Friday February 23, 2007 3:46 PM PST, 3.4 on the richter scale
Imagine sitting at your desk on a Friday afternoon, wrapping up work for the week and thinking about the upcoming weekend. Maybe even chatting online with your friend Kevin about your upcoming trip to Las Vegas (details coming in my next post) when suddenly... a rumble and a shake, your computer monitor starts to vibrate, the lights flicker, pictures fall off the shelf, people start to scream.... okay, so none of that happened, but I did experience my first noticeable, San Francisco Earthquake! And it was very exciting!!!
It was definitely noticeable, everyone in my office immediately got up and started asking "Did you feel that?!" even some of the veterans who have probably experienced dozens of quakes were smiling with nervous grins. I was smiling from ear to ear saying how cool it was!
I quickly called Neil but he had no idea what I was talking about. Figures. Then I got an IM from Carrie who exclaimed "Did you feel that earthquake?!" She said that she thought a truck had crashed into the house while she was working from home. I believe it, everything did shake noticeably. Although I think I would have described it more like a Mini Cooper crashing into the building rather than a truck.
Of course, we immediately began to wonder what Zachary was doing when the quake of Feb '07 hit (it will probably not be labeled that, but I'm going for the drama angle). Apparently they had earthquake drills at his school, similar to what most skills have with fire drills, back in October when we first moved here. I guess Zach just looked at everyone like they were crazy as the teachers and kids practiced standing in doorways or hiding under tables or whatever you're supposed to do during an earthquake. Apparently Zach thought everyone just looked silly practicing their earthquake drills and he refused to participate.
Actually I'm not really sure what you're supposed to do during an earthquake. Let me see... during a thunderstorm you're supposed to stand under the tallest tree you can find, in a tornado it's the nothwest corner of the attic... in a riptide, you're supposed to swim with the tide - or is it against it? Hmm... what about an earthquake? Stop, drop and roll??? I was tempted to just run screaming through the halls when this one hit like that chaotic scene in the movie Airplane when they think the plane is going to crash. Maybe I should look into what I should do next time. Because one thing is for sure... there will be a next time.
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