Some More Random Blahs: Fire, Seizures and Reality TV Roundup

This past week has been crazy for me. Before any stories, I'm posting a picture of the mentors from the LEAF mentoring program (through Camp Laurel) that I talked about in my last post. I know its blurry but I'm posting it anyway coz all of these guys (and gals) are awesome! I look like a little kid in between two very tall guys (2nd from lower right).



So back to the stories from this past week. All of my favorite reality shows are ending! What am I going to do with my life????????? Haha I'm soo pathetic.

• The Amazing Race; All Stars just ended last Sunday and I was really disappointed with the results. For those who actually watch it, I wanted the Beauty Queens to win. I would even accept the crazy cousins, Charla and Mirna but of course the annoying pseudo couple ended up winning. I hate Eric and his nipple rings....he needs to come out of the closet (his homophobic remarks are in fact internalized homophobia projected to the two gay teams on the race).

• This weekend, Survivor Fiji is ending. This season started on the weak side but really became more interesting mostly because of the fabulous duo; Big Earl and Yau Man (my Asian brother immigrant). I love that Yau Man is really playing a very balance game; he's smart, he's very aware with whats going on in their camp and lastly he is doing great in some of the physical tasks. Yau Man for the win!
  
• The other reality shows thats consuming my life will end in a couple of weeks (Idol, Top Model, Shear Genius, The Bachelor, Dancing with the Stars). I'll discuss them in later posts.

I'm shifting from the superficial to a more serious story. I'm sure most folks heard/saw on the news that there was a big brush fire here in L.A. last Tuesday. The fire started just east of the Hollywood sign and moved towards my area. I went home early from work when I saw online that theres a fire near our place. Sure enough a huge plume of smoke can be seen coming from my beloved Griffith Park. Since I love to hike, this park is the most convenient place for me to go to since its only minutes away and it has an excellent view of the L.A. basin, valley and its surrounding mountains. As soon as I got home, I made sure I had all the important documents in one place so I can easily grab it, together with my pictures, and my laptop. I also started watering the side yard where my vegetable garden is located and the front gardens including the ivy bed and the bamboo trees that we share with the neighbors. The fire got worse later in the night. There were ton's of firefighters but most of the actual progress was done through the use of helicopters. I counted about 6 choppers and two planes dumping fire retardants and water.

By midnight the whole eastern edge of the park is on fire and slowly climbing down to the houses below. They eventually evacuated the houses closest to the fire. I stayed awake, checking on the progress. I was worried that some of the embers being blown by the wind can start a smaller fire near our place because theres tons of dry grasses and shrubs in our backyard. By Wednesday morning, the fire was pretty much contained. I was really sad to find out that a couple of my favorite hiking paths no longer exist and that a couple of beautiful gardens were destroyed. In fact I spent a day in the Pine Garden on my birthday a couple of months ago (click for a recap). Heres some pictures and videos of the fire.

The Boyfriend and I hiking at Griffith park before the fire.

A couple of videos on youtube. A good panoramic shot of the fire and the helicopters picking up water from the reservoir to dump on the fire.

Taken from my street.






This photo is taken by Benjamin from blogging.la

After the fire, I got a text message from my younger sister. It was short but it brought so much fear in me as soon as I read it.

"Tres is in the hospital"

I freaked out. I called her immediately but she wasn't answering. I kept trying, eventually she answered. She sounds like she's pretty shaken up too. She told me that they're still in the E.R. so she had to whisper. Basically, Baby Tres had a severe episode of febrile seizure. This was the second time it happened but this time seemed a lot more serious. Apparently he started crying and then hugged his mom. My sister was getting ready to leave for work when he started shaking violently. They tried to control him, called 911 and called the neighbor for help. My dad rushed back from work but the EMT had already picked up my poor brother. They spent the rest of the day in the hospital, lots of tests and talking to the doctor. The sad thing is now that this happened, theres a greater likelyhood that it will happen again. My poor brother : ( He's in a lot of pain right now because the fever was brought about by an infection in his throat so the poor thing is having the hardest time swallowing food or drinking anything. I want to visit him this weekend.

(L)Tres getting potty trained. (R) Tres with his future girlfriend (or is it future fag hag..lol my dad's going to be really disappointed to have two gay sons...one is acceptable)