More on the San Diego Fires

While I'm quite happy that the fires haven't affected us (except for the smoke and particulates in the air), it saddens me to see the great loss that so many people have suffered. We returned to our house on Wednesday as the fire threat lessoned and my parents' 2 bedroom condo is a bit small for 4 adults, a baby, and a dog.

I decided that since we have been and are so fortunate, that I would volunteer. On Wednesday, I went down to Qualcomm Stadium to volunteer. There were so many volunteers, it almost seemed like chaos. I checked in and then waited around. When the guy organizing teams took my name, I said that I had some medical experience (I'm an EMT-B) as I saw other teams being sent out to move stuff to/from people's cars in the 80+ degree heat. He sent me to the medical volunteer station (which I should have seen first) and they sent me upstairs to the club level where they had the medical facility. So, I checked in and helped out checking people in before they could be seen. As the day continued, my job turned into the job of bouncer. I was supposed to make sure that people didn't storm the door, were checked in before going inside, and had to keep the media and unnecessary people out. I met some nice people and it was great to see so many people of all different skill sets volunteering their time. Their were some many volunteers that people were being turned away. At the end of the day, I was asked to do data entry into an Excel spreadsheet. This started me thinking that there must be a better way to handle all the information. After talking with the doctor that set it up, I'm convinced that with some assistance from some of the doctors there, I can develop and a deployable, self contained computer/network that could handle supply needs, patient checkin, records, patient checkout, etc.

In any case, we're all doing fine and paraphrasing the rabbi on Yom Kippur, I wish all those affected by the fires an easy recovery.

San Diego Fires

Sunday afternoon while my wife and I were running errands, we noticed smoke to the north and my wife found out there was a fire. Later that evening, I walked into the garage and smelled the fires; that's when I knew things weren't good. We were glued to the TV watching what was happening. Monday morning, I decided it was a wise idea for us to goto my parents' place on the coast, so we packed up and left.

It's now Tuesday morning and we just got back from picking up more stuff from our house. While the air was a bit clearer at our house (the winds are pushing the ash and smoke west), for the time being, we're going to stay put in La Jolla as it is farther away from the fires. We're all safe and sound, but I'm a little on edge as everyone can imagine.

I've been following KBPS's Twitter feed as well as the Google map showing everything.

The GSM buzz isn't all that bad, now

I previously wrote about the GSM buzz on my speakers and decided today that maybe my 10 year old Apple Design Speakers might be part of the problem; a lot has changed since I got those speakers. I picked up a pair of Altec Lansing VS2320 speakers. I plugged them in and haven't heard a buzz! I'll see how things go, but knock on wood that the buzz is gone. Wow, what a difference a decade makes in electronics.

Burglars got what they deserved

About 2 weeks ago, my dad brought his iMac G4 (the goose neck one) over for me to look at as it kept kernel panicking. After examining it, I pretty much determined that it was toast and time for a new one. My father saw this coming and actually wanted to replace it with an Intel based machine so he could run Windows stuff, if needed. I yanked the hard drive from the iMac and set my parents up with a Mac mini until they could order their new one (I wanted them to vote until Leopard's release was imminent so that they could get it for $10). My parents received their new machine on Friday and my dad had placed the iMac in his car (sans hard drive and barely put back together, but definitely not working). My mom called me today to tell me that burglars broke into my dad's car and stole the iMac. That's all that took; unfortunately they broke 2 of the windows. The burglars will sure get a surprise when they try to use the computer! Stupid burglars.