I'm Living In An Apocalypse... AMA

"Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch" (bman76) 04/05/2016 at 22:34 • Filed to: Oppocalypse Now

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Somebody thought it was a good idea to do a control burn on the windiest day of the last few weeks. I’m now living in a smoke cloud, surrounded by artillery fire and lighting.

AMA

Cherry_man1 > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 04/05/2016 at 22:50

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You on a military base somewhere? Or at K-State?

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > Cherry_man1 04/05/2016 at 22:52

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K-State, but our temporary Architecture building directly borders Fort Riley’s artillery range.

Cherry_man1 > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 04/05/2016 at 22:53

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Well damn your 2hrs away from me then, when I’m home that is in Olathe

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > Cherry_man1 04/05/2016 at 22:58

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Not for much longer, I graduate soon. Hopefully moving to either Portland, Seattle, or Vancouver.

Cherry_man1 > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 04/05/2016 at 23:07

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oh really?

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > Cherry_man1 04/05/2016 at 23:29

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Yep, if I can get a job up there.

Cherry_man1 > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 04/05/2016 at 23:34

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Good luck man, what’s your major?

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > Cherry_man1 04/05/2016 at 23:45

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Architecture, I’ll have my Masters in 39 days.

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 04/06/2016 at 00:22

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That actually doesn’t look too bad. With the the crazy fires up in northern Saskatchewan this summer, we had smoke so bad that news reports were complaining about the haze across the Midwest and as far away as Kentucky. 1000 km away from the fires where I live there were a couple days we were down to 200ft visibility. I had friends and coworkers up there working the fires, can’t imagine the hell that it was closer by. Not trying to one-up you. It really sucks when the sun’s blotted out by smoke.

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee 04/06/2016 at 00:27

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We had that the other day on site, with 50 mph winds. It’s one thing out in the prairie, it’s another in town coupled with lightning :)

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 04/06/2016 at 00:51

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I don’t live on the prairie... I’m in the southern reaches of boreal forest. As far north as where the fires were it’s full-on shield. The few open spaces we have aren’t very big, and it’s unusual and kinda creepy not being able to see across them. Fog or snow is one thing... at least it’s white, but the grey of the smoke coupled with the burnt smell for weeks at a time isn’t great. We did get some lightning and a bit of rain too. That wasn’t much fun either. It cleared the sky a bit but not enough to do much except coat everything in an incredibly fine ash paste. Living under the smokes sucks. Hope your skies clear up for you soon. Visibility’s pretty low here too right now, but that’s cause of snow. Three inches so far on and off today, with another three called for over night.

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee 04/06/2016 at 00:57

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I was referring to my own location. I’ve lived through this every spring for 5 years, but this year seems worse than usual. Your forest fires sound equally terrible.

facw > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 04/06/2016 at 04:01

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I like the extra light band around the stoplights. We have them on some intersections here in Houston to remind people that no, they really don’t want to run the red light in front of the light rail (which is a big problem, though just a small subset of the terrible driving that goes on down here).

Jayhawk Jake > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 04/06/2016 at 08:35

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We’ve been dealing with this shit in Wichita too.

A week ago it literally looked like the apocalypse. Sky was orange, sun was just bright red, smelled like burning...it was insane.

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > facw 04/06/2016 at 09:49

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The reflective tape?

facw > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 04/06/2016 at 10:32

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Oh, is it just tape? Ours light up red.

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 04/06/2016 at 10:55

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Oh, haha. Most people refer to Manitoba and Saskatchewan as prairie provinces, hence my misunderstanding. Last year’s fire season was pretty nuts, yeah. Except every once in a while on protected grounds we don’t do many prescribed burns on grass/farmland out here. It’s just a pretty awful practice that does more harm than good for farm land.

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > facw 04/07/2016 at 00:06

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Just reflective tape, that light band sounds pretty cool. I’ve seen stop signs with embedded LEDs though.

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee 04/07/2016 at 00:10

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We have the largest remaining tall grass prairie here in Kansas, it’s ecology is really dependent on burning. As such, they burn part of it every year.

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 04/07/2016 at 00:32

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Mm. Yes. I live in a national park, and they do small prescribed burns every year too. It’s crazy how fast it greens up afterwards. It definitely is helpful ecologically, but I think it’s more done around here for fuel control, preventing it from accumulating too much, leading to undesirable fires burning out of control.

But for just burning off the same patch of stubble on farm land every year, it bakes all the nutrients out of the topsoil, leaves the soil bare with minimal root structures to hold it on place, exposing it to erosion, prevents the establishment of windbreaks which worsens the erosion, and releases all the carbon captured by the plants back into atmo. Just all around a bad thing.

facw > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 04/07/2016 at 00:40

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Yeah, they are like this only lit when the light is red. You’ll note that it takes a lot of reinforcement to keep Houston drivers from driving in front of the light rail.

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee 04/07/2016 at 01:09

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We don’t have any topsoil anyway, just limestone. Prairie grasses have crazy deep roots and are better at carbon sequestration than trees.

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > facw 04/07/2016 at 01:10

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Oh god, Houston...