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

It's Saturday, it's WRUP time, let's do it. Read more

Good morning everyone. Here I sit once again to tell you of things you've most likely already seen on the internet. Today will be a little bit short, maybe not terribly. I've just been kind of busy and haven't had the opportunity to really look at a lot of the things that interest me for the upcoming summer releases. In fact I have to work right after I'm done writing this. Before we get going though I want to say two things:

First off - Welcome back Tru and congrats on your tenure in your teaching job. You've worked hard for it and you deserve it. Well done.

Secondly - Everyone pick up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, it's great and you can play along side your friends via couch co-op or online on a bunch of different platforms.

Okay let's get to it.

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Oh boy it's too early to write. I woke up at 5:30 and got my outdoor plats watered, I made coffee and now I'm sitting here at 6:20. It's a lovely morning though, 65 and clear and we're set for the high 90's this afternoon. Luckily it's been relatively mild as the beginning of summer goes and I feel like I've had time to acclimate to the heat. So far that's meant the afternoons have been filled with games because there isn't much else going on. Read more

Beautiful morning so far. I hope you're all having a similar experience as you get yourselves out of bed or off the couch or the floor or wall or ceiling or what have you. I don't know your life. Today has a high of 74 here and man that's great because next week we're looking at our first 100 and that's not something I look forward to. At least I have access to a really good swimming pool. Okay it's WRUP time let's see what's going on. Read more

How's everyone feeling? Good? I hope it's good. The weekend is here and I hope I can go see Top Gun Maverick. That's a sentence I haven't said since I was a kid. That movie was an inspiration to me and it's why I definitely became a Navy fighter pilot. Don't look that up. I actually re-watched the original a few days ago and wow, the movie is still cool but wow the dialogue is mostly bad. And I say that as a guy who repeated that line "I feel the need -The need for speed" over and over during recess while my friends and I tried to see how high we could go on the swings at school. Top Gun is still a good movie but it doesn't feel like it held up super well. It's not really a criticism so much as an observation, I still think everyone should watch it. Read more

Alright, alright, it's wrup time again. Thanks for joining us on another weekend in the beginning summer weeks, or at least it feels like it here lately. Temps are getting high, snow is melted away, wildfires are popping up here and there, water restrictions are set to take effect any time now, welcome to CA. I'm feeling salty... Read more

Okay so it's been a wildly busy few weeks for me, but I have about a week off now so I can relax a bit and get some stuff done at home. That also means maybe I can get a decent WRUP in. Let's find out. Read more