I'm going to depart from my normal printer blog topic and spend a little time talking about what life has been like for the last week, living through the San Diego fires. My family and I were among the 300,000+ people in San Diego evacuated from the many fires you have seen and read about in the news. The one I was concerned about was the Witch Creek fire, which burned in to heavily populated areas of North San Diego county.

I was actually in Boise at the time of the evacuation notice on Monday (10/22). Boise is the headquarters of hp's LaserJet Business. My wife got a reverse 911 call in the morning and put a few things in the car and headed for a friend's house with my son. I returned back to San Diego on Monday night. We spent the next week in San Diego and LA waiting out the fire. We were getting scant information on the fire with the exception of a few blogs. We were allowed to return to our homes on Thursday (10/25). Although we were told that power could be restored as late as Monday, it was on when we arrived home.

Our primary home was ok, thanks to the fireman and our home design. Some ash and soot in and around the house, but nothing that can't be fixed with a little cleaning and air filtration. My home was designed with a very rigorous fire code standard. The fire literally burned through and around where I live, but not one house was damaged or destroyed!

Another home of mine, in San Diego, was one of 26 (out of 53) that survived the "worst" of the Rancho Bernardo fires. The house next door and behind burnt down and there is some fire damage to that property. President Bush visited this street on his trip to San Diego. Again, nothing that insurance won't cover. I am grateful that is all it is and that the tenant and his family were able to evacuate uninjured.