Lisa asked if we could go to Reno today because there was something she wanted to get from a store before it closed at 5. Work is still running flat-out, but I put stuff aside and we went into town. We got the first thing, then tried going to Home Depot for the second, which they didn't have, and that meant back-tracking to Lowe's Reno (Fernley ( Read more... )

The smoke from the Caldor and Dixie fires has been with us so long now that I've worked out an approximate scale of what the AQI PM2.5 (dust and smoke) index is based on what I can see from the front porch.

Under 50 (Good): Clear skies; visibility good
50-100 (Moderate): Haze; smoke visible around the surrounding hills and mountains
100-150 (Unhealthy ( Read more... )

Smoke is a little less bad today, but still not good. I'm using eye-drops to try and moderate the effects of smoke and dust, but I'm still having to wear my eye patch whenever I need to be able to read things on the computers, because it's the only way to let my twitchy left eye get some rest. This of course slows me down, as I'm not used to having ( Read more... )

Despite the continuing smoke, Lisa and I managed to get in to Reno this morning to do grocery shopping. We didn't get started as early as we might have liked, which means the stores had more people in them that we would have liked, but at least most of them were wearing masks over both their nose and mouth. We did our business as quickly as we ( Read more... )

The short period of both cooler weather (nearly ideal temperatures by my standards) and clear air ended last night.

( Bye Bye Mountains )

I initially thought that the weather forecast last night for today had accidentally come from a different place, but I could feel the temperatures dropping before going to bed and I was able to leave the swamp cooler off last night instead of pointing it into the bedroom the way I've been doing most of the past week. It was 10° C - that's Celsius ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

On July 24, I installed air filters on the box fans that I have to use to keep air moving into (and sometimes out of) the house to try and cool it off overnight. Yesterday, after a brief brake in the smoke, I took the opportunity to replace them with new filters. The photos below are of the new and old filters, which should give you an idea of just ( Read more... )

Yesterday was a sufficiently haphazard day that I forgot to post anything at all, but it's nothing worth mentioning here, other than to say that Lisa and my schedules have gotten a bit disorganized and I'm reworking my days of use-it-or-lose it PTO lest I hit the buffer at 37.5 days maximum accumulation.

The smoke continues to come and go. It seems ( Read more... )

Yesterday was surprisingly clear and relatively cool once the sun set, to the point that Lisa and I were able to go out for a walk after dinner only carrying our masks in case we encountered other people and needed to cover up. As we got home in the deepening dark, we could see, however, that smoke was on its way, thanks to the patterns in the sky.

( Sky Wave )