You have until 5 pm today to get a free taco at Taco Bell.

Yes, they are usually only a dollar or something.

But hey, if you are digging out change from beneath your car seats because you are broke, then today is your day!

Our poor Orange County, beset by fires and gale-force winds!

My heart goes out to all those who have lost their homes. May you be able to heal from your loss as quickly as possible.

I’m also mourning the loss of so many trees over here in my neck of the woods. Many of them were beautiful, old trees that unfortunately were too top-heavy to resist the wind.

Our lungs, may they soon be able to breathe a bit more freely. My windows have not opened once since Saturday.

My thanks to the firefighters who have worked tirelessly and endlessly to battle the Santiago fire, which just refuses to die.

We will get through this. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

From Brittany:

Eh.. this is a link to the end of the fire that broke out in Anaheim Hills around 6 today… it is just the last h20 drop, but I am also posting pictures from today at my
picasa account here.

I haven’t heard about this fire – anyone have more data?

Update: The Register has this just now:

Firefighters quickly extinguished a 3-acre brush fire near Sycamore Park in east Anaheim tonight. The Bridgewood fire was reported about 4:55 p.m., and 67 firefighters put it out by 6 p.m., an Anaheim news release said.

My wife just called from her commute south on Interstate 5 to her office near The Spectrum. Here’s what she said:

“It’s like driving into hell! I’m passing the Culver exit now. There is thick dark smoke everywhere and there is an orange glow all around me. There are ashes flying horizontally at the car. It’s like a black snowstorm. When I left Anaheim the temperature on the car said 75 degrees and now the temperature says 96 degrees. There are cars pulling over on the side of the road and I have seen several traffic accidents. There are road and exit closures and traffic is moving at about 5 to 10 miles per hour. It’s windy too – very very windy.”

So if you’re commuting to South County on the 5, please use extreme caution and be careful folks. Make sure and put those air vents on recycle while you’re at it.

There have been unrelated spot fires all over the county (including one at my workplace in Anaheim yesterday). We’re keeping our firefighters very busy. Are you in the Irvine area? Let us know what’s happening down there.

From Courtney tonight:

The evacuation center for affected residents of Irvine and nearby areas is Lakeview Senior Ctr at Lake and Alton, Irvine. Irvine fire hotline is 714-628-7085. AM radio 1640 has messages from Irvine Emergency Broadcast system/Irvine police department running on a loop. No immediate threat to homes reported as of 9:30 p.m. Voluntary evacuations only for Northwood, Portola springs neighborhoods. Keep your windows closed to avoid the smoke. Good luck everyone. Peace and love, writing from Deerfield/Irvine Ctr Dr.

The OC Register has a fire central page with updates, information, maps and more. It’ll be updated throughout the night and extensively tomorrow. If anyone reading here has pictures, post them online where I can link to them, or send them to me and I’ll host them on flickr.

With the news of all the other fires in LA and SD, a lot of the big news stations aren’t yet reporting on a fire in Santiago Canyon, near the 241 and 133 toll roads. The Register has the story, and will update throughout the evening. We’re in Eastern Santa Ana near 17th and Tustin Ave, and we can see actual flames and glowing orange smoke coming off it. Scary stuff.

Here’s today’s parking genius. Photo snapped outside Starbucks on the corner of Tustin Ave. and 17th Street in Tustin, in an amazingly small parking lot. Bonus points: He came roaring in at about 30mph, and only missed me by about 5 feet.

According to this article in the LA Times, Snoop Dogg will soon be at a park near you, cleaning toilets.

As part of his sentence, he must perform community service hours at an undisclosed OC park.

If I were to come across him picking up trash, I don’t think I would have the guts to like, drop a wrapper and say, “Do your job, dude!”

But I would kind of wish I did.

The next meeting of the Orange County Atheists will be held Wednesday, October 10 at 7:30PM at the International House of Pancakes at 18542 MacArthur Blvd in Irvine. If you consider yourself an atheist, an agnostic, a freethinker, a humanist, or are just curious, check out this month’s event. If you’re planning on attending please RSVP at our website forums. Hope to see you there!

At least, that is what Nicolas Cage thought when he saw this dude.