Here we are again on a weekend WRUP trip. Hopefully everyone is doing well out there. I think today may well be pretty busy for me doing mundane BS before the rain coming tomorrow. Read more

Hello everyone, welcome to another weekend and the general WRUP. Thank goodness the heat is falling off for a bit here. Unfortunately that cooling seems to be as a result of a hurricane that came up from Mexico. Now downgraded to a tropical storm I won't see it's effects in full, but there could be some rain this afternoon. Still, I'll take weather that's cooler by some 25 degrees and a chance for some moisture. Continuing in mundane news, my dryer broke. I don't know if you guys have ever had to find replacement parts for a dryer but it can be a pain in the ass. The heating element went out. My dryer is some 10 years old but it's a good brand. I finally found a parts manual and made the mistake of ordering the wrong heater. The listing didn't help as it was simply called a heater, but what I actually needed was a heater assembly. It's still just a heater, but it's a different part number and uses a higher wattage fuse and thermostat. Hopefully the correct one will be here today and I'll be able to replace it. Yep, boring stuff around here. Just hot with frustrating appliance repairs. Read more

Good morning, I'm a day late for this WRUP. I'd like to say it's because I've been busy, because I have been, but it's not true really. I could have done it on time yesterday. But I'll make up for it. Here we go. Read more

Good morning everyone and welcome to yet another weekend and yet another WRUP. We're going right to it because I've had a boring week and I've nothing special to discuss. Read more

Good morning or afternernoon or evening or whatever time it is where you are. It's another weekend and that means it's time for another WRUP. Read more

Well, here I am finally. Good mid morning everyone and welcome to another weekend. It was 102 yesterday. That's plenty warm. That heat isn't helping the efforts to fight the local Washburn fire, though it has slowed a lot since last weekend when I posted a fairly low quality image I took from my front porch of the smoke plume. At that point it was ~200 acres. As of about three hours ago now, it's ~4800 acres, but it's clear that progress is being made because I don't even see the smoke plume now. Containment is at 37% from that same update, which is good news because the last time I saw an update that number was 17%. Anyway, I'm glad progress is being made, that there have been no sequoias lost, and that for once there was some proper land management that had taken place to keep that fire from going bananas. Read more

Hello again everyone and welcome to this weekend. The first potentially major wildfire in the area is currently burning strong and I can see the smoke plume from my front porch. This is the Washburn fire burning between the Mariposa Grove and the little town of Wowona. I believe it's actually made it into the Mariposa Grove area which is arguably a good thing because giant sequoias can only reproduce when there's been a fire. On the bad side of that equation, folks who live in the Wowona area have been evacuated because the fire is moving pretty quickly toward them. Last I saw it sat in at around 200 acres and hopefully it won't get much bigger. Though I'm sure it has increased in size some in any case because it's been around twelve hours since the last update. The cause is also under investigation, but it's common at this time of year for charcoal grills to be knocked over or someone at a camp ground to ignore the no fire rules and have a problem arise. Usually these things get handled without incident, but not always. Anyway, here's hoping things don't worsen there, people don't lose homes and the fire stays away from the very historic hotel.

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Hey everyone and Good morning on a fairly pretty Saturday here in CA. Weather is nice and looks to only be reaching the mid 80's today, which is great because once again I have to work. So let's take a look at whatever I have picked for the day here. Read more