Might want to keep the hose handy in case the super soaker isn't enough. Anyone remember the recent San Diego fires? My parents house was right in the cross hairs. They had a fire 3 miles south of them and 1 mile west. It was terrifying really. At the time there were dam near a half dozen fires burning in the county and it seemed like new ones were popping up unusually fast. The theory was there was an arsonist going around setting the county ablaze. When its your family in the cross hairs its really disgusting to think someone would risk your families lives to get their rocks off.
It's about 1.5-2 miles away right now, with the wind blowing away from me. I can't even smell the smoke. If that changes at all, I'll turn on the sprinklers (which are already set up), and camp out on the deck. It's a rental house and my Jeep and trailer are loaded and ready to go, so if things even start to look sketchy, I'm outta here. Luckily the movers haven't gotten their shit together yet so my stuff is still in transit, so I don't have much I need to haul out of here.
Yea, thats not too far away. Even if you have a fat person attempting to run thats only 20 minutes out if the winds blowing toward you. Thankfully its a rental, I'm kinda surprised you haven't got out of dodge yet. Forest fires make me really nervous, its never a good thing to be overly confident about the direction or speed of them. For reference about my parents situation this May, they were in between the Escondido, San Marcos and Poinsettia fires. Also remember, the San Marcos fire was the biggest in the county at the time. Apparently that one was arson, the rest are still uncertain as to the cause.
My dad was a water bomber for years, so I'm pretty familiar with forest fires having basically grown up around them. Fun tidbit, here he is wrenching on a b-26 he flew: He also flew Cansos and wrenched on a bunch of other stuff. But yeah, for real, the trailer is loaded and hooked up to the Jeep, and I can bug out in under 60 seconds. I'm a 1.5 mile short hop to the main highway heading out of here, if it comes to that. I can't even smell the smoke yet. They've also been pretty quick to evacuate people that they think are even in the remotest danger, and my area isn't on that list. I can hear a line of helicopters still working in the area keeping it away from houses, which is quite surprising, as they don't usually do that at night. There are also a ton of fire engines on the perimeter keeping an eye on things. Is it freaky? Yep... enough to have you on edge and hyper-aware of what's going on. Am I freaked out enough to run away? Not yet.
It seems that the winds have stayed the course, and the on-the-ground fire crews have been doing a great job containing the fire, and I might just be able to grab some sleep after all. And this is probably one of the best air attack videos I've ever seen. It came out a couple years ago, but I still like watching it every now and then.
I think one of the most cruel things I've seen is someone obliged to chug a beer, only to find out it was non-alcoholic aafterwards.
A) Who is going to spend hundreds of dollars on a plane ticket to get inside an airport terminal to abduct a child when there are free ones at the park? B) There are controlled entrances and while the exits aren't controlled there aren't very many of them C) Video surveillance D) Higher security presence than most other public places E) Children at the airport are annoying as fuck I mean, just how often do you think child abduction happens?
Jesus Jumping Christ on a pogo stick, the whole abduction thing is a straw man. It was introduced as a legit concern, but it has become a straw man. Abduction may be a slim chance, but that doesn't mean that it isn't still a VERY BAD IDEA to let a child run around a goddamn airport when you are the only parent and you have luggage that you are not supposed to leave unattended and flight/boarding status to monitor. If both parents are there, then sure - give chase with the kid while the other parent watches the stuff and stays alert to boarding. But my impression of the actual situation at hand was that she was by herself. Oh, and maybe this is the first chance she's had in hours to have a few moments to zone out on Facebook. There's nothing else to do while you're waiting, kid is contained, she's unlikely to have another chance once she's boarded and has to deal with entertaining the kid so he doesn't wig out during the flight. But by all means let's fucking judge a woman who has the audacity to get a few moments of peace and use a common tool for keeping her kid safe while she focuses on something else. I'm sure that she isn't at all exhausted from prepping for the trip in addition to her normal duties of caring for her energetic child. The kid is upset to be on the leash because he is probably used to running like an escaped convict at home and it is only this short period of time that he has to be restricted for practical and safety reasons.
Because it's not like we've had threads where we sit around and judge people for less valid reasons than this.
This. How would an abduction go down exactly? You're not getting on a plane with a kid without a ticket and some form of ID, so there's that. Then to get out of the airport you usually have to go back through the security checkpoint area. You don't have to pass through the detectors or anything, but the exit is typically adjacent to it. Not to mention there's cops everywhere in an airport just hanging around not to mention every inch is ACTIVELY monitored by security cameras. An Amber Alert would be declared before you even made through the terminal and you'd be getting your shit fucked up by TSA agents and Air Marshals who've been waiting for some ass-kicking action for over 10 years.
The easy solution here- if your kid is so ill behaved that it must be on a leash, you probably shouldn't take it on an airplane. How long is it going to be before kids start getting micro-chipped like pets?
Touche. It pushed my buttons because mother judging is a popular sport these days. Honestly after I posted my rant I wished I could go back and say it more diplomatically. It's more effective for helping someone to understand your point of view if you don't jump down their throat. But then after thinking that I remember it's TiB.
No shit. Do the parents not have consequences for this outrageous behavior? My parents weren't strict disciplinarians but we never ran around like coked up animals.
And sometimes children are just children. They're bored and restless and children very rarely have the ability to sit still and think. That's not what children do. While we're on this subject let's complain about the fact that children sit still too much and aren't active enough these days. Yes, there's a time and place for everything, but sometimes, absent physical violence, in which case they'll cry and that will annoy you, too, they aren't going to listen. I assure you the Moms and Dads that have children that are being whiny little monsters in an airport or on an airplane or in a restaurant are as fed up and pissed off as you are.
I was never leashed either, but from what I've been told, I wasn't exactly a demon child. Then again, I wasn't all hopped up on Mountain Dew and pixie sticks. My little cousins exist on a diet or regular coke and sugary snacks and they are generally unbearable unless they have a video game in front of them. I say start using straight jackets instead of leashes.
It seems apropos of the thread theme to ask if y'all remember the Jeffrey sequence in Bill Cosby Himself. So if anyone wants to break out a "back in my day kids were well behaved" then note that story was told 31 years ago.
Yeah Im not even saying "back in my day" because well it was the early mid 90's when I was in the age range we speak of. My parents didn't have to placate any over abundance of energy on my or my brothers part. Maybe low blood pressure just ran in our families children.