San Diego autumn weather vanished this morning with the hot, dry air blowing in on a high from the desert: a Santa Ana we call ’em out here, highs reaching toward 90 and humidity no higher than 30% all day: fire season as we reckon out here.

But yesterday was the usual from mid-September to May. i slept later than usual and ran my morning routine just after sunrise, not around first light. i put up a new flag in that routine, something i’ve dismissed since i installed a light to observe the rules for flying it 24/7, something a number of neighbors have asked, principally because they like to see it on their way to work. i told myself i needed to get back to that as walking up the hill and raising the flag (at 8:00 a.m. as we did correctly in the Navy for oh, about 22 years and still observe, stopping on about the fifth or sixth hole on the North Island golf course almost every Friday when the base observes colors with the playing of the National Anthem). My flag raising is the capper on morning glory.