Firefighters are predicting another difficult battle today as they try to prevent a wildfire that has already burned 35,000 acres from destroying more homes along a massive front that extends from Acton near the Antelope Valley to Altadena in the San Gabriel Valley.

With temperatures expected to reach the mid- to high 90s today in the fire areas, officials said they were expecting extreme fire conditions, mirroring Saturday’s, when flames leapt as high as 80 feet and spread at a rate of about 2.5 miles an hour.

More than 2,000 fire personnel now are deployed fighting the Station Fire.

In the Acton area, mandatory evacuations have been ordered along the 14 Freeway from Soledad Canyon Road to Crown Valley Road and along Aliso Canyon Road from Soledad Canyon Road to Angeles Forest Highway.

The California Highway Patrol has also closed the on and offramps to the 14 Freeway at Soledad Canyon Road, Agua Dulce, Escondido Canyon Road, Red Rover Mine Road and Crown Valley Road. They said that they were concerned that fire behavior in the area could become extreme as they were expecting the wind to shift around 10 a.m.

At its eastern flank, officials said that the fire was about two miles from Mt. Wilson, site of a number of important communications towers and an observatory. Ground crews are cutting back vegetation and brush in the area to arrest the fire’s progress.

At its southwestern flank, the fire is spreading actively in the foothills above the 210 Freeway, from Altadena to Little Tujunga. Officials said they had four control objectives for the day:

-- Keep the fire west of Mt. Wilson Road

-- Keep it south of Highway 14.

-- Keep it east of Interstate 5.

-- Keep it north of both Foothill Boulevard and Altadena Drive.

Los Angeles County Fire Department Capt. Bill Sanchez said fire crews needed to cut about 110 miles of fire line to stop the fire’s trajectory.

He said the wind changed direction overnight, particularly in the mountainous areas of the Angeles National Forest, to a down-canyon wind, which pushed it toward some residential areas.

“Due to the volatility at the top of some of the areas, it is going to be really challenging,” Sanchez said. “We have a lot of work ahead of us. There is quite a bit of instability at the top of the fire.”

Weary firefighters were hoping for slightly cooler weather and more resources today as they battled the Station Fire.

The fire marched north overnight through remote mountain ridges toward Acton. The U.S. Forest Service was sending firefighters into those areas, which have become the northern edge of the blaze. Mandatory evacuations were in effect in La Cañada Flintridge, Pasadena, La Crescenta, Altadena, Glendale and Big Tujunga Canyon.

Today is supposed to be the last day of a five-day heat wave that has brought triple-digit temperatures along the fire lines. Forecasters said temperatures will drop a few degrees today and that lower temperatures, morning clouds and more humidity are on tap for the next few days.

But even with no winds in the forecast, firefighters said the conditions remain highly dangerous.

Forest Service officials said three civilians were burned and airlifted from rural Big Tujunga Canyon, where at least three to five homes were destroyed. One fire official, after surveying the canyon, estimated that the toll may be much worse.

 

Firefighters climbed through backyards at the ends of the cul-de-sacs fronting the forest, laying their hoses and waiting to make a stand.

 

Ten helicopters dropping buckets of water and eight air tankers were enlisted in the daytime fight.

Officials also are deploying at least one DC-10, one of the largest and most expensive pieces of firefighting equipment in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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By Chris Erskine

August 30, 2009

Waiting and worrying as flames toy with a town

My town on the edge of the hill is fearful and a little forlorn. For four days, the flames have crept across the mountain. There's been barely a wisp of wind to feed it or hurry it along. So it chews its way slowly through the scrub oak, the manzanita, the buckwheat. I look up at the ridge, lighted like a candelabra, and think: Now it's our turn. Dante's California.

Saturday, there was a sense of relief, then more concern as the fire fattened itself on neighboring communities. At this point, it could explode, or it could mostly smolder till cool weather comes.

In the news business, they say no one cares about wildfires except the folks amid them. Well, those folks really, really care. Here in La Cañada Flintridge, there is talk of calling the TV stations pleading for more coverage and information. There is talk of calling Sacramento to release those ginormous water-dropping planes. The rest of us, we watch the hillsides, we wait. The smoke is surreal, a curtain that just won't fall.

Even in the best of times, La Cañada Flintridge can be an odd place -- afraid of change one moment, dynamic and progressive the next. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory lives here, as do countless entertainment execs. The Dodgers' Rafael Furcal lives here too, up the hill, near the candelabra.

La Cañada is known for its wealth and its schools, but like every small town, it has its quirks and its kooks. When we moved here 15 years ago, the John Birch Society had a booth at the Memorial Day picnic. When the pols recently wanted to tap families $150 to help education, a reasonable sum in a town of million-dollar homes, they had a fight on their hands, believe you me.

And now they have these fires.

They are intense but, until Saturday, were moving mercifully slow. Their slow pace was better for everybody -- firefighters, evacuees -- but draining nonetheless. It reminded me of awaiting a hurricane, the way we did in the South. As you may know from sweaty Robert Mitchum movies, hurricanes are dastardly things; they hold you hostage.

Same with these blazes, which began Wednesday and just seemed to loiter. Most wildfires, you don't dare turn your back. On this one, most of my neighbors went to bed like always Thursday and Friday, figuring it'd still be where it was by morning. It was moving slowly all right. But it wasmoving.

By late afternoon Saturday, damage reports were remarkably low, considering the acreage burned. Firefighters made a stand on the hillsides, yet the fire seemed to mock them by spreading east, then west, toward Altadena and La Crescenta.

La Cañada, a town of 20,671, has always been a potential tinderbox. Fire officials have pleaded with residents for years to cut back the giant deodars that bridge the roadways. County firefighters have done controlled burns in the area for the last five years, hoping to prevent the worst-case scenario: a fire barreling down the crest, pushed by the ferocious Santa Anas, into the bull's-eye that is La Cañada.

But this has been a more subdued storm, if such things can ever be that. As the fire inched slowly down the hill Friday night, what winds there were pushed it back up, slowing it even further. As it reached the edge of town Saturday, it seemed to rebound and spread. So, we watch. We wait.

"Happy Valley," I call it, for, despite its provincial nature, La Cañada is still a remarkably comfortable suburb, stubbornly traditional and relentlessly earnest. The moms basically run the place. The dads show up on weekends.

No surprise, the most timely news on these fires has come from Facebook, that province of the modern mother.

"The parts of the mountain that burned last night look like they've had a buzz cut," Kathy Hernandez wrote Friday. "The fire's definitely spread out since yesterday. I was down at the high school for the back to school teacher luncheon. . . . They've got the North Gym all set up with cots in case people need a place to sleep."

Ash is everywhere, SoCal snow -- on the rooftops, on the cars. The Pasadena Humane Society is standing by, ready to help care for pets. One of the insurance companies has already set up shop.

School opens Monday. Maybe.

At JPL, helicopters refuel on the mesa, then dip their buckets in the ponds at the country club. Everywhere, smoke and flames. And 5% containment.

So the evacuations, and the worry, continue. The dads clean the gutters of leaves and other potential fuel, load the car and point it toward the street for a quick getaway.

As for those Super Scoopers, Assemblyman Anthony Portantino says he and others have been working on it. He says the government contract with the Canadian firm that supplies the planes doesn't start till Sept. 1 (Tuesday). The firm agreed to send them early, but they are grounded by the weather up north. And it usually takes two days to get them here.

Till then, we watch the hillsides. At night, they look like lava.

And we wait.

We ALL wait...

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Update:

Schwarzenegger urges residents in path of flames to flee as fire roars in three directions

We like to leave early for LAX, to beat the traffic, though that rarely works. For a 6:30 a.m. flight, for example, we will usually arrive about 4 a.m., maybe 4:30, to find the airport aglow with brake lights, brighter than the Vegas Strip.

We will stumble through lines and poorly marked security drop-offs and barely make our flight, despite our certainty that our early arrival should have guaranteed at least 45 minutes to spare. By then, we are usually missing a shoe.
Mayors come and mayors go, but Los Angeles International Airport -- like the city's public schools -- seems never to get any better. The only public official to make a difference in recent memory is the Irish bloke, Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton, and he is headed for greener, more lucrative pastures. Now what are we to do?

Deal with it, I suppose. LAX surely offers some of the most intractable challenges. The lines. The cramped quarters. I get on a full plane at LAX and marvel that anybody else actually made it aboard. In that sense, LAX is a triumph of the human spirit.
I marvel too at the signage, small or often absent. Were I running LAX, I'd turn to the Art Center in Pasadena for help. "Please, please," I'd beg, "make us some signs that people will see and understand. Help the out-of-towners find a shuttle bus to the rental lot. Help me find the 105 east."
We have lived in L.A. for almost two decades, and it is a place I am proud to call home. Yet, when I leave on trips, I always get a big heaping dose of perspective on the way we live here, with LAX always topping the list of things to carp about.

So here, at the height of the summer travel season, are my latest observations on our great city, con and pro:

* Most airports are better than ours.

* Most newspapers are worse than ours.

* Hipsters are now everywhere, and they all wear the same hat.

* L.A. has the best freeway drivers in the universe; it's not even close.

* Good weather is one of the greatest gifts.

* The quickest predictor of what any trip will be like is the rental car counter. Good service, good trip. Bad service, bad trip.

* If you want to see real road rage, or ornery sports fans, go someplace cold and rusty.

Which brings me to our biggest local embarrassment aside from LAX: bad waiters.
OK, maybe not the biggest, but right up there. Again, I don't know why this never shows up on mayoral agendas, for the service in our restaurants is a super-sized civic blotch. Like rental car counters, it is one of those barometers that are representative of bigger things.
Sure, I've had excellent service in L.A. -- twice in 20 years. I was so impressed, I left my car as a tip both times.

In hindsight, this probably seems overly generous, but you never saw the cars I drove, or the superb and inspired service I received. In general, I am a liberal tipper and rarely stiff even the most awful waiters or waitresses. I was once poisoned and still left 18%.
The other night, we tried a little place representative of a typical L.A. dining experience, a hot new bistro called Torture.

At Torture, the hostess says "This way, please" and doesn't really mean it, frequently leading you in a zigzag pattern between tables and through the kitchen itself. When she finally seats you, she snarls "Enjoy your meal," knowing full well no one there ever has.

Torture is a lot like many high-end Los Angeles restaurants. No one who works at Torture really wants to be there. There are no smiles, no teamwork, no "let me help with that." If you happen to choke on a piece of veal -- and you probably will -- you're entirely on your own.
Torture is an Asian-infused Italian bistro with a big menu in a font you can't really read -- might as well be in Portuguese. When you ask for the English translation, they look at you like you're trouble. Trust me, Torture does not want trouble.

"All I ask is subtitles," I asked.
"Then go to a movie," snarled the waiter.
Generally, it's not a good idea to provoke the waiters at Torture. Our waiter the other night looked like he'd just punched a man. His knuckles were bleeding and he was on the phone to an attorney.
But don't fixate on the service, for at Torture the emphasis is strictly on the food. There are about 12 items on the menu, none of which you really want to eat. There is chicken and salmon, usually steamed and under-seasoned. The broccoli tastes like the green beans, which taste like the snow peas, which taste like the kebabs.

Most of the food, I'm pretty sure, was made last year, then microwaved back to life (offering the same sense of artificial rebirth you get when you see photos of Joan Collins or Fidel Castro).

Julie, Julia and me: Now it can be told

By RUSS PARSONS

Nora Ephron's 'Julie & Julia' gets the tale just right.

At a certain point in the wonderful new movie "Julie & Julia," there is a plot twist so shocking the audience gasps. Julia Child does something that seems so totally out of character that even on the way out, people were still shaking their heads. "How could she?" Well, that's one mystery I can solve. I was right there in the middle of it.
Before I go any further, I have to warn you that this column is as full of spoilers as an unplugged refrigerator in August. If you haven't already seen the movie, you might want to wait to read this until after you have.

Meryl Streep

And you certainly should see it. "Julie & Julia" is superb on so many levels. It's a terrific story to begin with, how two women from completely different generations claim their identities through food.
Meryl Streep is astonishing. The way she captures Julia Child is something special. Streep inhabits her in a way that is eerie. Watch her move: Pay attention to the way she holds her elbows and cocks her head. That's Julia.

More important, while Streep certainly gets Julia's sometimes loopy enthusiasm, she also gets the deep seriousness that was obvious only to those who knew her fairly well. This is no Dan Aykroyd skit; this is Julia Child with gravitas, which is to say the real Julia Child. In fact, leaving the theater and looking at the poster, I had to remind myself that Julia Child did NOT have Meryl Streep's face.

Amy Adams is also appealing as Julie Powell, the blogger who set herself the task of cooking completely through Julia's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in a single year. And writing about it on her blog (which she later turned into a book). That likability is no small trick when playing a character whose main literary attribute was pretty much one endless whine.
All of that only makes the plot twist so much more shocking. When Julie is told late in the movie that Julia Child doesn't like the blog, she collapses in tears.
And we wonder too. How could Julia do such a thing?

The scoop
Ahem, I'm pretty much knee-deep in that episode. I was the first writer for a major newspaper to write about the "Julie/Julia" blog. (I know, never mind what the movie says: Check the publication dates and you'll see that my story ran almost a full month before the Christian Science Monitor's; and don't even get me started on my good friend former New York Times food writer Amanda Hesser nabbing an actual appearance in the film, skinny little witch.)
When Julia had moved to her retirement home in Montecito, I had taken advantage of her proximity to deepen what up to that time had been a cordial professional friendship. Whenever I traveled north, I would make a point to see her, bring her lunch, take her to dinner, even just stop for a drink and a chat. I was so lucky.

When I found "The Julie/Julia Project" online, I was fascinated by it. It seemed to me that finally here was a cooking blog that was succeeding on its own literary terms. Rather than mimicking mainstream media, Powell was taking what works best about blogs -- the intimate feeling of sharing someone's innermost thoughts in something approaching real time -- and using it to write about cooking.
"Julie/Julia" worked brilliantly, particularly when read in short bursts. Powell created a likable character (well, as I said, in short bursts), and the plot had a genuine sense of suspense -- remember, it was being posted as it happened, so you really didn't know whether she would finish or crash and burn. This was true both in the short term (could she succeed with a dish?) and the long (could she really keep her sanity through 524 recipes?).
Of course, I was also interested in what Julia might think about it. So I printed out the whole thing and took it up to her. She hadn't heard about it, but promised to have a look and get back to me.
I didn't hear from her for several days, so eventually I called her up. "So Julia," I asked, "what do you think?"

There was a silence as she gathered her thoughts. Then in that familiar reedy voice she nailed the answer: "Well," she said, "she just doesn't seem very serious, does she?
"I worked very hard on that book. I tested and retested those recipes for eight years so that everybody could cook them. And many, many people have. I don't understand how she could have problems with them. She just must not be much of a cook."

She asked me not to quote her, and after thinking it over, I didn't, choosing a valued friendship over a couple of juicy paragraphs in a story. I'm still not sure it was the right call, but there you have it.
So that solves part of the mystery of Julia's dis: professional pride.
This won't come as a surprise to anyone who knew her well. One of the marvelous things about Julia Child was that even with all of the honors she had earned, she still approached her work with the earnestness (and competitiveness) of a beginner.

At food conferences, you could always count on her being in the front row taking notes. And she fretted over her work as much as any first-time author. I remember being at her table at a book awards dinner when "Julia and Jacques," her terrific work with friend Jacques Pepin, was passed over for book of the year.
I know from hard experience that losing awards competitions is a gut-churning business. But I do take some comfort in the fact that it was obviously just as hard for Julia Child as it has been for me.

What a gloriously wonderful woman and cook she was.  But I’ll always remember that Dan Akroyd skit on Saturday Night Live.  “Save the Liver!!”.  LOL!!!

Tim McGraw today!!  HAH!!

I hope your week is perfect!!

Hiroki Kuroda incident makes one question rites of retaliation

Horrific hit on the pitcher's mound was an accident, but intentionally plunking players could lead to equally scary outcomes.

VERY Scary!!

T J Simers, LA Times

It's one pitch, the 70th thrown by Dodgers pitcher Hiroki Kuroda on a Saturday night, nothing extraordinary happening in a game like most others until someone named Rusty Ryal lines the baseball off Kuroda's head.
Right above the right ear, striking at a velocity, Dodgers trainer Stan Conte will say later, twice what ordinarily causes serious brain injury.
It's horrific to witness, the sound like none other heard before, unimaginable at this moment what damage might've been done.
"I hear that ugly sound and then I hear Rick Honeycutt say, 'Oh no.' My knee hits the ground,' " Manager Joe Torre says. "Scary. I didn't know what I was going to see when I got out there."

The TVs hanging in the press box show replay after replay, and what surely must be every pitcher's nightmare, although today most would probably say, in a macho moment, it's surrendering a game-winning home run.
Seven years ago it's Dodgers pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii who takes a batted ball off the head in Dodger Stadium, requiring facial surgery. Eleven years ago in this stadium Houston pitcher Billy Wagner is hit in the head, and his catcher is Kuroda's catcher on this night, Brad Ausmus.
A day later the Astros put Wagner on the disabled list.
Maybe it's the way this diamond in Chase Field has been designed, but it looks as if it inspires such disaster.

It's the only park in the National League with a strip of dirt cut into the grass, leading from hitter to pitcher -- the only thing missing at the launching point an arrow pointing directly at the target.
A few innings later Juan Pierre lines a ball directly on path to hit the head of pitcher Clay Zavada, Zavada quick enough to flinch out of the way in time.
Kuroda has no such chance. The ball not only strikes him on the head, his arm raised too late to stop it, but it hits him so hard it ricochets like a pop fly, bouncing once and going into the stands.
"My first thought is Kuroda, my second to try and catch the ball" off Kuroda's head, Ausmus says.
Later the official scorer here will announce "Rusty Ryal is credited with a ground-rule double."

Ryal, though, appears shaken, his manager meeting him at second base to say whatever a manager might say to someone who has done their job well only to be heartbroken for doing so.
The Dodgers' training staff is right there. Kuroda is still down on the mound, always alert, eyes never closing, and at one point wanting to know if the ball has been caught. He's surrounded by Dodgers. There is no blood.

Officials become concerned, though, when he complains of nausea. He's tied to a stretcher, lifted onto a cart and while leaving the field raises both arms.
It's tough to know whether he's acknowledging the crowd's encouraging applause or he's reaching for his painful head, a trainer answering the question by pulling down Kuroda's hands and holding them across Kuroda's chest.

He's taken by ambulance to a hospital, James McDonald is called on to pitch and one hitter later, the scoreboard urges the crowd to chant, "Beat L.A."

Up in the press box, someone who covers the Dodgers for the radio station that broadcasts their games is upset with the Diamondbacks fans reaction following such an unsettling scene.
The other option is to call off the game and everyone go home, but it continues to be played and it's hard to criticize fans who are going on much like the players on the field.

A night earlier these same players engaged in one of baseball's oldest traditions: You hit our guy and we hit your guy. Ridiculous, and more so now given evidence of what could happen with a pitch that just gets away.

No one gets tagged with a bean ball Friday night, Mark Reynolds for the Diamondbacks and Andre Ethier for the Dodgers getting hit high on the shoulders, so all ends well.

In New York earlier Saturday the Mets' third baseman gets hit in the head and is later taken to the hospital in an ambulance. In retaliation, the Mets' pitcher throws a pitch behind a Giants hitter, his teammates later probably critical of him privately for not drilling the guy.

Chad Billingsley will tell you what that's like.
Everyone in baseball will tell you it's just the way the game is played, banking on fair play and hot-headed players keeping their emotions in check and not hitting someone in the head when aiming for the small of the back.
"We're trying to throw the ball on the corners and you see how that goes at times," Torre says when asked about the chances of someone being hit in the head in such retaliation sequences.
It's stupid, always has been, and a few inches higher Friday night and Ethier might still be wondering where he is today.

A guy hits a home run, and the way this game is played these days, there's every chance someone might get plunked.
The Diamondbacks not only hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth, but back-to-back bombs off Jonathan Broxton to tie it, and if Kuroda isn't lying on the same mound an hour earlier, wonder where the next pitch might have gone?
Someone might argue the two situations are entirely different, one a fluke with no helmet to dull the blow and the other in keeping with the way the players must police their own game.
Watching someone get hurt is sickening. The possibility that it might be done deliberately in the guise of team play is insanity. It's the worst message baseball sends to youngsters.
Arizona wins this game an inning later, on any other night a sickening end for everyone in a Dodgers uniform, but the amazing report on Kuroda from the clubhouse is nothing but good news.

As much as the term is thrown around in sports, it really is a miracle finish.

Maybe pitchers should start wearing helmets.  These teams play again today!

Have a nice Sunday

A wonderful man passed away yesterday who will never be forgotten by guitarists everywhere and musicians worldwide.

Les Paul and his wife, Mary Ford, perform on guitar. Paul, 94, the guitarist and inventor who changed the course of music with the electric guitar and multitrack recording, has died.

In 1953, Mary Ford and Les Paul strum in the television studio that serves as their workroom at their Oakland, N.J., home. The couple liked to test their records to see how they would sound to jukebox listeners.

On a 1950s-era European tour, Ford and Paul conduct an interview with Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany.

Les Paul repairs one of the many control boards used for recording in his New Jersey home. Paul died Thursday in White Plains, N.Y.

From left, Chet Atkins, Dolly Parton, Freddy Fender and Les Paul at the 19th annual Grammy Awards, where Parton and Fender presented awards to Aktins and Paul.

Les Paul, left, and Al Di Meola at Paul's home recording studio in July 1980.

Guitar designer Les Paul, center, with guitarist Jeff Beck at left, signs Jimmy Page's chest. Paul had just signed the former Led Zeppelin member's guitar. The revelry was part of a 72nd birthday party thrown for Les Paul by the Gibson Guitar Co. at New York's Hard Rock Cafe.

Paul McCartney tries out a custom-made left-handed "Les Paul Lite" presented to him by designer Les Paul in New York.

Guitar guru Paul, left, and Slash team up at a House of Blues show.

A 1959 Gibson Les Paul guitar, at Norman's Rare Guitars in Reseda.

A rare Gibson Les Paul flame-top guitar is among about 50 vintage guitars for sale at a 1998 auction.

Gibson Les Paul No. 9 comes from a numbered series that Pete Townshend carried on the road during the band's '70's heyday. The image is from the book "Treasures of the Hard Rock Cafe: The Original Guide to the Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia Collection,"

A trio of Les Paul custom guitars, at Hollywood Guitar Center.

Farewell to a true genius and innovator who changed the face of the music world.  He will be missed.

I’m gonna post a song today that most of you will not like (hate??), but it’s mostly a long guitar solo played on a Les Paul guitar.  The band is Chicago Transit Authority who later simply became Chicago. The guitar player is Terry Kath of whom Jimi Hendrix became a huge fan of.  He used no 'wah' or 'fuzz' pedals like Hendrix did, but plugged directly into the studio amplifiers.  They were sued by the City of Chicago for their name and changed it to Chicago.  This song was released in April 1969.  So, there is your musical history lesson for the week.  There will be a quiz later!!  LOL!!!

Have a GREAT Friday and weekend!!

Colorado woman who fed bears is killed by one

You might want to think twice before reading this.  Oh Yeah,  Now that I said that you want to read this even more!!

Donna Munson, 74, considered the black bears that swarmed across her land in southwestern Colorado to be her pets.
She fed them dog food and scraps -- poking the food through a metal fence she built around her porch -- attracting so many bears that neighbors sometimes counted as many as 14 on her property at a time.

On Friday, one of them killed and ate Munson, slashing her head through the fence and dragging her body underneath it.

"She was dead set on continuing to feed the bears, and unfortunately, she paid the ultimate price," said Ouray County Sheriff's Investigator Joel Burk, who had to shoot a bear that tried to approach Munson's remains as he interviewed witnesses.
If Munson's death is the worst consequence that can result when people get too familiar with wild animals, her actions were extreme, Tyler Baskfield, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, said Tuesday.

What’s with THIS???

Her death is one of the rare instances in which bears have killed people in Colorado; officials have recorded two other fatal attacks since they began keeping track in the 1960s.
For the last decade, Munson had developed a reputation for doting on wildlife at her log cabin in Ouray County, about 190 miles southwest of Denver. She fed bears, skunks, elk and stray cats, said Tammy York, 36, who boarded with Munson seven years ago.

She described Munson as a sweet woman whose husband had died years ago and who seemed to have little contact with people. "I think she really loved them and loved to watch them," York said.
And Munson and others were watched in return. "It was like being in a zoo. We looked at the animals, but they also looked in our windows," she said.
When bears began breaking into nearby homes -- apparently seeking the dog food they were accustomed to getting from Munson -- neighbors complained. Wildlife officers tried to persuade her to stop, Baskfield said.

It didn't work, and last year the state sent her a letter warning that it would pursue legal action if Munson didn't stop.
When she continued, officers began working on building a case against her, Baskfield said.
But state law requires proof that a person is knowingly feeding wildlife, and Baskfield said officers didn't have the evidence they needed to issue a citation. He said he doubted a $100 fine would have stopped Munson.

"To friends and family she trusted, she would tell them, yes, she was feeding the bears, but they were harmless, they were her friends. She was helping them and they would help her," Burk said. "When people told her she was in danger, she would refute that, saying, 'These are my pets, my babies.' "
On Thursday, the night before her death, Munson made reference to one of those "babies" as she spoke on the phone with a relative. "Oh, the little bear is here. I need to go and take care of the little bear," Burk said Munson told a family member.

The next day, a man arrived at her home to ask about a painting job and spotted her body, Burk said.
Munson apparently was standing inside her porch when a bear swiped at her face through the fence, Burk said. An autopsy released this week indicated that she was unconscious when the bear pulled her underneath the fence into the yard. Her walker was found inside the fence, Burk said.
"It was one of the more gruesome scenes I've dealt with," he said.
Burk was interviewing witnesses at the scene when a 250-pound bear approached, ignoring deputies as it tried to reach Munson's remains. "It had no fear," said Burk, who ushered witnesses into his car, retrieved a shotgun and shot the animal.

A 400-pound bear was shot the next morning as it nosed around the scene. An autopsy revealed human flesh and Munson's shirt in its stomach.
In the nearby community of Ouray, some are upset with Munson for endangering them, said Christine Kersen, owner of Apteka, a liquor store on the town's main street.
Feeding the bears was foolish, she said. "They're wild animals. They're not pets."

My heart goes out to her but Damn!!!

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And Finally.....

Watch out for falling fish

A woman in Ohio is telling a fish story about one that got away -- from a bird, and damaged her car.

Authorities in northwest Ohio say the fish -- a Lake Erie freshwater drum, known as a sheepshead -- smashed a car windshield Tuesday when an eagle dropped its catch from a height of about 40 feet.

Leighann Niles said the impact felt like a brick hitting her Toyota's windshield.

The woman from the Cleveland suburb of South Euclid was vacationing along the lake in Marblehead.

I can't access my music files so you are stuck with this song.  As if anyone listens....  LOL!  OH!!  Fileden is back!!  New Brad Paisley song.

Friday!!  Whooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

By Frank Mickadeit, Orange County Register

LMAO!!!!

Deep-sea fishing, based on my meager experience, is mostly about trying not to throw up – or if you are among the fortunate, actually being able to throw up. Before dawn even broke Saturday, slowly motoring out on my second ocean-fishing voyage, I was given the opportunity to throw up while still in the harbor. “Frankie, grab that bucket and mix up some cat food and oatmeal,” McNerney ordered. “Make some chum.”

So I stirred up a nice stinky mess of wet Friskies and Quaker Oats (and nearly added my own special ingredients – half-digested coffee-and-doughnut), thus beginning my initiation into the Interclub Challenge, the annual “gentlemen's” fishing tournament of the three major Newport yacht clubs: Newport Harbor, Balboa and Bahia Corinthian.

Dan McNerney and I were on John Carvelli's boat, the Tre Figlie. McNerney because he can fish and me because I have the other necessary talent for deep-sea fishing: the ability to steadily drink beer from 7:30 a.m. to dusk at a consistent eight-ounce-an-hour clip.

The chum was used to catch bait fish – 8-inch-long mackerel – just outside the harbor. God put these poor creatures on earth not only with an attraction to wet cat food and oatmeal, but to be caught by humans, thrown into a little tank, then, at a later date selected at the whim of some boozy boat captain to be pierced through the gullet by a sharp hook and then thrown back into the ocean to wiggle gamely until eaten alive by a larger fish. I caught one of these mackerel, but I found out you wouldn't count it toward the coveted Interclub championship – unless you're a real loser.

The trophy was to be awarded to the angler who scored the most points between midnight Friday and 4 p.m. Sunday. Points are accumulated through a method about as interesting to detail as a golf handicap; suffice to say the variety and the total number of fish matter.

Having scored a few mackerel off Crystal Cove, Carvelli set a course for a point south of Catalina. Along the way, I was to keep my eye out for “paddies,” – clumps of kelp that have detached from the ocean floor and floated to the surface. Roughly the area of a living room, they are prized because small fish like to hang out underneath them. Underneath the small fish, in theory, are the big fish.

It's a big ocean, you know? But I helped find some paddies, and we threw in lines. We could see small fish, but no big fish, if they were there, even nibbled our delicious hacked up squid. Paddy to paddy we went, all morning, all afternoon. Between paddies, we ran five trolling lines, each rigged with some multi-colored plastic thing-a-ma-jig. No luck.

We tried bait-fishing around two sides of Catalina. Nothing. Finally, around 5, Carvelli had had enough and moored at Avalon. Surrounded by other boats, people paddling by on kayaks, and with the music of a live reggae band audible from a dockside cafe, we dropped our lines in, almost on a whim. And I caught a fish.

It was a calico bass, a white fish dappled with brown. As I was basking in the glory, Carvelli pulled the hook out of its mouth with pliers and, before I could say a word, tossed it overboard. “What are you doing???!!!” I cried.

“What?” Carvelli said. “You want to sleep with it? Put it under your pillow?”

In a “gentlemen's tournament,” I guess, they take your word for it. In fact, back at the dock late Sunday, I talked to Bob Voorhis, who a couple of hours earlier had cut loose a 150-pound marlin he'd spent two hours fighting to bring up to the boat. His boat made it back to the dock with 10 minutes to spare.

I caught a few more calico Sunday, as well as a weirdly awesome-looking thing called a sheepshead, which Carvelli also unceremoniously tossed overboard. My partners had similar catches (and releases). We weren't skunked anyway.

The big winner was a boat captained by Kevin Klemm of the Balboa club. It had the most points and the overall top angler, a 25-year-old construction engineer named Chris Smith. They motored all the way down to Mexico to find the warmest water and best conditions. Among Smith's fish were a blue fin tuna, a yellowtail, a barracuda, a mako shark and a calico bass. I guess I can say this for myself: I knew enough not to talk up my calico.

Too Funny!!

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In a sort of related but sad story,

Rescuers unable to save whales

Beached in Florida, a mother and calf die before a horrified summertime crowd.

Hollywood, Fla. -- Rescuers worked desperately to save a whale and her calf that had beached themselves in south Florida on Monday, but despite measures that included using wet towels and umbrellas to shield the animals from the scorching sun, neither survived.

Hundreds of beachgoers, many in tears, watched the frantic effort. 

The drama began about 1 p.m. when swimmers and lifeguards spotted the whales in waist-deep water at Hollywood beach, just north of Miami.
Swimmers tried to encourage the whales back out to sea, and at first the animals seemed to take the hint. But the mother swam in circles, then headed back to shore.
A team of marine mammal specialists tried to save the distressed animals, which experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration identified as beaked whales.

The mother was about 10 to 12 feet long. The calf was about half that size.
Some placed towels on the whales, trying to keep their skin moist. Volunteers waded into the water and held umbrellas over the animals to shield them from the sun.
A summertime crowd of about 300 tourists and residents watched.
Some children seemed to know that the story would end badly.
"Mom, don't take a picture," said Danielle Zachary, 9, of Aventura, Fla. "It's too sad."
She and her mother, Michelle, 42, stayed at the beach as the drama unfolded.
As the mother whale thrashed on the shore, the calf was brought next to her. Soon she lay still.
Blair Mase, a stranding coordinator for NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, confirmed that she had died. A NOAA marine mammal specialist euthanized the calf on the sand next to its mother.
Some in the crowd had hoped that rescuers would try to save the calf, perhaps by putting it in an aquarium. But Mase said that the calf would have been unable to live without its mother, and that beaked whales normally do not survive in captivity.
"There's no aquarium that has this species in captivity," he said.
But that didn't console many beachgoers.
"I have tears in my eyes," said Eileen Vulpis of Coral Springs. "Everyone here is upset; everyone really thought they were going to try to save the baby."
Beaked whales, native to the Florida coast, are deep feeders, officials said. For them to have come to shore in the first place was a major sign of distress. Their survival was questionable from the start, Mase said.
Whales can beach themselves for a variety of reasons, Mase said, including climate conditions; disorientation after hearing a loud noise; sickness; and parasites. Experts will perform necropsies on both whales, he said.
Some in the crowd were parents trying to explain to their children what was happening.
"Whales tear at our heartstrings," Mase said.

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And Finally…..

One for my friend Sue

Stamp of approval for TV's 'Dragnet'

A ceremony is planned Tuesday at the Los Angeles Police Academy to commemorate the release of a postage stamp marking the hit TV show's 50th anniversary.

The story you are about to read is true. The names have NOT been changed to protect the innocent.
The television series "Dragnet," which first aired more than 50 years ago, ensured the Los Angeles Police Department's place in Hollywood lore.

Now the department is helping return the favor by hosting an event Tuesday at the Police Academy in Elysian Park to commemorate the release of a "Dragnet" postage stamp, authorities said.
A program will include the widow of actor Jack Webb, who played LAPD Sgt. Joe Friday; actor Harry Morgan, who played Friday's partner; and LAPD Chief William J. Bratton.
Also Tuesday, there will be a separate ceremony to celebrate the release of stamps commemorating 20 early television shows, including "Dragnet," at the Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood. Participants include Carl Reiner and Arthur Marx.

Rich Thompson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said it probably will not rain Tuesday.
Those are just the facts, ma'am.

The song tonight is Just Too Good!!!  Kenny Chesney.

I hope your week has started out well.

-- "There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you." (Will Rogers)

-- Designer dogs? We used to call them mutts.

-- I wonder who they'd send if I ever got seized by North Korea.

-- Téa Leoni? Just a suggestion.

-- In August, the male body is about 80% beer.

-- Like Elvis, Michael Jackson will be bigger dead than alive.

-- Like computers, TV remote controls should have "undo" buttons.

-- Oh, God, I know who they'd send for me: Brent Musburger

-- Why does it suddenly seem like today's top actors are all furry and animated?

-- If Lorne Michaels is so brilliant, how come "SNL" has been awful for most of its 387 years?

-- Most days, I'd rather have a sandwich than a steak.

-- Hey! I'm furry and animated!

-- Most nights, the best show on TV will be a rerun.

-- When someone says, "That's going to come back to bite us," I always think, "Hmmmm . . . at least I have that to look forward to."

-- Best summer sound: a creaky cabin door.

-- Best summer treat: the ice cream left at the bottom of a root beer float.

-- Just how furry am I? Believe me, you don't want to know.

-- Long as I live, I'll never be able to tell a heron from an egret.

-- "Your picture's in my wallet, and I'm sitting on it. And if that isn't love, I don't know what is." (Larry Linville, as Frank Burns, on "MASH")

I'm Just sayin'.....

 

Members of the crow family figure out how to use stones to raise the water level -- just as Aesop described.

In a modern retelling of one of Aesop's fables, researchers in England have shown that members of the crow family can use tools to retrieve a worm that they wouldn't otherwise be able to reach.

In "The Crow and the Pitcher," Aesop wrote of a thirsty bird confronted with a half-full pitcher of water. When the bird discovered that the water level was too low to reach, he dropped stones in to raise the level until it was high enough to quench his thirst.

Aptly named zoologist Christopher David Bird of University of Cambridge showed that rooks, members of the crow family, could perform the same task, dropping stones into a tall glass beaker to retrieve a floating wax worm.

The results, reported this week in the journal Current Biology, are not totally unexpected: Crows have previously been shown to use leaves and sticks as probes to dig out grubs, and shells and rocks as hammers to break open prey or as plugs to form pools of water for drinking.

Bird and his colleague Nathan Emery of Queen Mary University of London tested four 5-year-old, hand-raised rooks, confronting them with the flask and a pile of stones. Two immediately figured out how to get the worm, and two got it on the second try.

The birds appeared to calculate how high the water had to rise, and put in only enough stones to raise the water to that level, not stopping to try to reach the worm after each stone. They also figured out quickly that larger stones would raise the water more quickly.

The only other animals known to have accomplished a similar feat are orangutans, which have been shown to carry water in their mouths to fill a pitcher so they can reach a floating peanut. But the rooks' feat is more impressive, Bird argued, because their brains are much smaller than those of orangutans.

One of the rooks also displayed a different type of learning ability: When she got sick from eating one of the wax worms, she stopped participating in the experiments.

 

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And Finally....

It's a Dog's Life!

I hope Y'all are having a Beautiful weekend!!

 

 

Our small town decided it was time to do some road work….. Two months ago!  It’s the main street that you have to use to get anywhere.  One lane open each way with a 6 foot ditch on both sides.  So far there has been alot of dirt movin’ and LOTS of rest breaks!  You can always find the crew, and I use that term loosely, sitting on the shady side of the many trucks just parked there.  This is NOT normal!  When my street was paved a few years ago, it took 5 days including new curbs and a few driveway replacements.    Of course they were city workers and these clowns are contractors.  The most work I’ve seen done has been to dig up the street and move dirt from one place to another…. and then back!!  LOL

Today they finally laid down the first load of asphalt  Keep in mind, I’m talking about only FOUR blocks!!  I tried to take photos but either couldn’t find a place to pull over or I was threatened and chased away!!  It looks as if they have paid more for caution signs then on actual repairs.  I’ll try again for pics.

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Funny thing the other morning!  Bonnie was sleeping near my head and as I rolled over, half asleep, I thought she was my pillow!!  So I ‘fluffed’ her up and laid my head on her!  Well, that didn’t last long but I did get a good face-licking!!  Guess she liked it!!  As for me?  Ummm…. I was out of bed!!!

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And finally…

The Burger King in Sunset Hills, Mo., has a no shoes, no shirt, no service policy, And baby, do they enforce it!  Workers asked Jennifer Frederick to leave on Sunday because her 6-month-old had no shoes.

Burger King and it’s franchisees have since apologized for taking the policy a bit far!  Give me a break!!

Music tonight???  Thinking Rodney Adkins!  I should have played this one sooner....

Have a Wonderful weekend Yall!!!