La Canada is on fire. It's a huge fire, that is growing exponentially every day, and isn't even slightly contained. Mandatory evacuations are literally two blocks away from pyr8queen's house. So Saturday, we drove up and looted the last of the stuff that she hadn't already packed out. This included the silver, an airplane her roommate has been building for five years, and of course, the wine cellar.

I had one of those "life is an RPG" moments when I was tasked with picking out what was worth saving. "Make a Lore: Oenophile roll to determine which of the thousands of bottles are most valuable or worth saving." It was harder than you'd think - it's not based just on the age of the bottle, though with her parents, that's a pretty good indicator, since if they haven't just drank it, it must be pretty special. The family anal retentiveness came in pretty handy too, as things were organized by region and type, and little tags hung to indicate which should be drunk in what year. Even so! Obviously the '85 Penfold's was coming, and some of the older bordeaux and margaux bottles. And the family loves their Warrior Fires Shiraz, so even though it's not terribly expensive, that's the thing to save, as well as the bottles of Port laid down in the various birth-years. But! So much wine!

As I was loading the Adventure Galley with wine, silverware, artwork and an airplane, I thought now this is how to plunder!

So in honor of a big and crazy wildfire - Ray Charles, doing "Ring of Fire"