Ever heard of the Ilyushin-76TD "Waterbomber"? Neither had I until I read this article.

It's an 11,000-gallon tanker plane; that's almost 4 times bigger than the American Forest Service's piddly 3,000 gallon tanker planes. Hmmm, Definitely could have been useful this past week. In fact, it still could be!

Obviously it's politics that's preventing this Russian built plane from showing up in the US to save lives and prevent property damage.

So it's ashing outside on the job site right now. Don't know what that is? Well I'll tell you what that is ... It's like snow, but with little bits of burnt stuff instead.

Below is a satellite image of the current state of the smoke plumes from some of the fires raging in Southern California right now. I've added a little black dot to indicate where I am.

DOH!

- Omar Z.

You know what I just barely avoided hitting on the highway today? A freaking bucket! Luckily I was able to react fast enough to change lanes and avoid the bouncing bucket of doom. This just goes to show, it's always a good idea to know where cars are in relation to you; in case you need to change lanes in a hurry.

Another thing, I had a schradenfreude moment when I saw the car that was behind me hit the bouncing bucket of doom and actually get it stuck underneath their bumper (I guess it must have been the adrenaline and joy of not hitting the bucket myself).

Today I saw two things on the highway that shouldn't have been there. One of them is inexcusable, and the other was recent; thus, understandable.

A) Another tire, WTF!!!!. At least this one wasn't bouncing around. It was actually lying flat on the ~30cm (1ft) wide painted divider that separates the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane from the 'regular' people.

Every seen a tire on the highway? I don't mean the kind attached to a car ... I'm talking about the kind that just detached itself from a car. I'm also talking about the kind that's bouncing around from car to car on the highway!!!

And you know what's worse than just seeing one of these bouncing bumper busters? What's worse is actually hitting one because you can't react fast enough and change lanes to get out of the way.

Ok, I've been putting this off for a while. But I'm still lazy, so I'm simply posting the contents of a letter I just sent a friend of mine :P

You know, I've been putting this off soo long, and now I have 4 weeks worth of stuff to talk about ... and I just can't even figure out where to start from :(

I was heading off for work, and this view took my breath away.

- Omar Z.

So I was driving home on Friday the 13th of all days. And I actually ended up driving past a 3 car pile-up. Quite literally, I was in the lane of traffic right next to the one with the accident.

What's noteworthy about this pile-up is what happened to the middle car. It looked like the middle car had slid it's bumper under the front car, and then had it's back end lifted up in the air by the rear car. So basically, there were two cars bracketing a middle car that was pointing downwards at a good 30 degree angle.

- Omar Z.

Gah! My flight was delayed by two & a half freaking hours. Looks like it was a combination of our plane showing up late from its previous run & there being a medical emergency on board. I saw them cart out a lady on an EMS stretcher; she was wrapped in a big yellow blanket and was breathing from an oxygen mask.

Thus, I was supposed to show up in LA(la land) at ~10:15pm, but ended up arriving at 12:20am!?!?!?!?! Gah!

WOW, it's been a hectic week! Lets start with Sunday

Sunday
Going away party! Thanks to everyone who was able to make it! And Boo to anyone that bailed ;P I posted the photos of the party in the photos section :D

Monday
First Monday without work! Woho! I'm a bum again! I went to the bank and setup a US Dollar account at TD with a FREE 'Borderless Plan' that gives me a FREE US Dollar Visa Credit Card :D I was preapproved for the visa so all I had to do was wait for it to arrive. Gawd, I LOVE my TD Select Service account :D :D