But, I’m still alive.

After my own server died a few months ago, I finally have my website moved over to laughingsquid.net. As far as I can tell everything is now back up and running.

Most of the outage has been due to my own laziness. I haven’t been motivated to keep the site up lately. But, Laughing Squid seems to have very responsive servers, which is far more than I can say about godaddy.com.

I returned to SoCal today to find it hot and burning. Quite a change from the 1-2 inches of snow on the ground in Denver. We flew over one of the fires where more than 100 homes have burned. The smoke from another fire (near Santa Clarita, I think) fills the whole Ventura/Oxnard area. In daylight, there is a strange orange glow and this evening the sun disappeared about 40 minutes early. It just sort of faded into red and then was gone. The smoke comes in to all of the buildings at work and my apartment, making my eyes itch.

I didn’t get any pictures today, but maybe tomorrow.

I have been living in Ventura, California (where’s that?) for about two weeks now. I love it so far. The weather is a perfect 65-75 and Sunny every day so far. It cools off into the 50s at night.

When I leave my apartment, if I turn left on the main cross street, it’s only about 10 minute drive to this beautiful beach. While I was there on Sunday I watched a school of dolphins about 100 yards offshore.

If I turn right on the same street, I am in the hills in about 5 minutes, where there are great views of the whole valley after a short walk. From there, I can look out across the city and see fields of strawberries, oranges, lemons, peaches and other crops. (I have been enjoying unbelievably good fresh strawberries every day.) Beyond The fields are the harbors & beaches. Out near the horizon are the Channel Islands, which are a National Park.

I have posted some photos from the drive and my first week here.

I am looking forward to starting work on Tuesday.

Like most people, I was not on 35W last week when it fell.

Update: I posted some of my photos of the site.

After much procrastination, I have put the photos of my June trip to Europe up on Flickr.