Clearing Mist

I suppose this could be one of a series of frequently photographed skies that look different to me every time. It is typical of the topography of where we live, that it was sunny and clearing at home and socked in with mist at Spring Lake a couple of miles away. We watched the mountain emerge from the mist and the sun begin to shine as we walked slowly and sedately around the lake.

By the end of August, the trees tend to look dusty and dispirited. Now, although many of them have lost all their leaves, they are clearly etched against the sky ,while those that still have leaves or needles are newly washed and sparkling. There was a red boat out there which would have been a nice touch in this picture, but I didn't have the patience to wait for it to enter the frame.

I devoted some time to preparing a stew for the slow cooker and listened to a podcast about people's individual stories of how they were caught up in the 38 minutes in January 2018 in Hawaii when panic reigned after an imminent ballistic missile alert warning was widely broadcast on residents' phones. It was touching and scary even though it turned out to be a false alarm when somebody pushed the wrong button and broadcast the This is NOT a test version instead of the this IS a test one. 

As Sonoma County struggles to come up with a fire alert system, it is yet another reminder that 1) an emergency warning is worse than no use at all if there is no plan in place for what to do once it is activated and 2) Technology is fraught with opportunities for error both human and natural.

The error was blamed on the poor design of the user interface for the alert and not the poor person who pushed the wrong button.