It looks as though the fire has pretty much been contained.  After several days of high winds, low humidity and brutal temperatures (up to 100° F), Santa Barbara late spring weather has reasserted itself.  We woke up yesterday (after a fairly sleepless night, what with a big red glow looming over the horizon) to cool, foggy weather.  The flames we could see leaping up the night before from the canyon above us, were completely obscured by the fog.

As one of the fire officials said in a welcome respite from ‘incidentese’, “Now we can chase the fire instead of having the fire chase us.”  Which looks like what has happened.  They have chased it and beaten it down. Most people are back into their homes, including those evacuees who were bunking in with us and got the word they could go back home at 10 AM today. We and our house escaped unscathed.  Not even a cinder or ash so far.

As I was transferring my fire photos from my camera to iPhoto, I realized I hadn’t transferred the photos I took a couple of weeks ago when we were in Tahoe.  It was nice to see some peaceful pictures without fire and smoke in them.  The one above is the view from my office window looking across the lake toward Squaw Valley just a little after daybreak.  That’s the time I love to get up, grab a hot cup of Americano, and start into my reading before the phone starts ringing.  If MD didn’t have a big concert coming up in a couple of weeks, that’s where we would be now.  And would stay at least until all this fire cleanup is finished.  It would be nice to be able to sleep without one eye on the skyline and an ear open listening for the wind.

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Since a bunch of readers have asked, I’ll give a quick update about the fire in Santa Barbara.  I took the photo above when MD and I went out to dinner last night in downtown Santa Barbara.  The top of our car, which is parked next to the restaurant, is in the foreground, providing some perspective.

As it stands now, MD and I are a little ways from the evacuation area, but the margin is getting closer and closer.  Fires move pretty fast when they are driven by winds gusting from 60-70 mph.  I’ve driven around and looked at the fire and placed it on a map and compared it to where we are.  When I do this and think about it, the reasoning, cognitive part of my brain tells me that we are in no danger at this point, but the primitive, reptilian part of my brain screams a different message.

If you click this link you can see a Google map of Santa Barbara that will update every 15 minutes.  You can see the areas that are under voluntary and mandatory evacuations.  And you can see how far this fire has spread in just four days, which is what the primitive part of my brain is focusing on. You’ll have to scroll to the right to see the part of the fire that affects us.  Our house is north of E. Valley Rd and above the Birnam Wood Golf Course.  If you see the edge of this evacuation hit Birnam Wood, you’ll know we’re out of here.

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Just a bunch of odds and ends, none of which is worth an entire post.

Low-carb gains a foothold.

First, I’ll start off with the good news, then I’ll finish with the bad.

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A couple of days ago I ran into an old friend of ours, whom I hadn’t seen in about a year. She is a highly successful, intelligent, middle-aged woman who, the last time I saw her, was at least 30 or so pounds overweight. She is now slim and trim. In fact, I almost didn’t recognize her.

I told her she looked fabulous and asked her what happened. I knew that she had been a perennial low-carber, but, like so many people, never really got into it seriously for any length of time. She knew how much better she felt when she stuck to her regimen, but a million things kept coming up – parties, weddings, business travel, etc. – preventing her from really taking her diet seriously. As she put it:

There was always a valid reason that I couldn’t really get going. I had a friend’s wedding coming up, and I knew I was going to eat and drink. So, I put off starting until after the wedding. Then it was a business trip, then it was something else. It seemed that there was always something lurking in the future that kept me from getting serious today.

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