Satellite View of Mountain Fire Smoke
My home town of Camarillo has been in the national news for the past day or two. Having lived in Southern California all my life, I am used to the Santa Ana winds along with the many wildfires we have suffered here over the years in the land of shake and bake. We are fortunate to live outside the fire area, the evacuation zones, and the power shutoff areas. Our home is the little blue dot in the middle of Camarillo in this post’s featured image.
Many Homes Burned in Camarillo Heights
We are aware of several members of our ward who have lost their homes up in the Heights, as we call it here. There is not yet an official count of the number of homes burned so far. Estimates from news reporters in helicopters have counted about 85. That’s a small number compared to some fires of the past in California. Two of the fires listed in the top twenty most destructive in California have been here in Ventura County.
Wildfires and the Last Days or End Times
Invariably when natural disasters like this occur, somebody says it’s caused by man-made climate change. Another common claim is that it is a sign from God sent because of our wickedness. As one writer posted on a common Q&A site: “We’ve had fires in California this time of year for centuries if not millennia. If California fires were a sign of end times, we’d already be past the end times.” I note that wildfires are not included in the list of signs of the Lord’s Second Coming, although we read that the earth will be baptized by fire when the Lord comes.
New Search Feature on LDC
I’ve updated the search feature here on LDC recently. I really like it for quickly finding phrases I have used in my posts over the years. There is also a new AI “Ask” feature that is very much in the experimental phase. It can be humorous to ask a question and read how the AI NLP (Natural Language Processor) responds. It will sometimes concatenate stuff that it thinks is relevant, but which is very non-sequitur. It is not an LLM, so will only produce results from my 675 posts and pages.
Recent U.S. General Elections
We watched the election returns with interest Tuesday evening. Carol is not concerned with political intrigue, but I am a bit of a news junkie, especially in regard to politics. I waited until the probability of Trump winning was at 85% before retiring for the evening. Something awoke me at 1am, and out of habit I checked my phone for messages (I am always on call for IT emergencies) and noted that the decision had been called. I have voted in 13 presidential elections over the years and my candidate of choice has won seven of those contests, including this year.
Covenant of Christ Canonized
I was pleased to learn that the Covenant of Christ, the modern-English version of the Book of Mormon had been accepted by the majority of fellowships in the conference vote. A nice surprise was to learn that it is available as an audiobook. I have spent a lot of time in the glossary over the years since the Restoration Edition came out. I note that there is a selected glossary included in the Covenant of Christ, which appears to be a subset of the full version. If there’s one area I wish would be expanded, it’s the glossary. I use it as a study guide when I feel impressed to learn more about a specific doctrinal topic.
