Good Morning!!!! 68F @ 5:00AM. Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. Areas of smoke and haze are possible, reducing visibility at times. High 89F. Winds light and variable.
I suspect that smoke forecast is wildly optimistic. Yesterday visibility was down to about 100', and at times, even less. The good news is that the IR satellite map is showing no hotspots to the east, and more of the fire perimeter is cooling off as well. But we have another Red Flag Warning starting this morning, running to the end of the day, for a wind event and very low humidity. At last night's press conference, firefighters were optimistic that they will be able to hold the lines, but we were all cautioned to remain vigilant and be ready to evacuate if called to do so.
That same video had news that a long time neighborhood trouble maker had been arrested for being in an evacuated area, and he had stolen mail in his possession. The guy's way beyond three strikes, so hopefully they'll send him up for a good, long time. This was the one that ran the drug house my good neighbor subsequently bought and is currently remodeling, and that was caught stealing a hotrod out of Oroville and trying to tow it to said house. He did four or five years for that caper, and has been out less than a year.
Beautiful moon shot, Ron. I remember back when I could see the moon...
Hope the new place passes inspection, Drew, and the dentist doesn't beat up your mouth too badly.:hissyfit: Thanks for the air purifier info, but the RedNeck Geek's only real choice was a Dyson.:laughing: Should be here Friday.
Hope your ceiling painting doesn't turn into too much of a pain in the neck, Thomas. And that Dad and Boo continue to behave themselves.
What a pair, David!:laughing:
Blew out the filters on the Dyson vacuum, then ran it for an hour or so, but it didn't make a dent in the bad air inside. Put a new filter on the furnace/AC, Kyle, and ran the fan for a few hours. It brought the AQI down, but not out of hazardous levels. :crossfingers: I make it 'till Friday.
Ted, the pump is behind that control panel. I think I'd sell the firetruck before I'd tackle a pump rebuild.
Walking around outside yesterday, I kept coming across leaves like this. Looks like it's from a Bay tree, and it's brown and brittle, burnt almost to the point of charcoal. It was carried here on the high winds that also carried the fire on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. It was one of the things I could hear hitting the glass sliding door in the bedroom. A little hotter and that leaf would have been an ember, and I don't even want to think about what that would have meant.
Yesterday the Sheriff lifted the Evacuation Warning for most of Oroville, so maybe today I'll get some mail. The Post Office has been closed since last Tuesday, and the mail is being held in Yuba City, an hour south of here.
The tachometer in the van became intermittent again on the last trip to town, so yesterday I pulled the instrument cluster again to see if I could do anything about it. The connector mates to the tach with four metal pins, and one of them came out last time I disconnected it. So this time I disassembled the tach to get at the circuit board, and found that all four pins had broken their solder joints. Got 'em resoldered, then put everything back together, only to find I'd bent the shaft the needle rides on. Not badly enough to keep it from working, but it is noticeable. I also found a way to hold the tach connector in place with a sheet metal screw instead of the zip ties I tried last time, and hope that's the end of that problem.
I was about to put the cluster back in the dash when I noticed that the fluid in the brake reservoir is getting brownish, so it needs changed. I'll do that today, hopefully in air that's a little better. AQI outside was back in the 600 range yesterday.
Did some reading about the alternator idiot light, and found a test or two for the alternator itself. The wires going to the LED in the dash look fine, none are rubbed through or loose. One side of the LED references a three legged voltage regulator, and I found a test for that, too. It's an aftermarket part, and that makes it a suspect in my book.
Hope everyone's week gets off to a good start!
