I tried calling both places again – this time, I got the “All circuits…” message in both locations. That’s really not kosher. Just for the sake of argument, I tried calling Kris’ cell phone. Straight to voicemail. Same thing with Mom and Dad’s phone. I know that there’s about a 12 hour time difference, but I called Rana to see if she’d heard anything. I was able to get through to her; All seems to be going fairly well on the far side of the world. Not wanting to alarm her, I tried to leave out as much of my worry as possible and just chalked it up to something stupid going on back east.

I tried to get my uncle on the horn. No go. And, like I said: The last time I couldn’t get through in the NY and MD areas, there were planes falling out of the sky. It’s REALLY unlikely that something like that is happening again, so I’m going to mentally eliminate that option.

: I couldn’t turn on the TV, I was already at work. When I looked at newsfeeds, all that I could find were items about mobs and rioting. There was something that looked official, from either NIH or the CDC, but I haven’t a chance to follow it up. (That reminds me: Bret works for NIH, I should see if I can get through to him.)

: I didn’t have any problem with traffic this morning, but I was in the office a little before 8 and I had the short commute today. Have you checked Commuterlink? With the cameras and all, it’s usually pretty good for checking traffic. Tell your IT guy, “I’m sorry,” from another IT guy. Too bad it’s not No Bad News Thursday.

*looks out window*

There’s a nice view of the valley from here. And there’s no inversion, so I can see downtown, too. Bonus! And, there’s… smoke…. downtown. Must be a fire. No… there are multiple plumes of smoke. *looks around* There’s smoke in West Valley, too. And… Taylorsville. Okay. This is officially NOT cool.

m3l: I just looked down onto 215 – there are a couple of pile-ups that I can see from here: One over by Old Mill Golf Course and one a little west of 2300 East. And it looks like road rage central at the 2300 one. I can’t make out the details, but it looks like there’s a pretty big fight or something down there. Stupid Commuterlink cam is focused further down the road, so it’s not helping. Have you seen/heard anything?