To the jerk arguing with the cop...yes that road is indeed closed.

[Slave to the Phone]

I am putting this in sightings instead of roadkill because he was just a SC.

There are a few wildfires happening in my area. Towns have been evacuated and the main road going from the freeway to Prescott has been closed. There are ways around but of course they add a lot of time to the drive.

So, I pull up to the check point after being excused from training in Phx because our home is in the path of the fire. What do I see at the check point? Someone yelling that sentence that government employees hate the worse. "I pay your salary, I don't have time to waste because you idiots couldn't make sure the road was clear."

Happily, he was yelling at a cop who didn't seem to mind unsnapping his holster while waving the SC to the side of the road and making him sit there while I showed my ID(showing that I lived in the unsafe area) to prove that I wasn't just trying to get in the way or take pics for utube or something.

As I looked in my mirror as I getting onto the very empty (and very spooky highway), I saw the SC get out of his truck and then get handcuffed. It looked like he was still yelling.

[WishfulSpirit]

People screaming to be allowed to endanger their health / lives always confuses me. Maybe should have had him sign something that nobody would rescue him if he got hurt.

[morgana]

Wishful, I hear you. It's way too easy to get hurt or killed when you're trying NOT to; why go begging for it?

[Pixelated]

Oh, that brings back memories ... the weekly paper I worked at was in a rural area. Winter often brought blizzards that closed area highways.

One coworker (who had a bee up his butt about cops anyway) was ticketed once while driving on a closed highway. He proceeded to write an enraged column about how he was a good driver, it was his right to take chances with his life and safety, the police were out of line, and so on and so forth.

Our small editorial staff was known to everybody in the town and surrounding area. For the next week, this guy couldn't show his face outside his house without getting an earful. Not from the cops, who were sensible enough to keep quiet, knowing it would just inflame him further. But the paramedics, firefighters, tow truck drivers, snowplow drivers ... people he didn't already have a bias against ... they all took turns tearing strips off him. In public, more often than not. Basically their comments boiled down to: "Sure you have the right to risk your life and safety ... but who the hell do you think is going to have to risk their life and safety when you go into a ditch and have to be hauled out? US, that's who!!"

They also pointed out that he'd had his girlfriend and her two kids in the car at the time. So it was obviously not a matter of him risking just his own life. The girlfriend, obviously, was an adult; the kids were not.

To his credit, he wrote a much more subdued column the following week in which he said that perhaps he should reconsider his previous stance.

[Slave to the Phone]

Good on him for realizing that he was being an ass. I also hope that she is now an ex-girlfriend due to him endangering her children that way.

I didn't mention that the "World's Oldest Rodeo" started yesterday. This means that people from all over the country fill up the motels and camp grounds or park their big RV's at Walmart.

It was worse today. Both of us had to go by the check point several times each. On my way to work, the roundabout was blocked by someone driving a big RV and hauling a horse trailer. After Officer Friendly told him that he couldn't go through the closed highway, he got out and started yelling and waving his arms around in the air. Officer Friendly suddenly became Officer Not-so-friendly and the jerk climbed back into his RV while everyone had to back up out of the roundabout so jerk could drive around again and go in the right direction. Its possible that I might have made a rude hand gesture while passing him on the freeway.

On my way home, I witnessed a cop accidently kicking the side of a TV van. Due to him being off balance due to the accidently tripping and kicking the van, its possible that he might have accidently tazed the driver.

Perhaps they have become Officers I am not going to put up with Looters or Reporters. My Sweetie, who is responsible for being sure that our cupboards are full has reported that he has also seen camera trucks being forcibly refused.

And then, around 10 this morning they allowed the residents of one of the burnt towns to return. That's when they had 2 cop cars and 4 ADOT trucks blocking the road. ID or proof that you belonged in the burnt town or my town only.

I timed it and it took me 23 minutes just to get through the checkpoint because almost every single driver had to argue with the cop to try to get through.

When it was my turn, I showed my ID which was actually looked at and then waved through and drove down an empty highway to a silent town where no birds chirped because they are smarter than humans and flew away.

[Slave to the Phone]

No more stories, the roadblock was lifted this morning, thank Bastet. Fires are still happening, some communities are still evacuated and there is a cop car (from all over the state) with lights flashing at every blocked road. They are doing their best to protect peoples property and privacy.

Casa Slave is safe and cats are rather ticked off because there are 4 canine fire refugees in our yard.

[An Haddock]

To his credit, he wrote a much more subdued column the following week in which he said that perhaps he should reconsider his previous stance.

That's hilarious (being publicly shamed, not putting the g/f and kids in jeopardy, obviously) - it sounds like something that would happen to Homer Simpson. Or possibly Stan or Kenny's dad from South Park.

"YOU'RE SUPPRESSING MY HUMAN RIGHTS! I thought this was 'MERICA! I can drive where I want!"

[Pixelated]

Well, it's Canada, but yeah, that was pretty much his attitude. And I can tell you the journalists do not necessarily circle the wagons to protect their own when one of their own has done something spectacularly dumb ... like this.

Oh yeah, that was one thing we learned quickly ... it's a small community. If people don't like what you wrote, you WILL hear about it. Get used to it.

[Slave to the Phone]

OK, maybe I do have another update because I was at the local mom-and-mom place which is right next to the turn-off to our small community today. If you got past the checkpoint, you couldn't get past that turn off because nobody but emergency vehicles, got past the roadblock there. I had noticed that the parking lot was always packed, but didn't go inside because there was no need to do so.

What to do, what to do? You want to get past the second road block because taking the bypass will take too long, or because you want to drive into a fire for whatever reason.

Ah ha! Says you: Here is a small non-chain gas station/c store. I'll just go in, use the restroom, grab something to drink and then badger the poor beleaguered clerk to know when the road will be open.

The owner told me that she had to put on another clerk just to clean the restrooms and move people out from in front of the pumps or in the close parking spots so that other customers could use them. She covered the beer and soda advertisements with white boards that she updated as soon as she got anything to update in large reassuring red letters.

She covered the doors and windows with the same signs. The store was also covered with them (she privately told me that she was testing my theory that 42 was the answer to life, the universe and everything, so had bought 42 signs.) It seems as though 42 is not the answer to how many signs does it take to make an SC read?

[Minflick]

Nothing like multiple events of public shame and excoriation to get through a EW that they are just possibly not in the right here...

[Pixelated]

*snip*

She covered the doors and windows with the same signs. The store was also covered with them (she privately told me that she was testing my theory that 42 was the answer to life, the universe and everything, so had bought 42 signs.) It seems as though 42 is not the answer to how many signs does it take to make an SC read?

None, because they won't read the signs anyway.

(Emphasis on SttP's quote is mine, obviously ...)

[Lovecats]

My daughter and her husband (and our 2 grandcats) live in Prescott and she's been keeping us updated on the situation. Today she did say that the fires were 44% contained and some people were being allowed back in their homes.

[Slave to the Phone]

Last time I checked, it was over 77% contained and there were still a few remote communities that still couldn't go home.

Your daughter et all probably weren't in actual danger from the Goodwin fire, but the smoke must have been pretty bad.

My home is south of the fire and I didn't have any smoke at home. Work is north of the fire and it was OMG! I heard (gossip, not verified) that the 69 by the Sam's Club was so smoky that everyone had to slow down to 10 mph or under.

The fire would have had to burn through Prescott Valley to get to Prescott...or get turned around the mountain and burn up from the other side to get to your kids.

I'm now wondering if that isn't as reassuring as it should be. Should I use large red reassuring letters?


If you kinda forget about the wild fires and the scorpions and the part about the "if it doesn't try to stick you, sting you or bite you, its not native to AZ" stuff, you should come out to visit your kids. Prescott is beautiful, as long as you don't visit during fire season, you probably won't see scorpions because they only invade buildings when its hot and they are looking for water. (I might not be as truthful as I could be in that last part.)

[dalesys]

... "if it doesn't try to stick you, sting you or bite you, its not native to AZ"...

So... Australia lite?

[Slave to the Phone]

So... Australia lite?

Maybe not...our jackalopes aren't as bad as drop bears, but we have jumping cholla's. Don't walk close to them without long pants and sleeves, just the vibrations in the air caused by someone walking next to them will set off little, tiny, very sharp needles into any exposed skin.

Not only do we have attacking plants, we have carnivorous mice! They are very territorial and will track other mice by their urine trails and attack, kill and eat them!

Not only do we have to worry about being killed by plants and mice, there are also the Tarantula. As long as you don't mind big harry spiders, they are just fine. The problem is that they attract Tarantula hawks.

Those monsters are the inspiration for the Alien series. (Not verified fact, but I am sure of it.) They have insect sex and the female digs a hole and looks for a very benign and human friendly tarantula. Stings it, then uses a special organ on her body to insert 1 egg into the still living tarantula and seals the hole. She doesn't die until she has laid all of her eggs or lives a couple of weeks longer after breeding.

The egg hatches inside the poor spider and the larva or hatchling or whatever eats the still living spider until it is ready to hatch. Then the monster emerges, opens the door to the hole and goes out to mate and breed.

If you look them up on the pain index (people reporting being stung, many of them doing it by choice), on a scale of 1 to 10, being stung by one of those monsters is OMFG off the charts higher than a 10.