On Sunday, Jenn and I spontaneously decided to hop in the car and head over to Pasadena for some book-shopping at a great independent bookstore called Vroman’s. I don’t think we’ve ever gotten across the valley on the 101 so quickly…the huge wildfire north of Los Angeles had cast a pall of smoke over the entire valley, and people were staying off the roads. From a distance, the smoke looked like a super slow-mo mushroom cloud on the mountain. Evidently this has been the largest wildfire in L.A. County history, and based on what we saw that seems pretty indisputable.
Anyway, in case anyone was worried, our place is a considerable distance from any fire danger, and it looks like they’re starting to make headway against it. The air quality has been horrible, but other than that, we’re fine.
And, on another note, we just happened to hit Vroman’s on the afternoon of the Writers of the Future event. I wasn’t really in my SF convention state-of-mind so my knee jerk, anti-networking armor deployed at first, but I did manage to shake a few hands, and Jenn introduced me to Tim Powers. A nice surprise!
