The James Logan Courier

By M.S. Enkoji
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

REDDING, Calif. — Gazing out a wall of windows, Mike Lococo watched lightning stab the horizon, over and over, like a bizarre light show gone awry.

Three decades of battling blazes in remote corners of California told him one thing: That was trouble hurtling from the heavens.

Lococo is part of a unique national network that launches at the first sniff of wildfire.

When hundreds of California wildfires sprang from lightning strikes June 20-21, the Northern California Geographic Coordination Center here geared up. It is part of an 11-center network reporting to a national center in Boise, Idaho.

By Barry Koltnow
The Orange County Register (MCT)

Have you ever sat in a darkened theater watching a dumb movie and started thinking about another dumb movie?

Well, that happened to me last week. Three times.

I was watching my third dumb movie in as many days when my mind wandered and I thought about "Dumb & Dumber."

Oh, by the way, those were advance screenings so you have no idea what's in store for you later in the summer.

But I digress.

From The Courier's Archives:

From wikipedia:
Pedro Luis Brión (July 6,1782, Curaçao—September 27, 1821, Curaçao) was a military officer who fought in the Venezuelan War of Independence. He who rose to the rank of admiral in the navies of Venezuela and the old Republic of Colombia.

Merchant Pedro Luis Brión and María Detrox, both from what is now Belgium, were his parents. They arrived in Curaçao in 1777. In 1794 they sent their son to the Netherlands to complete his education. While he was there, he enlisted in the forces of the Batavian Republic to fight the British invasion of the northern Netherlands. He participated in the battles of Bergen (September 19, 1799) and Castricum (October 16, 1799). He was taken prisoner by the British but freed after a short time in the prisoner exchange under the Convention of Alkmaar.

Read more about Luis Brion and Simon Bolivar in the Memoirs of Simon Bolivar by Henri La Fayette Villaume Ducoudray Holstein, free from googlebooks.com.