I know I've mentioned this before, but once the wildfires start blazing out here I'm reminded of the book, Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the imagination of disaster by Mike Davis. My fellow librarian, Joe Grosso, recommended the book back when we were first considering the move here. Even though the book is eleven years old at this point, it is still relevant.

The fires are still way north of us, but you can see the plumes of smoke as you drive around much of The OC. The big fear is that it will overrun the transmission towers near the Mount Wilson Observatory and cause havoc with the television & radio stations. I've heard from The Child that a number of Cox Communication customers are having problems with their phones, but the company hesitates to send work crews into the areas already being evacuated.

Speaking of Cox, we discovered yesterday that what we thought was one of our televisions going, was in fact caused by the cable box hooked up to the bedroom TV. Donna is going to be calling for a serviceman to come out. Have to be able to watch Nancy Grace and the local 11:00pm news every night! Plus, falling asleep after Letterman's Top Ten has become a Chez Chaput tradition.