WHAT'S NEXT - A TSUNAMI

Southern California is such a great place to live (NOT!).

Such an exciting year with our ferocious fires, tenacious floods, unyielding landslides and today, we are again so lucky that we are getting to experience the ride of the 7.2 earthquake out of Baja California, Mexico. So, is a tsunami next?


http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/region/N_America_eqs.php

Even though we are a good distance from the epicenter, the sounds and effects linger. Car alarms are blasting, sirens are blaring, neighbors are congregating and all the local TV channels are in full chatter.

This quake was deep into the earth so it came through our place in a rolling motion lasting a good 30 seconds. The whole house swayed as if someone were holding us in their hand and rocking us while in a rocking chair. Had our pool been full like it should have been, it would have overflowed and filled our back patio. The news has tons of pictures coming in of other peoples pools experience the same thing.

Is this a wake up call? Ya! I lived in Northern California in 1989 for the 7.1 Loma Prieta quake. We were less than 20 miles from the epicenter of this one. Being from the Rocky Mountains, this was a completely foreign experience for me and it was not a good experience. That quake was a rolling quake and felt like we were on a conveyor belt with a roller coming up and down under us. Our house had minor structure damage compared to others. We lost some our crystal and china, but everybody was safe. There were minor aftershocks for a few weeks and the feelings of shakiness and instability lasted for months.

I then moved to Los Angeles in 1994 just in time to experience the 6.7 Northridge earthquake. I certainly wasn't prepared for that one either. And it was so different than the Loma Prieta quake. The Northridge quake was a shaker not a roller and so much more intense. The aftershocks for this one lasted for months as well.

Because California has little quakes all the time it is so easy to forget that "the big one" could just be around the corner and being prepared for it just hasn't had any priority. It is so easy to watch the other parts of the world experience earthquakes and remain blind to the fact that we live on huge active faults and have another one hit us and be quite damaging.

So, as hard as it is to admit it's time to stop playing Russian roulette and get prepared.

MORE ON CHANGE...

Okay, I'm going to follow along with this train of thought that was introduced in the MyWireWorks Blog , regarding change.

This concept of 'change' and what it all really relates to has just sort of started to snowball through my thoughts, so I'm gonna prattle about it here.

I'm not sure that I had every really put much thought into the enormity of the meaning of change because of course change is just part of life...in actuality that is what 'life' means to me. Life is forever changing. It is just a natural occurrence but looking at it a little differently today, I've realized that there are so many different levels of change. And with some changes come consequences. And this change can be a good thing or a not such a good thing.

Last weekend we painted our living room. This was a good change and had good little changes related to it. Like I had to pack up all the junk in the space and it made me realize how much stuff I hang on to that really doesn't have any value to me. So I gave some stuff away...see a good thing came from it. There is a list of good things that came from that action.

On the reverse side, some change is not so good even though some people may think it is. For example, and here's my real beef that seems to keep getting my goat every day, is the change in the government. Change that overall isn't really good for the greatest number of people.

Okay, so there has been a ton of changes going on with this health care bill and all. I for one, am not happy that this particular bill passed and I am going to be forced to purchase something that I didn't agree to. But what REALLY gets me is that it doesn't apply to those that passed it. If these laws that our congress pass are always so great, how come they don't apply to them? Here's a change that appears to be good on all levels, but I think that we are going to learn over the next few months that it isn't so good. And again, when I ponder upon this concept of change and all its levels just regarding this aspect...scary comes to mind.

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY...

Rain rain go away come again another day...Enough already!

Yes, California needs the rain, but Almighty One, couldn't you have spread it out over time? I realize that in my previous post I was thanking You for the rain, but it's okay to spread it out over weeks or months.

In looking out my windows I've got to admit that I'm a little worried as I see my flower beds overflowing and my pool has reached the top of the tiles which means it only has 3" to go before it overflows. And where is that water going to go. Right now it looks like it may be coming in my back door.
I'm on alert