Blog Comments Follow Up

Since my last posting about earthquakes and tornados, I received a couple of interesting comments to that post. One is advising me to NOT go to New Jersey and the other is inviting me to go to New Madrid (Missouri, I presume.) One doesn’t want me to suffer more and the other apparently wants me to go with them when the “BIG ONE” hits.

I guess I should talk about the BIG ONE a bit, especially since I kind of have a connection to one of those. One that didn’t happen and I’ve wondered since whether it should have. Let me explain.

Back in the 1960’s, I was stationed with the U.S. Army Security Agency in a small Army post near Petaluma, California. The first time was immediately after finishing AIT and prior to shipping over to Pakistan for my overseas tour. While there the first time, I took a lot of interest and enjoyed the heck out of Northern California. Enough so, that when I returned from Pakistan to the states, I requested that same small post as my final duty post while in the Army.

For the second time to Northern California, I brought along my brand new, and forever beautiful, new bride. We got to enjoy traveling and sightseeing along the coast highway, the Armstrong Redwood Forest (a small grove near Guerneville, CA), the wine country, and San Francisco. We took a liking to San Francisco for the beautiful gardens, the bay area scenery, and the attitudes of those living there. THOSE were the good old days.

The year was 1969 and someone had predicted that there was going to be a major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault, the one which if it were bad enough, would drop a lot of California off into the sea. Well, at least that is what they were saying at the time.

What made it great was that the hippies, who had “infected” the city, decided to skedaddle out of town and head for Boulder, Colorado. As for the native San Franciscans, they took the occasion to rent a drive-in theatre and rent the movie, Earthquake, and show up there on the predicted day of calamity. They were dressed in their gowns and tuxedos as well as other garb and celebrated at 5:00am, the appointed hour of the “demise” of San Francisco.

The inhabitants of San Francisco at that time knew how to “throw it in the faces” of the cowards that left the city. As for us near Petaluma, we watched with some awe at the cheekiness of those “earlier-day” Californians. We felt we were safe since the San Andreas Fault was actually west of the Petaluma area, although it might have been closer to the base where I was stationed. Check out this link and you can see the track of the San Andreas Fault. Look for Petaluma up near the top of the line…..

http://geology.com/san-andreas-fault/

Since then, it seems that the early-day San Franciscans have been replaced with more liberal citizens. Enough so, that Jo made the comment that if an earthquake fault line were to fail in this area of Oklahoma, we wouldn’t know for sure which part of the country we would want to be a part of for the future. We’ve pretty much decided that both coasts are out of the question since both seem to be a lot more liberal than the center, that which is referred to as “Fly-Over Country.”

So, I’m now in a quandary. New Jersey is out as it is on the East coast. New Madrid is pretty much out because if there is a “crack” in the fault line there, it looks like the Mississippi will fill up that crack and I don’t like swimming all that well.

I would say that my choice of destination would definitely be Colorado……

…….but do you remember what I said about the hippies going to Boulder?

(Damn! We just had another tremor or two at roughly 8:49pm, lasting for roughly 5 to 8 seconds. Speaking of the tremors in Oklahoma, check out this link:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Maps/US2/35.37.-98.-96_eqs.php

That one will take you to a listing of the history of the local seismic activity in this area for the last few days. While Oklahoma tends to have a number of seismic events throughout the year, this year is supposedly about double of what our normal activity is.)

So, getting back on track, I would be inclined to go to New Madrid if it came to it. At least we would be among fellow “Fly-Over Country” citizens. If you have a desire to read the comments for the last blog posting, they are at this link:

http://ignoringthebarkingdogs.blogspot.com/2011/11/this-just-isnt-natural.html

Whatever I do and wherever I go, you can bet I will be prepared. I am equipped with all kinds of weapons for self-defense, hunting, game-dressing, and the like. Now, if I could just figure out this new Smartphone, it would help. Jo spent some time with it this evening and downloaded free apps for a compass and a flashlight.

Yep. You read right. A smart phone can be a flashlight. Just don’t figure on the battery lasting long enough to get many places. And, speaking of the Smartphone, how is this for irony? Below is a picture of my previous phone, known as a “feature phone”, on the left with its owner’s manual and the Smartphone on the right being my new Motorola Droid X2 with its manual. Notice how much thinner the manual is for the Smartphone?

It just goes to show, you have to be smart BEFORE buying a Smartphone.