Big One.

Well, maybe not THE BIG ONE. But it was pretty big out here.

When it started, we were essentially three stories up at a friend's condo. As everything began to shake rattle and roll, we soon realized what was happening. The three of us grabbed on to each other and held on 'till things calmed down.

Within moments of when the worst part of the shaker was over, I thought I was still feeling some shaking. Pete and our friend didn't feel what I was feeling, and it could be that I was simply experiencing some odd nerve ending firing repeat sensations from memory, but it turns out that I might have been feeling some of the immediate and much smaller aftershocks.

We were at our friend's home because she had recently moved from the dark side and bought a Mac computer. Pete was helping her make the switch, and showing her how to navigate in the Mac universe.

When things settled down, our friend turned on her TV, but there was nothing about what had just occurred. Had we been at home, I probably would have turned the radio to one of the local PBS radio stations for the news, but who knows if they would have been broadcasting live.

Even though we were in our friend's office, working on her computer and connected to the internet, not one of us thought to check online to see if there was any news about what we had just experienced. Unlike the younger generation who has been raised using the internet, we are still old school enough to generally check the radio or the TV first for breaking news.

Once everything returned to normal, Pete and our friend went back to the computer to continue solve some problems and help her get to know her new operating system.

I walked out to the hallway and attempted to call Mike to see how they had fared. My first attempts to call him were marked with failure. Neither his home line nor his cell number would connect. This is not at all that unusual after seismic events. It is normal for all the telephone lines to temporarily become somewhat overloaded. A couple more attempts, and my efforts were met with success.

Mike then informed me that yes, indeed, they had felt the earthquake. He said he had been attempting to reach us at home to check on our welfare. As I have mentioned before, he is a good son. I told him that it felt really big over here, and his described our group hug as the earth moved underneath us.

That's when Mike told me that first reports were saying that the epicenter of the tremor was in the nearby City of Hawthorne, and the magnitude of the quake was 5.5.

Turns out, Cal Tech is now saying it was only a 4.7, but it sure felt a lot bigger than that, and it certainly seemed to go on for a very long time. That's probably because the epicenter was located so nearby.

So far, I haven't since noticed any serious aftershocks, but I expect that we will get a few of them in the hours and days to come. That is, of course, if this one, the one we felt tonight, is the big event, and was not, in actuality, a precursor of a bigger quake yet to come. Is there a way to to determine that? What comes first? The chicken or the egg? :-/

MOM'S STAMP OF APPROVAL!

THIS IS, BY FAR, THE BEST STAR TREK MOVIE EVER MADE! GO SEE IT!

Take it from someone who has been watching Star Trek for 40 years!
The film is wonderful!

PS: If you can see it at a Cinerama Dome-like theater, do it. You won't be sorry!

The word TAX is not a dirty word.

If you have a job and have sufficient funds to pay your bills,
be grateful.

If you have a roof over your head
enough food and clean water sufficient for your needs,
be grateful.

If you have working sewers and regular waste removal,
be grateful.

If your city has enough fire fighters, police
and other first responders for usual needs,
be grateful.

If you or your child attended a public school
and received a decent education,
be grateful.

If your child or grandchild is attending a public school now,
and is receiving a decent education,
be grateful.

If you are eligible for Medicare and/or Social Security benefits,
be grateful.

If you use your post office and appreciate regular mail delivery,
be grateful.

If you enjoy and use our parks and national forests,
be grateful.

If you have ever dialed 911 in an emergency,
and someone came to help,
pay your taxes.

If you want good roads and highways,
pay your taxes.

If you want functioning local libraries,
pay your taxes.

If you ever worked in aerospace or in any industry,
that, at least in part, directly or indirectly,
was funded by tax money,
pay your taxes.

If you use any public services,
pay your taxes.

It's not that I don't remember the big gulp I made when I first saw how much money was taken out of my first meager paychecks for taxes. It's just that when I thought a bit about it then, I didn't know of any public service I was willing to give up.

My advice if you want to be happier:
Change your attitude about taxes.
You might find that, you too, will find yourself being grateful
to be able to pay taxes.

And you might begin to agree with the people quoted below:

"I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization."
~Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society."
~Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The expenses of government, having for their object the interest of all, should be borne by everyone, and the more a man enjoys the advantages of society, the more he ought to hold himself honored in contributing to those expenses."
~Anne Robert Jacques Turgot

The other night Pete and I watched a wonderfully entertaining program on CSpan. It featured a talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson who was talking about his newest book, The Pluto Files. The auditorium at the American Museum of Natural History was packed with people of all ages. The questions at the end of the talk were terrific and it made me feel good to see so many people enamored with the Cosmos. I have been thinking about what I learned from watching the program ever since.

Tonight, Mike called me while driving home from work. I love it that he calls me. After catching up, I mentioned something regarding the talk given by Tyson and how much I loved it. Mike replied that I was speaking about his nemesis. I was surprised to learn that he was still sticking to his stance on the whether Pluto is a Planet controversy.

All this time, I thought that the great video he made while wearing a Sandwich Board sign saying “Pluto Is A Planet” was made as an adventure in humor, not an actual protest. It looks like I didn't understand after all. He is sticking to the position that Pluto is a Planet. If we stuck with the old definition, the number of planets that orbit our Sun would be considerably larger than we thought it was when we counted Pluto as the planet furthest from our sun. Apparently there are lots and lots of 'dwarf planets' in the Kuiper Belt where Pluto resides. Maybe that isn't a bad thing. The more the merrier.

The old definition of what makes a planet a planet was: a planet is anything that orbits a star, doesn’t fuse elements in its core and has enough internal gravity to be nearly round.

The new definiton accepted by the IAU is: "A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet, and (c) has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit.."

Tyson argues that we need to define more terms to distinguish between the differing heavenly bodies. For instance, Pluto and its moon, Charon, orbit one another; and interestingly, the axis of their orbit is in the space in between them. He suggests that this double planet group should have it’s own classification. I guess what he is saying is that we shouldn't be comparing chalk to cheese. I guess I am satisfied with Tyson's explanation, and at least for now, I'm OK with the new definition.

Everything is changing all the time. The speed of change seems to be increasing at an astonishing pace. There is always more to learn. We truly live in an amazing age.

The week before last, a young woman who lives down the street from us came over and asked me if I had any work that she could do. The retail shop where she works has dramatically reduced her work hours and she needed money. I replied that I always could use some help doing housework as I have gotten woefully behind. I didn't call her immediately because I had several appointments that week, so yesterday she stopped by again and asked if I had any work for her.

She came over for a couple of hours today and we worked along side one another as we started the cleaning. After paying her for her labor, she had to wait a bit for her friend to pick her up for the afternoon. Before she left she said; "I like your house. It has a good aura. It feels calm here." I guess her home is anything but....

Her comments made me feel good. I doubt that most people would describe me as calm. But I am glad that when I am with some people I can be that way. I did feel calm today.