back in the 80's, I used to run an Electronic Bulletin Board System. No fee system, just all for fun. Started off on an Apple 2e, then upgraded to the PC based system to get involved with Fidonet. 300 baud, 2400 baud, 9600 (can it get any faster than this!?), and finally topped out at 14,400 before I got bored. How about those fancy ANSI colors you can display on your terminal emulator, :).

I was running Maximus, RemoteAccess, couple of door games, a front-end to handle Fido-messages or users, and mail reader system, it wsa actually pretty cool to communicate to any where that handles the Fidonet traffic. Same as today, some of the moderators that monitors the Fido (topic? I can't remember what they are called) messages really take their jobs a little too seriously. Remember the WordPerfect group? heh heh.... Chill dude.

One of the biggest thing back then is to run a multi-lined system, because of the cost, voice line, then at least 2 for data, it was just not cost effective for a free to public system. I'd think with advant of Internet, another form of BBS should work out great. I know there are software still available to run a BBS, but the new BBS just doesn't work out too well for some reason, it feels awkward.

Flagstaff Bed Race Day - Toys for Tots

Went to return some library books today, and they had the Flagstaff Bed Race day today. Cool.

I was really surprised with the first place prize - Trip to Hawaii to compete in the National Bed Race!

Second prize - Trip to San Diego!

Third prize - Trip to Vega$!

There were some serious competition, tons of people. This is what I found out of places/towns that have 4 seasons: They really appreciate the nice weathers! I remember going to Milwaukee for business trip during Summer time, they had lunch time outdoor concert in downtown area parks, every day, that was really cool. Of course, the Winter is pretty rough.

We didn't stay to watch the whole thing, but it was nice to be outside, and watch the activity, people, etc.

MONSTER Amulance.
Starting GateThe Marines against the Hippies, :)
Com'on, let's go!!EMT against team Target.Leaves are changing color already.While we're close to downtown, we strolled around downtown a little bit. I can't believe the drop in # of tourists. We kept getting asked by shop keepers, "are you local?".One of the coolest looking church.

Friday night

During Summer months, every Friday night at downtown Flagstaff gets pretty wild. A free concert while light out, then followed by a movie for family.

Tonight we went to downtown to our favorite eatery - Moutain Oasis, and the downtown was actually kind of deserted. The movie night was over, just skateboarders around the plaza. Hey, at least it was easy to find a parking spot, .

This shot was taken near a bar on the first floor of Monte Vista hotel. Usually packed with rowdy crowd, but tonight, it seemed quite. I guess temperature getting down to 44 degrees for tonight has something to do with it?