Observatorio de la Ballona

We arrived at Osage (this is, I think, the name of the place, to go with “Camp” as a unique identifier) this afternoon. My older daughter had a half day and I was able to get away from work early so it was a 3:45 or so arrival.

We noted that most of the leaves were gone from the trees. Three weeks ago, they were just beginning to turn yellow, now they are gone. The high winds that drove the destructive fires of the past weeks made a mark here too, although one hardly worth mentioning. We would soon see how windy it actually was.

When my wife went into the house, she commented on the condition of the kitchen. There is normally some dust on the counter when we make it out here, and I usually take part of the first evening to clean up the dust. This was an entirely different situation (altogether ). There was a visible layer of dust across the entire counter. My older daughter found the back bathroom covered in red dust. The Sun porch was inundated — every surface covered with dust. This is what 5 days of 35+ mile an hour wind can do when laden with dust.

There are other problems. The sprinkler valves in the yard have been leaking for a long time. So long you squish as you walk across the yard. The tree in the northeast corner fell down because the ground was so soggy. I used the truck to right it and a board to hold it up. The cover for the lawn mower, a gift from my father-in-law, is currently AWOL, taken away by the wind. The cover on the spa was pulled open (no water in the spa, so no drowning risk) and the lattice around the spa is broken.

I feel lucky. When we were here last I washed the kitchen floor, so the dust did not have grease to bind with. We just bought a new vacuum cleaner (a Dyson, we are very happy) and it has done a great job capturing the dust. We were able to knock out the worst of the problem on Friday night, leaving the weekend open. The tree is upright. No one has been hurt.

We are very lucky here.

The recovery activities did prevent me from getting the CG-5 set up. I have a new motor controller, and a new DMK firewire camera. I go to OPT tomorrow to get the final parts.

Finally the comet. Comet Holmes is easily visible to the naked eye. In Perseus, just below Casseopoiea, it is almost a star, but slightly fuzzy. With binoculars, it is a nice, slightly green, ball. As I always tell people when I am trying to get them to find a comet, it looks like nothing else in the sky.

Terrible start to the trip. First off-LAX parking lot was full, but not posted full, so I had to drive in and out. This may have cost me the opportunity to stand by on the 3pm flight. I was booked on the 4:05pm flight that eventually left at 6:05pm. Then my bag slipped and hit me in the face, splitting my lip as I left the airplane. The SAP event and Peter Ueberroth’s speech was good, and I got dinner and some good wine thanks to SAP. Finally, of to San Jose and AIC.

I went to the bar after checking in and had drinks with Doug George of Cyanogen (Maxim DL) and Steve Bisque of Software Bisque (Paramount ME). I actually went into the bar and got into the conversation, so interpret “had drinks” in that context. Steve’s brother was there too as were several other people.

So here is what I learned:

• Meade is toast. Going private, moving out of Orange County, probably entirely to China
• The RCX mount is the going to go off the market and is “the most costly mistake they ever made”
• No one with a going business would write for Linux because all Linux users expect software for free, and that’s not the way to run a business
• Maxim DL 5.0 is coming
• Meade has been a bully with lawsuits against many business partners (or even almost partners)

That’s all for a late Thursday night.

This has been two days of terrible fires in Southern California. We have personally been very lucky, with no loss of property or life in the immediate family. So far, the closest scrape has been the Roca fire in Aguanga. But the extended family was not so lucky.

There has been major damage to Lindemann house in Malibu. I was watching TV as the fire was burning, and was quite worried when I saw houses burst into flames at the ocean’s edge. The main fire was burning inland, but embers were blowing out over the Malibu Colony. The LA Times story on the fire has the following quote:

Among the other structures gutted was a home along Malibu Road. Its owner, Barbara T. Lindemann, said the house, built in 1927, was once inhabited by workers who built the railroad down the California coast. She said she has owned the home for 45 years.

Andy Lyon, a Realtor who helps rent the home for Lindemann, said it was worth $12 million to $13 million, and had burned once before, when singer John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas lived there.

“I believe that it was the last standing one of the original Malibu cottages,” said Lindemann, an attorney and expert in employment discrimination law. “It’s a piece of Malibu history.”

I remember the fire when John Phillips lived there. He left many of his belongings, including a large, psychedelic statue of a man with his arms raised.

Here are some pictures of the fire burning. We had hoped that it was OK because the roof was intact, but there was damage in the house from the heat of the fire next door. In the first picture, the Lindemann house is on the right.

In this second shot, the house is in the foreground.

Prayers to all who have suffered loss in these wildfires.

UPDATE: I found another photo. This is looking in from the beach to the house.

Just when I had a clear evening without the Moon and on a weekend, the computer in the observatory died forever. It has been having memory issues, but now it is really dead. It boots, starts loading Windows, then reboots during Windows start up. May it rest in peace, it is now just parts.

I have a replacement, but it was slated to go to Lake Riverside. Back to the drawing board.

My wife’s sister and brother-in-law came out to Lake Riverside for dinner and meteor watching last night. We had blue-foot chicken that my wife had found at Surfas Restaurant Supply, found the morning after we watched “Battle Blue-foot Chicken” on The Food Network’s Iron Chef America. A bit of a coincidence, and the chicken was good. The thighs were not fat and plump like regular store chicken, and the flavor was good. Altogether a nice dinner.

I missed all the satellites from Heavens-Above, but that is not much of a loss. I got out the C-8 (with now non-functioning drive motor) and we had a small observing run. It included M57, the Ring Nebula, Albireo, and two very nice globular clusters in Scorpius, M80 and M4. M80 is a small, tight ball of stars. M4 is much larger and is visible with binoculars, as we discovered last night.

Meteor watching was OK, with my daughter reporting 16 seen over 2 hours from 10pm to midnight. I stayed up until 1am, but did not see too many more. The Milky Way was quite beautiful, and Andromeda was visible to the naked eye. Very pretty.

I hope to see more meteors tonight, and have another visual-only, manual observing run.

On June 2, 2007 at 12:23pm PDT, our daughter was born in St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. She was a bit early, 3lbs 10oz, 18 inches. Mother and daughter have done well over the last three weeks.

I’ve been short on sleep as you might imagine. I’ve had some ideas for posts, but no energy. Perhaps over the next week…

I know it is not like I post often or anyone really reads this blog, but I am off to India for work and don’t think I’ll get a chance to post much.

I have M1, NGC 2903, and NGC 2403 to post, but I need to create final versions, worthy of exposure to the public. I hope to post them soon after I return and recover. And I’ve got to get back out to Aguanga.

So this blog has become a chronicle of Lake Riverside events.

This past week has been very cold in California. I was worried about the pipes in Aguanga, but we needed the long weekend at home. Then, on Monday morning (Martin Luther King day), I heard a story on the radio about how the DWP was busy helping people who had burst pipes. That’s burst pipes from the cold. In Los Angeles.

So that made me worried about the house in Aguanga. My wife and I spoke about it and agreed that I would sacrifice my afternoon and drive out to check out the house.

As I drove up the to gate, I knew we had a problem. I could see the glint of water between the house and the workshop. The main line into the house had broken. It is a 2″ PVC pipe. Not my choice, I’d prefer copper. But another do-it-yourself work on the house had left this pipe there and it was broken. I turned off the valve by the line. The water to the workshop had no problem.

It was 44° outside and 46° inside. No worries about inside pipes, but I checked. I ran the heat to warm things up. But there was only one problem, the main line. The pump is off. The main line is off – at the pump. We await the plumber.

We were up at our place in Lake Riverside (Aguanga) last weekend. My wife’s sister had a nice Epiphany get together in Murietta. And the 35 miles from Aguanga to Murietta is a lot better than the 85 miles from LA to Murietta. We also had the pleasure of having my in-laws with us.

We were preparing to leave on Sunday. It had been a very windy day, and as I was talking with my father-in-law I noted that there were clouds of dust passing overhead. I looked to the south and noticed another cloud. It took me a moment, but I realized that it was not dust, but smoke. We ran to the edge of the hill to the south and saw a fire that was probably only five minutes old.

The wind was blowing from the east. The fire had started at the edge of the Lakeshore Boulevard and was quickly moving west, about one half mile south of the house. The fire department drove up shortly after we looked down. The fire was racing with the wind, spreading rapidly and seemingly consuming everything in its path. My father-in-law noted that a dark cloud remained at what seemed to be the staring point of the fire. We then saw a flash and heard the bang of an explosion as a car burst into flames at the start of the fire.

The rest of the family joined us watching the fire. It seemed to calm down to white smoke for a few moments, then flash into a burst of black smoke as if found fresh fuel. We were not in danger. The fire had started down wind of us and was moving away. Scary, but not a danger.

We had watched long enough and got in the car and left the house. On our way out, we saw two California Department of Forestry planes come in. We saw them make several water drops on the fire. As we drove out to I-15 in Temecula, at least 10 fire trucks passed us as the headed to the fire. According to the stories below, 186 firefighters responded, and no homes were damaged. Great work firefighters!

I found two articles on the fire thanks to Google News. The first article was from the The Californian, an edition of the North County Times. We are only about 8 miles from the northern edge of San Diego County.

Brush fire burned 30 acres

By: The Californian -

AGUANGA —- A brush fire burned about 30 acres Sunday afternoon in a rural community near Aguanga, about 18 miles east of Temecula along Highway 371, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The department dispatched 22 engines and 186 firefighters to battle the blaze, which was reported at about 2:50 p.m. in a brushy area near Lakeshore Boulevard and Forest Springs Road in the residential hamlet of Lake Riverside, CDF officials said on the department’s Web site. Authorities believe the fire was started by a vehicle crashing into vegetation.

Firefighters prevented flames from damaging about 60 nearby residences in the sparsely populated area, officials said. The crews were still mopping up Sunday evening with plans to continue patrol operations throughout the night as north and northeasterly winds of up to 25 mph persisted, officials said.

Voluntary evacuations in the Lake Riverside area were lifted and no evacuations had been ordered and no injuries were reported, authorities said.

I like that our house is in a “hamlet.”

The second article was from the Riverside Press Enterprise.

Crews contain fire to 30 acres

12:12 AM PST on Monday, January 8, 2007

The Press-Enterprise

A brush fire blackened about 30 acres Sunday in the Anza area before the flames were surrounded by firefighters, authorities said.

The fire, believed to have been started by a spark from a vehicle that drove on dry vegetation, was reported about 2:50 p.m. near the 40000 block of Lakeshore Boulevard in the Lake Riverside area southwest of Anza, said Patrick Chandler spokesman for Riverside County Fire Department. He said 186 firefighters contained the blaze at 8 p.m. and prevented the flames from spreading to about 60 homes in the sparsely populated area.

He said a voluntary evacuation for the area has been lifted and firefighters plan to do mop up activities and patrol operations through the night. Winds of about 20 mph complicated firefighting efforts but did not hinder the crews from getting the blaze under control, he said.

–Herbert Atienza

hatienza@PE.com

Our lot and the lots to the East and South are well cleared, so I am not to worried about our house. But this was a stark reminder that fire can move fast in dry brush, with high winds, and with low humidity. Too close for comfort.

On Friday, January 5th, a wind storm knocked out our power in Los Angeles at about 3am. When we left for Aguanga at Noon, it was still out. This is the 4th time we have had a major outage at our house in the past year.

1. Blown transformer at the end of the block that left a live high-power line dangling in the street,
2. Blown transformer around the block,
3. A transformer fell off a power pole into our neighghbor’s house two doors north when the termite-eaten support collapsed, and
4. This wind-caused outage

I sure am glad we have UPSs on all of the computers. Perhaps I need to set up the wiring so I can plug a generator into the house. Our neighbor has that set-tup. He disconnects himself from the city grid and plugs the generator into a socket at his outdoor power panel. The generator takes the place of the grid, and everything in the house works. It is pretty cool.

We were very impressed with our Bose Wave Radio‘s performance during the outage. Like many clock-radios, it has a 9-volt battery that allows it to keep the time when the power is out. But Bose went one step further — the alarm worked on the battery. So with a power outage it won’t let you oversleep. Great design, if you ask me. In addition, when you modify the settings on one of the two alarms, it turns the alarm on. Good design again.

Update The power did not come on until 5am on Saturday. It went off at 2:49 am Friday. 26 hours of outage. Ouch.