Do You Smell BBQ?

Funny story about the post title. When I was working for Homeland Security as a TSA screener, another screener told me this story.

He was driving around with three of his friends in a Ford Ranger extended cab truck. It was late at night and everyone was hungry. The driver dude realizes that he has to fart really bad. So he quickly locks the windows (so nobody can roll them down), kicks the AC to recirculate, farts, then says to everyone "hey do you smell BBQ?". Of course everyone starts to sniff the air. You can probably figure out what happened next.

These are the kinds of people who are looking through your carry on bags when you travel by air. Just so you know. Just regular fun people!

But today is not going to be a very fart intensive day. The entire State of FL smells like BBQ. Bad BBQ. Because you see, Florida is on fire. I think the whole state is going to burn up. I have instituted emergency fire plan alpha, which calls for the boat to maintain a full tank, all fishing gear on board, and be ready to hitch up and launch at moments notice. Should the wild fires set Miami on fire, I just take the boat to the nearest ramp, launch it. and haul ass to the middle of the bay. I should be somewhat safe there. My food will come from the sea. Like Emperor Nero I will watch Rome burn, and then when the fire is out return and claim some primo water front property as mine. SQUATTERS RIGHTS RULE!

How bad is it? Lets just say that there was so much smoke and haze in the air visibility was at best three miles. The air here is usually clear due to the land / sea breeze. You see, in the daytime the land heats up faster than the water. Hot air rises. As the hot land air rises, the relatively cooler ocean air moves in to fill the void. At night the process reverses. So our air is normally fairly clean.

The fires are not really close to South Florida. They are more in the Central Florida and North Florida areas. So for the haze to be this thick down here it has to be really bad up there.

The State pretty much needs this years quota of rain, plus another whole years worth of rain. And this rain needs to fall on the right place - between the big lake with the funny name and Orlando. And it needs to fall slowly so the ground can soak it up.

North Florida also needs some of that rain. As far as ground water goes, South Florida is still doing OK. We just need our normal amount of rain down here. Hopefully our extra rain will go up north.

It still smells like a wildfire outside. And inside for that matter. It is not as strong inside because I notice the smell when I step out. I do not know if it is smoke haze or clouds, but I can not really see any stars in the sky. I only see one object in the sky, and I think it is Venus. It is too bright to be a star, and it is yellow in color. So it is either Saturn or Venus. By the brightness I suspect Venus. Usually I can see a dozen or so stars even with the light pollution.

The Toshiba laptop is having issues. The CD Rom drive has crapped out. It has been crapping out for some time - working some times and not working other times. But now all it does is try to spin up over and over. Like the motor is starting and stopping. The eject button does not even work anymore. I may need a new computer soon. Not too soon I hope.