I was shooting some photos around the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds last Thursday just after firefighters had received their marching orders and were about to head to the hills to fight fires. A member of the West Sacramento Fire Department was nice enough to let me climb atop one of their engines. Switching the camera into “stitch” mode, I snapped off a couple of quick photos.
Using computer software, I sewed the photos together into this panorama. Some people around the office enjoyed it, so I’m happy to offer it here as well.
It was interesting seeing so many firefighting vehicles in one place. I hope they were used to maximum efficiency fighting the blazes of the Butte Lightning Fire Complex.

Since the fires started on June 21, a couple of thoughts have been in my head.
– Wednesday (July 9) was the initial date Cal Fire estimated for containment of the blazes. Odd how it seemed so far away when it first came out three weeks ago. Now that the first date has passed, I’m wondering when containment will be accomplished.
– It’s interesting how the most destructive fire thus far is the one that wasn’t even detected at first. It took a couple of days for fire officials to find the Camp Fire through the smoke layer. Unfortunately, everyone knows where the Camp Fire has burned since then.
The most important thought is that I hope everyone remains safe during this momentous event.

Every once in a while there are topics and items in the news that I get “outraged” about. I don’t really feel any ire about the topic, but they are items that seem like they would tee off someone somewhere. For example, I successfully predicted that a “family” TV group would be upset that people posed as nude Greek statues during the 2004 Olympics … in Greece.
Anyway, this doesn’t have much to do with the introduction of same-sex marriages. That, after all, is a politically charged territory that I will responsibly refrain from commenting on.
No, I’m up in arms about these new marriage forms. Instead of referring to the individuals getting married as “bride” and “groom,” the new forms identify these future spouses as “Party A” and “Party B.” This nomenclature is clearly discriminatory — it forces one spouse to be subordinate to the other.
Party B is clearly slighted in this new form. By clearly being identified as the second party on the form, they’re almost an afterthought to the primary party — A. While having one partner be subordinate to the other is apparently all right for certain groups of people (for various religious and secular reasons), I don’t feel it’s right.
I think the best approach is the one taken by the characters of the TV series, “Futurama.” Forced to name multiple copies of the same characters (when they came across a parallel universe), they named one place “Universe A” and the other “Universe 1.”
I think the forms should be redone to include “Party A” and “Party 1.” I hope someone somewhere will file an injunction to prevent further discrimination.

Recently I haven’t done too well with holidays. March 17 was just the latest chapter.
Instead of doing it up big for St. Patrick’s Day, my allergies got the best of me. So instead of hefting a fine brew, I lifted my fork for some corned beef hash. It was tasty but didn’t seem as grand as it could’ve been.

The Internet has many unique qualities. One is the extreme difficulty in trying to undo something that has already been published online. In many cases, there are no “take backs.”
Recently, a Swiss management firm tried to have the Web site Wikileaks taken down because the site allegedly hosted sensitive information from the bank. Although a U.S. judge ordered one of Wikileaks’ Web addresses to be removed, the move appears to have backfired. As Ars Technica reports, Wikileaks is still accessible and the matter has drawn a ton of publicity.
Looking locally, the Chico News & Review recently removed a name from one of its stories online — the subject of a Feb. 7 article looking into possible plagiarism at The Orion, the student newspaper at Chico State University.
The move left me wondering why. This student isn’t anonymous — her name remains on the story she filed for The Orion. Also, her name remains in the print version of the News & Review, which has a stated circulation of 42,000. I’m fairly sure I can dig through Google’s cache of the original N&R article to find the name as well.
According to an update posted on the N&R’s article, the newspaper removed her name at the request of the Orion author and the Chico State journalism department. The note does not offer further details, but I wish the N&R would have given us more. It is very rare for newspapers to remove information like this, especially at the request of a story’s subjects.
At issue is an Orion story published exclusively online on Dec. 22, which appears to contain sentences and phrases that are extremely similar to those in an earlier article published in The Sacramento Bee. The Orion article doesn’t attribute the Bee, although an editor’s note has acknowledged the similarities.
The N&R published a sidebar pairing the similar opening paragraphs from each story.
Was it plagiarism? I can’t say, but a dictionary definition of plagiarizing (from m-w.com) is “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own.”
The Orion editors and Chico State faculty have strenuously denounced the plagiarism allegations in the N&R article and in subsequent letters to the N&R. However, the print edition of The Orion has remained utterly silent on the matter (although there’s that note on the online article).
For the sake of completeness, here are the articles (in chronological order):

• “Hours-old baby given to stranger at gas station” – Chelsea Phua, The Sacramento Bee; Dec. 18, 2007 [accessed Feb. 28, 2008]
• “Chico State graduate aids abandoned baby at gas station” – Taylor Flores, The Orion Online; Dec. 22, 2007 [accessed Feb. 28, 2008]
• “Copy cat?” – Meredith J. Cooper, Chico News & Review; Feb. 7, 2008 [accessed Feb. 28, 2008]
• “See for yourself” – Chico News & Review; Feb. 7, 2008 [accessed Feb. 28, 2008]
• “Letters” – Chico News & Review; Feb. 14, 2008 [accessed Feb. 28, 2008]

Things are hopping downtown. The fences are down on the new Transit Center (which will apparently open after some tests and evaluations).
Crews recently also corrected the signs on Normal Avenue. As I detailed earlier, in a NorCal Blogs exclusive post, someone had goofed and put up the wrong signs.
The signs appear to have been changed recently. After a couple of months of waiting, I was wondering when the change would be done. But there are at least two things I can think of that might explain the delay — including recovering from January’s storms and actually ordering the new signs.

This post really doesn’t have to do with pop culture except I picture the surveillance camera footage appearing on an episode of “Wackiest Supermarket Goofs” on FOX. Perhaps it will be in between clips of the shelves of soda falling to the floor and the band-saw butcher disaster in Bemidji.
I was at Safeway on Wednesday. I had just entered the store through the swinging door when I realized I needed a shopping cart. I turned to head back out the store and then I paused to ponder about which door to exit through.
Part of me thought it was inconvenient they put the shopping carts by the exit doors because people grab carts when they are coming into the store. Since I was in the act of coming into the store, I decided to go back the way I came — out through the “In” door.
Wham!
I realized I made a mistake when I took a step forward and the “In” door closed into my face. The swinging door of doom crushed my glasses into my face. My eyes were OK, but I yelped in surprise and brief pain.
I reassured the one customer who came over to see what was going on. The momentary shock and pain passed quickly.
There was some blood, but it stopped quickly after rinsing and cleaning the wound.
Ultimately, I told the store’s management about the door. Perhaps they will find a way to make it more idiot-proof than before.