Smoke and haze obscure visibility - Day 6

BIG SUR, Calif. - Firefighters bulked up their defenses Friday against a wildfire that threatened parts of this storied tourist town and prepared for more lightning strikes that could ignite new fires across Northern California.
More than 1,000 fires, mostly caused by lightning, burned across Northern California, including two gigantic blazes in the Los Padres National Forest.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President Bush on Friday for a federal emergency declaration to free up more aid, saying the fires this season had burned 265,000 acres, or more than 400 square miles.

Raw Canice

I have posted a picture of myself . Usually I wonder if I am presentable enough or not. Yet somehow it is liberating to do it, knowing all the while I am posting an image of myself just me. i am almost 55, and remember when i was young that 55 seemed not old, but certainly not young. 25 years in the future i would be 80, and 25 years past I was 30.
Being 30 i know about, 80 is just something i will have to try on when it gets here. I think a lot about age...I am eligible to retire this year, and yet if i worked even 2 more years it would significantly change my retirement years, because I would move on in my career.
Career...what a word, especially for someone who in college just wanted to work a while, get married and be a mom..what a dope i was. I got the job, and the kid, and more work from both than I ever imagined...
So if you you look at me and think silly woman, what is she doing(or worse) think about the fact that you don't know me like i know me...simply huh?

Wildfires

SAN FRANCISCO - Wildfires raged in California on Tuesday, as the state marked the one-year anniversary of the devastating Angora fire, a massive blaze southwest of Lake Tahoe that destroyed 254 homes and charred 3,100 acres.
An "unprecedented" lightning storm Friday was the source of more than 800 wildfires, from Mendocino County south to the Big Sur area in Monterey County.
At least 200 of the fires remained unattended Tuesday as the state's limited resources were directed at the most immediate threats.

Yeah, thats right, california is burning...and my valley is full of smoke. Its like sunset all the time, can't see the sun, and in morning and evening the light turns pinky red.

Vacation ends, let the grind resume

I always feel that returning to work from vacation is the ultimate anticlimax in life. I had one job in my life so far that was the exception. Not any more, all i want to do is retire from the job I have now and do something else. I know thats a bad attitute, but work is pretty aggravating.
I have been saying this for the last 5 years, and then i do the numbers and realize I am stuck working for probably several years more, which is not cheering me up at all.
OH well...there is always the lottery, I think so far i may have won 20 bucks in the last 10 years..

So in the morning, I will drive to work, following a bizarre detour route prescribed by the State because of highway construction, and then resume my work...something that everyone from my boss to colleagues to subordinates all say i am very good at, yet I feel increasingly frustrated by the level of interference the client causes me in dealing with the project vendors...I will have to figure out a way to deal with that.

Democrat Lament

I didn't vote for Hillary or Obama in the California primary, I voted for someone else. I suppose my second choice would have been Hillary. Today I watched this noble woman give a speech to support a candidate she cited over and over again for the last year and a half as unfit to be president. Typical. We saw this in 2004, and every four years going back to who knows when-for the good of the party. I have to question my party, when they give "super delegates" the right to choose for me the nominee. The "evil" Republicans don't have such a rule.

I have to admit, I grew up in a time when people distrusted the government, but didn't define each other as anti-American and evil simply because they were Republican or Democrat...after all, those are political parties, but we are all Americans.

Back to the present, I want to know why the Democratic Party decided to punish two states by holding back half the delegates? I know people talk about Gore getting cheated out of being President, and I actually believe that, going back to distrust the government...I think the voting machines were rigged...but for crying out loud, even though I didn't vote for her, I think Mrs. Clinton was cheated by her own party. My party. How is that supposed to make me feel, that my party, the one I was so eager to join 40 years ago, just took a big dump on a woman who actually might have gotten elected President...
So, much to the chagrin of some, I will vote for someone else

While driving back north on th coast, i stopped and took a picture of

While driving back north on th coast, i stopped and took a picture of this freighter off the coast near Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

I could not make out the name on the side of ths ship.

Yesterday June 5

Ok, before we left, i decided to take the obligatory beach photos.

Ever see a 7 million dollar beach house?