ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE?

The house is all prepped and ready for the first stucco coat. Hopefully this will be done later this week!! Gina and I are leaving town to spend a few days in New York City and then we're off to Baltimore. We'll be back late Monday. We hope we'll be pleasantly surprised and that the house will be stuccoed by the time we return. While that's being addressed on the outside, they'll be insulating and drywalling the inside. We should have some very cool pictures to show you very, very soon!!

Here's Gina checking out the new door. Now that it's been stained, she's become even more protective towards it. I pity the fool who tried to kick this door in...only to find Gina on the other side!!

While all the outside activities hit their stride, they have been busy hanging door inside. The picture on the left are the doors to the downstairs TV room with the double doors leading to the master bedroom on the right. Neither of these have been stained yet and should look incredible once finished.

We leave the serenity of San Clemente to return to our Anaheim residence, only to come face-to-face with this...

When we left to go to San Clemente at 10 am or so, we saw a very small plume of smoke in the distant blue skies. Here we are returning three hours later. Driving on the freeway less than a mile from the office, we come face-to-face with this incredible billowing wall of smoke. What the hell happened?


We were suddenly in the middle of a big-ass fire. With everything we own currently at our office/warehouse, we needed to get closer and see what exactly was happening. The freeways and most roads in the area were closed, so it took us almost an hour to finally find a way to sneak into the area where the offices are located. We quickly were in the direct path of one honking fire!! The fire began on the left side of the Santa Ana River and thanks to the strong winds and low humidity, quickly jumped the river and spread to the other side. There were now smoke and flames on both side of us. Luckily we have a concrete tilt-up building with the river directly on the one side and the 91 freeway on the other. Most of what was burning was open land but a number of homes also got destroyed by the fire.

Though Gina was extremely concerned and wanted to leave, I convinced her that if it gets worse, we definitely would quickly get our asses out of harm's way. We both got on the roof of the building and watched the fire rage. At one point, I was manned with my water hose while Gina went inside to follow the newbreaks on TV. All was going fine until Gina heard on the news that a large furniture store in the complex down the way had gone up in a ball of flame. That (along with the Police Dept. driving through our complex making one last evacuation notice), was all it took for Gina to demand that we leave immediately. We took a hard drive backup, a few pieces of art and half of Gina's wardrobe, and left Graphitti Designs in the hands of the gods.

Here's Gina on the roof of Graphitti Designs modeling next year's new urban guerrilla fashions. Notice the colors and the fine cuts of fabric. We guarantee that you'll stand out at the next firestorm you attend!!

We were not allowed to return that evening but discovered at around 10 pm, that the fire had passed by us with no ill-effects (other than the smell of smoke) whatsoever. They opened up some of the roads on Sunday and by noon, we were back at the office watching the first set of football games. Since no "disaster" occurred, life returned back to normal as though nothing has ever happened. Kinda' strange how quickly things change!!

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Our friend and next door neighbor WILLIAM "Willy" ENGELS died on Monday Nov. 10th. He watched over the construction project like a proud parent during the days when we couldn't be there. Willy was constantly dropping by to talk with all the contractors and was the kind of neighbor made popular on old black & white TV shows like OZZIE & HARRIET. Earlier on Monday, Willy dropped by with copies of "Noah Today" (http://home.att.net/~hideaway_today/t133/noah.htm), to share with all the contractors on the job site. Later that afternoon to the shock of everyone, he was found dead in his home.

Willy always knew more about our construction and we did. His excitement and ethusiasm towards life was infectious and was always positive. Our condolences go out to his wife Donna, his family and his friends.