You might recall in the past I mentioned the fact that the wildfires up in Canada have been dumping smoke into the northern half of the United States. For a while there we got a little bit of a respite, but the cycle is back in action and we have been inundated with smoke once again. It honestly sucks because this Summer seems to be one hit after the other.
There was a good portion of the summer that we had temperatures close to 100 degrees with a feels like temperature well above that when you add in the humidity. It forced the majority of us to retreat indoors to the safety and relief of air conditioning.
Wouldn't you know it, we finally get a bit of a break from the heat, actual temperatures where you could open your windows if you wanted. Nope, now we get hit with another round of wildfire smoke and we once again find ourselves locked up indoors.
It's pretty annoying, but we have very little recourse. My electric bill has been a good $100 more per month over the last couple of months due to the need to isolate indoors. I'm almost afraid to look at the filter in my furnace to see how much junk it has trapped. If you do attempt to go outdoors, you are met with air that feels gritty and smells of a campfire.
My wife and I both have allergies and after camping this past weekend we have been in a world of pain. My nose is constantly running and the sinus pressure is giving us both terrible headaches.
I took the two photos above last Thursday on my way home from work. That's not fog in the distance, that haze is the smoke from the wildfires up in Canada. It's just this blanket that covers pretty much everything in the area.
Sunday night I mentioned to @mrsbozz that I was thinking about opening the house up with the temperatures heading into the low 60's and high 50's at night. The she reminded me of the wildfire smoke and begged me not to do that. She isn't the sort to complain, but I think her allergies are taking a hit a lot more than mine.
I took these two photos while we were camping over the weekend and at the point I took them the sun should have still been shining bright in the sky. Instead, we were given this post apocalyptic red tinted sun covered by an orange haze that just wouldn't seem to lift. It was still a pleasant evening, but I think this was what really kicked our allergies into overdrive.
I actually had three different songs queued up to share with you for this #threetunetuesday post sponsored by @ablaze, but then I decided to change direction and go this route. So here you go, three hand selected tunes by me dedicated to smoke.
I actually wasn't really familiar with this Bad Company song, but after listening to it a couple of times I have to admit that "No Smoke Without Fire" pretty much rocks! It's a dang good tune that was released back in 1988. It's kind of crazy just how much amazing rock music came out of the 80's. Although I more often associate Bad Company with their earlier hits, they really embraced that kind of hair metal vibe in this one.
Pretty sure I am going to add them to my list of bands I need to take a deeper dive into someday.
Your actually going to laugh at me on this one. Please don't judge me too much @slobberchops, @steevc, and @tengolotodo. It seems somewhere in my mind I had mixed up the two bands The Pouges, and The Troggs. When in reality, the two couldn't be any further from each other. For this song I picked "Bottle Of Smoke" by The Pouges thinking I could spend a paragraph pontificating about how different this song was compared to some of their other songs.
It's a good thing I did a bit more research because I would have looked like a moron talking about two totally different bands like they were the same one. Separated by about 20 years as well! That was definitely a close one. I picked this song today because honestly the air seems so thick with smoke right now that you could seriously take a bottle and just move it through the air and bottle it up. It's crazy!
They keep telling us the air quality warnings are going to let up at some point, but then they keep pushing the end date out.
So, given the fact that we don't really know when things are finally going to let up, I am going to share "When The Smoke Is Going Down" by The Scorpions. I actually don't know as though I have ever heard this ballad by them before, but it's pretty legit and exactly what I would expect from the Scorpions. This is another band who I am mostly familiar with their hit songs and I realize I need to dig into them a bit more.
Finally, I just want to say that I hope the workers who are trying to stop these fires in Canada can stay safe. Perhaps mother nature will give them the push they need to finally get them under control. I do believe things like this are cyclical and forest fires have been happening for eons due to lighting strikes and things like that. However, these wildfires are often started by careless people, and given the extent of urban sprawl, the fires have much more fuel to make them burn hotter and faster than they ever did in the past.
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