i live in a giant barbecue

Brian and Dan were both asking about the current weather conditions here in Central Florida. i took these photos on my way home. that isn't clouds or a sultry Florida haze. that is, in fact, *smoke* hanging in there air. we have a bunch of brush fires here, combined with the fires going on in Georgia, that are making the air heavy with smoke & leaving a thin layer of ash on my car, like i found this morning. i guess what's happened is there are two weather systems stacked, one on top of the other, over the southeastern are of the US. the weather system that is on top has effectively become a lid, trapping all the smoke & ash from the fires in the lower weather system, and all the wind we've been having is just circulating it around & around. this lower weather system is also rather dry, so there is no real chance in sight for rain to settle down all these brush fires. so... we wait for the upper system to move out of the way & allow the air to clear. until then, everything smells like a barbecue & i have a perpetual sore throat.