This morning, traffic was made even more interesting than normal because of the brush fire that started about 2 in the morning, near the Getty Center. The north 405 freeway offramps from the 10 on were shut down, meaning I had to get off the freeway and take surface streets for a few miles to get to the office here at Saltmine U.

The view from my office:

The Getty's the low horizontal set of buildings on the hill to the left; the smoke is coming from the right, which is north-northwest a bit, much closer to the Skirball, on the other side of the hill.

When I was at the Getty on Sunday with my mother, we wanted to walk down the hill from the museum to the parking lot, but some docents warned us about a mountain lion that'd attacked someone the day before. After deciding that perhaps we could not, after all, outrun a mountain lion, we grudgingly waited in the huge line, and took the tram down. Now, I wonder about the mountain lion, and if he's okay, or if the fire and firefighters have pushed him out of his territory, or worse.

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