Qualcomm Stadium, Jack Murphy Stadium


This place has turned out to be THE place in San Diego for this catastrophe. It's been a central place to go to if you are in need, a place to bring your donations for distribution to all the outlying evacuation centers, and a spiritual place of community. That's the real untold part of the story. This building made for the assembly of those that love San Diego and its sports teams, and a building that is at the very end of its useful existence has become the place that has captured the heart of the city. The building is dying, we all know that. It’s on its way out, it's outlasted its usefulness. But it has become San Diego's center and its heart, at least for this particular point in time.

Funny, there’s been a lot of trash talk about the stadium, and now that I have experienced a modern stadium (Petco Park) I understand the problems of the Q. When I first arrived in San Diego, I was awestruck at the beauty and the quality of this fine stadium – mostly because my experience in stadiums was limited to Candlestick Park and the Oakland Coliseum. Those dumps made this place look like Nirvana. I’m sure there’s going to be a heartfelt montage on National TV when the Chargers play the Texans on Sunday and pride in the park will swell and people will want to find a way to keep the Chargers there. But that’s just not going to happen.

Speaking of pride swelling, did you catch our fearless leader telling us why he was in San Diego? Have you been musing over the treatment of Liberal Democratic Black New Orleans versus the treatment of Conservative Republican White San Diego and asking yourself, “Is this the America that we want?” The best quote I’ve heard on this so far is, “Comparing New Orleans and San Diego is like comparing Apples and Porches.” Let this be the last straw in republican mistreatment of America. We need a Republican party that takes into consideration the heart (and wallet) of its citizens, and the core of true American family values. What we have had under this administration is a heartless and mean despot that’s only too eager to spend all of your money on this %$#@ war but can seem to shake a dime loose on American interests here at home. Send a message when next you go to the polls. Vote Democratic, not because you ARE one, and certainly NOT because they will do any better (they'd need a spine for that) but because you need to make a statement that the Right politicians will hear. Its the only message that they will listen to.

Over The Hump

Last night when I got home, the affiliate channels were showing commercials. That tells you that the biggest part of the horror has passed. The local channels were still 24/7 though. And this morning Qualcomm was down to 500 or so refugees. The winds have mellowed considerably and I’ve heard as much as 20% containment on some of the fires. There are still plenty of new evacuations, but a lot of the old ones are being repealed now. The Big freeways are all opened up. Road closures are all the secondary or smaller roads now. Thank goodness the world can go on to better headlines.

Welcome to Sunny San Diego!

We are lucky! We are in a clear spot between the northern and southern fires in San Diego County. We have relatively clean air and blue skies. We’re the exception certainly. I thought we had seen it all at the Cedar fires, those fires were closer to us but they were a campfire compared to the damage being done this year. Half a million people have been evacuated so far. The real eye opener that I had during Cedar (confirmed by this year’s experience) is that when fires like this happen, they just burn. The firemen don’t have the support or manpower to fight all the fronts, so they burn. Any one of these fires would be a challenge to put out for sure, but they could be managed. Pile them all on at once and it’s all they can do to save a structure or two on a block of burning buildings. Case in point, a building caught fire last night. It was just an ordinary house fire that the local engine company would normally respond to and put out. There’s no one to do that, they are all on the front lines, so the house caught the surrounding brush and now it’s a fire with its own moniker, damage stats and weather system.

We are cancelling our performance of Jersey Boys tonight. Air quality, and stress on the power grid, not to mention keeping citizens off the streets during an emergency situation are the reasons. Lots of work for us but that’s life in the big city. Paula and I are in the middle of the city so we aren’t really in any danger. If you ever hear of Balboa Park burning that might be a concern because we are right across the street from that, but the rural fires THAT ARE PREDICTED TO BURN TO THE SEA can you believe that, don’t really pose a threat to us.

Idyllwild is a different thing now. If a fire happens up there in the right place, our house is out on the ragged edge and would probably be among the first to burn. But so far, in this set of fires, there’s been nothing burning up there. Knock on wood. Back to work.