When I actually notice air quality, it's really bad. Let's put it this way: when I lived at USC, I was about 7 miles south of the Hollywood Hills. On a beautiful day they showed up clear as a bell. On a bad smog day, they were a wraith-like apparition. Now I live 4 miles farther north, which is about 3 miles from the mountains. Wednesday morning I couldn't see the mountains. At all. No suggestion they were there. Imagine a heavy fog but that makes you start coughing if you're outdoors for more than 3 minutes at a time. That's what wildfire smoke did here, and I'm at least 20 miles away from the nearest blaze. It's kind of disturbing.

I'm getting out of dodge for part of the weekend--Gourab the Bengali Bengal Fan and I are road-tripping out to Tempe. It kind of makes me ill that Miami-San Diego was free but they expect people to actually pay to see the Cards and the Bungles. Well, maybe they don't actually expect it per se, but it is a pre-condition for seeing the game live. So we're doing it. It could be painful--but chances are it will be less painful than not paying to watch the Steelers. Sigh.