Matthew J. Bietz

“We conclude that the purpose underlying differential treatment of opposite-sex and same-sex couples embodied in California’s current marriage statutes – the interest in retaining the traditional and well-established definition of marriage – cannot properly be viewed as a compelling state interest for purposes of the equal protection clause, or as necessary to serve such an interest…. Accordingly, we conclude that to the extent the current California statutory provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are unconstitutional.” –California Supreme Court, May 15, 2008

It’s raining in San Diego. We’ve already had more than 1/2″, including a few moments of near-downpour. To put that in context, our average rainfall is only about 10″. With so little rain, the roads are pretty oil-slick, which makes for a crappy commute. And there are worries of rock and mudslides, especially in the recently-burned areas.

But that’s not what I’m thinking about. This is the first big rain since we moved into the new house. It’s a bit like the first road trip with a new lover. You’ve gotten to know a lot about each other, but now you see all the annoying little quirks. I keep wandering around the house looking at the ceiling for leaks. None so far, but I discovered that the front door doesn’t have weather stripping, and with the wind today, we’ve got a puddle on the floor. The driveway also slopes a bit toward the garage, so there’s a puddle there too (although it’s not right up to the door, so probably not an issue).

But now I’ve got an excuse to go to Lowe’s this weekend. 🙂

The fires aren’t out yet, but the San Diego Fire Chief announced today that there is no more fire threat for the city of San Diego, and Qualcomm has been emptied. The winds and temperatures are now in the firefighters’ favor. We’ve still got pollution issues – the air is still hazy, and the invisible particulate matter is high. We’ve been keeping the house closed up and we’ve got our small HEPA filter and the air conditioning fan on to help. Dan went in to the UCSD campus today – he said the smell was worse there, and there was some ash in his office around the windows (which don’t seal particularly tightly).

But all in all, we’ve been very lucky. No fires got even close to us, and the pollution hasn’t been as bad here as in most other areas of the county.

7:45am: A little stronger smell of smoke this morning, but again no change in our status. There has been more “onshore flow” with the winds, which is probably the reason why we’re smelling it more. The smokey sky also made for a colorful sky. With the wind shifting, many of the new evacuations have actually been on the northeast side of the fire (that is, farther away from us).

10:15pm: I’m back in San Diego. Flying in was interesting – as we were coming in over San Diego everybody had their eyes glued to the windows. Could see the fire lines on both sides of the plane, and the eerie orange glow in the smoke we were flying through. Became even more obvious, though, that the flames are (thankfully) pretty far away from our house. The weather seems to have been slightly more cooperative today. Hope that continues.

But I’m still on Eastern time, so I’m heading to bed. G’night!

If you’re interested in tracking the progress of the San Diego fires, some of the most up-to-date info seems to be at the Union Tribune web site, although their servers have been pretty overloaded. The most recent news updates are at the Fire Blog. There’s a relatively recent (and frequently updated) Google Maps mashup that shows the boundaries of the fires and the evacuation areas.

I’m in Ann Arbor right now, but planning to fly back in to San Diego this evening. The airport is running as usual and is planning to remain open.

We live in the very center of San Diego, very near Qualcomm Stadium (one of the main evacuation centers). That puts us east of I-5, west of I-805, and just south of I-8. We’re essentially on the south rim of Mission Valley, and just north of Balboa park.

As for now, our area has not been evacuated, and the closest evacuated areas are many miles away. I just talked to Dan and apparently there is a slight smell of smoke in the air, but otherwise things are normal at our house.

One issue highlighted by the fire officials is that predicting the exact path is a problem because the Santa Ana winds tend to be inconsistent, and over the next couple of days are expected to turn around and head back inland.

So for now our house isn’t in the path of the fire, but it’s wait and see. I’ll post here again if there’s any major change in our status.