Thanks to all of you for your concern and prayers. We have been busier than a cat covering up poop on a marble floor lately with our very long (and largely unproductive) trip, the fall of the Watchmen.fm and this damn fire.
Amy and I just drove over 4000 miles to do a couple of seminars and visit family along the way. Almost immediately after we arrived in Washington, Doc, at the Watchmen, had a major malfunction which ultimately led to his arrest and his child being taken by Child Protective Services. He claims to have fired a couple of the hosts but that was said after we all quit due to his behavior. A few us have a burning to desire to continue to educate folks and learn from others and immediately went to work building a new station so we could get back on the air. This resulted in Doc claiming we stole his station which was NOT true as we bought and paid for everything brand-new and didn't use anything related to the old station. His technical guru did, however, take down all that was related to the Watchmen.fm because HE owned the domain name and built everything that Doc had. He also paid for most of it so he simply retained what was his. I don't approve of the way he did it but he was still within his rights. Lots of hard feelings and personal attacks but I suppose that will all go away in time.
Our new station can be found at Just Measures Radio This link takes you to the temporary page on John Galt's web site. Our official site will be up and running in the near future. Archives are located at JMR Archives Officially, we started last Monday, 6 June but this has been kind of a test so we should have everything going well this next week. We have 5-6 hosts right now and more on the way. Listener numbers are VERY high for no longer than we have been on.
The next thing that has disrupted our lives (and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future) is the huge fire in eastern AZ. As I type this, the fire is 5 miles from the shop and Luna has been issued a preliminary evacuation warning but we are not going anywhere. 7 towns in AZ have already been evacuated. All the particulars for the fire are posted below and were current as of 9pm last night. It promises to be the largest fire in AZ's history and will certainly spread into NM today or tomorrow. This has brought our business to a 100% stand-still. Except for the heavy smoke, we are 100% safe where we are at but things are not looking good for any of us here. Southwest Shooting Authority is not the only in danger of failing. Grazing land is being destroyed which effects the ranchers terribly. The drought was already hard on these cows and now they are being herded from place to place ahead of the fire. Those that are dependent on tourism in the area will be devastated this year and I have no doubt that some will go under. It will affect hunting in the area this year, especially on the AZ side. It is yet to be seen how bad it will affect NM.
This fire has burned over 400,000 acres and there is another fire 100 miles south of that has burned about 90,000 acres.
Date Started: 5/29/2011
Number of Personnel: Approximately 4,422
Location: south and west of Alpine, Arizona
Including 26 hotshot crews and 76 hand crews
Cause: Human - under investigation
Equipment:28 dozers, 263 engines, 69 water tenders
Size: 408,887ac based on last night's infrared data
Aircraft: 15 helicopters
Percent Contained: 6%
Injuries to Date: 3
Residences: 2,714 threatened; 29 destroyed 5 damaged
Structures other than homes: 35 destroyed
Other: 1 truck destroyed
And so it begins. Natural disasters of biblical proportions, the U.S. economy in the tank, our military forces spread thin around the world, wide-open borders allowing a constant flow of illegals into our country, our society has completely dismissed their moral values; a Muslim, socialist president that is doing everything in his power to bring us to our knees and more than a dozen government agencies whose only mission in life seems to be to strip us of our rights and destroy the Constitution. In spite of all of this, there are still those among us that refuse to see. They dismiss any suggestion that much harder times are to come. It is inevitable. We have reached the point of no return. However, it is survivable if we simply accept it for what it is and prepare as best we can.
More on this later
Cope Reynolds (Desertscout)
Southwest Shooting Authority
