Tuesday, December 18, 2001
Tuesday’s are great.
At least for me…. Somehow in my schedule of teaching at 4 different schools and random private students, I don’t actually start work until 5:30pm. Sweet work if you can get it. So, like any one of us (assuming you know me, you are one of ‘us’. If you don’t know me, why are you reading this?!) I slept until 11or so… got up and went straight to my computer and logged on to www.buyusbeer.com .
After a few minutes of admiring the genius of the website, I noticed my monitor began to wobble. NOTE: you can re-create this wobbling effect by placing you hand on top of your monitor and shaking it about an inch, left to right. Have a try to make this story seem more realistic. I watched the wobbling for a few seconds and then ran through my personal checklist of explanations for when things wobble.
Am I drunk? –No
Am I on drugs? –No
Am I wobbling and everything else is straight? – I looked at the rest of the room.
The windows were rattling.
At this point I came to the only conclusion left on my personal troubleshooting guide for these situations. It was an earthquake. They have a saying for earthquakes in Taiwan; “Kei Shao! Laaaaa!” (loosely translated, “Earthquake! Aaaaaagh!!!”). Not wanting my apartment to collapse on top of me as I sat there at my computer, I stood up.
Now the apartment was free to collapse on top of me as I stood.
I remembered my fathers advice, “If you stick your head through the banister railings, it will get stuck”. (My father had never been in an earthquake.) I stood in the doorway and waited for the shaking to end… I contemplated running outside. However that is not so easy when you live on the 5th floor. The elevator didn’t seem like a good idea, and the staircase? Blocked with boxes, bookshelves and discarded furniture. (see footnote) I watched the windows rattle, and the pictures on the wall shake. Then, not even 30 seconds after it started, the shaking stopped.
Note: Anyone who tells you an earthquake stops suddenly is lying or doing so for dramatic effect. The come in two parts, the first is the shaking, and the second is the settling, where the earths crust settles back down onto its new surroundings. This second part is when buildings and structures sway violently, like the bay bridge during the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. That’s what happened next. The building began to sway. This swaying doesn’t even register to most people on the ground, but the higher up you are in a building, the more you feel it. I looked at the aquarium. It was sloshing back and forth. Had I not been so lazy, the aquarium would have been filled to the top and water would be coming out over the sides. I decided to head to the balcony. If this was the big one, I wanted to see the big picture. As soon as I got to the balcony the swaying stopped.
That was my day, How was yours? Graham Footnote- My apartment’s nice and civilized, but the actual building is another story. The elevator inspection sticker expired last month; the stairways are blocked with storage, and my remote for underground parking only works from a foot away from the garage door motor. Thankfully I’m out at the end of the month, to a much nicer place.
At least for me…. Somehow in my schedule of teaching at 4 different schools and random private students, I don’t actually start work until 5:30pm. Sweet work if you can get it. So, like any one of us (assuming you know me, you are one of ‘us’. If you don’t know me, why are you reading this?!) I slept until 11or so… got up and went straight to my computer and logged on to www.buyusbeer.com .
After a few minutes of admiring the genius of the website, I noticed my monitor began to wobble. NOTE: you can re-create this wobbling effect by placing you hand on top of your monitor and shaking it about an inch, left to right. Have a try to make this story seem more realistic. I watched the wobbling for a few seconds and then ran through my personal checklist of explanations for when things wobble.
Am I drunk? –No
Am I on drugs? –No
Am I wobbling and everything else is straight? – I looked at the rest of the room.
The windows were rattling.
At this point I came to the only conclusion left on my personal troubleshooting guide for these situations. It was an earthquake. They have a saying for earthquakes in Taiwan; “Kei Shao! Laaaaa!” (loosely translated, “Earthquake! Aaaaaagh!!!”). Not wanting my apartment to collapse on top of me as I sat there at my computer, I stood up.
Now the apartment was free to collapse on top of me as I stood.
I remembered my fathers advice, “If you stick your head through the banister railings, it will get stuck”. (My father had never been in an earthquake.) I stood in the doorway and waited for the shaking to end… I contemplated running outside. However that is not so easy when you live on the 5th floor. The elevator didn’t seem like a good idea, and the staircase? Blocked with boxes, bookshelves and discarded furniture. (see footnote) I watched the windows rattle, and the pictures on the wall shake. Then, not even 30 seconds after it started, the shaking stopped.
Note: Anyone who tells you an earthquake stops suddenly is lying or doing so for dramatic effect. The come in two parts, the first is the shaking, and the second is the settling, where the earths crust settles back down onto its new surroundings. This second part is when buildings and structures sway violently, like the bay bridge during the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. That’s what happened next. The building began to sway. This swaying doesn’t even register to most people on the ground, but the higher up you are in a building, the more you feel it. I looked at the aquarium. It was sloshing back and forth. Had I not been so lazy, the aquarium would have been filled to the top and water would be coming out over the sides. I decided to head to the balcony. If this was the big one, I wanted to see the big picture. As soon as I got to the balcony the swaying stopped.
That was my day, How was yours? Graham Footnote- My apartment’s nice and civilized, but the actual building is another story. The elevator inspection sticker expired last month; the stairways are blocked with storage, and my remote for underground parking only works from a foot away from the garage door motor. Thankfully I’m out at the end of the month, to a much nicer place.
