One Hundred Seventy-Second Entry

Big earthquake today at the Coast.

I was just sitting at work when I heard this noise that sounded the maintenance guys when they are up on the roof fixing something. Except it lasted a lot longer and was a lot louder. My first instinct was to dive under my desk, but I waited a few seconds and decided that the quake was not strong enough to knock anything over. I just sat there and enjoyed the ride.

After it was over, I logged on to the USGS website to check out the earthquake. 6.5 magnitude it said. Whoa, very strong. Very strong indeed.

Office-wide discussion ensued, and being the dorky engineers we are, we tried to figure out how much our building swayed during the quake. We never quite got that far, but the consensus was somewhere between 4-6 inches at the roof level. The discussion moved on to largest probable earthquake in the Visalia area. Again, the dorky engineer in us turned to my 2000 International Building Code where the maximum probably earthquake acceleration we can expect here is something like 45% of g (32.2 ft/s2 or 9.81 m/s2 for the metrically minded). Not too terrible. Then I checked the Bay Area, specifically southwestern Alameda County and they can expect an event with an acceleration of 150% of g. Sheesh. That's a killer.

Once discussion died down, it was already lunch time. Everybody went on about their business. I kept refreshing the earthquake list to track the aftershocks. There are hundreds and hundreds of them!

I also read some articles on the quake online. 3 people died. Very sad.

In other news:

- I dropped off all the presents I needed to today. I am pleased with that accomplishment. I tried to deliver everything yesterday, but noone was home! Imagine that! My grandpa really liked the lottery tickets I got him. He tried to scratch them, but quickly gave up and asked me to do it. He's never scratched a scratcher before! Only two of the tickets gave money for a total of $4.00. He was excited when I told him that he won $4.00. So was my grandma. It was a regular happy-fest. Then he asked me how much the 10 tickets cost. "Ai, perdeste seis dolares." "Sim vo, eu sei." Such FOB's.

- My performance review should be coming up in the next few weeks. I will pass, of course. If I wasn't going to pass, they would have told me that I needed to shape up already. The only thing I am going to get dinged for is punctuality. And I live so close to work. It's the fog I tell ya...

- Yesterday at WalMart (which was a madhouse) I saw something that I have never seen before. Some kid jumped out of his pop's truck and stood in a parking spot to reserve it until his pop could get to it. Next thing you know, some Acura, unaware of the kids plan, tries to park in the spot. Havoc ensues. Honking. Yelling. Thank God I was leaving. The Acura ended up getting the spot anyway. Dumbass.

- Very much looking forward to Christmas this year. I am giving a record number of presents this year. My credit card needs to be retired soon.

- Has anyone heard the remake of Tears for Fears song "Mad World"? It's by Gary Jules, and believe me, this song will tear your heart out and stab 10 foot long spikes through it. It's good though.

See y'all Friday.