[Aaron W.]

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Beat: The rest of this whole [censored] weekend. [censored] fires in the ear. What is this [censored]? I'm flying into SD at 9 pm on Sunday night, and all of a sudden I see a raging inferno on the right side of the plane. Whoa! Then I look out the left window, and there's ANOTHER inferno! Who knew Hell would take up residence in the San Diego area just in time for my arrival? I left beautiful weather in Rochester for what was supposed to be better weather down here, not patchy smoke with a chance of asthma and a long range forecast of lung cancer. The windows of my hotel room don't even fully close. It smells like a damn girl scout marshmallow roast in here. I can't even escape the smoke by coming inside.

Variance: I actually have a [censored] hotel room to sleep in tonight. Last night, we were all thinking that the smoke can sucka sucka dick, y'all, but that it wouldn't be a huge deal other than the air quality and turning the pool a sickly gray and raising it's pH to a rather harmful 9. This morning, they evacuate the whole Carmel valley, which is just east of me. At dinner, they evacuate up to 8 blocks away from my hotel. After dinner, they've evacuated up to two blocks away from my hotel. My hotel's not evacuated yet, for some reason. I do expect a call from the reverse 911 system (in Soviet San Diego, 911 calls YOU!) at about 4 am telling me that I need to leave, though. I suppose it beats spending the night on the floor of the conference room, but I expect to curse out the automated voice telling me to get out of dodge before I turn into a crispy critter.

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I was in San Diego in 2003 when it burned down. I knew a guy who lived near the 805 freeway and could see the flames on the other side of the freeway. It's pretty fantastic stuff in an eerie apocalyptic way. Just be glad you'll be leaving and you won't have to deal with it raining ash for the next couple weeks.