This page is an archive of information about the Santiago Incident Fire near Irvine, Tustin, Lake Forest, El Toro and Rancho Santa Margarita in October 2007. At the time, there were a number of fires burning across Southern California and getting specific information about this fire proved difficult. Many people filled the information vacuum by posting individual accounts and details which surpassed anything found in the newspapers, tv or radio.

A special thanks to all the firefighters whose tireless work saved countless homes and communities. For those whose homes could not be saved, I offer my deepest sympathy.

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My two guesses: Beauty & The Beast or Pinocchio. The question only applies to classic Disney films, no Pixar. Besides the obvious factor of timing against past releases, these two hold a special place in the Disney canon.

Pinocchio

Walt was said to have described Pinocchio, his second animated feature after Snow White, as the story closest to his heart, and his quest for perfection nearly broke the studio. Pinocchio lost money in it’s initial 1940 release. However it did ultimately succeed, and Pinocchio is widely regarded as Disney’s most technically perfect animated film. Pinocchio was the first Disney film released on DVD, last available in 1999.

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast was the film that saved Disney. Little Mermaid in 1989 was the prelude, showing that the studio was once again capable of producing an animated feature that could cross demographics, introduce lasting characters and revel unabashed in it’s own technical mastery. In 1991, Beauty & The Beast proved Ariel wasn’t a fluke.*

Beauty & The Beast was a huge hit, critically acclaimed and in every way earned its place in the Disney pantheon. Though he obviously never saw it, the story was dear to Walt Disney who twice attempted features based on the story. This was last available on DVD in 2002, and demand is still strong. We’re also approaching the time where the prime audience for the movie’s original release, 7-12 year old girls, are reaching the age where many will be starting families.

Currently I’m feeling about 60/40 Beauty and the Beast over Pinocchio. (I reversed that after writing this, will instinct or reason prove out?)

* I almost deleted that sentence.

Update, October 2008: And now we know. Disney’s first classic to be re-released in HD is Sleeping Beauty. Totally unexpected.

“I have several friends who know him to some degree. One of them said ‘he often walks the fine line between genius and lunatic.’ The problem is, genius is such a commodity these days, that it’s not acceptable to be an eccentric any more.”
— Greg Hudson

I’ve know way too many creative people who’ve hidden behind elaborately constructed facades of eccentricity. Initially it takes up too much of their energy, then after a while it just becomes an excuse.

Tangentially related and potentially contradictory:

You have to pursue greatness not success. Achieve greatness and success will follow.
— Keith Schacht

One for my dad: Shakespeare’s Sonnets in Morse Code

Growing up, I have very fond memories of my dad tapping out morse code. 30-odd years later, I find these recordings to be quite soothing, triggering a childhood feeling of warmth and safety from somewhere deep in my brain.

I never learned Morse Code, I faked the post title with this Morse Code Translator

(Si dad, fixed.)

From the sed manpage:

-i extension
   Edit files in-place, saving backups with the specified extension.
   If a zero-length extension is given, no backup will be saved.  It
   is not recommended to give a zero-length extension when in-place
   editing files, as you risk corruption or partial content in situ-
   ations where disk space is exhausted, etc.

This doesn’t work:

sed -i -e's/apples/oranges/' file.txt

The key thing here is that the extension after the -i flag is not optional. If you leave it off, sed assumes you’ll be entering it via stdin, which isn’t allowed and yields this error:

sed: -i may not be used with stdin

The solution is to send a zero-length extension like this:

sed -i '' -e's/apples/oranges/' file.txt

Careful with this, it could be really dangerous with poorly crafted commands.

Ran the Sunrise Lake loop this morning. Sunrise Lake’s elevation is 1,440 feet above sea level, which, considering that I normally run at sea level, made the hills seem that much more difficult.

Ran the 4.5 mile Hudson River route with Harris. Started out at dusk, which was amazing.