a snow day is much cooler than a fire day



on friday, i bought a parakeet. i still don't have a name for it yet. i almost got around to go clubbing, but everyone all of a sudden got the urge to just stay home and chill, which i had no problems with. so we ended up watching pirates of the carribean instead.



on saturday, me, ray, casey, stan, steve, mark, mark's friend, and trish decided to hiking at mission trails. it was a afternoon hike to watch the sunset, and a hike back after dark. i went on a last minute whim having been decided all day that i wasn't going to go because it would be a lengthy 4 mile hike (2.5 hours). but the day passed by rather fast, and having slept through the whole day, i just decided to go, and took some vicodin with me as insurance. before i went though, i asked ray how it compares to the very easy torrey pines trails. he said it was pretty similar, just not much to look at. boy was he wrong. long story short, if it was even 25% of the difficulty (and change in elevation) that it actually was, that would have been my threshold of what i would have agreed to. amazingly, i was able to complete the hike both ways, but i did take my time. at some points of the hike, i could only go about 30 feet and i would have to rest again. i amazed myself than more than anyone. and the amazing thing was i felt fine later that day, and the day after. my quads and hamstrings felt very sore for a day or two after that. i think the hardest thing wasn't the legs or the back that was killing me. about 75% of all that made it hard was the lack of any cardiovascular fitness.



so after exerting myself quite more than i do on a normal basis (at least the last 9 months), i got to sleep before midnight. sunday, i woke up around 7am to find something interesting up in the sky. half the sky was half blue half orange. naturally, i got out my camera and took some pictures. a few minutes later i started smelling it in my room. i first thought it was rather unusual for a fire at camp pendelton to make smoke in la jolla appear that thick. so i turned on my tv and realized there was a fire nearby.



i wasn't too surprised to find out that they would be closing the campus (and most of san diego) on monday. ray and i decided to go to mt soledad to get a better look at the fire. but mt soledad wasn't high enough, and even if it was, we'd still be in the middle of it. later that day, we found out that the mission trails we went to go hiking on the day before was going to be burned down.



school and work for me was closed again on tuesday and wednesday due to horrible and unbelievable air quality concerns. i decided to keep myself busy by doing what makes me feel comfortable during these uncertain times which meant pleanty of comfort food like (boba every day, 2 trips to bully's, greasy mexican food) and just hanging out with friends.



on tuesday, the air was so bad outside (note the time), i went in search for better air. i went to coronado bay and was disappointed to find out that the air still wasn't clean. i drove back to la jolla to find out that it was still about 100x better than the air we were getting in La Jolla, so Nguyen met up with me and i drove to coronado bay the second time with him. we just cruised around national city/chula vista afterwards, then came back. i don't know who brought it up but i had an itch to play some blackjack, and nguyen wanted to get some prime rib, so we decided to head out to a casino. viejas (power) and barona (fire) for sure were closed. pala casino had a crappy buffet. so our only choice was sycuan. we tried calling but their line was busy, and since it wasn't too far, we decided to just drive there. so we got off the 8 at El Cajon blvd. driving about 5 miles in, we noticed some nice houses. the roads were a little too quiet though. even at a crisis like this, there should be some gamblers on the road. so we keep on driving, and it is unusually dark. and we look around, and we are passing houses, but they all have their lights off. it didn't take much to realize the power was out. we kept on driving hoping for a miracle that the casino would still have power. but once we're about 200 yards from the casino, we see a small spray painted sign that says "casino closed". nguyen still feeling like getting some prime rib, we decided to go to bully's. that would be the 2nd day in a row i would be going there.



wednesday wasn't too eventful. i spent most of the day at home, preparing for the return to work after an unexpected, unplanned, uncertain, expensive, and bittersweet 5 day weekend.



this fire was something that no one was prepared for, especially san diego. even i for about a day felt threatened when the fire hit about 5 miles from us in 2 directions (clairemont mesa and miramar). i always assumed that if the apartment burned down, i'd be covered, but as the fire got closer, it dawned on me that that probably wasn't the case. i never had to think about it before. luckily the fire didn't advance further than those areas, but i will be getting renters insurance for sure. my boss erik wasn't as fortunate. his beautiful house on scripps is gone. but he has insurance that looks like they will take care of everything. hopefully everything will be just fine once he gets settled.



this surely will be a wake up call for all of san diego to be more prepared for something like this in the future.